An opportunity to show off, perhaps.
1. I imagine I am probably one of the few teenagers to take a summer holiday to Lithuania for funsies, and so is Susanna. Bully for us.
2. Judging by previous posts, I probably have some very unique to do lists (read life guides) for my age bracket.
3. I distinctly remember trying on a top in Zara this summer in England, Paris, and Berlin before finally buying it in the summer sales in Lithuania. For a better price, too. 10 points to me.
4. Linked my mother. Feeling increasingly guilty about this.
5. Of the people who work at bookshops, I am certain I have bought the least books. Bookshops have been ruined for me. It's like working at McDonalds and no longer wanting fast food, I imagine.
6. Looked at a university website - this is not serious, but my school takes the 'sort it out yourself' approach to further education. It has not once been suggested. We have, however, been pelted with information about student loans, courtesy of Natwest.
7. Claimed Jewish heritage with neither mother nor grandmothers of the religion. I can do what I like.
8. I think I was the only 15 year old to lie about their age to get into an Adult Learning Italian class. This is just getting sad.
9. I feel like I'm the only person who sometimes buys battery hen eggs. I know, I know, but I can't have nice dinners and save the chickens. I'll do it when I'm older.
10. Been on the cover of a magazine, aged 6. Vilnius in Your Pocket all the way. I'm on their wall.
How do I stay organised? I don't know. According to my friends, my organisation borders on anal. This is news to me - as a youth I got in trouble for never doing homework, losing things to the cleaning lady and being generally scruffy. Somewhere along the line it all came together and now I am a compulsive list-writer. This is because my mind is that of a 70 year old woman and I both hoarde almost everything (apart from when the annual moving house event occurs and I throw everything but a toothbrush, a few old books, and my ever growing collection of fairy lights away) and forget almost everything. If I don't write something down the minute it comes into my head, it will leave and never return.
I recently invested in a mini-whiteboard for my desk. This is fabulous - all the list making facilities I could need (it has 3 double sided panels - I could make a list of panels if necessary). I also no longer get green guilt (at my desk, at least) over writing lists down on separate pieces of paper.
Once I have listed things, the list is either blue-tacked to the wall where it will become part of the background and I will ignore it, or be ferociously ticked off in a stream of doing things. Currently on my wall is an offcut from the newspaper about weekends in Lisbon, where I will be spending my half term, and a list containing the shopping, homework, where I remembered I'd put my book down two weeks ago, what laundry needed doing, reminding myself to watch the news, ring the grandparents, and remember my birthday. How unorganised.
That's right, I've had enough of the middle aged being the only lot claiming they need a reminder for their birthdays. I, too, have reached the age where birthdays seem more frequent and less exciting, just like christmas. I had no idea the damn thing was approaching till last week and I can't say I'm that excited, apart from the prospect of presents.
Organised? Pah. Even this writing is disorganised. What I do is perhaps best described as disorganised organisation.
I write shopping lists and then forget to take them out at the shop. I make detailed lists of tasks that need doing and then never do them. Best of all, I have a scrupulous filing system with multiple folders and drawers in my desk which only I fully understand and can use, but all schoolwork remains on the floor in piles where it is easily accessible.
This is perhaps due to my teenagery-ness. While probably guilty of doing it themselves at some point in their lives, it seems to be the consensus that parents don't understand things are best found on the floor. While I have an immaculate clothing system which is colour-coded by garnment in the wardrobe and folded things are organised by how often they are worn in drawers, it is all on the floor where I can see it.
Due to the nature of this disorganised piece of writing and the hour on a school night, I shall leave it messily ended but, in the manner of Stephen Fry at the end of each QI episode, I shall leave you with this thought: Some things will fail but at least you can get on with organising them.
Regular readers (I jest - this blog doesn't even have regular writers) may have noticed that in April of 2007 I went to a gig and saw a lovely singer named Adele. I wasn't too impressed, having seen her after an act called Peggy Sue and the Pirates who were like a funner, better version of her, and she was a very inconsistent performer too. Now, she is the biggest thing since sliced bread, I've read about her in the papers three times this weekend and her album is number one on the iTunes chart. Who knew?
