Day 1 of work experience. This week, I am shadowing a horse vet, who works almost exclusively with race horses. It’s pretty interesting, despite not being able to do much myself, I basically just watch. It’s really tiring because we’re on our feet all day, going from stable to stable, from horse to horse, but it’s all interesting. I’m not sure I’d want to be an equine vet but it’s an interesting aspect to the job. The afternoon was kind of boring though because the stables were all shut so we had no work to do.
Anyways, summer is still here, theoretically. Weather’s been bad since I got back from the south (went with my girlfriend hihi) but still warm. I didn’t get the grades I need to do vet med - only vet bioscience - but that’s okay, I’m starting to wonder weather I might actually prefer that course, whether I would actually be capable of being a vet.
In other news, there is no other news. Which I find kinda sad tbh. My life sucks. Sigh
So it’s been a while.. and by a while I mean 2 months. And wow it’s been kind of a busy two months... I finished school! woo! (still waiting for exams results, which i get Tuesday, then I can really look forward to my summer, and moving out in September! It still all seems unreal, finally leaving home, going to university... And university is stressful enough for anyone, I’m going to a “new” country, I have to start literally everything over (even a phone contract), I’ll know no-one and hell I’ve never lived by myself for more than 3 days! I can’t cook :’) So this summer’s goals are (as every summer...) getting fit, breaking old habits, learning to cook, and resting! I have a ton of books I want to read, and I sort of need to learn the terms I learnt in English so that I will still be able to follow in September... So this blog is officially following the journey to th new me, since I have officially left school (meaning my old self) and can now forge the person I truly want to be!
You can't blend in when you were born to stand out.
My name is August. I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.
August Pullman wants to be an ordinary ten-year-old. He does ordinary things. He eats ice cream. He plays on his Xbox. He feels ordinary - inside.
But Auggie is far from ordinary. Ordinary kids don't make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. Ordinary kids don't get stared at wherever they go.
Born with a terrible facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life, in an attempt to protect him from the cruelty of the outside world. Now, for the first time, he's being sent to a real school - and he's dreading it. All he wants is to be accepted - but can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, underneath it all?
My review****:
Wow. That's all I could think of after reading this book. I would rate it a whole lot more than 5 stars if I could. It has the same moral that David Lynch puts across in his film "Elephant Man" (inspired by real events): the real monster is not he who looks different, but he who treats others like monsters. This is a true story of how the human race should be.
I went into the store one day on a mission to finally buy some of the books on my wishlist, but when I got there, this book caught my attention. I don't know what it was about it. I saw the bright blue cover with a boy with one eye and large ears, picked it up and read the blurb:
"My name is August. I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse."
After reading this, I thought that the book would recount the story of a teenage girl who had problems with her looks, and thought that it would not be of any interest to me, but seeing the numerous praises that feature on the book by a lot of well-known newspapers, I decided to give it a try.
And I am so happy that I did. The book is heart-warming and sad at the same time. The reader sees the evolution of the story through the eyes of different characters, since the book is divided into 8 parts. The parts where we see the story through August really got to me. (One of the parts is written without capital letters. As someone who gets annoyed when a text isn't justified when written on a computer, this really annoyed me at first! Thankfully the part didn't last long!)
I normally don't get very emotional whilst reading single books, because unlike in a series where you are with the characters for so long, I don't feel extremely attached to them, but in this book all of the characters are so realistic, my eyes were watery towards the end.
In the words of Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook) "Do yourself a favour and read this book - your life will be better for it".
**My favourite passages: **
"To me, though, I'm just me. An ordinary kid. But hey, if you want to give me a medal for being me, that's okay. I'll take it. I didn't destroy a Death Star or anything, but I did just get through fifth grade. And that's not easy, even if you're not me."
"I wish everyday could be Halloween. We could all wear masks all the time. Then we could walk around and get to know each other before we got to see what we looked like under the masks"
"Of all my features, my ears are the ones I hate the most. They're like tiny closed fists on the sides of my face. They're too low on my head, too. They look like squashed pieces of pizza dough sticking out of the top of my neck or something. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. But I really hate them."
Today’s new experience was tasting coffee. The only coffee I’ve ever tasted are vanilla lattes at Starbucks, and following my questioning of: “do I only like it because it’s cool?” I decided to try one made by myself. After struggling with the Nespresso machine (why do they make something so simple so complicated?) I managed to make myself a Mint Chocolate flavoured latte. Conclusion: I like coffee with milk and sugar - and it’s a great way to start the day! Tomorrow I am going to try a regular coffee with milk and sugar to see if I like that too.
By the way, I created an instagram where I will post various photos and things! My user name is dearwhoever.mxoxo, feel free to give me a follow! Ask for a follow back.
Today is a new day. Woke up at 10, spent an hour being lazy oops (it's holidays, I'm allowed!) now i'm up and ready to work! Having to study during the holidays really isn't fun - unless you enjoy what you study. I probably sound really pathetic, but I don't really know what I enjoy or not. I enjoy english literature for example, I just don't like studying it - I wouldn't take a course in english lit at university for example. I like Maths - its just very repetitive and once you get the idea it's no longer very challenging. I like things that challenge me I guess. Anyway - on today's program: work. I have so many things to do. But I started the day in a good way - I opened all my shutters and I'm letting some air in. It's not sunny, but fresh air always makes me feel better! I need to tidy my room too... Sigh For my new thing of the day, I was planning on experimenting with make-up. Seeing as I woke up with a stye, I won't be doing that... So now I need to try and find something... It's hard to do when you are stuck in your house, with no car and no money... Anyways, I should get on with my work.... Love, ~ M xoxo
Do you have little habits and tics that you dislike so much about yourself but you can’t seem to change? Well I do.
