In conversation with my 18 year old self

Ok, 18 year old me, I’d like you to calm down a little bit. Just…. calm down. You’re a bit crazy and all over the place. You’d do well by scaling it back a bit.

Also, I don’t want to ruin the dream but that ambition you have, to marry Michael Jackson… That’s, um, it’s not going to happen unfortunately. I won’t tell you why. The other ambition, to see him in concert, also doesn’t come true. He does plan a tour in England but, um, he doesn’t make it. Again, I won’t tell you why.

Also, your expectation that you will have a terribly meaningful and world-changing role in life… yeh, turns out you’re a bit ordinary, like everyone else. What a thought, hey?! After all that time being convinced of your own superiority and differentness.

O, and your thing about being ‘boring’, you hate that idea, right? Hate it. Urgh, imagine being boring, that would be the worst! Well, you’re not that bothered anymore. You enjoy the simple pleasures in life – cooking, being outside, growing vegetables, seeing other countries, having lunch with nice friends. Just calm down about the ‘boring’ thing. It’s going to happen. Get over it.

You know how you love going out dancing? In a few years, you won’t really ‘go out’ at all. You hate the idea of being squashed in next to a load of sweaty strangers, actually. You dislike the drunken nonsense that you talk and that other people talk to you. In fact, in about ten years, you’ll barely consume alcohol at all, a few times a year maybe. It’s better that way, trust me. We both know what we get like with a drink in us.

And you don’t wear make up at all. I know, after all that time poking your eyes out, trying to work out how to wear eye liner. No, you don’t wear anything now. You’re too lazy. Sorry to break it to you but you’d rather spent the time in the morning having a cup of tea and blogging than poking your eyes out.

Yeh, you’re a ‘blogger’ now. You’re mad for it! You’re one of those. One of those sad people who thinks others want to read about the minutae of their everyday life. Yup.

And tea is very important to you. Very. Important.

You’ll run off to Africa soon, little Laura. And it will be fabulous. You’ll be enthused. You’ll be good at something. You’ll be in your element. For the next ten years after your gap year, you’ll refer back to it as a time of excitement and adventure. Just a few words of warning though – don’t get too excited by your new friends who take you in on the first night, they’ll drift away in a few months; also, please try and eat better – a plate of rice with some sweetcorn mixed in does not constitute a real meal, unfortunately; another thing, you’re going to mess up the article for the Namibian Independence Day by sleeping through the celebrations, shame on you.

And now, last but not least, F. Scott Fitzgerald still rocks your world. That fact is unchanged throughout your life. They make a new film of The Great Gatsby with Leonardo DiCaprio. I’m going to let you watch it for yourself and make your own mind up….

Returning to life

Ok, so yesterday I had my last exam. I feel like it went alright but who knows if that signifies anything? I came home in a daze, my exhausted brain barely coping with the whole public transport thing. And suddenly I just couldnt wait to get back to normal things.

 

I had been wanting to do the dishes for days but felt too guilty if I stayed in the kitchen long enough to do them. So finally, I did them! It felt fabulous.

 

Then I went to the front room and gathered all the scraps of paper and manuals and textbooks and study guides and I put them in a box and taped it up and put it in the loft. I needed the physical distance from the books for my recovery.

 

Then I filled the law book shelf with other books, and it was like I was normal again! I almost went the whole hog and hoovered up but I was suddenly struck with exam-related PTSD and had a nap instead.

And so to normal life. What to do next? You know when you’ve been ill then you’re well again and you feel like you’ve got a new lease of  life and you decide to take up mountaineering or something? I kind of feel like that.

 

I’m unfortunately not going to take up mountaineering but I did think I might just try doing stuff that I’ve always wanted to do, like be a bit sporty or friendlier or be the type of person who gets excited about stuff. I don’t really get excited about stuff, ever. Not birthdays. Not Christmas. Not royal weddings. Nothing really. And I realised the other day that that’s boring. That’s really boring. To just be so placid and unaffected by anything ever. So I thought I’d give ‘getting excited about stuff’ a go and see how that goes. Anyway, the good news is, I made it through the exams and, due to my guilt for the boringness of all the exam related posts, will be aiming to make my blog far more interesting from now on….

Another revision day

I was trying to think of non-exam things to write about so my blogs don’t get repetitive and boring. But unfortunately, I can’t. Implied Trusts of the Home is filling my entire brain space. I don’t even have any good stories from the land law exam yesterday. I just went in, wrote, then left. I didn’t feel any strong surges of emotion in any direction really, once I’d finished it.

I guess there was one minor thing which went a bit wrong, because it looked messy. I got mid way into discussing the requirements for easements and then got caught up in the moment and moved straight on to how the easements were acquired, without finishing my requirement checklist. So I finished the checklist and put an arrow back up to where it needed to go in and some little squiggles so the marker knew where to look for the next bit. So then I had to do another squiggle to match up the bit above with the bit about acquisition underneath. And another one because it wasn’t clear. And soon it was squiggle mania and starting to get quite humorous. Because they had to be different squiggles so that it was clear what bit to look at next. I did a star, a blob and a triangle. It looked like a child had grabbed my paper and drawn all over it.

O well. All the information was in there. Just not necessarily in a very clear way.

Ok. Equity and Trusts exam tomorrow. I’m realising that I spent quite a long time studying for my land exam and a bit worried that I only really have today to do this one.

Also, my ‘snack tab’ at the deli is getting huge. I should start eating proper meals again….