Thought I’d show you the work that has been done on some of the accessories for the doll houses. The neat thing is that lots of what I am doing is being done in pairs, so what I mess up or learn from building the first one goes into the second one.

For my niece’s dollhouse, one floor will be a kitchen. It will come with a stove, refrigerator and sink/cabinet. I think this set is turned out really cute. The red set is for my niece, the turquoise one is for mine.

Here’s a shot of the completed set in red:

I don’t have pictures of all the steps, but let me try to walk you through the process. It is really pretty easy.

The pieces started out as simply boxes. The fridge has a shelf that separates the freezer from the ‘fridge part. And the range/oven/stove has a piece that stands up on top, but essentially they are both just boxes.

This one was originally going to be “stainless steel”, hence the silver paint. But this gives you an idea of what the basic box construction looks like.

Here are the stoves, again, basic box construction. They are lying on their sides, as I was gluing in the rods used for the drawer slides.

The front piece of the stove box was cut short (and the short piece attached to resemble the broiler drawer (doesn’t actually open) and then a window cut into the top section. Attached with hinges.

I used these handles to replicate the oven door and drawer handles. Looks pretty good to me.

I stumbled onto using these fan covers for burners when I watched the Kid take apart one of his computers. Looks exactly like the burners on my real stove. I ordered them off eBay in two different sizes. They went on easily with a couple of screws.

I found some wire baskets in an upstairs closet that when I ran across them, the lightbulb went off… and the Kid used his new Dremel tool to cut them into size needed to fit into the ovens. The oven was painted with a black texture paint and I used the same dowels as the refrigerator to act as shelf guides.

I cut plexiglass into the correct sizes to fit into the door on the front and a little larger on the back (attached with screws). Used a small magnet for the door to help keep it closed.

Here are a few more finished pics:

Then the refrigerator, again was done in much the same way. The door is connected with hinges. I found the perfect photo of the inside of a ‘fridge door and increased the size and printed it out and glued to the inner side of the door. The doors are cut from a plastic dish drainer and spray painted silver. I found the small plastic box at a local store and I love that the rubber mat at its bottom match the outside color.

 The outside decoration was made from polymer clay. I played around with several designs and decided that I liked this one best. The handle was just a lucky find, taken off an old dresser that I redecorated. They are perfect handles for my “mini-fridges”!

Here are a few shots of the refrigerator:

Here is another shot of the inside:

Work remains on the kitchen sink cabinet and will show that in another post. We are so close to completion of the doll house with a few minor details to complete and then it will be loaded up and delivered. If it weren’t for the fact that my niece is 300 miles away, I would have given it to her and then worked on the details in the meantime. But since I cannot just “pop over” and drop off things or touch up paint etc., it has to be all done before loading it up. Unless it is something that is being done to both dollhouses, I have pretty much stopped work on the resident doll house and will wait until this one has been safely delivered.

Well, thanks for dropping by and keep making cool stuff! And come back soon!

]]> http://akidwithgreatambition.org/2013/05/13/history-will-teach-us-over-again-and-again/ Mon, 13 May 2013 18:44:33 +0000 Esmat http://akidwithgreatambition.org/2013/05/13/history-will-teach-us-over-again-and-again/ http://hateandanger.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/dr-caldwell-esselstyn-vegan/ Mon, 13 May 2013 16:45:03 +0000 Peter Parkour http://hateandanger.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/dr-caldwell-esselstyn-vegan/ http://degrootvanweelden.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/welkom-onze-de-website/ Mon, 13 May 2013 11:21:41 +0000 degrootvanweelden http://degrootvanweelden.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/welkom-onze-de-website/ Yes!

Eindelijk hebben wij onze website online !
Hier vind u informatie ons bedrijf en de werkzaamheden wij uitvoeren.

Run, David, run: UK Crime – sorry, Prime – Minister David Cameron has found a reason to be in America while his party tears itself apart over Europe. Nice one, David! We all thought the Tories were turning their Lib Dem Coalition partners blue but in fact, they’ve turned you yellow!

Look at all this political theatre over Europe. It’s for the entertainment of you, the voter – even though you won’t actually gain a thing from staying in or leaving the Brussels-based bureaucracy.

