2011.

In true internet blog fashion, I'm gonna do a big round up of my year. Bit early to be jumping on this bandwagon, I know, but I'm working 10-5 tomorrow then I have to pack up all my stuff and sleep because I'm going back to Derby on Saturday, eep. But anyway, on with this.

2011 has been a decent year. Actually, it's been a very good year. Nothing too traumatic happened. Obviously, I've still been massively negative and felt like the world was crumbling around me on more than one occassion, but it wasn't situations I couldn't ignore and/or work through. I'm here on the 29th December, two more days of the year to go, and I survived every drama that was thrown my way.

So this year I -

• Signed a housing contract, and am currently living in said igloo like house.
• Passed 4/5 modules of second year creative writing.
• Then went on to pass my referral.
• Went on holiday to Bulgaria with Beau and Rachel. Spent 5 of 6 nights completely blind drunk and kissed boys from all corners of Europe, and danced on a lot of bars.
• Turned 20 and had the world's worst birthday.
• Moved back to Derby.
• Fell for one boy. Then found out the hard way that he wasn't worth it.
• Finally fell for a nice boy. And he's currently my amazing boyfriend. (:
• Went to Carnage and found out most student events are vastly overrated.
• Made fantastic new friends at university.
• & managed to keep the old ones.
• Had my first stand up comedy show. Courtesy of Alan Carr.
• Went to a few gigs. Not as many as in past years, but still enough. I finally got to see Alter Bridge after waiting forever to do so. I also saw The Crave again, and Papa Roach and Example and loved them all.

This year I think I've drank more than any other years. We discovered new drinking holes and spent nights and money on pound VS's, requesting the same songs. I had my first ever academic failure in the form of Focus 2. I cried about in Bulgaria then skipped off out and got the drunkest I have ever been. I managed to pass my referral in September, so all's not lost on this degree. It's been mental on the friendship front. I've been naive, not gonna lie. I went for months not knowing which friends I wanted to keep and which ones I wanted to throw away, and to this day, I'm still unsure about the ones at home. At university, I'm surrounded by absolute stars, and I love them all dearly. Then there's Gary. That boy makes me feel like no one ever has before him and I quite like him a lot.

I started 2011 lying on Abby's living room floor, leopard print knickers on full show, complaining about how I was going to be 20 this year. I've done a lot of growing up and feel like I've taken a tiny step into the real grown up world. I can't spend money on clothes like I used to, I have more important things to spend it on. I've found that just spending time with people that make you happy is better than spending money on things I won't use/wear. I'm starting to be selfish and it's a good thing. It's stopped me over thinking. I don't claim to have had a miraculous change over the past year, but I've grown up. I'm still the same, silly, giggly 19 year old at heart.

So to say goodbye to 2011, one of the best years in a while, I plan to get obscenely drunk at my Derby house on Saturday night and call Gary after midnight to let him know how drunk his girl is. (: After that, I think I'll carry on as I am now, stressing about passing my degree and secretly hoping we'll win the pub quiz on a Tuesday night.

take me down like i'm a domino.

I miss university.

I felt so fed up yesterday. I don't know if it's just because it's that lull between Christmas and new year or whether everything has just hit me all at once. I was supposed to go out with my parents and sister last night, but I opted to stay at home and watch the Made in Chelsea Christmas Special. I don't know why. I can't quite put my finger on this feeling. Truth be told, the novelty of being at home wore off about a week ago and the lack of hours at work hasn't helped. I've been getting so bored and feeling so lonely and welcomed any distractions. Only, there hasn't been that many distractions.

I go back on Saturday. Boyfriend's back on Monday. Thank god. I have been missing him, but I think it hit me a whole lot more last night, and today. I've just been feeling like crap. And the fact that friendships I thought were mended a week ago, clearly aren't. Nothing's changed on that front and it just makes me want to go back to Derby even more. I hate being at home. My parents are constantly arguing at the moment and I feel like there's not a great deal anchoring me to Sheffield. I used to love coming home in first year, but now, I'm staying away for as long as possible this semester.

I can't wait for this weekend. We're having a new years party at our house and a few people are staying over, my sister being one of them. Then new years day I plan to sit on the sofa and watch The Big Bang Theory series three, then horrify my housemate with Horrible Bosses and The Inbetweeners Movie. He gets all overly embarassed when people talk about sex in great detail, so that will probably drive him to his beloved Xbox and Skyrim and hopefully leave me alone for the day. Then on Monday, the boyfriend is back and I'm pretty much moving into his house until further notice. It's slightly pathetic. We've only been together for nearly two months, but we've been 'involved' with each other for about four, and I miss him like mad. He keeps me sane though and I'm always happy and content when I'm with him. Far from what I've been feeling recently, so it'll be nice to get back to that.

But for now, I've got to tackle the exciting subject of censorship and violence for my essay.

will you even look back when you think of me?

Yet another month goes by and things have done a massive u-turn.

