The Monday Conundrum.

In spirit of creating structure to my blog, I've decided to create a weekly feature 

The Monday conundrum!!

I feel like it should perhaps have it's own jazzy theme tune? Anyway ,every Monday I will be post about something that I don't understand the meaning or concept of ,or plain old just don't get the point off!

1.) 'Haul' videos & blogs

Now before I get beauty blogger hatred and alienate half the known blog world .I am not down on all beauty based content .Far from it , I am massive fan of youtube tutorials and follow several beauty blogs here on blogspot .I just can't get my head round 'hauls' ,when I a kid you didn't show off ,you were actively told off for it but that is essentially what 'hauling' is it ,is it not? The Idea of filming or blogging about your recent shopping spree ,holding up the items like shiny trophies of consumerism .It seems to me a practice not unlike a child at Christmas given all the presents they asked for and then hauling them all into school the next week, to show off and make all the kids who didn't receive them feel bad .You beauty queens would probably defend this practice, as simply showing currents trends available but quite frankly isn't it just bragging at it’s most public? 

Answers on a postcard please ..

21st century failure -Filthy ,useless,ashamed.

I am a failure.

1. The condition or fact of not achieving the desired end or ends: the failure of an experiment.
2. One that fails: a failure at one's career.
3. Nonperformance of what is requested or expected; omission: failure to report a change of address.

You might think that, It would be hard for too admit that but it is true .I've had a lot of bad luck I will concede that, but still I fail at life .My current life is comparatively much worse than my peers. This in no sort terms makes me a failure .I has failed in every aspect of grown up, adult life. Hence why I’ve managed to post a fair few blogs on this page without ever really discussing anything about myself. Yes ,if you choose to read this page fully , you will know that I am victim of unrequited love ,that I got around at bit at university and that I don't consider myself very attractive .None of this matters if you knew the extent to which I am a failure . So much so that I avoid my extended family because I don't wish to update them on my life .I have failed because I am.

Unemployed.

It shouldn't be a dirty word today, when it affects so many people but it makes me feel filthy, useless and ashamed. The true number of unemployed in the U.K no doubt extends way beyond the government statistics, if you not collecting benefits you don't get included .Who knows how many people there really are, stuck in the same situation as me but I feel totally alone in my plight. The typical idea of long term unemployed people is that they are scroungers, that they choose this path, uneducated and unwilling to change their situation. How incredibly narrow minded you must be to really still believe this? Only the truly ignorant could still be holding this view .I am an intelligent and educated woman ,yet I find myself rejected for manual unskilled jobs on a regular basis and I ask myself how has my life come to this point ?

Wrong time? Wrong place?

I grew up in a generation actively encouraged to go to university, open to all they said acceptance expanded to the put where almost all my school and college friends attended university at some point. I know now looking back, that I wasn't suited to higher education at that advanced level. A few decades earlier my time at university would never have happened. The subject I choose to study was interesting to me but ultimately useless to the employer. It was when I was deep into university and already in considerable debt that I realized my time had been wasted academically and ultimately professionally .Personally I had grown up a great deal ,socially I was having the time of my life but deep down I knew I had a made a mistake.

Not wishing to waste both time and the money ,I stayed on .Eventually graduating after  four years with a degree and the vague idea that life would work itself out eventually  ,hadn’t it for every one else ? What I didn't count on was a recession hitting ,practically the day I graduated .For two years I worked at any job I could find ,seasonal jobs ,jobs that lasted just a few weeks and then it all came to end ,there were no jobs for me any more . I’d wasted years ,finding any job possible just to get by and then I wasn't a graduate anymore no one cared about the letters at the bottom of my c.v .The window of opportunity seemed  to close ,several years worth of graduates appeared metaphorically so in my rear view mirror.

I found myself with no where left to turn, over unqualified but under experienced. A victim of circumstance. Unable to afford to retrain, too old for government schemes. I am not wishing this blog post ,hiding in a tiny corner of the web to become political stance nevertheless it would be interesting to see ,what Mr. Cameron or any of his associates which suggest someone like me does next ?