The Conservative Party is going into meltdown about it, certainly – but that’s because individual Tory MPs fear losing votes to UKIP at the next election, making it possible for their party to lose the only thing that matters to them: Power.

UKIP wants out because it is composed – or was, back when it began – of businesspeople who believe that they are being over-regulated by the European Union. They want the freedom to sell inferior products to you, without being penalised for it.

The Tory amendment to the Queen’s speech is nothing but a performance, put on for the benefit of the plebs. It’s a pantomime, with the British public urged to shout “Look out behind you!” at David Cameron’s Widow Twanky, whenever we see the Eurosceptics creeping up out of the shadows.

Note that, in this scenario, Education dunce Michael Gove and damp squib Defence sec Philip Hammond play the ugly sisters; they say they want out of Europe, but they won’t actually do anything about it. Straw men.

The amendment, which condemns the Queen’s speech for failing to include a bill preparing the way for a referendum on whether we stay in the EU, is not only pointless but dangerous. As mentioned previously on this blog, amendments to the Queen’s speech are traditionally taken as confidence votes. The fact that this is a Conservative Party amendment suggests that the government no longer has confidence in itself. If the amendment succeeds, the Prime Minister should resign and the government should fall.

Perhaps I am mistaken. This is not pantomime – it’s farce.

And the amendment is certain to be defeated, according to the pundits, because all the Liberal Democrats, most of Labour and a significant proportion of the Conservatives will vote against it. This means that even the question of confidence in the government can be avoided because nobody will be able to raise it as an issue.

That’s why I said, elsewhere on the internet, that Labour should abstain.

On the Huffington Post site, I wrote: “Labour’s best move is to abstain, let the Tories defeat their own government with the amendment, and then see if Cameron follows Parliamentary convention and resigns. It’s possible he’ll say that a vote on the Queen’s speech is no longer a confidence issue because of his Fixed-Terms Parliaments Act, which defined a ‘no confidence’ vote for the first time, but this may be countered by saying that, if Parliament does not support the planned legislative programme, then it does not support the government or the Prime Minister who leads it.

“If the PM ignores the resignation issue, then we can all say he is running an outlaw government and nothing he does from now on should be considered legal; if he resigns, then the amendment won’t matter because it won’t go forward.

“And let’s face it, if Labour can abstain on the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill, there’s no reason not to abstain on this!”

If the amendment succeeds, we can have a proper debate on whether this government is fit for purpose – at a time when people are still coming to terms with the first death directly attributed to the imposition of the Conservative Bedroom Tax, which itself follows the deaths of thousands due to the Conservative-employed Atos firm’s mismanagement of Employment and Support Allowance assessments.

It won’t, and we’ll be denied our chance to have that debate.

But just remember – despite all the swagger and show – you’re being denied the chance to have a proper debate on Europe as well.

I hate being in the house at the best of times, so two weeks of having to fend for myself and stuff is quite daunting. My parents have gone away to Cuba with a couple of their friends and left me with the house and the dog.

I slept in my parents room last night too ’cause there’s a tele that actually works in there, ha! But when I was getting changed one of the bags they were gonna take on holiday just fell off the top of the wardrobe and I started freaking out. I was face timing someone at this point and they even saw it fall and we both kinda just went silent and stared at the bag that probably just wasn’t put back up on the wardrobe properly. At least that’s what I like to think.

And then this morning I didn’t wake up until like 9am so my dog was starving and had thrown up a bit in the bedroom. Ew. I’ll clean that up in a bit, I think it’s like yellow or something eugh.

Got some washing up to do this morning, then I think I might go to costa once I’ve walked my dog and stuff. Seems like a good idea to be honest. It feels like I’m actually living in my own house. No rules or anything. Which is fab. One thing I won’t do is have a party/gathering. For some reason I absolutely hate hosting which sucks a bit.

and I can’t stay out at night for the next two weeks. Not that I really did recently anyway. But that opportunity isn’t actually there which also sucks. Got a couple of my friends coming over for a lonely sleepover at some point though it makes me happy that my friends know how much I hate being alone in this house. No other house, just this one for some reason. No idea why it just gives me the heebyjeebies.

right, guess I better get on with my ‘chores’.

