Friday 29 October 2010

Three weeks tomorrow...

I didn't realise my birthday was this close until I was talking to my friend on the phone the other day.

THREE WEEKS TOMORROW.


I turn 22. The big fat old 2-2.


I've been told it's nothing special, but it will be to me because for the first time in about 4 years, my friends are getting together to share it with me. It hasn't happened in a long time and I'm hoping that everyone's going to get along. I'm going to be so busy keeping ontop of everyone, I'm going to be missing people out!


Also, I've been told that we're going to the casino when all the bars are closed to take full advantage of the 24-hour bar...


:)


Dead excited. I haven't seen my uni lot in a long time and friends from home are either skint/working all the time to do stuff.


It's gonna be fun.


:D

"I've got friends on the other side..."

I can't get this song out of my head!

It's awesome.




Wednesday 27 October 2010

I wish my friends had the same music taste as me...

Because there are sooooo many AWESOME bands out there that I wanna see but no one I know likes them...

:(


Here are a few:-


MARINA & THE DIAMONDS


MUSE


MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE (for kicks :D)


MILEY CYRUS (bit of an odd one but fuck it!)


MGMT


GLASVEGAS


EVANESCENCE (with Amy Lee)


POSTAL SERVICE


SIGUR ROS


JOSHUA RADIN


EXAMPLE


HELLOGOODBYE


O.K., a little more than a few...


But aye, let's go and see some of them!!


:D

It wasn't a waste of 3 years after all...

My three years at university were, most probably, the best three years of my life. I've met some of the most fantastic people I ever though possible and learnt so much in regards to my own writing that what I wrote four years ago is nothing to what I write now.

Now, I'm my worst critic. I always try on being the best of my abilities in everything that I do... But I'm not pompous. It's a quality that I think makes a lot of people very vulgar and ugly. So, let's hope that I don't sound too much of a hypocrite here...


I attained a grade 2:1 at university. And regrettably, I was disppointed. My final portfolios were the best I'd been able to muster. The weekend the final Media and Writing assignments were in, I probably had a total of approx. seven hours sleep over three days. I was in the computer block on campus every day for two weeks, becoming part of the furniture myself. My lack of sleep left me horribly forgetting my friends and 'upgrading' them with doing final pieces of work on my portfolio. I was bleary-eyed for ten days, pale-skinned from lack of seeing the sun outside and therefore, didn't want to see those portfolios back for the rest of my life...


My 2:1 grade was greeted with half-hearted smiles at the bus stop where my mum had brought it down to me, she was eager to see what I'd got. On being phoned up by other course friends, I wasn't very talkative on my grade, which led to lies on both halves of being 'too boggled and modest' to brag about it.


But at the time (and for a good few weeks after), I believed that I had been cheated. I should have got a 1st. I should have got top of the class. All my life I've been in second place, I was getting myself into debt for this chance to come out with a 1st!


As you can tell, it all got a little dramatic. I was sick of telling people that it was only a 2:1 that I'd got, it should have been a 1st...


But months passed.


On Monday, I headed back down to uni to meet with an old tutor and recieve back those two dreaded portfolios that I'd handed in on my last EVER day of uni. And, after hot chocolate and coffee, I'd sneakily hid in the campus library and spent an hour leafing through the portfolios.


It was only then that I'd understood and appreciated the measures of which I'd gone to achieve that 2:1. And I accepted it.


Looking through the folders, I was soooooo proud of what I'd done, how much work I'd put in. I could feel the weight of it on my shoulders as I walked with a friend to his for dinner, a long-overdue catch-up. And I was soooo grateful that I was, and still am, that hard-working.


That 2:1 deserved a much better greeting on opening that envelope what seemed like years ago. I'd put my all into it but it was just meant to be.


I'm now very inspired and proud of what I've achieved in those three years at university and ecstatic that I have a few very excellent folders for editors and agents to read upon their request.