There have been times in the last year, when I am not afraid to admit I have felt like ending it all .Like I can't go on, being this useless person I have become. I find it hard to motivate myself to even get up on some days  It can feel pointless to face another day of rejection. Recently I checked out job centre plus, after reading comments about the rise of fake job adverts, the general consensus being they are used to lead us ‘the unemployed ‘to believe there are jobs out there .That we are all lazy for not finding and filling them I scrolled through around five new jobs, all of which out of my remit before I hit ''regional'' jobs which may or may not have even existed. 

Being unemployed ,effects your own life ,every aspect is slowly  ruined .You lose your friends because you can no longer afford to socialize with them or they begin to attach a stigma to you that your now lazy and should just ''get a job '' .Dating becomes impossible ,no one wants to date a girl with no prospects .The chances of leaving home to even rent become impossible .The debts pile up because you have no money to pay them back .The job centre will helpfully cut you off to fend for yourself after six months . If wasn't for having kind generous and loving parents, I would probably be homeless on the streets by now. What kind of country I have been brought up in, that someone working hard, gaining the education I was brought up being told I so desperately needed to get, can end up in this kind of impossible situation?

Dream.

Bit of a fun and frivolous post tonight,compared to my useful dreary self .I love to daydream about what life ,will be like when I finally get that lottery win .Although I look at these pictures and I think to myself ,that is some people's ordinary lives ,yet it in my perspective it's an unobtainable dream.The world is a strange place that ,everything we have is entirely relative to our own ideas of normality.Just throwing a bit of sociology out there ,shame having a degree in it means I will never get to live in my dream Georgian mansion ,drive a BMW or holiday on a tropical island .Pretty picture time.

No numbers this week. No one .

There's always next time. 

Keep dreaming.

  

Dirty Great ....

                                                Your little 'black' book?

Nobody, at least I hope not, wakes up one morning and decides to become "easy”. It’s a not conscience decision, unless your a professional which is a totally different matter .It's quite easy to go from naive virgin to 'that girl that goes with anyone '' without even really realizing it. Without really taking in it what you’re doing, or for that matter being affected by it .It took me roughly six months, I’ll say that.

I had a friend at university who kept a log her sexual conquests, impressed by her digital collection I complied my whole paperback version .It was only then that I really thought,’ wow you've got around a bit girl ‘‘, was I horribly disappointed in myself? Did I change my ways? Sorry to disappointed the more chaste but no it didn't in fact I embraced it .You can't change what you've already done ,there is no erase button ( although like everyone ,sometimes it would be useful ) .I have never once felt bad for sleeping around ,why should I ? Perhaps I mix in promiscuous circles but I can't remember ever being looked down for my behaviour .It's always been O.K for men to do it ,we know that debate .These days ,or in the last 10 years that I've been  ''growing up '' it's been increasing acceptable for girls too .At least that is to a certain degree .There seems to be a level with girls ,a plateau you can reach before you've gone too far become a  ''shank'' or super slutty whore .It's O.k. to have a few wild years at uni ,have a few one night stands & a fuck buddy once but start to really racking up those numbers and admit it? Not so much.

And for boys? It's pretty much the same as it ever was.

Take for example two acquaintances of mine ,one male and one female .On different occasions I was informed that they had both had over a 100 sexual partners .I am a liberal kind of girl we've established that ,but my reactions were anything but.

Man whore - '''wow you've been busy, did you take sittings?! One in one out? ''

Girl whore -'' I can't believe it?! Who with?! How did she find them all? Wow that is ridiculous!!'' (Inserts comments out wizards sleeves and clowns pockets*) 

Still now in 2012 it's acceptable for the man to flaunt his sexual back catalogues (I’m excluding the fact we can probably cut the number in half) .Brazenly admit to putting it about on such a scale. The girl in question didn't tell me herself of her triple figure magic number, no it was gossip passed on from a less than discreet friend of hers. Yes, we’ve come a long way in equality between the sexes but sexually were still a little prudish about girls, liking, wanting and going out and having sex when they bloody well want it! 

Time to debunk some myths about so 'whores's and ‘slut’s’.

We do it because were low on self esteem and want to be 'loved' - This is worst myth going ,anyone out there who has ever had a one night stand with stranger ,knows that love & affection that are last things present. We do it because were horny ,the guy is fit and yes in some cases because were drunk .Were no were different from men ,if we want sex were quite capable of getting it without falling in love or getting emotional .Most of the time anyway.