I also think she is rather brilliant. I've downloaded the album and it's wonderful. You should all download it too - it's folksy lovely ballads and throaty singing. Hopefully the cock-ups in her performance in Oxford was a one off. If not, we've all been scammed.
Therefore I hereby make a compromise. I wish to receive free tickets to see Adele in concert again so I can re-evaluate her performance and make sure she can play her guitar and hit all the right notes properly (two of her shortcomings in the 2007 performance I saw). If I cannot have the tickets, I would like Adele to say sorry. That is all.
Late on Saturday night, surveying the towering mass of work to plough through on my one day off, Sunday, I decided that it would be best to take it out of the house so I could avoid the distraction of TV/kitchen/staring out the window/preening/sitting in front of Facebook. Feeling smug, I decided I would take myself, the work, and crumbling laptop to Costa Coffee round the corner on Cowley Road, have a lovely drink, produce a few insightful and clever essays, look very studious with my glasses and large piles of books, and have a nice productive Sunday.
Things did not begin well.
Forgetting about the pesky Sunday trading hours, I accidentally slept until 12, leaving me a meagre four hours to crawl from the bed, collect working tools, coax laptop into working successfully when at Costa and complete this thing called doing work.
Having made it there, I bagged the best seat (armchair with a window onto the main street with easy plug access and not too near the door. I know my stuff). Then I ordered my drink, going for a frozen fruity thing under the impression that it would be less spillable (I may be nearly grown up but give me a laptop, several school-loaned textbooks and an insistence on using a fountain pen which has ink that washes off with a single drop and I'll give you a disaster) and last longer, preventing me from having to fork out a small fortune for the very tempting stale cakes (they leave them out overnight and use the same one for ages I'll have you know. I know most other sandwichy places also do this but they tend to at least cover them up so we can pretend we don't know). I got the internet password (scribbled down on the back of my receipt by a barista who looked thoroughly baffled at the prospect of giving me both a drink and access to the internet. I ignored his meaningful glance at the tips jar and huffed quietly) and settled down to work.
Problem one. Sundays in a public place mean children. Children mean screaming and screaming means watching family battles over I want that toy/I want that drink/I want his toy/I want his drink. Facinating but utterly distracting. Luckily, being unable to walk the hundred paces to Costa from the front door unaided by iPod, I had my headphones and was quickly plugged into an oblivion of Radiohead and other non-exciting work music on the laptop.
Problem two: having brought a laptop made me the centre of attention. I don't know why, seeing as Starbucks and Costas and the like are full of studenty looking types on laptops looking busy and important, but I could see at least three newspaper readers craning their necks to watch what I was doing, even when I cheerily gestured at the pens and books. I realised that, since I was using my laptop only for music, I looked like an utter ponce. Then I opened Word to make it look like I was really going to get stuck into some real work, but this earned me 10 minute check-ups to see if I had written anything yet. I hadn't.
After that it was smooth sailing for a good hour. I planned my essay using the small library of sources I had brought with, had a chat with the man next to me about the history book I was using (Orlando Figes' 'A People's Revolution') and waved and made faces at some toddlers and their parents. I had finished my drink with only minimum spillages and got through the worst part of the essay.
It was, of course, as soon as I pulled over my strange-looking laptop (the keyboard was kindly disabled by the Sony fixing team for no particular reason and since they didn't feel like fixing it, I was given a free camera instead, so I balance a desktop keyboard on the top) to type out the essay that things began to go wrong. The internet connection began to waiver and when I asked a nice (different and rather more competent) barista to switch it off and on again he said he didn't know if he was allowed. Giving up on the internet, I settled down to concentrate on my essay, but then was distracted by another member of staff hovering around. Removing my headphones and smiling, he asked me if I'd like another drink. I declined, saying I'd made a deal with myself that I could only indulge in another delicious drink after I'd finished my essay. Unentertained by this, the barista sent another colleague out to hassle me. Clearly there is a parking fine going on at Costa, and while it's a little stingy to only buy one drink they certainly weren't securing my purchase of another by hassling me. Ever the customer aware of her rights, I stood my ground and pointed out that the internet was free and that I had bought a drink already. They smiled grimly and conferred behind the counter and left it at that.