Ciao

~ Emily

Anyway, i didn’t expect a response but she responded and the way she responded showed how little she cared. But i figured that maybe if i continued the text back it wouldn’t feel so awkward..

Sad to say, I felt unwelcomed… either she really doesn’t want to hear from me or she’s a fucking snore fest of a texter. 

Anyway, I showed my way out of the conversation by adding some ego to my “bye”.

She won’t be responding… of that i’m sure.

I’d have been in tears three weeks ago… but I’m not. I don’t feel sad, nor happy.. i’m just blah. Time will heal as much as it can by suppressing these feelings. and one day, i’ll be free enough to say “Who” when someone asks about my ex.

I honestly don’t want to be in love again, i stick to that, but I can’t promise i won’t fuck up. I have a tendency to fall for MASKS… it’s when they finally got me chained up that, that the true face is revealed and this cycle of misery not only repeats but it is worst than the previous account. 

All that matters right now, at this moment, is that I’m not in tears as i would have been three weeks ago. In fact, i’m talking to my dear Palestinian friend and laughing. I’m on tumblr, being a crazy fangirl for Rachel Skarsten and I just feel normal. 

Hopefully this event stay with me long enough to keep me from falling for anyone. Love.. i don’t have time for that shit.

HIM :Your serious?

HER: I’m dead serious, I don’t want you anymore, I don’t want to hear your voice or see your face. I don’t give a fuck about what you do or who you are with. I don’t think about you, I blocked you from messaging purposely, I deleted my sound cloud account, I unsubscribed to you on YouTube, I unfollowed your blogs, Leave me alone. 

HIM: You still want me don’t you? that’s why your saying what your saying, you still like me and care about me. 

HER: (The tone in her voice changed, she almost sounded sorry for him) NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. I AM DONE WITH US. You are nothing to me but a relic from my past hun and I can’t afford to let you hurt my heart again.You just don’t deserve me. I’m afraid that you never will. 

HIM: I’m sorry about all of the pain that I caused you and…

HER: It wasn’t just pain that you caused, you practically made me suffer.. I never want to feel that ever again 

HIM: I’m so sorry, I’m so so so sorry, I’m sorry baby 

HER: I’m not your baby, sorry won’t be able to fix this and I don’t think anything can. I don’t want to be friends with someone who sucked the life out of my heart, you made me hurt for a very long time and you made it happen again and again 

HIM: I can’t loose you.. what can I do?

HER: nothing, just do nothing. I’m not crawling back to you or begging for anything. I want nothing from you and I want you to leave me alone. All you did was tell me what you thought was wrong with me and exaggerated every piece of me. 

HIM: (pause) I know.. I’m sorry.. I’m an asshole we have established that 

HER: why is it always about you? I waited for YOU. I FUCKING WAITED. I WAITED FOR YOU LONGER THEN I EVER HAVE WAITED FOR ANYONE. I’M DONE WAITING. I’M DONE BEING WITH GUYS WHO ARE JUST SCARED LITTLE BOYS INSIDE, NOT ONCE DID YOU EVER THINK ABOUT ME IN THE END. NOT ONCE. 

HIM: I know.. I’m sorry, I fucked up, I really did 

HER: I’ve already forgiven you. I just want nothing to do with you. Not now. I want someone who actually cares. 

HIM: but I do care. 

HER: Really about what? why do you still care about me?

HIM: I never stopped caring about you..

HER: Don’t you dare lie to me like that, I’ve had my father lie to me my whole life, I don’t need it from you. 

HIM: I’m not lying this time 

HER: Don’t lie to me ever.. 

HIM: I wont. I promise.

HER: You promised you would stay and that never happened

HIM: (silence) 

HER: No promises 

HIM: But..

HER: Look, I’ve gotta go. The guy I like is coming over in ten minutes. 

HIM: But..

HER: Goodbye _____ _____ ______ ! Someday we can be friends but right now I don’t want anything to do with you, I loved you once but you wouldn’t let me. So goodbye. Have a nice life, I have moved on. 

HIM: I love you.. 