Beau's quickly become my best friend. We stuck together like glue in Bulgaria, a week which wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. If I'm honest, it was definitely one of the better holidays I've had. I can't listen to the Party Rock Anthem now without dying to be back in Amigos doing the shuffle on the bar, or dancing around Amora, stealing drinks off the bar troopers. Those seven days pushed me and Beau together, we've so many secrets and inside jokes and memories, but at the same time it put a massive distance between me and Rachel. I can't think of her without anger building up inside me. She's done me more wrong than I was willing to admit, but this last thing was the tip of the iceberg.

So, we had that much fun in Bulgaria that we were planning to go back. Beau fell for a bar trooper and I fully supported it. Instead, she got herself a job over there. Promotions for Amora. I'm happy for her. At the same time, I'm jealous - I wanted to go back and work as well, but for reasons that I'll get to in a minute, I can't this summer. I'm glad she's got this amazing opportunity and I'm excited for her to leave, but the selfish bitch in me wants her to stay. I need her with me to get me through all the bullshit. I need her to still live in the same country so I can call her whenever and go out for a few drinks. She's not going to be here for my 20th, and I was already dreading it enough. I'm just not sure I can get through this summer without her.

I failed focus 2. A, B+, B, C+, FAIL. I cried down the phone to mum and dad. The former had a go, the latter promised me an Alter Bridge ticket. Then Beau and Rachel took me to the Castle for a pizza and Amora. I've not been that drunk and happy for a long time.

I think I fucked everything up with the boy. I made out with a bar trooper and there was photographic evidence. It was never meant to make facebook, but one betrayal made sure it did. I think he's seen it. He stopped replying to my texts and boasts about the girls he's been out with. It hurts, I'm not going to lie, it fucking hurts. But I'm not doing anything about it. I'm not making the effort anymore. We'll see what goes down on 1st September, but till then, I'm done.

In the past month, I've learned a lot.

My best friend isn't that anymore. She's a jealous bitch who I plan to keep around till my birthday and after that I'm severing all ties. Beau's good in a crisis. My mother knows me better than I thought she did. Live music is the cure to all heartache. If I'm making out with a boy that's not him, make sure the jealous bitch doesn't have a camera to hand. Dancing on bars is extremely fun. As are foam parties. Being spontaneous and stupid is something you can get away with till you're at least 25. I want to work in Sunny Beach next summer, and Beau's my ticket there.

keep your hopes high, and your head down low.

It's been a while. Five months to be exact.

So much has happened. I've gone from feeling positive about this year to wanting it to zoom before my eyes. My friends have gone to shit. I'm going on holiday in two weeks with Beau and Rachel. I keep crying about it, I'm dreading it so. But I'm buying a ton of books to take with me, so I'll have something to do if I'm alone for too long. Once I get this week out of the way, I'll be fine.

We got a house for September. It's beautiful. It's big as well. Maybe too big for the four of us, but no doubt we'll have Zak staying over every other weekend. Last year I said it was a shocker I was getting closer to my course mates. Well, prepare to be shocked, since we're all good friends now. We had our last night out on Monday for this year, and I came home Tuesday and sobbed my heart out. It's weird. I've thrown myself at them and they're already better than my friends at home. Last Friday we got some news that shook us all up, and everyone was there for one another. I know if anything terrible ever happens to me, they'd come running at the drop of a hat. They make me do silly things during ring of fire and laugh at my drunken ramblings, but I adore the lot of them.

There's a boy. He's nice to me. That's enough to have me fall. We have make out sessions at daft o clock in the morning. If I try to move away from him when he's asleep, he pulls me back. He doesn't appreciate Dave Grohl like I do, but he knows the dance to Rollin', so he redeems himself slightly. Rachel keeps putting doubts in my head. There's a distance between us this summer. It's ridiculous. But we have plans for September, lots of plans. I move in on the 1st. He'll already be there. Rachel thinks he'll find someone else. Or go off me entirely. Liz reckons she's jealous, but she's making me doubt everything. I don't know. I guess we'll see.

I've been down all week. I want it to be September 1st now. All that is set in stone for the summer is Bulgaria on 10th June, Papa Roach on 17th July, the big 2-0 on the 24th July and a night out on the 23rd. After that, it's a massive void of doing little hours at work and planning my independent study - which I've just managed to get started. I want to see as little of Rachel, Beau and Liz as possible. They're no good for me at the moment, and I don't think my mental health can handle much more of their mind games and messing around.

So much time and not enough to do.

