"Things That Will Make Me Happier" and Other Bits and Pieces

So I don’t really know what to write today and I feel like I should do something, because I just went back and counted and I think I’ve written for something like the last seven Wednesdays. But it’s not really an achievement anymore if everything I force myself regularly I’m worried it will become completely rid of quality… like pretty much everything I posted in the last half of February.

(Actually, I lied to you… it’s actually Tuesday today. Tomorrow’s the day before we break up for school, for the summer, and I won’t be home from leaving for school until Thursday. I’ll find a time to post this.)

I’m really excited about the summer. Firstly I have to get away from school – I can tell I’m getting tired and lazier than usual, today I got my first considerably awful grade of any of my GCSE courses. Also I’m beginning to hate everyone. But I’m also really about things I’m doing – Isaline’s visiting from France, I’m going to a Greek island called Zante, I’m planning on trying to be quite productive and might also be a part of this madcap internet project which I don’t want to get my hopes up about just yet but I’ll talk about at the time!

I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow Part 2 at the weekend and I’ll talk about that soon, because I think I probably need to see it again before I can make sense of it all enough to write anything comprehensible.

And I found this list today (when I sat down to write this blog, I didn’t want to do anything so I thought of skimming through old writing journals to see if there was any gold in there. There wasn’t) and I remember I wrote it in the bath a few months ago. It partly made me kind of happy, but also embarrassed about my needy pessimistic white girl problems.

*sigh*

THINGS WHICH WOULD MAKE ME HAPPIER

- Flying to somewhere I’ve never been, a few times a year
- Not living with my parents, just visiting every so often
- Being made stressed only by things which I’m passionate about
- Having the strength to run a marathon
- Berlin.
- A radio station existing which I really love and connect with
- Someone I wake up to on sunny mornings who makes me pancakes
- An attic with long windows
- Being able to talk completely honestly, to maybe just one person
- Being closer to the seaside
- The freedom and money to go to concerts more often
- No languages coursework!
- Clearer skies at night time
- A time in the day when I’m alone in a wide space and I could dance without people staring at me
- A pet unicorn
- More friends, less acquaintances
- Being good at painting

This has been a blog made up of bits, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. I’m going to watch an episode of Charmed now. I’ll see you soon.

Lizzie

Some Stuff I Dug Up From The Very Bottom of my Bedside Drawer

Have you ever gone through a drawer of old things? I did that today. I blushed at reading my younger self's writing, laughed at photos, smiled at letters from friends and generally just made fun of my past self.
And then I posted some Best-Of's to blogger, because of how sadly comitted I am.

1. A letter my mother sent to me when I was at Brownie Camp, aged eight. The writing paper has a picture of a dolphin on it.
"Dear Lizzie,
Hi, I hope you don't mind that I've used your writing paper but I wanted to get a letter in the post and I haven't got any of my own.
I hope you had a good journey and didn't sing about too many camels humps. Poor Alice must have got very tired carrying all those humps about. Imagine you trying to carry 300 rucksacks on your back. Better give her a rest on the way home and sing something else.
I've been talking to Sophie Hudson on MSN! (PTO) Not on purpose. I was on the computer when she popped up trying to talk to you. So I replied saying you were out and she said thanks and bye but didn't give me any emotions like she did when she was trying to talk to you.
Have a fun time and get lots of sleep.
Lots of love, hugs and kisses."

2. A list of bullet points which I don't remember writing at all, judging from my handwriting and the context it's from a year and a bit ago... weird.
"* Last night, shower arguments
* Getting Scared - Imogen Heap -> Why? Going to be what?
* Unhappy day?
* My hair
* Emily-Marie
* Alison
* Robin
* Between Sheets -> happy, calm, peaceful song
* Science, Geography, Maths, Double English
* Knickers
* 1920s German silent movie
* Leoni getting Facebook, seeing her next Tuesday, whether to speak English or German? Wishing we were closer.
* Things to tell friends when get to school.
* V Festival, will it even happen?
* Going to have to take something for breakfast there.
* Walking to school, iPod potentially broken.
* Cameron will read it
* The letter I wrote last night.
* Mr Downing
* writing has slowed down
* My dream, Body Shop themed theme park, there with Dobbin. "There's swimming at 2 o clock". "