HER: (Hung up the phone) 

HIM: (Thinking about her and what he will never have) 

So I haven’t written in a while. I haven’t written a lot in general to be honest but when you spend your day writing 140+ emails you don’t really feel like typing anymore.

Me and my boyfriend broke up. The emotional bullshit finally came to an end in March and I feel like it’s been the best thing for me, my life has taken a turn for the positive in that I’ve finally started to become independant, but there are times when I think about him, about the break up, about things that could have been different…

So, the last time I posted I described how I was moving out of his family home and into my own place. That unfortunately fell through and me and him decided that we would get our own place, and we started looking at furniture, forward thinking and planning etc…

Then we had a week void of emotion. There didn’t appear to be anything there, bearing in mind all the previous problems described in my last post were still there and it got to the point where it was taking it’s toll.

I went back home for the weekend as it was Mother’s Day and I’d rather spend the weekend with my own Mother than his, and we spoke on the phone. He told me that he didn’t think that moving would solve our problems, and that he’d been doubting if he wanted to be in the relationship or not. He also didn’t know if he was still in love with me.

Fair enough – but the prick decides to tell me that he’s been feeling this way for around a month, leading me down the garden path and lying to me about what his true intentions were.

So I ended his dilemma for him. I’d had enough and decided that we would never work out, we were from two different worlds. I am ambitious and truly believe that one day I will be rich and successful, and will do whatever it takes to get there. He gets everything handed to him on a plate (including everything in our relationship) and he’s happy with that.

Once I’d ended the relationship I moved back in with my Grandmother and this lasted a month. During this month I was fine, I was able to get over B, as he’d never really came to my hometown I didn’t associate him with it in any way at all.

Now I’ve moved back to London on my own. I fell in love with Camden the moment I saw it and knew that I needed to live here. So I made it happen.

The problem with being back here, alone, is that I don’t quite know how to be alone.

I’ve had 9 years of my life living away from my family home and I’ve always lived with someone. In a shared house, relationship, whatever, I’ve always been living with someone to the point where I’ve become co-dependant and I don’t know how to be alone.

I can’t stop thinking about him. Like a fool I’ve been back to him for sex (for all his faults he was fantastic in the bedroom) and that’s not a problem. The problem lies with the fact that I sleep alone. I have a craving to be with someone. I thought I needed a rebound, and I’ve slept with other people since we’ve been over but it’s still not stopped me from thinking about him when I’m alone.

Why does this bother me so much? He made me so miserable when we were together, so surely now I should be happy?

The problem seems to lie with the fact that we still talk to each other. Except now that we’re not together, he’s turned into the man I always wanted him to be. He’s kind, caring and considerate. Holds a conversation with me. Is happy and not a manic depressant wanting to run away to computerland (although since we’ve broken up he’s now fully into addict mode) and would rather spend time with me.

I thought it was just about sex – I can handle this. Surprisingly to most of my friends, I’m a man and have the ability to think with my dick. I can use him for one thing only, and I’m totally fine with that. The problem is that he actually wants to be friends with me. He would rather have the friendship without sex than just sex.

How do I process this? I didn’t actually like the man when we were together. Now that he’s become more talkative it makes him desireable to be around. But I then begin to miss him and think about how things could have been so much different had things have been this way in the first place.

Why the fuck is it that he still gets to hold all of the cards? His life is fine, unchanged and able to continue like nothing ever happened. He’s going away to Denmark, is going to gay pride in Brighton and the best thing is that he’s telling me that this is the thing he loves about being single – he can do all of this stuff.

I’d love for him to provide me with an actual explanation as to how his life is any different now to how it was when we were together. Except now he has the whole bed to himself.

I get so mad when I think that I’ve skinted myself because I was the one that had to move, after doing it all for him already. I’m the one that’s been heartbroken yet he’s sailing through like nothing’s even happened! Where is the fucking justice in this?!

I’m starting to think that I must have done something seriously fucking wrong in a previous life to deserve this.

Anyway, positive thinking and moving forward, I have a date on Thursday. Going for coffee with a guy at around 7, so this should be exciting! The guy is seriously cute too, and Scottish (love me an accent) and he’s a bit of a nerd. He’s also a foodie.