:)

Me and my big mouth :(

O.K., so the novelty of being offered the job at The Disney Store at the White Rose wore off. I looked a little closer into the finance of things and wondered why the hell I was taking the job on...

It didn't make sense. I was going to be forking out £10 a week on travel costs for two four-hour shifts. It sounds proper skanky but I get more money on Jobseeker's Allowance than I would if I'd have taken the job.


AND THIS TRAVELLING DEADLINE IS GETTING TO ME! Everyone else is saving up already! I'm the only one left out of our group that hasn't got a job yet! It's a constant nag at the back of my head twenty-four hours a day! It's draining all the fun out of me!


I just wish that I could find a full-time job a little closer to home so I can find a little shack of a flat in town and get myself sorted!


:(


So the phonecall to the Disney Store was the worst ever. She was friendly enough. I just hate the idea of saying that I'm going to do something and then just never following through.


Dead upset.


But bugger, something has got to come my way soon, riiiiiight?


:/


Love.

Saturday 23 October 2010

My family is falling apart...

Everything was fine at home with my parents before going to university. Now, after three years away, I move back, and it seems that the very things that are holding them together are threads that are being stretched beyond their limit.

My dad goes to the pub everyday of the week when he's not pissed.


My mum either goes with my dad or sits at home depressed because he's gone to the pub or goes with him.


And brother is spoilt soooo rotten that he asks money from my parents everyday and treats them like shit.


Our parents don't ask us to pay board (despite me being 21 and my brother being 20) but I want to pay board so much to show them that I appreciate them not asking us for it.


But I'm having a huge struggle with my parents' drinking problems that I wish I had somewhere to go just to fuck off and get away from it all.


My dad is a gentle giant and his drinking doesn't bother me all that much. But the older he gets, the more he's going to end up turning into one of those old men who you see in the pub every day of the week, alone. And I really feel sorry for those blokes.


And my mum's drinking makes me want to move out of the house. She is an outrageous character anyway, who I can deal with most of the time. But when she drinks, this character is intensified and I can't deal with it. She's ten times louder, ten times ruder and everyone else seems to think that's O.K. There's a reputation that she thinks she has to keep up and it annoys the fuck out of me.


She won't even quit drinking for two weeks after being told by the doctor that she needs to!


It's so frustrating.


I need to get the hell out of this house.


:(


Not a happy bunny at all.

IKEA Adverts

They've been on top form lately.

;)



The Writer's Handbook 2011

I've never got one of these books before and I was in the White Rose on another interview with The Disney Store when I wandered into WHSmiths and bought it.

And now, I'm ashamed to say that without these books, I don't know how the hell I've been able to cope!


I stayed up reading through the magazine section for a good hour last night, jotting down which magazines I should email for future publications, and I didn't even make it to the end of the section!


It's earned it's very fair right to sit on my bedside table for some light reading and inspiration...


I can't wait to read about some of the festivals that are going to be around the UK in the coming months.


I strongly advise all writers, serious or not, should get this book.


:)


TV or Film?

In my second year of uni, I 'found' Kerry Rawlinds, a career-driven young 25-year old, with an equally career-driven father and a wickedly vicious mother. Funnily enough, she, by far, wasn't the most popular character in a workshop with my other peers in class. Her parents are divorced and her mother is with a ridiculously kind young man called Martin, an apt Clark Kent. So I can only assume that while the women in the class simply adored him, the men were notoriously jealous of his good-nature and gentle suaveness.

:)


Anyway, the last couple of days, I have been developing her story into what was initially going to be a 'This Is England'/'Cashback'/any-other-really-good-British-Drama-you-can-think-of style 90min film. However, I am 30pages in on Final Draft and my crucial hook hasn't happened yet - other film writers will know that in stereotypical terms, your hook should occur 15-20mins from the beginning of the film.


So, I've been thinking about maybe extending it to a four-part series, 60mins each way and am now wondering if the BBC or ITV or even Channel 4 would care to get their hands on it.