3. A Diary Entry by Lizzie, aged 12.
"Saturday November 1st
17:58:
So bored. The Halloween party was so great though! Afterwards my two best friends, Kathryn and Madison slept over. I've known them the year we've been in high school but they've known each other from primary school. Kathryn's clumsy, accident-prone and loves ducks. Madi's forgetful, American, extremely blonde and is one of the most un-selfish people I know.
Madison left this morning, Kathryn about an hour ago. So yeah. I'm bored.
18:06:
Still bored. 24 minutes until The X Factor though!!!!"

4. "The Scarlet Diaries" - a slightly stalkerish spy-journal my friend wrote about a teacher we had in Year 7, and kept at my house.
"8.2.08 DAY ONE
8:30 First sighting of Scarlet in the staff room talking to Mr Morris & Shapes with a cup of tea in hand. About 15 minutes later I was stood at the top of the stairs. She comes up the stairs with Ms Iddenden & Ms Malkin wearing a black dress, red cardi, white shirt, tights and a pair of strappy black heels.
After registration" (it ends here)

5. A postcard my friend sent me in the summer of 2008.




6. A list made in 11 year old handwriting of names I'd wanted to name my children, for some reason all of who are female and several must be hippies, or elephants from Sunday night ITV dramas.
"Phoebe
Mae
Rainbow
Tula
Taurus
Sapphire
Grace
Melanie
Scarlett
Gemini
Ruby
Lila"

7. This picture of my mother, my friend and me, 8 or 9 years old, winning a fig pie rolling race. I was number 42!


8. A pretty self-absorbed letter I wrote one night, for myself to open in the morning. This is probably the most recent of things.
It's a Monday morning and I think you'll need a letter today.
How can I convince you to get out of bed today? WWID? "Be who you are, keep doing what you do..." but it's hard to put into practise.
I've done no homework so check your organiser. Call Merben music, or just go there. It'd be fun, even if Poppy's right and you/I/we only want to go for silly reasons. Also research the protests, change your Facebook display picture from Flounder, maybe do a blog and given the oppurtunity, talk.* You won't regret it! Have a nice day :)
Past Lizzie
*I want you to know that has more meaning - I wasn't just telling myself to talk!

9. A letter my best friend wrote me after my German exchange sister left, full of bad spellings and love.
"Dear Lizzie,
If you are reading this you are probably sad about Leoni. Please relise that she is safe and you will see her soon. If that doesn't work, this of all the good times you had with her. And if that doesn't you can think about Imogen Heap and how happy you were at the concert. Remember this note should bring you joy and happyness. See you tomorrow!
From Poppy
Love you in a non lesbian way!"

10. The first chapter of a book called "The Spook's Apprentice" I never read, which a boy gave me in Year 8.
Just the first chapter :s

Disclaimer:I don't know why I thought this would be interesting to anyone and I'm sorry.

My Ideal Rocky Horror Cast

I found this in the back of one of my notebook's today, and I remember scribbling it down frantically in a Chinese restaurant in London last year, full of ideas and life. Maybe someone, somewhere finds it interesting.

MY IDEAL 'ROCKY HORROR SHOW' CAST

Neil Gaiman as The Criminologist
Because he has the very English accent, and a slight permanent sense of embarassment. It's hard to explain why this'd be awesome.

Marc Warren as Brad
I know, it's a little diverse, and I'm thinking too that he could be maybe too agressive but that could be a good thing. There's just a lot of the lines and arguing with Frank I can imagine.

Max Raabe as Rif-Raf
Do we even need to reason? A German, Rif-Raf?

Amanda Palmer as Magenta
I can't think of an explanation why, but I know that I probably got the idea from her cover of "Science Fiction Double Feature". And we could have a ukulele playing Magenta, right?

Dee Plume as Columbia
For some reason, the Robots in Disguise singer/guitarist just fits the image well. I have no idea whether or not she can tap dance.