The time may have come where I’ve found someone I actually have something in common with!!

Wish me luck! Will update soon!

Kisses! xoxo

Unrepentant: Ignorant old Tories like Lord Young cannot see anything wrong with starving workers – and, through lack of tax revenue, the benefit budget – to make fat profits for greedy business bosses. The families of all those who have died because of these policies might have a different point of view.

Apparently we are living in an excellent time for businesses to boost their profits – because labour is cheap.

That is what Lord Young, who advises David Cameron on enterprise, told the cabinet yesterday (May 11). His words make it crystal clear that working people who vote Conservative are classic examples of turkeys voting for Christmas. They beg to be exploited.

He said low wage levels in a recession made larger financial returns easier to achieve – in other words, he actually admitted that bosses could use the current state of the UK economy, as caused by his own government (not the previous Labour administration, for reasons we’ve covered in the past), to push workers’ wages down and keep more moolah for themselves.

Vox Political has accused the Conservatives of exactly this behaviour in the past, but we never expected to see a member of the government admit it so brazenly.

Perhaps this is more of the government’s pet ‘nudge’ theory at work. We have seen that benefit increases have been lowered in order to instil fear of destitution in the jobless, and in those who have low-paid jobs. Now, businesses are being urged to capitalise on this, exploiting their workforces with the obvious threat: “There are plenty of other people out there who’ll do it for less!”

Let’s just back this up with some statistics, courtesy of The Guardian , shall we? UK employees’ average hourly earnings have fallen by 8.5 per cent, in real terms, since 2009. That’s adjusting for inflation, and the newspaper got its figure from the Office for National Statistics.

Meanwhile, the 1,000 richest people in the UK are now worth more than £414 billion – up more than £155 billion in the three years to December 2012. And in April, the Tory-led government gave those people a £100,000 per year tax cut.

Lord Young is not to be confused with Sir George Young, the Tory Chief Whip who once famously said “the homeless are what you step over when you come out of the opera” – but he is cut from the same cloth.

He had to apologise after telling the Daily Telegraph that “for the vast majority of people in the country today, they have never had it so good, ever since this recession – this so-called recession – started”.

For this reason it is easy to suggest that he would have stepped over the body of Stephanie Bottrill, had he been the first to find it.

Oh – do you think that statement goes too far? Please, reserve your judgement until I have explained my reasoning.

Like so many members of the Tory government, this is a man who absolutely point-blank refuses to understand the relationship between the decisions he makes and the conditions in which the majority of us are forced to live.

This former advisor to the Prime Minister on health and safety laws has advocated relaxing them, ignoring the fact that this will increase the likelihood of work-related injury that makes it impossible for people who need the money to go to work.

This enterprise advisor was asked to conduct a “brutal” review of the relationship of government to small firms, presumably with a view to cutting off as much public assistance for small businesses as possible.

This former chairman of the Manpower Services Commission advised the late Baroness Thatcher on unemployment, and we may take it that it is due to this advice that joblessness skyrocketed during the Thatcher years.

He refuses to see that his attitude is causing the problem: By ensuring that Britain’s labour market remains “flexible” (read “low-wage”), he ensures that the national tax take remains far lower than it should be; low-paid workers form the overwhelming majority of the workforce. In turn, the low tax take means the government cannot pay off its debts and provides it with an excuse to cut public spending – especially on benefit payments.

Stephanie Bottrill had an auto-immune system deficiency, Myasthenia gravis, which meant she was permanently weak and needed constant medication. Doctors said she was too ill to hold a job, but she never qualified for disability benefits.

She committed suicide because she could not afford the cost of living after the Bedroom Tax was forced on her, and it has been said by others that she died for want of £20 per week.

It is the attitude of Tories like Lord Young that has deprived her of that money – and ultimately, of her life.

“No, I don’t” she agreed. “You hurt me pretty bad and I don’t want that” 

“But I wont hurt you” he insisted

“We’re done Travis.. I’m not going to let you hurt me anymore” 

“But I care about you!” 

