The not so little man isn’t a fan of having his picture taken
Today my beautiful little cousin and Godson’s 11th birthday. Harvey is my funny and cheeky little man, always at our house and one of the sweetest boys (well for me anyway). I want to use this post to wish him a happy birthday and an amazing year.
Today was cupcake day, something I’ve been both nervous and excited about for the past few weeks. My Mum and sister had been to one of these classes before, at Christmas, and so Mum asked if I wanted to come along to the next one. Now as you all know I’m not the girliest girl most of the time but I do love to bake on my own. When I’m at home I do like to just make some cakes for the sake of it and snack on them for the next few days, baking is more my thing than cooking.
Mum couldn’t come in the end she’s been really sick, some bug or something that Dad has too. So I took my sister and sat in the class, at the start I thought oh God everyone is so quick while I’m stumbling along. There were a lot of people who obviously had spent a lot of time working on cupcakes but others were as slow as me. As we tried to make bows I got more and more frustrated it just wasn’t working. I was folding and twisting and it just wouldn’t go the way I wanted it.
Experimenting with different flowers and techniques such as the ribbon rose, traditional rose, peals and an open flower.
You all know that I’m a perfectionist, I love getting things write and get easily frustrated when I get things wrong. I get irritated like this quite a lot, especially when it takes me longer to understand things but I’m gradually accepting that it’s a part of who I am, sometimes I take a bit longer. Other times I’ll get things, just like today’s rose making, I can definitely make roses for cupcakes as well as small flowers. I’m so excited that I now have this skill! I can’t wait to make and experiment with my cakes in the new flat, maybe that will fatten Ali up a bit, everyone always say’s he’s too skinny! The best part about today though was spending time and helping my sister while she also helped me. I love being around all my family and Ali at the moment, it makes sometimes feeling down a lot easier.
My favourite decorations I did today, they came out beautifully
Ali cleaning my car! 🙂
I woke up surprisingly early this morning, so when I text Ali at around 11 I didn’t expect a reply. Apart from he got up before me and was ready and waiting when I was to pop out in the car today…something made that feel like an alternate universe had sucked me up. Either way it wasn’t long before I picked him up in the car and drove to a few shops to pick up the necessary supplies to clean my car inside out.
Before today I had no idea Ali was a master at cleaning cars but he’s done a damn good job on mine! Him being a total perfectionist has totally paid off especially as he sighed at me for not cleaning parts properly and going over it again. I’d like to say I worked just as hard all afternoon but I really didn’t. He cleaned every inch of it and was pleased with the amount of room we had once we put the seats down (more space for instruments and amps…sigh). I love doing things like this together, it makes me so happy just doing something small like this.
So in return after relaxing for a bit I decided to buy him dinner, taking him out to a pub that we both like and getting some pretty decent food. It’s days like this that really make our relationship special, and that’s why we’d rather spend a night in than going out all the time or go to gigs rather than fancy restaurants. We’re us and we’re equal (most of the time) and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
As today is the 31st it’s technically my last full month in halls, except I’ve been and will continue coming home a lot because, well the weekends are boring and I spend nearly 2 hours on a bus just to see my friends who are all busy. I’m not complaining as such but after doing it for a year I’m not that keen on it.
There isn’t too much to report, out in the car again and spending time with family. It’s nice to be home and I’m looking forward to coming back.
Although it’s not the most normal post to write tonight I did some sort of people watching while I was at McDonalds tonight. Ali and I have come back home for the weekend, together. There wasn’t a huge amount to report on today I’ve spent a lot of time curled up reading and relaxing a book that I wasn’t hugely pleased with but you win some you lose some.
So we got home quite late after Mum picked us up and decided after getting to mine I got to drive Ali home. He was nervous, as much as he wont admit it but I did fine and he actually enjoyed it, so much so we ended up at McDonalds at gone 10 and it was certainly interesting. The staff were sweet even if they forgot half my order and it was quiet enough so that we could talk. It was fun just to hang out like the old times, just the two of us.
Like I said people watching was also fun, although I think they were mostly stoners on their push bikes. Later I found myself wondering what they do, I went to school with some of the guys I recognised and just thought how different our lives were. A lot of people I went to school with are still in my home town, hang out at the same places and have the same friends and I realised that’s just not me. Like my songs mention I needed to get out of this town and go somewhere bigger, do bigger things.
That’s just some of my night time ramblings. It was just so nice to spend time with Ali and be able to spend time with him, come back to my own bed and relax. I think being home is going to both of us some good.
After the excitement of heading out in my car for the first time last weekend I decided to head back once again and well…practice. I can’t say anything amazingly interesting has happened because it hasn’t but it was nice to get out and about, on my own this time. I will have much more to write about soon but right now things are a bit dull!
