One week down, four to go.

This week has been really busy, mostly in a good way.

Monday is always long, lots of meetings and no chance for a sit down. On Tuesday I went after school to visit another school I've applied to in King's Bromley. Was a bit late getting there which I was annoyed about, got caught by a parent at the end of school. Really nice school though so fingers crossed there. Then Tuesday night was, of course, McFly night. Went with Katie and Ed, Emily couldn't come which made me sad. But it was amaaaaaaaaaaazing. We were pretty near the front, and they are just so good live. Even songs that aren't your favourites are brilliant live. Can't wait till the next tour!



Late night though so getting up on Wednesday was a bit painful! Wednesday morning first thing I went to visit another school with the same head as Tuesday's, in Rugeley. That was really nice too, shortlisting tomorrow. Think it'd be a miracle if I even got an interview for either though because there's been a lot of interest. A lot. And quite a lot of men who are always pretty popular in primary schools. Then after school another lens appointment then off to Wolverhampton again to see Rob Brydon. That was brilliant. A guy called Hal something opened for him, and he was great, a bit like Michael McIntyre who I really rate. And Rob was like this brilliant hybrid between Uncle Bryn and Keith Barrett, really really funny, not laughed so much in ages, I'd totally recommend going to see him if you can.

Thursday was a fairly normal day, had dancing in the evening that I was completely useless at this week, 3 weeks off didn't do me any good! Then Friday it was a case of getting through the day and going to bed!

Went out for lunch yesterday with Gemma, Katie and Ali which was good, nice to catch up, and today I sang in church this morning and worked this afternoon.

So busy busy busy! Are you impressed I've worked out how to put pictures in?! I am! He he.

The week has been a bit odd though, full of big highs and lows. I wouldn't lose the lows if it meant I lost the highs, and I know that there is a need for these times in life, but man are they a bummer when they hit! Had my recurring dream Friday night which was pretty sucky, really bummed me out yesterday. And I guess the stress over jobs and tiredness and just thinking too deeply about my life and about what happens next has just got to me a bit this week really. Been listening to a lot of music, I do find that it helps. There's a song by Kelly Clarkson I've listened to quite a bit this week - I've listened to her whole new album quite a lot but especially a song called "Already Gone". I'm not going to put all the words up here in case you don't want to wade through them, but it's about a relationship gone bad and she's decided to end it for the good of the other person and she's trying to explain that she never meant to hurt him. And there are bits of it that I just think, I wish that had been said to me, because it would have made it easier to understand, and also would have made me feel like it wasn't my fault, which for a really long time it did, and sometimes still does. Am just going to put up a few bits that have really struck me...

I didn't want us to burn out
I didn't come here to hurt you now I can't stop

I want you to know
You couldn't have loved me better
But I want you to move on so I'm already gone

You know that I love you so
I love you enough to let you go

It's hard to explain why those bits have touched me without hearing the whole song (and also without being inside my head which is not recommended!) but I think it has been really powerful.

There's another song I may have spoken about on here before but I can't remember, by Taylor Swift and it's called Fifteen. And it's about how when you're 15 everything is this big drama and you don't know who you're going to be and making the right choices and stuff, and to be honest it could just as easily be called Twenty Four. It wouldn't really sound quite as good if it was called Twenty Four but it just felt like there was so much advice for me in there, not just for a 15 year old.

So there's the two recommendations for today, I could go on ad nauseum but you'd fall asleep so I won't.

I finished that book by the way, "Millions of women are waiting to meet you". I wouldn't say it was my favourite but it was quite eye opening. It kind of makes you realise that actually meeting someone isn't all that easy, but that there are a lot of people out there in the same boat. It kind of annoys me that so many books are set in London, on a slightly unrelated point. I can't say I would be thrilled about a book being set in Walsall, don't think it would sell brilliantly, but it seems like an overly large proportion of books are in London. And I've always had this strange thing about London... I love the idea of living there, but in practice I don't think I'd like it. I like to visit and pretend I live there for a few days (although I haven't done that for YEARS, anyone up for a trip?!), but I think it could be a very isolating place unless you know people there already. I guess it just has the attraction of a big city which I like.

I'm reading a book called "Flight from Deathrow" now which is by Harry Hill. It is, as expected, completely mental. It has nice short chapters too which means I can have a good old read before bed. I'm about half way through it now and not a lot has really happened but it is just mad and I love it. His housemate is Prince Edward who lives in a tunnel and he writes a column for a paper that is a translation from a pig called Estrakhan who was on Pig Brother. Will update again about it when I've finished, but so far I'm really enjoying it. I think partly because there's nothing real life about it, I love escaping into a good book for a few hours!