2010.

time has flown at a speed i cannot control. these 365 days are almost over.

best friend. high heels. falling over. being picked up. sober heart to hearts. drunken heart to hearts. pepperoni pizza. birthdays. time away. lanzarote. ash clouds. going slightly insane. rushing around. writing. reading. realising the truth about certain people. new friends. faces. bitching in the toilets. serious chats in the takeaway. a dark fairy. tinie tempah. kisses. hugs. those 'i shouldn't have done that' moments. severing ties. finding old friends again. train journeys. ripped tights. lecturers and lectures. blue note. cocktails. babylon. two b's and two c's. isolation. him, and him and him and him and him. live music. glowsticks. uv paint. blackberry 3g. cheeseburgers at 3am. little sister. two jobs in three months. confidence. lyrics. inspiration. tequila sunrise. silly photos. facebook messages. texts. cinema trips. coursework and racking my brains. hand in day. promises that didn't amount. grand plans. twilight parodies. cold nights. foggy mornings. snow. sheffield. leeds. manchester. scarborough. derby. ticket stubs and wristbands. fresh early morning air. books and libraries. shot glasses. communal lipgloss and fancy underwear. city lights. holding hands. drunken sing a longs at six in the morning. the night i spilled those secrets. bonds that won't ever be broken. that feeling of complete contentment.

looking back, i've loved every second.

Light the fire and walk away.

It's strange how one tiny thing can really change your perspective on people, and the bigger picture those people make.

When I was off university because of the snow, our short fictions lecturer declared presentations galore. So people drifted into the usual sort of groups, only two guys were left alone. Those two also happen to be fabulous friends. Two of us were absent that day, and so assigned to their group. I only found out about all of this a week later, and we arranged a meeting to figure out what we were actually going to present.

Our group consisted of myself, Ben - who I've believed to be one of the funniest people in our class, Alex who I always figured was Ben's sidekick and Lewis who I've worked with a couple of times. It was like the most unlikely group in the entire world, but it worked. We spent a couple of hours trying to decide on what to do for the subject of character, and after so much deliberation we came up with a total piss take of Twilight with relevant character profiles woven in for revision. So I re-wrote the four books, and we practised a few times, and promised to have our lines learned for this past Monday. So, Monday came. I was just on the train arriving in Derby and Alex phoned. Ben, our Jacob Black, had broken his ankle at American football training. Honestly, I thought it was all a joke to get us panicked up. But on arrival at uni, Alex wasn't lying at all. So the three of us spent our practice time trying to figure out what the hell we were going to do. We couldn't draft in another Jacob, knowing no one would quite do it the justice Ben did it. We couldn't write Jacob out of it, I mean, he's a hugeeee part of the whole thing. So we had no other option. Lewis was adamant about going to their house and begging Ben to come in and do it, so off we went, Alex drove us all the way to their house, only to find, Ben had gone home.

By this point, the three of us were in total despair. Our presentation that we'd been so confident and excited about was ruined. We headed back to uni, Radio 1 rubbing more salt in the wound by playing us one of Oasis' more depressing songs. We sat in total silence. That was before heading straight for the SU and drinking on empty stomachs. Wonderfully giddy, we headed up to short fictions. Moy forced us to work with what we had, after we told her we didn't want anyone else to be Jacob. We played on the sob story and tried, only to recieve rather uncalled for comments from the rest of the class. Cheers, guys.

But, my point is, I think my cut throat attitude to university is slowly dissolving. Back in September I was going to head in there all guns blazing, taking no shit off anyone, and getting my head down. But now, after being thrown in the deep end, I've found out the class dynamics, I know who's really friends with who and what goes on underneath those friendly exteriors everyone attempts to keep up. I'm talking to more people. Granted, I don't consider any of them my bff's or anything like that, it's just nice. It's nice to have a foot in the door that I can remove any time I wish. I can talk to people and have a laugh with them. I can get subtle revenge on those who've ripped my work to shreds and dented my confidence.

Shocker, Laura might actually be getting attached to her classmates.

I can't write.

Just seen a guy in my classes status on Facebook. He can't either. That makes me feel a tiny bit better.

This week has been such a waste. I sit in my bedroom, all these ideas whirling around in my head. Give me a pen and paper or a keyboard and a blank document and it comes out like trash. Maybe I'm trying to hard. Thinking too much. Being far too self concious. The words usually flow out of me. Now I'm confused by tenses, first person or third person, trying to make things sound profound, terrified of tripping on cliches. I'm trying too hard to impress people that don't need impressing. I know deep down who's important and who isn't, yet I'm stuck with those non-important ones, dictating what I ought to do with my words. That's just it. They're my words, my ideas, my characters. I care too much.

I'm sorry that I don't call London St Pancras, 'St Pancras'. That I write in a Sheffield accent. That you don't know where my story's set. That you don't understand what's happening. For using the odd cliche. For wording things in ways you couldn't ever understand. For having crazy ideas. For not changing character names. I'm not splitting Meredith and Jeremy up. I'm sorry my murderers aren't sinister enough. I'm sorry I don't reckon much to Raymond Carver. That the situations are complex. That the characters have more about them. That I write about things I haven't experienced first hand. That I'm jumping out of my comfort zone. That I don't really care all that much for poetry. That I write about more than my mundane nineteen year old life. I'm so fucking sorry that you're so small minded, you don't want to even try and understand.