Chris Corner as Dr. Frank-N-Furter
I can't even explain how perfect this seems to me. He has the voice, the charisma, and it wouldn't be the first time he'd dressed as a woman. (That's one of my favourite music videos ever, by the way).

Matthew James-Thomas as Rocky
An actor in a TV show I used to love when I was 12 or 13 called Britannia High, he was also in the musical version of Dorian Grey I believe. I think Rocky has to be quite clean and innocent, and he is this.

Robert Glenister as Eddie
Could be Phillip Glenister either, I suppose. He's around Eddie's age and would be almost as good as Meat Loaf.

Stephen Fry as Dr. Everett Scott
... just because.

Note: I didn't leave out Janet because I don't like Janet or anything. I'd written Dianna Agron to play her but now I'm doubting that and can't think of anyone quite right. Maybe if anyone's reading this for real you could send in suggestions or something? If I thought anyone would comment, I'd offer a cookie to the best imaginary Janet actress suggestion. And then it'd turn out the winner would be in Canada or somewhere, and I'd have to pay for first class postage so it didn't get mouldy.
I'm babbling.
Night.

(A note: This isn't the awesome thing I was planning to write this Sunday. I didn't have time in the end. One day, I swear).

Books in 2011: So Far

Hello.

So maybe you remember that a while ago, I posted a list of books I'd decided to read in 2011, which is still fairly new and therefore was going to be the year that everything was perfect, as everyone feel's around New Year's Eve. But I also this list here, of a mixture of instruction manuals, classics I haven't read yet and things that just looked good, and so far I'm sticking to it pretty well. I did worry I'd get off track and start to just reread everything I already have, I do that a lot. So seeing as this blog is sometimes about books (is it, is it about books? well I can make it be about books if I want to!) I thought it'd be a good idea to regularly keep you and myself up to date about what I've been reading over here and whether I liked them.

NOTE: Here I called it a list, there's actually only two of them because I've already written about "The Kite Runner" and "Catcher In The Rye" somewhere or other. Meh, sorry.

CRACKED UP TO BE

by Courtney Summers

... was recommended by a friend, and although it wasn't really everything I've wanted from a fully developed storyline I liked it quite a lot.

Parker is around 16, I think, a high school student who'd been balancing a perfect boyfriend, her responsibilities as cheerleader captain, a lot of friends, and straight A grades up until a recent mental breakdown. After downing a bottle of Jack Daniels and a lot of painkillers, Parker's decisions are crucial and everyone in her life is patronisingly on edge. When Jake comes into the story, a new student at our average American high school, Parker is on the brink of a second failure, until she meets someone who doesn't try to hard to see into her but only deprives her of what she really thinks she wants: to be left alone.

I liked the novel at first, it was written cynically and every few chapters, one is made up of flashbacks. By the middle of the story, I partly detested main character but I had to find out what would happened, or more what already had. Sometimes reading this was a test of patience, mainly just because the protagonist was whining so much, but it's fairly well-written and it's easy and, sometimes, maybe even relatable. Shameless, angsty teenage chick-lit, something all of us need sometimes.

4.5/10

REBECCA

by Daphne du Maurier

"Last night, I went to Manderly again..."

Thinking about it, I honestly don't think I've ever read a book you could describe as a "classic" outside of English class - I know this is also quite modern, but I think it counts, but from what my mum had told me I was really expecting to like "Rebecca" after a while.

When "Rebecca" drew me in, it did so slowly. Our narrator (who's name is never revealed) is a young, employed "companion" to a rich American woman when she meets Max de Winter, widower and owner of Manderly, a huge house and estate in Cornwall. She marries him, partly out of love and partly to get away, and wasn't expecting to be so overwhelmed, not by the size of the house and the quality of living, now, but by the sudden change of lifestyle, the unfriendliness of the servents at Manderly, particularly housekeeper Mrs Danvers*, and the presense in the house, in the eyes of all of the people she meets of Maxim's beautiful late wife, Rebecca, who the second Mrs de Winter will never compare to.

