Equal Marriage

MPs have just voted for Gay Marriage in the UK. 400 to 175 I think.

This is obviously a good thing, and I don't want to seem depressing but it still shocks me that 175 people (out of 575 presumably) would vote against it. That's 30%!

What right do they think they have to dictate who can get married to whom? 

It infuriates me that closed minded people make it their mission to try and prevent other people from being happy. 

It was the same feeling as a few months ago when it was voted that women still can't be Bishops (Although clearly this was a better outcome).

Why do horrible little people think that it is okay to tell others how to live their lives when they aren't harming anyone or anything? The injustice of things like this make me so so angry. I am not eloquent enough to express how I feel but I can imagine that a lot of people feel this too.

I just want to scream at these people until they understand that they have no logical and reasonable justification to their idiotic and old fashioned ideas.

I will also never understand why some religious people take certain parts of the bible completely literally whilst ignoring whole chunks of it! 

The Fault in our Stars

I read 'The Fault in our Stars' the other night. Literally. I got it Thursday morning and stayed up until half past one reading it.

It is so beautifully honest in a brutal way. I don't want to give away any spoilers (just in case anyone reads this ha) but it made me cry several times. John Green writes so stunningly and truthfully that I can't stop re reading it, and every time I do read it I get something else from it.

I would love to be an author so much. I love to read and write stories (not so much essays).

But I don't think I have the skill to write an entire novel and keep the plot wound so tight and perfect, and make the characters flawed and realistic human beings.

So for now I will be content in reading and fangirling over talented authors.

My Weekend

I did my first actual shift at work last night. I was terrible. I'm not too worried because everyone said that I would be terrible on my first shift and that they were terrible when they started too.

My next shift is Monday.

I went to a party afterwards. It was okay. I got a bit emotional but I think everyone is pretty emotional and stressed at the moment.

I am doing work today (and tomorrow) and I have discovered a good way to get more work done. Listening to piano music helps me to concentrate more and it is really relaxing.

I feel like I really need to just knuckle down for a couple of months and really try my best or I know I will regret it so much.

I can tell that wont happen but if I aim for 'knuckling down' I should at least work a bit harder.

Les Mis

My friend gave me the soundtrack to Les Mis today and I've come over all patriotic towards France. It is making me more emotional to listen to all the songs than the actual film did- especially Empty Chairs and On My Own.

It is having a strange effect on me, half of me feel an intense sadness at history and all the death and poverty that still exists today... but the other half of me is selfish and self-pitying.

You know when you really like someone... as in like like them... and they just think of you as a friend? Yeah.

I feel you Eponine...

Pizza

I went for my induction at Pizza Hut yesterday...

It was pretty fun; I didn't have to do anything really, only learn how to work the computers... and I got a free pizza.

There may come a day when I am sick to death of pizza and not excited by the prospect of a free one... but it is not this day. (Yes that may be from LoTR.)

I thought I would feel better about things now that I have a way of earning money but to be honest I feel just as stressed as before.

Things are starting to get to me which is silly because nothing terrible is going on.

I worry about getting an offer from my favourite uni (the only one that hasn't replied yet- typical), i'm worried about my grades because they're pretty poor at the mo, i'm worried about money (still) and i'm worried about boys.

I know that these are standard concerns but it doesn't stop them from making me feel crappy.

I am most worried about going off to university and leaving my family and friends behind. I am going to miss people so so much. It is so soon now and I do not feel ready at all.

But hey- I have pizza.

Les Miserables

I went to see the film Les Mis today.

There aren't even words for how powerful it is. I don't know how it manages to make the audience feel complete compassion for that quantity of characters in two hours... but it does... then it kills them.

The bit where I actually lost my shit was when Eponine died. Her story was the most relatable for me I guess- since i'm not on the run from police, leading a revolution etc

I would definitely recommend seeing it, but you should be warned that a.) you will cry like a baby and b.) you will be singing the songs indefinitely.

Pizza Hut

I got a job!

I am now an employee of Pizza Hut. It is a takeaway one so I don't have to wait on tables or anything.

My jobs are to answer the phone and/or make up little cardboard boxes. I earn £3.68 an hour- minimum wage for a 17 yr old and I get to wear a black 'Pizza Hut' polo shirt.

It is one of the shittiest jobs going that I can think of but I am so ridiculously happy.

I feel so terrible asking my parents for money all the time ( I know, I know... first world problems)
and now I can start to be more responsible and actually pay my way a little bit.

Merlin

When I said that the reason I haven't made a post in a while was due to Breaking Bad and music and getting a job that wasn't the entire truth.

I tried to keep this classy but that would be a lie.

I am currently wasting my life away on the devil of a website called Tumblr. This week I spent even more time on it due to the devil of a TV show Merlin.

Various things were happening that made me die a little inside- but in a good way.

Merlin finished at Christmas and i'm still getting used to the idea that there will never be another episode *sobs*.