This afternoon I had the euphoric and exhausting delight of finishing the third song on our EP!!!!!! It only took about 4 hours and endless takes but it’s the quickest we’ve finished a song which was an amazing feeling. The song is called This Time I think it was the second song I properly wrote up here, it was about moving and just having that feeling that every time you move you’ll get it right this time and move on.
Without realising I started writing about myself and how I was feeling at the time. I wanted everything to change and work out instantly at uni and it didn’t, so I realised that maybe it was me. I suppose if I’m being arty about it all my songs are how I work things out in my head. I haven’t written one in a little while I’ve been so focused on performing but I’m hoping the summer will bring out more songs to jam out with the boys in September.
“If you’re always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.”- Maya Angelou
Today the world lost an incredible woman. Writer, Activist and Survivor you can be sure that Maya Angelou will be remembered by thousands around the globe for her fight for equality. As all of the quotes came exploding over the internet this one in particular caught my eye. I had read one of her books for a project I did in college about African American women, once it got to 8000 words I had to stop but I so, so wish I could have researched this incredible woman more.
This quote really hits home with me personally. I write a lot about my experience and I feel like this speaks to me, especially when I’m not feeling that great. There is a huge pressure to be ‘normal’ and most of the time I feel like I’m not. I don’t like going out clubbing, I’m one of the few people who aren’t majorly involved with a club or society and I’m not a huge fan of halls. I tried changing the way I dressed to please people on my courses, I tried drinking more than I was comfortable with and sometimes just tried to change being myself.
So I’m going try just being me and seeing how that goes. So thank you Maya Angelou for your words and wisdom and may you rest in peace.
Me on my last day of school! I think the smile tells you all you need to know
Today as part of my work as a Student Ambassador I worked on a project called KU + ME, it’s a two day revision session. English was one of my favourite courses at GCSE level and so I thought helping out today would make sense and I loved it. Despite the 8.15am start I had a great day and really enjoyed helping the kids and talking to them about their futures and they all seemed so happy and optimistic about the future. It got me thinking about when I was taking my own GCSE exams this time 3 years ago (gulp). I was a very different person to who I am and thankfully I was focused on going to college but at that age I wasn’t even considering uni at all (I used to think £3000 a year was a lot of money haha!).
I wasn’t a great student back then either, I hated school and if I’m honest I wasn’t there much for reasons I now understand. I wouldn’t sleep at night, I got bad tummy pain for no reason what so ever, I was constantly teary and I would just shut down if I went to school and wait for it to be over. That year was a very hard year in my life and coming out with the results I had made me very proud of myself. For quite a few of my classes I taught myself at home a lot after being signed off by various doctors for different reasons, mainly being exhausted. Can you see a pattern yet? I was suffering with my depression pretty badly at this point and there are chunks I don’t remember at all.
You might think that being this ill to a point where going to school made me incredibly depressed would make my exams seem like a nightmare. They weren’t. They worried me, obviously but I had some provisions put in place because of how ‘stressed’ I used to get. I can’t thank the wonderful ladies in the Learning Support Unit at my old school enough. It took the pressure off and I just focused on my exams, as with how I am now, when I could focus on my own on my studies it was almost as if they were a sort of escape. Weird I know but towards the end of year 11 my whole focus was on college, I was meeting Ali almost every day and it just seemed an incredible thing.
I look back at that girl who was having such a shitty time and I want to give her a hug and say you know what? You’ll be ok. At the time I didn’t want to hear that, I wanted a magical answer and I still do I suppose. I got though it and I’m damn glad I did because just think if my smile was that big on GCSE results day, how big will it be on graduation day? 🙂
The day I got my AMAZING results, after being told I wouldn’t pass I got good enough grades to take an additional AS.
So I’ve fallen in love with a song lately. My sister showed this song to me and yes it is explicit content but it’s funny, it’s catchy and I like the message. The song is called Real Girls Eat Cake! I can’t think of a better message especially young girls like my sister ( if you don’t mind the swearing). Food wise I’ve always tried to be a good role model for my sister I always eat in front of her I always encourage her to not worry about stupid fad diets and to love herself (although she is the tiniest thing!).
I wanted to share this song with you all because I love it! It’s just so catchy and I’ve had it on repeat for about an hour and it just makes me smile. This is the great thing about my female friends all the ones who have the same sense of humour as me love it too, especially my friend Sonia! I want you all to enjoy this and go eat some bloody cake! Yeah about that… the first place I went other than the petrol station in the car? Sainsbury’s. This was with the sole intention of buying fresh cream cakes for my family because I love them…and I got lost on the way to Tesco’s the night before.
I want to be positive about food because I have had issues in the past with how I felt about myself and I took it out on my food and it meant I didn’t enjoy it. I’m still not that keen on cooking, but I’m sure that will pass as soon as I’m back to a clean kitchen, not halls! I may have to track down some lovely cake tomorrow though because real girls eat cake 😉
Chloe Metzger 