I loved this book so, so much. There are two shocking twists (spoiler coming up, go way down if you plan on reading it)

and after reading the book I read the afterward in my copy by Susan Hill who'd read so many things into the story which I didn't notice, most of all, Rebecca's sexuality, which was again hinted at much more in the film I saw.

9.5/10

* THIS WOMAN SCARES ME MORE THAN VOLDEMORT.

That's all. There will be more about these.

Speaking of my list, the book I'm currently reading is "Neverwhere", which is by Neil Gaiman, and anyone's reading who's a Neil Gaiman fan, you'll know that on Twitter recently, a trending topic has been #worstneilgaimanpickuplines

This has been making me laugh all day, from the moment I got home, so I compiled a list, because I like lists.

LIZZIE'S FAVOURITE NEIL GAIMAN RELATED PICK-UP LINES FROM TWITTER IN THE LAST 24 HOURS

"I killed Batman. No, really."

"Need company? We can get them for you wholesale."

"Y'like Duran Duran? 'Cuz I wroted a book 'bout those guys."

"I should like very much to be your falafel."

"Do you wanna see an offensive passport photo?"

"Let's go back to my mausoleum and work this out."

"You. Me. Macabray. You won't remember a thing."

"Wanna see why Facebook removed my photo?"

"Mind if my bees watch?"

"I've been in an episode of Arthur."

"You know, Terry Pratchett told me that the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact..."

"I'd give up my entire collection of troll dolls to be with you."

"This wine is from Atlantis..."

And my personal favourite,

"I can go all night, 'cause you'll Neverwhere me out!"

thankyou for your patience if you aren't nerdy enough to have understood those.

More tomorrow. (more blogging, I mean, not Gaiman related pick-up lines. Well, you never know.)

k then. goodnight.

- Lizzie

Books I Will Read in 2011

Hello,

And HAPPY NEW YEAR LOVELIES! yaaay. I hope that you all had a fun New Year's Eve. I know that I did. And I hope that your 2011 is filled with love and friendship and productivity and general awesomeness.

Also, if anybody reading this follows me on Twitter I want to apologize for all the blabbering the other night/morning. I understand that nobody wants to hear me talk about my hair, but I was bored and lonely.

So one of my New Years' resolutions was to read more books (or a target within a resolution), and like I said, I made a list of things I'm going to read in 2011. I can use my blog to keep it organised, go back to this post and cross off when I'm done. it's a secret, but I like lists quite a lot. There aren't many other ways in which I'm organised. So, in no particular order.

BOOKS I WILL READ IN 2011

1. "Birdsong" by Sebastian Falukes"
2. "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
3. "Hunger" by Knut Hamsum
4. "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman
5. "How to Write While You Sleep" by Elizabeth Irvin Ross
6. "Emma" - Jane Austen
7. "They Went Whistling: Women Wayfarers, Warriors, Runaways and Renegades" by Barbara Holland
8. "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
9. "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte
10. "The Day the Falls Stood Still" by Cathy Marie Buchanan
11. "Cost" by Roxanna Robinson
12. "Water For Elephants" by Sarah Gruen
13. "North of Beautiful"
14. "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
15. "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
16. "King Dork" by Frank Portman
17. "Dear Catastrophe Waitress" by Brendan Halpin
18. "I Can See Clearly Now" by Brendan Halpin
19. "I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman" by Nora Ephnon
20. "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D Salinger
21. "The Emperor's Children" by Claire Messud
22. "Lolita" by Vladimir Nobokov
23. "I Know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb
24. "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay
25. "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
26. "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte
27. "Cracked Up To Be" by Courtney Summers
28. "Talk To The Snail" by Stephen Clarke
29. "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck
30. "The Unbearble Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera

Yay. I tried to go for a mixture of classics I haven't read yet and should have, and newer books which look exciting and FLW recommended. I know that nobody comments on my blog, but if you have a book I should read please say so, k? ;) I'm wondering if I have open space left for five or ten more, depending on how much time I have.
Okay. That's all for today.

- Lizzie