I'm going to view my photos on Wednesday evening, very excited about that. I really hope they're good, but I'm sure they will be, Eileen Mason's has a great reputation. I'm hoping that I'll be able to get an album made up, because I had so many outfits and stuff it'd be a shame just to have one. And then I will attempt to scan them and whack them on here, but I'm rubbish at scanning so they might be a bit wibbly. But I expect I won't get hard copies for a few weeks, just seeing them on a projector on Wednesday, including the scary scary before shot larger than life - eeep!

Right, well, this is an epic, so before I get even more carried away I shall sign off :)

Love love love xxx

Can't believe it's nearly the end of the holidays already...

This holiday has been pretty good actually, I've done lots of stuff and not too much work, plus I've planned lots of stuff for coming weeks which is great.

McFly on Tuesday, very exciting! I know a lot of people think I am the world's biggest loser for liking McFly but you know what, I just don't care. They make me smile and anyone that can do that is okay in my book. I kind of have a feeling about them like I used to get about Vender. Now if any of them are reading this they will be thinking, "We were nothing LIKE McFly the CHEEK!" he he but there is just something about their spirit that reminds me of Vender. The fact that they seem to so enjoy what they're doing and be such good friends. And they're the kind of people who I could imagine being friends with (yeah, I know, as if!). So that's Tuesday night, and then Rob Brydon on Wednesday night, so a lovely fun filled week ahead!

I'm reading a book at the moment called "Millions of women are waiting to meet you". It's a bit like "50 ways to find a lover" that I think I wrote about before, but this time about a man not a woman. This one is kind of depressing me though because it's a true story and just makes me a bit cynical. It makes me feel like it's impossible to meet anyone nice and normal who would actually like me. I have nearly finished it now though which is good because I don't like thinking like that.

Went to the pub quiz last night, no idea how we did because I left before the scores but since I only answered one question and I think it was wrong anyway I don't suppose it really matters! I always see loads of people from school at the pub quiz which freaks me out a bit. I wasn't exactly well liked at school so it's always a bit traumatic to see them. But I was with friends which made it okay. I've seen Melissa and Josephine quite a bit this holiday which has been great, I'd forgotten how much I love them and I've missed seeing them. It's stupid that we live so close and never see each other, so I plan to not let that happen again.

And now onto the obligatory "mad" part of the blog (as if the rest has been totally run of the mill). I realised last week that I really miss "man smell". Now by that I do not mean any of the following:
feet
deoderant overdose
aftershave overdose
unwashed clothes
beer
unwashed generally
What I mean is, that smell that is good about men. Which I think is kind of a mixture of aftershave (not too much!) and maybe hair gel or washing powder or something, that you just get a waft of when they walk past now and again. That makes no sense. Well, Chris always used to smell nice, it was one of the things I liked about him, and what made me realise that I miss that is that I walked past a guy the other day on my way home from the shop and he must have been on his way out for the evening I think, and he just had a really nice smell. And I thought, now that is what I miss. That, and a good hug. I haven't had a good hug for months. And that sucks.

In a lot of the books I read, the heroine always has a best friend who's a man. And they are brilliantly protective and lovely but there is no attraction going on there, and I think I'd quite like one of them. My best friend at school was a guy, and he was great, but his girlfriends always seemed really funny with me and after school we really drifted, I think partly because of that. Which was stupid because I had never looked at him that way and he'd never looked at me that way. But having a guy friend like that that you can comfortably hug without him being worried you fancy him or you being worried he fancies you is a really rare but brilliant thing. Because man hugs are somehow just better.

Madness over. I guess I just miss having someone there to cuddle. I'm just not sure how to go about finding someone to fill that gap...

Love love love xxx

PS - I looked at my site stats and seem to be getting quite a lot of visitors, including people from Coventry and Hampshire. I don't even think I know anybody from Coventry or Hampshire so that's a mystery. Anyway lovely readers, feel free to leave me comments, is always nice to know who's reading.

Well hello.

I've just booked my Greenbelt weekend ticket. Very much looking forward to it, and to seeing the lovely Jilly again :) I am not looking forward to the camping bit though, I hate camping.

I was talking to my good friend Charlotte (who shall from now on be known as Lottie Strawberry because I still think of her as that after a particularly stupid ICT lecture at Smarties) the other day. And I had just found out that Jason Mraz was 32, and she had been telling me about how KT Tunstall was 33 or something when she got famous, and we have decided we are going to be famous in our 30s too. I don't know what for, but I guess it will be in a kind of "never too late" fashion... maybe we will rule the world (like Take That he he he). I am going to be fabulous when I'm older - I figure I have to be at some point in my life.