We want to feel attractive - Oh yes ,some drunken chino has decided I'm the one worthy of groping tonight after several rounds of jagerbombs ,shoot me down I'm clearly Megan Fox this evening! Do me a favour.

We've got Daddy issues - This one confuses me no end, what kind of connection is there between paternal love and lust? The mere idea is pretty disgusting.

I know that personally my ''busiest '' years are behind me and I sit here with no regrets. Were some bad experiences along the way?  ,yes there were but everything in life teaches us a lesson for future reference .Even if we need to taught that lesson several times over ! Go out sow your oats or not ,what ever you want to do don't be constrained by what others think is right ,we get to live this life only once Embrace ....and be safe .

Xoxo

*should you come across this blog and not be aware of the term "wizards sleeve”, here is a helpful link to our friends at urban dictionary http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wizards+sleeve

Today could not be more prefect for a spot of blogging .It is pouring with rain and I am trapped in the confines of my house.Being drenched on the 2 second trip to the garage ,means I won't be braving it even to the local shop . The problem being ,what to actually write about ? 

Never the right time is it? 3am ,yes my brain is happy to churn out ideas while my eyeballs burn into my face but a lazy Wednesday afternoon ,as the rain pours down?  no missus ,I'm your creative brain power and I have shut up shop for the day ,see you later doughnut .

Typical xx

I put a spell on you.

This is a subject ,that I have always wanted to try my hand at writing about it . It's a sensitive and personal issue ,it's also private to the individual .No one will quite understand it ,unless they experience it's painful wrath. Some ,no doubt will laugh and scorn at those of us who have been there. It isn't a laughing matter.I am not talking about a deadly disease or a crippling disability ,I am talking about Love .The most painful ,heart wrenching confusing kind of them all .The unrequited kind.


From a distance it is easy to ridicule ,condemn these people as bunny boilers and stalkers .In true cases this couldn't be further from the ,imagine you can't even bring yourself to send a friendly Hi to a friend ,because you analysis everyone word you send,terrified that your feelings are obvious in every word you type.That they will brand you ,that they will know.The smallest forms of communication are meet with heart beating panic ,what do I say? how do I reply? do I even reply? will they know? will they care ?

Many would say it isn't love ,if it's one sided .I disagree ,it's often said that it can only really be lust .Lust is fleeting , an intense and physical feeling for someone based solely on physical attraction .Love ,can not be described ,when asked what it is about the person you like so much.It's impossible to answer ,it's just them ,a feeling a vibe however you choose to put it.Everything about them is just seemingly prefect.


It possible to spend infinite amounts of time privately harbouring these feelings ,unable to confess.Perhaps they were already in a happy relationship or you counted them as totally out of your league .Sometimes the dam breaks and you can no longer hide the feelings and it's time to confess .Weather it be ,a drunken outburst or planned purge ,things will never be same again.There are only two options now ,the dream scenario in which they feel the same way or the likely scenario ,they are just your friend and that's the way it will stay.


This when the true pain starts ,hidden feelings always have a small glimmer of hope .You can still dream of your happy ever but then the truth is out and you've got to get on with it ,be mates or say goodbye to them altogether.This is why so many people wait or never confess ,inner pain is better than losing the person all together.You might stop contacting them at all , your going to look like a stalker now .Normal social activities become taboo ,best not text them ,can't post on there Facebook ,can't invite them for a drink .Must keep away .You start to lose them all together and before you know it they have left your life all together.What follows is a period of mourning ,feeling sorry for yourself ,wishing that you could live in alternate universe ,that your Gwyneth Paltrow in sliding doors ( not the one side where she dies obviously ) .That they would only just change there mind.

Over time ,the feelings obviously fade ,once the dust has settled .You might not cry any more ,they may rarely cross your mind .It's only when out of blue a messages arrives or you here word on them,that the little spark ignites again ,perhaps it doesn't burn as hard as it once did but it's still there.It doesn't just switch off ,through time or distance it's always going flicker with that feeling of ..What if ? 

Reach for the stars.