“No.. no you don’t! I fucking waited for you and all you did was treat me like shit!” she was getting angry now.. she had had enough of his meaningless words, he would say things over and over again but do nothing to show that they were true 

“I know and I’m sorry! just please listen! you never listen!” he was begging now, just like she had wanted before but about now she was over it and over him.

“I told you not to talk to me anymore. I don’t want to be friends right now when you’ve done nothing but stomp on my heart over and over! So don’t come back when I have nothing left to give you” she felt warm tears coming from her eyes, she wanted him to leave. She did invite him but he wasn’t wanted anymore and a new guy was coming over soon, he wouldn’t be happy to see the girl he adored talking with an ex, he’d probably get defensive. She didn’t want to start drama, not her favorite thing. 

He seemed to understand now, “I really did hurt you, didn’t I?” 

She nodded, tears streaming down her face, she took a deep breath and spoke softly like the coo of a dove, “You hurt me more then anyone else ever has. I can’t… I can’t be friends with you, not now and I’m not sure if I ever want to love you again or if I ever could Trav.” 

he cleared his throat, he had nothing to say but he did have a few questions. 

“Who is he? what is so damn great about him? what does he have that I don’t have! tell me Zoey, go ahead say it all..” he sounded rude now, almost pissed, jealous even.. he was jealous, more jealous then he’d ever been before 

“That’s none of your business. but I can tell you that when he looks at me, he see’s me, he want’s to make me happy and he is staying, he doesn’t say nice things to me just to get in my pants or mess with my head, all he wants to know is what is in my head. He has everything that you don’t” 

That was a blow to his ego and for some reason his heart. He knew he’d never get her back, but he felt he had to ask her for one last thing. 

“Can I kiss you?” he asked, slightly feeling like a sad puppy “Just one last time?”

“No” she shook her head “Leave please” she couldn’t look at him, she couldn’t let herself look, he would never know how badly he hurt her, she would never know that for the rest of his life he’d regret loosing her, turning over the events in his head like a tape rewinding, unable to stop. 

If we take a look into the future, we will see that every woman he has sex with all he does is think of her and how the woman he is with, isn’t her. 

“Please go Travis, please. I don’t love you anymore now go” 

He had nothing to say. He never had anything to say but this time he wished he did. 

He took one last look at the girl whose heart he had broken and drove away. 

She sighed. “THANK GOD!!” she said happily, feeling a huge sense of relief in every part of her body 

She had gotten home a few hours ago from an awesome college party where she met the nicest guy, they had ended up locking lips four hours later, he had found her the most charming sweet young woman he had ever met, he knew from the moment that they saw each other as she entered the apartment that he had wanted to take her out.

That night she had slept in his arms, wearing just his t-shirt. He kissed her forehead as she woke up. They had such an extraordinary connection. 

And now here he was, driving over to spend the weekend with her. 

Her excitement was extreme, 

Amazingly so was his. 

“What a woman” he thought as he pulled up in front of her house

he knocked on the door. As he came in she practically pounced on him. He picked her up and kissed her. 

Man it was good to be home.  

He looked at me with disbelief,
With puzzled eyes,
Why is she suddenly strong?

He asked if I was okay,
Curious about the transformation,
Sorry I couldn’t stay the same for you.

He treated me wrong,
And made me cry for days,
But not anymore.

You are nothing to me,
You have no power,
You are nothing.

Today was rainy… But I enjoyed from strawberry ´s and Beyonce music for a summer feeling. TOMORROW .. Back to school… The time goes very fast this two weeks… I don’t like that. But, I have to go eight weeks to school, but, if that´s over…. 8 BEAUTIFUL WEEKS OF HOLIDAY! Can´t wait. Now I’m gonna pack my bags and do some homework….

How was your holiday?

Lots of love, Frances

http://preppersuniverse.com/firestorm-over-irs-targeting-of-patriot-groups/

 In one day my exams begin and my life ends. How much have I revised you ask? I’ve done about 30 hours in total. Isn’t that enough you ask? Definitely not. My friends have done more than triple that amount of revision (a part from one friend who has done none… thank you?) and even they’re worried about failing… And so here I am, complaining about the quote on quote, end of my life.