First thing on that list - biting my nails. I have done it ever since I was little and it has just become a habit that I can’t seem to stop. However, in my mission to self-acceptance, I want to quit that bad habit. I don’t even know why I do it - I just end up having horrible nails, and being unable to put nail vanish on. The main reason I want to stop is for the amount of times I have bitten my nails and the skin around them so much that it hurts like hell. There was a time where that was the feeling I was looking for (not a conversation topic for right now) but now this pain is just a negative impact from the bad habit I am nurtured over the years.
Second bad habit that will eventually be the reason for my failure if I don’t kick it - procrastination and laziness. The amount of times I haven’t handed a paper in on time, or have tried to postpone a test date simply because I couldn't be bothered to work is astonishing - I leave everything until the very last minute. With important exams coming up, I need to find a way to balance school work with things I need to do in my personal life - something I will never manage to do if I procrastinate constantly.
Third and final habit I want to get ride of is that of telling myself to do something and then not doing it. I guess that this could go with procrastinating, but I feel that I do this so often that I should be treated separately. I told myself I needed to go to bed early because I’m tired - it’s currently gone midnight. It’s nothing major, it’s just annoying when I seem to have no control over myself - it’s like my body is too lazy to listen to my brain.
I want to get rid of these habits, each one has a negative impact in my life one way or another. Wish me luck!
Recently, I have been pondering over the question: "do I like things for me, or because I want to fit in?" Kind of a philosophical question if you ask me.
When I was a little younger, like 15 I guess, i didn't like tea. However, my best friend started drinking herbal tea like green tea and fruity tea - so I gave it a try. At the beginning I didn't particularly like the taste, but now it has become part of my routine. Do I actually like tea or have I convinced myself over the years that I do? Or another example is clothes, like Abercrombie or Hollister. Would everybody like the clothes if they were just the clothes - or do people just say they like them because the brand allows them to fit in? Conformism I guess - I’m not the first one to think about the subject - it’s just really concerning me - do I truly like everything that I seem to like?
I like reading random new books, that no-one has told me to read, and even without reading reviews online. I like to have my own idea about the book without being truly influenced. For example, when I was younger my favourite book wasn't one my parents told me to read, or one my friends said they liked - I went to a bookstore with my Gran and I chose two books. I didn't choose famous books, I chose two ‘random’ books, simply because they were shiny. I know they say never to judge a book by its cover but in some cases I prefer to rather than to judge a book on other people’s opinions. At school when all your classmates are complaining that they didn't like the set book - do you feel influenced to agree with them, and to convince yourself that you didn't like it either even though you did? I might just be extremely influenceable, or I'm so shy I don't want to defend my view against a class of 30 other students - but I doubt I'm the only one.
I guess what I'm trying to say, is that I'm not sure if the things I like I truly like, or whether I have been pressured into thinking I like them (weird I know)... Discovering the new me means discovering what I truly like and enjoy - so trying new things, cutting old things out of my life and seeing if I miss them. I want to discover myself - not become a copy of what the ideal 18 year old should like, dislike, and do with her life. That doesn't mean I'm going to become anti-conformist, and only do non-mainstream things - I just want to discover what I actually like.
Love,
~ M xoxo
Resolution n*2: try a new thing everyday - be it little or small.
One of the things that counts the most to me, is reading. Ever since I was little, I would lock myself in my room and read for hours on end. Being able to leave my life that I didn’t necessarily enjoy, and escape to the imaginary world of a book helped me get through a lot of things. In my old house I had created a den in one of the bushes in my garden, and my dog and I would use to go there for hours, I would read with my god curled up next to me, and that would be my favourite pass-time.
As I grew up, I started to read less and less due to school work, and I really miss it. One of my new resolutions for the new and improved me is to always find some time in which I can just sit down, relax and read my book.
First of all, welcome to my blog! I prefer to stay anonymous due to people I do not care for in my life, but because to school I have to live with. I am 18, I live somewhere in Europe and I am a girl.
All of my life I have felt uneasy with myself, as if I’m only the image of what people want me to be. I was unhappy, stressed and I hated myself. Now, I am fed up with that. I am fed up with being constantly stressed, self-conscious and feeling judged. I know that being judged is inevitable, especially at my age, but being judged for something you are not is the worst feeling. I have always tried to please others, I never did things just because I wanted to. I don’t want to be selfish, I just want to be happy.
So, this is my blog. It will be my little getaway from the real world, my place to discover myself in reality, my place to express myself. I will post random bits and bobs that have even a slight importance in my life. I decided to start blogging, to follow my journey to self-discovery and as a sort of online journal. So this blog will hold some personal posts, some destined for all of you - but everything I post will be stuff that I like. Join me, if you wish, follow my journey and blog yours! Feel free to message me if you want to chat, I am always up for that!
That being said, I hope to re-discover who I truly am, finally accept myself and be a generally happier person!