I am off now to find some role models for my transformation from ordinary into fabulous ;)
Oh I am so deluded... he he he.
Love love love xxx

Two blogs in two days, good grief!

This will be a bit of a ramble no doubt, it's 11 o'clock, I've just been to see Lesbian Vampire Killers, which is completely bizarre, and I plan on talking about Jason Mraz. A lot. Be afraid, be very afraid!

So, Jason Mraz. Was listening to Beautiful Mess today, and it really made me think. The song is so hopeful. Even though things are messy, he still describes it as beautiful. Which kind of made me think about my life, which is often a mess it seems, but I am beginning to see beauty in the imperfections. I guess what I'm saying is that a lot of Mraz's songs seem to be pretty positive even if they are about something not so brilliant, like Remedy, which is about his best friend's battle with cancer, but he somehow makes it full of hope and goodness. And I'm trying to look for the positives and the goodness in everything. Which I'm really not that bad at, I have a habit of believing everything and everyone is wonderful until proven crap, so it's not like a whole lifestyle change or anything, but I suppose I'm becoming aware of it more. And it is a change trying to see the good in myself. I see the good in everything and everyone else most of the time, but I rarely see anything good in myself. I feel like I have so many imperfections and so many things wrong with me. But I guess the photos yesterday made a difference here. I haven't seen them yet so could be proved wrong, but I felt like a movie star yesterday. I felt beautiful. Which NEVER happens. And I guess I just thought, well, if I can feel beautiful, even if only once, there must be some beauty there. And I'm sort of starting to think that maybe it's my imperfections that help to make me beautiful. Because the imperfections make me who I am. This probably makes no sense at all to anyone, and makes me sound dead up myself... sigh. I so shouldn't blog at this time of night.

I'm reading a book about blogging at the moment, it's called "50 ways to find a lover". It's fiction, not like a self help book or anything, but it made me wonder how many people read this blog and who they are. I have my sitemeter that tells me numbers (ish, because they include my visits too), but I never know who they are. Or should that be who you are? Hmmmm. It's a good book anyway, very funny so far.

Right, will go away now, but here is a link to Beautiful Mess live at the Nobel Peace Prize awards. I wish I could find a live version from Tuesday night because it was immense but this will do...

Beautiful Mess

and a link to Life is Wonderful live in Korea, just because the vocal trumpets really made me laugh...

Life is Wonderful

Love love love xxx

Easter holidays hurray!

Went to Eileen Mason's for a makeover photo shoot today. I was so nervous about it because I generally hate photos of myself, my face always looks fat and I am always pulling a weird face. Make up first - a lot more than I'd normally wear and my eyes scared me when I first saw myself! But it looked really good, and she even managed to do something with my hair despite it's need of a cut and growing out fringe.

Then onto the photos, I started off in my new maxi dress and felt like an idiot for the first couple of shots but it got quite fun, I had my own little wind machine and everything!! The two photographers, Jason (Jamie?!) and Mike told me what to do and kept making me laugh and it was really fun. I did 4 outfits altogether and was photographed in all sorts of bizarre ways - will see the results on 29th so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they will look as great as they felt. My final photo of the day was wearing a very dodgy pair of sunglasses that they provided me with, they were about half the size of my head, with white plastic frames and reddish lenses. I felt like a right pillock! Jason/Jamie asked if I felt silly, and I said yes, and he told me I looked great. I was very much less than convinced!

Went to see Jason Mraz at the o2 academy in Birmingham last night with Charlotte, he was amazing. The venue is not brilliant and there were 2 support acts plus massive gaps while they reset the stage, so by the time he finally came on my legs were suffering a bit but it was so worth it. Highlights for me were I'm Yours (of course) Beautiful Mess (actually nearly made me cry) Lucky which he did as a duet with one of the support acts, and the audience singalong of Don't Worry About a Thing, just cos it was a nice moment. The only downer was the funny smelling girls next to us who sang everything really loud and kept pushing us. Grrrrr.

McFly and Rob Brydon next - not at the same time of course. In fact really I have a quite exciting few weeks ahead.

Looking for a new job again, ugh. This will be the third easter in a row looking for a job, so hopefully I can find one quicker than before and get sorted for at least a few years. I've been for a drive around a few in South Staffs and 2 of them are little village schools that look just LUSH, so going to hopefully visit them the first week back after Easter, and then hopefully something might come of one of those. They have the same head which is very weird, especially if I'm lucky enough to get interviews at both, could be very odd!

I found out the other day that Rob Bell is doing Greenbelt this year, so really hoping to get there. Even though I hate camping. I think it would be amazing to go hear him.

Right, boardroom just happening in the Apprentice so I must dash....!

Love love love xxx