Such is my level of emotion over this show that I have tried to re-watch the final episode but have not yet succeeded because it is too painful.

I am fully aware of how ridiculous it sounds-- isn't it a child's TV show? But you should know I live an incredibly ordinary life. Not too much emotion seeps into my everyday life at the moment (thank God) and I have a way of taking on other people's emotion.

So when Arthur is dying in Merlin's arms I don't care that it isn't real. I am a weeping mess on the floor.

So there is the truth. This week the DVD commentaries came out and Colin Morgan won an NTA and my week got entirely disrupted.

I feel like I have disclosed a dirty secret.

My name is Charlotte and I am a fangirl.

IB Life

I haven't made a post in a while and i'd like to say it is because i'm working hard in the few months leading up to my exams but the real reason is more like i am addicted to Breaking Bad and haven't stopped watching it.

I don't even have the excuse of a social life because I haven't been going out in order to try and save money.

Apart from watching Breaking Bad I have been listening to music and trying (somewhat halfheartedly) to get a job.

I really love it when listening to a certain song brings up a sort of memory or emotion- even if you don't know where it comes from. 

The song 'Crashing Into Love' by Martin and James (they were the support when I went to see Taylor Swift and I bought their album and fell in love) is particularly moving and I have no idea why.

When I listen to it I get a sort of half-baked image of a wood and fairies and dancing... sort of a mix between Peter Pan and The Faraway Tree. It also reminds me of a clearing in a place I used to now as 'The Enchanted Woods' when I was little, but it doesn't look like it, it just feels like it.

It is such a strange sensation because I get the urge to do something but I don't know what. I want to write a story about it, or find that place and take photos... I think what I really want to do is escape there and find the fairies, but I have no idea why that image (though it is more of a feeling than an image) comes to mind.

I love that sensation when listening to songs. I get it with lots and I don't know if it is common- most things are so i'll assume it is. 

Driving

Afternoon...

I have just got home from a driving lesson and am about to indulge in watching 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills'. (hey- it's a guilty pleasure)

Driving was terrifying as always. I still don't understand why I am allowed to be (almost) in control of an actual vehicle. I think my instructor is trying to give me a heart attack too; we spent the entire hour doing roundabouts.

There is one roundabout near my house that I consider to be my nemesis. I have never successfully traveled around it without help to my disgust.

One day my friend... one day.

A Clockwork Orange

The last book I read was A Clockwork Orange. I read it over the Christmas Holidays and it has become one of my favourites.

I use the term 'read' quite lightly as I actually listened to the audio book read by Tom Hollander. I love reading books but I love being read to more and since my parents no longer volunteer... well this was the next best thing.

I absolutely love the way the protagonist is portrayed  this charming, funny, 'humble narrator' and yet he is actually a vicious, remorseless murderer.

As a reader, I know this but my emotions are still tied up in his plight and I empathise with him almost completely.

I think the way it is written is so clever and wonderful to twist morality like that... to have to power to make me come away from the book feeling almost ashamed is so brilliantly daring and clever.

I also love the amount of controversy that radiates from the novel. In America I think the final chapter (In which Alex decides to turn things around and quit his life of crime, not out of remorse but something more like boredom) was not allowed to be published. This was because it was thought to condone the violence and turn it into a kind of youthful energy which we grow out of. I believe this is exactly what Burgess was saying, and yet people couldn't allow it to be said.

I really believe that the honesty found in novels such as A Clockwork Orange (and Catcher in the Rye, which was also banned) scares people. It is fear and ignorance that tries to prevent people from reading these stories, even if it does have good intentions. It feels like most adults forget what it is like to be growing up in this confusing and frankly terrifying world, and those who do remember and try to reach out to the 'youths of tomorrow' are seen to be promoting everything which 'the state' stands against. What I think 'the state' fails to realise (or simply does not care about) is the comfort gleaned from this honest look into the human psyche.

Good evening.

My name is Charlotte.

I live in London and I'm in my final year of  school.

I've decided that after I'm through with uni (I know... planning ahead) I am going to travel the world.
Not in a pretentious testing-myself way... I just want to see everything there is to see and experience all the experiences life has to offer me. Okay that is quite pretentious. Bite me.

I love to read stories about adventures and watch films and TV about them, and though I understand that fiction has a way of glossing over all the inconveniences and unpleasantness in adventures, I feel like I won't be satisfied with my life until I've had at least a few worldly experiences.

Perhaps this is just a fad and this blog will lie untouched after about a week of dedicated blogging- I don't know.

But I feel so bogged down with 'the future' and work and university and UCAS and IB that I need an outlet into which I can pour my aspirations and deepest darkest thoughts (well, not my very deepest and darkest... i am aware of how the internet works)

But what does a blog have to do with travelling the world I hear you ask!?

Well not much. But I have wanted to start a blog for a while now and travel has been on my mind this evening so the ideas somehow got mingled together.

I think i'll write about my life, my likes and *ahem* obsessions...

And hopefully somebody will relate...

Good evening.