Who knows?


All I know is that it's all I can write at the moment, and I need to be writing something!


Mmmm. Tricky...


xXx

Monday 18 October 2010

EMPLOYMENT!

It's been a long time coming but...

I'm officially the proudest employee of THE DISNEY STORE in White Rose Shopping Centre!


:D


Happy days!


It's only 8-16 hours a week and Christmas Temp so by January I may very well be unemployed again...


But SCREW IT!


:)


It's The Disney Store!!


Yaaaaaaaay!


Wednesday 13 October 2010

Second Interview: Aldi

What a surprise.

After not being able to utter a word in my group interview with Aldi due to the other women hogging all the limelight..


THE WOMAN HAS RUNG ME BACK REGARDLESS AND ASKED ME TO SEE HER AGAIN ON SUNDAY FOR A SECOND INTERVIEW!!!

Good loooooord.


Somethings finally going right in the world.


:)

Job Interview: Disney Store

One of the most wonderful phonecalls that I've ever recieved in my life was from a gentleman at the Disney Store in the White Rose Centre, asking me if I could attend an interview.

There is a God in the world.


So I toodled over yesterday and after the disastrous group interview that was Aldi the other week (I was in a group where we were all chatty cows but I was the unlucky bugger who couldn't get a word in edgeways), I vowed that I would make myself stand out amongst the others in that Disney-fied canteen.


First things first, we were interviewed by two girls and for sure, one of them, at least, was looking at me the most whenever she was talking.


We talked about moments that inspired us the most in the last year, why we're currently looking for work and why we handed our CV into the Disney Store in the first place.


But, by far, the best question to finish the day was "Who is your favourite Disney character and why?"


Now, up until a year ago, I wouldn't have been able to pick, because I watch so many of them. But one boring night of uni, me and my housemate opened a bottle of wine, was watching 'The Little Mermaid' when my said friend, lightweight to the core and already slurring a little, said, "Oh my god, Laurie, you are sooooo Sebastian." Now, it's not everyday that you get compared to a small Jamaican lobster of a man who's a suck up, snitch and a bit of an all-round arse. But from that moment, now I can't think about the little crustacean without laughing my socks off.


So, I stunned them with my nerdiness about the Disney store, I smiled a lot and gave a quirky and original favourite character (all the other girls said ones from Winnie The Pooh!).


I hope they ring me back.


:)


Saturday 9 October 2010

This Is England '86


In the space of 18 hours, I've sat and watched all of the new four-part Drama 'This Is England '86', a continuance from the 2006 film, 'This Is England'.

And boy, was that shocking.


Not for the faint-hearted, I know that only a couple of my friends would choose to watch it as well. My mum loves this stuff, but even she was spazzing out a bit at some of the brutal scenes at the end of each episode.


But one thing's for sure, the cinematography in these films is BEAUTIFUL. I've watched some beautiful films and these episodes are surely part of them. Main character Lol - I would bonk her if I was mildly intoxicated. Eli from Emmerdale, what more can you want? And more cast members with cheeky names such as Gadget, Meggy, Smell, Trev and, my personal favourite, Milky.


The harrowing piano notes through the scene where the 'skinheads' are surrounding their old, heart-attack prone friend at the hospital are, quite simply, beautiful. If they release the soundtrack and that song is on there, I'm bloody buying it.


I just wish I had the money and resources to film my own harrowing British drama that everyone would love.


:)


P.S. I want Lol's airwears and I want Trev's hair.


You've gotta watch it.


Friday 8 October 2010

Job Interview: Aldi

I'm geeking it up for the Aldi interview that I'm attending tonight.

:)


The lady I spoke to on the phone wants me at the store at 6.15pm where I can familiarise myself with the store, and take note of how Aldi is different from other superstores.