  I have 18 exams over the course of the next month and to be honest I’m pretty calm about the whole ordeal. Yeah, some would call me an idiot and some would say that I’ve thrown my life away, but you know what I say? ‘Oh shit’. I mean, that’s all I can really say right? It’s not like I can go back and tell myself to revise because we all know that it wouldn’t make a single bit of difference. The real question is, ‘who do I blame?’. Anime for filling my life with happiness? No. My friends? No, I mean, I barely even see them any more since they became recluses who would rather spend time revising than playing video games with good ol’ Chris… but I digress… My family? I don’t even speak to my dad, my brother is rarely ever home and my mother wouldn’t have even been able to help me revise even if she wanted to (bless her heart)… (oh, and yes, I do have a somewhat dysfunctional family… can’t be helped, right?). In the end the only person I can blame is myself and there’s no way I’m going to do that… at least, not until the impending breakdown when I receive my results in August…

 I guess I just wish I could stop time indefinitely, y’know? Not so that I can revise some more, I just want the flow of time to stop. Here’s a quote (it’s from a TV show (The Tudors), but it’s still really awesome):

King Henry VIII: In these last days Your Grace, I have been thinking a great deal about loss. What loss Your Grace, is to man most irrecoverable?
    Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk: His virtue.
    King Henry VIII: No, for by his actions, he may redeem his virtue.
    Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk: Then his honor.
    King Henry VIII: No, for again he may find the means to recover it.
    Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk: Then I cannot say, Your Majesty.
    King Henry VIII: Time,Your Grace. Of all losses, time is the most irrecuperable, for it could never be redeemed.

 It is the last line that stuck out most to me when I heard it. I would have been thirteen at the time, my mind still being melded and my ideologies still forming, and then I came across this quote. I pondered it, ‘time is our greatest loss’, I thought? And after a while I realized that this was the truth of things. In fact, I would go as far as to say that this is the truth that changed my life. I stopped sleeping for elongated periods of time because I figured that sleeping was a waste of valuable time. I stopped listening in class because it was a waste of MY valuable time. I gave up all my hobbies (dancing, swimming, diving and many other menial things) because I decided that they were a waste of my time. I guess you could say that this quote caused me to go through the biggest transition in my lifetime. Some people say that the change into adolescence is a natural change – I would argue that viewpoint. My change was caused by a quote, a quote that caused a spark within my mind and set off a fire within my heart. It was a quote that caused my carefree view on the world to change and it made me the man I am today. I know what you’re thinking, ‘it all just seems too ridiculous’ and I would agree with you, it is. But is that not the way of things? Is it not ridiculous that I am sat here a day before my exams writing a blog post that will only be seen by four or five people? Yeah, I think you’re beginning to understand.

 I don’t know what I’m going to do in my french exam tomorrow, maybe I’ll take a nap? Maybe I’ll ace it and go on to become a french teacher? Maybe I’ll make nothing of my life and I’ll fade into obscurity? Who knows. I guess I’m just waiting for something to happen, I’m waiting for that next quote to relight my fire and spur me into action and I’m fading away in the process. Haruhi Suzumiya also once said something interesting:

‘Up till then, I always thought that I was, I don’t know, kind of a special person. It was fun to be with my family. I had fun with my classmates. And the school that I was going to, it had just about the most interesting people anywhere. But that night, I realized it wasn’t true. All the stuff we did during class that I thought was so fun and cool, was probably happening just like that in classes in other schools all over Japan. There was nothing special about my school at all. When I realized that, it suddenly felt like the whole world around me started to fade into a dull gray void.‘

 Hmmm… maybe that quote was a tiny bit too long… I guess you could say that this quote also had a huge impact on my life. At this point I was surviving on minimal sleep and sometime forgetting to eat because I was so busy doing nothing, my life had pretty much come to a halt and then I realized that I was still nothing special. I’m an unknown entity who exists for no purpose other than to breath and watch as the world passed me by. My world did indeed become a gray void and as much as I’d like to say that it’s now colorful and joy filled, it’s not. I’m looking out of my kitchen window right now and nothing’s changed. It’s gray, all of it. Maybe that’s why I’m so uninspired. Maybe that’s why I don’t care. I just want to recognized, y’know? I wanted to do something amazing… I don’t want to wait around and watch as my friend Adam goes off and becomes a doctor… I don’t want to wait around and watch as my friend Rhuari becomes a sport journalist… I don’t want to fade into obscurity.