Or so I thought. I was just finishing the paper when I noticed my laptop was beeping at me complaining of a low battery. Since I'd made sure to plug it in very carefully, as the laptop is a sensitive beast who likes his plug only at certain angles, I was sure that it was his fault and fiddled about moving the plug to another socket. Alas, this angered the beast even more and it shut down. When I had a go with my iPod charger, it appeared Costa had turned off the electricity at this outlet and since it was Sunday lunchtime, all the other tables were full. A sly plan, Costa, and one point to you, but I shall never ever go there again. How rude.
Yes, I live on my own. Yes, I have to put the dishwasher on because, after three weeks and having to eat cereal with a knife, it becomes apparent that no one else will do it for me. Yes, I do my own washing and shopping and tell myself to go to bed at a sensible time yet trust myself to drink and behave sensibly at weekends. Having said that, I've cracked the laundry problem by spending my wages on enough clothes so that I only need to wash them once a month! Bonus!
Now, however, this all means nothing, as I must choose what I want to do with my life. I would be an excellent housekeeper, but the idea of living in one place for the rest of my life makes me go pale and want to put my head inside one of our many Rough Guides. One of the many shortcomings of having to think about applying to university is that I lack a hobby which will make me a desirable applicant. A hobby is an elusive thing unless it was forced down your throat at primary school in England and since I missed out on this part of life in this country, I don't sing/dance/act/play an instrument/play a sport/do karate/go to woodcraft/do anything other than read the odd book and watch TV in my evenings.
I do yearbooks, but this is hardly a hobby and more of an expression of my bossiness. I like reading but not enough to have a massive library (despite working in a bookshop) or be one of those people who has 'read that.' I hate those people. What I do currently is wash up, cook, clean, watch TV, go to the gym or pool, tidy, sit in front of the computer looking at Facebook or talking to old friends, and do homework. Facebook isn't a hobby so much as a problem, I like Channel 4 documentaries and the Simpsons, and the gym eventually becomes a guilty chore. I am, perhaps, the only 16 year old who has a to do list that reads 'wash whites, ring grandad, do all homework, read more, and sort out funny dishwasher gurgling noise.' No time for a hobby.
I've just started volunteering at the local Oxfam shop to fill my community service hours which is wonderful and relaxed after working a paid job on Saturdays. However, this is not a hobby. I enjoy putting together the aforementioned yearbooks but this is also not a hobby. If anyone has a hobby they wish to give me, I'm open to suggestions.
The second problem in thinking about being grown up and going to university is that I will have nowhere to come home to. When all my friends come back to Oxford at Christmas and in their other holidays, I will have to mooch a spare room off someone or fly to motherland (this is not home, but where mother [it cannot be good that I have just reduced my mother to a link] resides. Currently Georgia). This concept makes me a little glum.
The third problem is, of course, what to study. I currently take maths, English, history and biology AS levels with GCSE Japanese. This leaves me fairly open in applying to any course, which was my intention, but combining the four is tricky. Ideally, I'd like to study social anthropology as this is just enough essay writing with biology (it is a real science). It was also rather charmingly described by the Guardian's university guide as 'the academic answer to sitting in a cafe and people watching.' It would be nice to study it at LSE, UCL, Trinity in Dublin or Edinburgh. However, since these are tippy top universities I must be a tippy top student full of fantastic things that make me interesting and wonderful. This is where the elusive hobby comes in. My only interesting quirk is that I was brought up in the place called abroad. I like abroad and wish to go there lots.
Final problem in thinking about being a grown up is gap year. This is now no longer a lovely holiday from schoolery and exams but an exciting, inspiring time off to build houses/teach kids/do wonderful, life changing things. These are usually arranged by horrible sounding companies who come round our sixth form putting leaflets around about how we can go and build houses in Africa. Boooring. I want to go to Mongolia, Israel, Argentina and Belarus. This does not an easy trip make, neither does it allow me to gush about how I helped starving kids/built schools/had moving world-impacting experiences without appearing like the other sheep herded through the building houses in Africa system. There is also no real direct route or correlation between these places. Quite the conundrum. If only I just wanted to go to America like the rest of my peers!
I like being grown up and buying my own milk and bread, but university is scary stuff.