I already have a couple of big ones to flash out:-


1) Aldi uses all own brands from local and foreign sources that wouldn't stand a chance in todays superstores against other well-known brands e.g. Heinz, Bachelors, Birds Eye and B & J's etc. etc. etc. High on quality, low on price.


And 2) Layout is simple and flashy POS is to an absolute minimal in store as Aldi spends more money on the high-quality products rather than 'showing off' with huge posters all over the place.


... Aside from the twice-weekly Super 6 Deals.


:)


What a nerd.


Thursday 7 October 2010

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Break No. 2?

Up until about thirteen months ago, I had never broken a bone in my body. Lucky me then proceeded to slam my poor little thumb on my right hand in my dad's car door and break it.

What joy.


I didn't even know that it was broken. Yes, there was a lot of blood and tears. But my parents didn't suggest taking me to the doctors... CALL THEMSELVES PARENTS?!?


Hmmmph!


So, yes, the poor little thumb it still a bit stiff, but it's near completely healed.


Now, just over two weeks ago, after going to the said SHITTY interview that was for one of those recruitment scamming agencies in Manchester, my foot started hurting and clicking on my way back to Piccadilly station. Next day, I couldn't walk. But a couple of day's rest and my foot was fine.


However, it's been flaring up and... down, I suppose, since then and it's starting to really nark me off. I want to go jobhunting in Manchester and Leeds without having to limp like a drunk everytime I set foot out of the car/off the train etc. etc. etc.


Went to the doc's today and she advised me to get some Ibroprofen Heat Rub, which I have, so hopefully it's only a sprain and it'll heal in a couple of days. Otherwise, after looking at some photos of broken feet on the internet, I'm ready to GO INSANE if this fella's broken.


Because those photos look, quite frankly, minging.


Please, God. Don't let it be broken.


:(


P.S. The doc wants me to go back in a week for a Patient Medical and wants me to take a urine sample along too.


Last time I peed into a jug, I was about three years old.


:/

Sunday 3 October 2010

I STILL can't believe Wentworth Miller's gay...

What a crying shame.

:'(




I want a boob-reduction...

It's all in the Weston genes.

My grandma was beautiful and has handed down the best part of a long series of genetic formations to her daughters and subsequent female grand-daughters... Except that I'm the only grand-daughter following suit.


My daddy was her son and is a bit of a porker himself, bless his sweet tooth. I love him to pieces.


:)


And I am, most probably the youngest family member now to carry on the Weston Woman's Body.


BIG BUM, BIG THIGHS, BIG BOOBS... and a rather noticably BIGGER HEAD than average...


... Of which has caused numerous problems in the past.


1) MY HEAD // I was stood for a total 20 minutes behind-the-scenes at Graduation trying to find the right sized hat for my head. I think I tried on at least 20 different ones.


2) MY BUM // Despite getting squeezed an awful lot and being a perfect cushion for most things considered, there have been noticable (I'm not going to describe them, it's too painful) incidents regarding the said derriere that should not be uttered ever again in the future!


3) MY BOOBS // Do I need to stress the back pain I get on a regular basis, the sheer inappropriate 'getting-in-the-way'ness of these hooters and my morbid fear of running around in public in case I flash innocent bystanders or knock myself out with these puppies...


I'm sure you see my point.


If you're a dude, I'm sure you LOVE them. If you're a girl for that matter, I'm sure you love them too...


But now they're just getting in the way.


The other day I dragged two of my very unlucky friends around Manchester trying to find a green military coat for the winter but ended up having a very infantile spazz because none of them fitted me ON ACCOUNT OF MY HUMONGOUS TITS.


I always used to think that I needed them because they balanced out my also HUMONGOUS ARSE, but I really don't want them anymore. As soon as I get enough money and lose a little weight (I don't want to get rid of these nuisances only to make my arse look ridiculously out of proportion), I'm getting myself one of those bad boys.


Or more cringingly to the point, getting rid of those bad boys.


Mmm, it'll be emotional.