 And so I’m sat here, complaining about my menial life and my unimportant dreams. Yeah, I have exams tomorrow and it doesn’t matter. Some people say that there’s no such thing as fate and in some ways I would agree with them. I believe that what happens tomorrow will have always have happened and that there was nothing I could have done to change it. I could have revised more, but I didn’t and here we are. I could be revising now, but I’m not and here we are. Tomorrow is tomorrow, there’s nothing I could have done to change that because it’s a certainty, as is my result in tomorrows test and my results in the tests that are yet to come. Now I’m not a religious person and I don’t generally care for prayers, but right now I’m praying that if there is a God out there he’ll give me the 5 A*-C grades I need to spend two more years of my life studying and being apathetic, otherwise I’m afraid to say, this is where my life ends. And here’s one final quote:

‘Eat the bread, drink the wine and let the world be the world’

1. Get out of bed. This seems like a logical action here. But it’s so damn comfortable.

2. Unpack 

Actual picture of all my shit.

3. Pick up the moat-like collection of laundry that has manifested itself on the floor circumferencing my bed that I avoid like hot lava each night.

4. Do ALL the laundry.

5. Learn how to conference call with my friends. Learn how to not make it awkward. It will probably still be awkward.

6. Explain to my mother that I don’t have an alcohol dependency problem. Also find a spot to smuggle my three bottles of nearly empty but not-quite-there-yet liquor from her judging gaze. Can’t let anything more expensive than a bottle of Burnett’s go to waste. Actually, I’ll keep the Burnett’s too.

7. Save money$.

8. Get a paycheck in order to make money to save.

9. Argue with my father that while he may have played a part of bringing me to life, he is not entitled to touch my beer.

10. Spend quality time with my pooch. I hope he remembers who I am. Smell my hand and remember.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWxNb17aArw

11. Actually read (as opposed to living on sparknotes, which I did as an English major)

            My reading list consists of some of the following:

1. Re-read all the Tucker Max books.
2. Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In – Cause ladies is pimps too
3. Beat Generation classics, ideally, Kerouac’s the Dharma Bums

12. Return the 30+ books taking up random surface space in my room to the library. Artfully dodge any fines.

13. Make a rule for a certain friend (not saying any names) that she has to stop announcing to me every time she farts. I’m a college graduate (and so is she) for goodness sake. Let’s get it together.

14. Drink more, keep my tolerance up. Go for the gold, every time.

15. Try to act classy. Keyword: Try*

16. Brush up on my flirting skills. Roommates and I should probably stop drunkenly offering to inquire to objects of affection(s), “can I sit on your face, sir?” Polite, but may send the wrong message.

17.  Learn how to cook. Realize adults don’t bring lunchables and go-gurt for lunch at work. Happy Hour while currently an important staple in my diet, is not actually part of the nutritional food pyramid.

18. Start diet.

19. Eat all the junk food in the house FIRST, before starting a diet. That way, all temptation is gone. Swiftly after celebrate the newly conceived food baby.

20. Offer my very limited & more times detrimental as opposed to beneficial skills to volunteer somewhere. Anywhere.

21. Refer to a dictionary daily to diversify my dialect. The term “exegesis” seems snotty and entitled enough. Also, strike “snotty” from my vernacular.

22. Textually harass my roommates who I miss so dearly by sending them pictures of advertisements for vaginal mesh each morning, to show I’m thinking of them. YOU’RE WELCOME.

23. Write. Maybe start a book about how wonderfully awkward my life is. I fled from a straight-up sex lair last weekend, be sure to come back and see posts dealing with such.

24. Get in good with one of my towns local bartenders for free drinks, town gossip, and shots.

25. Binge watch the entire third season of Downton Abbey with my mother while she verbally trolls throughout the entire episode:
Character on show in wheelchair: “I want to just run to the river and throw myself if”
My Mother: “You can’t run if you can’t even walk, fool”

Killed it, Mirmir.

26. Finally, and most importantly, SLEEP.