It appears that this blog has become the latest in a long line of activities ,I am interested in or in fact more likely obsessed with but ultimately manage to forget about ,through nothing but my forgetfulness .I have a history of this ,both large and small.Perhaps It is an addictive personality or simply the inability to stick at anything for a long enough time.Ideas fly through my mind and I become wrapped up in them , scribbling them down on bits of paper at 3am ,writing word documents in the dark .Unfortunately they don't come to much . Mainly due to a crippling lack of confidence in my ability to achieve anything. At the moment ,it's learning French and investing in a guitar so I can finally play an instrument ,a skill I have decided I MUST have before I die .Will I achieve either of these things? the answer is no ,I won't because there will be something else next week or next month .My last attempt at educating myself ,was photoshop .It turns out that photoshop is incredibly hard to muster and I lacked the patience to create anything but a rather nice glowing neon lines ,plus the free trial ran out which didn't help . 


It's a constant source of worry,finding yourself at twenty-six years old and having forged no career whatsoever,no skills or the 10 year plan mapped out before me .I was never one those kids ,who defiantly knew what they wanted to do right from a young age.It must have been nice to have such determination and ambition so young.To wake one morning at the age of seven and declare yourself a doctor in the making.
I drifted from idea to idea throughout my childhood and adolescence,in fact I am still drifting to this day unsure what I am really suited too .My ambitions as a very young child ,were in short totally influenced by television and not in the way you would think.I didn't want to be actress or simply famous ,no I took inspiration from a less likely source of childhood wishes .The wonder that was and in fact still is Channel 4's time team ..

The Team.

I've always loved history ,right through from "Victorian Day" at Junior school ( boys dressed as chimney sweeps ,the girls as flower sellers ) to social history modules at university ,I read historical biographies for a challenge now.I was strangely addicted to this show ,with it's three crusty old middle aged men ,getting over excited about pieces of flint and ancient pottery .It was only when I got a little older ,becoming a teenage girl and less of a tomboy that I realized that digging around in the dirt for a living maybe wasn't my calling ,there like might be like worms and stuff .. There was also a brief period in I which flirted with the idea of being an auctioneer ,but this was fully based on how fun banging the gavel looked on 90s Antique based classic Lovejoy. 


Since the age of sixteen, my ambitions have been dwindling further down the career ladder ,I studied Journalism at college and set about this being my thing,I had finally found it .I loved accosting hostile locals outside Woolworths for a vox pop or two  & my sort lived canteen radio show which dramatically ended due to on air comments about the late Jade Goody ( She was alive and well ,& participating  in Big brother at this point ) .As with a lot of my short lived ambitions ,confidence or there lack of  got the better of me and I gave up my ambitions ,as too lofty for someone like me .A girl from the back end of no where with no connections.I went on to university ,simply because I didn't know what else to do ,possibly the worst reason for attending higher education there is .All I achieved from my time at university was a much more varied sexual history and an impending sense of doom.It turns out employers aren't keen to employ you if they have no idea ,what the subject you ''studied'' actually entails.

So I sit here ,eight years after I gave up on my initial dreams , and a hundred ideas others past since and I wonder what I am going to actually do with my life ,what is my purpose here.When will I find what I am looking for ? or when will it find me ? 

Whose fairest of them all?

I am not a pretty girl. Don't think that I am being self deprecating in saying this, It is just a fact of life, a simple plain as day fact .I have never been described by anyone as pretty or stunning or any other adjective often associated with beauty. I have a nose that seems to grow larger on a daily basis, teeth so utterly British, Americans could probably buy them in a joke shop.

Coupled with the right amounts of cleavage, I have managed a level of apparent sexiness from the most beer goggled or desperate of eyes .The requirements to be sexy do not include prettiness. They are two quite different things. Sexiness is about an attitude you convey to the world, the way you walk in a room or dress to impress . Anyone can manifest sexiness .Being pretty or 'good looking ' on the other hand, either you’re born with or not and unfairly as it is pretty people can easily be sexy too . Ultimately there will come a time when sexiness wears off, weather it be the morning after when the make up has slide down your face or not .This doesn’t happens to those amongst us with the pretty label, they have an air of innocence about them, butter doesn’t melt in there sweet little mouths.There mask rarely slips .It’s when the pretty person comes to know this that they come the most dangerous. A wolf in sheep’s clothing if you want to be cliché about it.

There misdemeanour's and even darn right meanness are over looked in the face of a seemingly  innocent pretty face ,”oh they can be nightmare “but somehow they continue to get away with it, while us mere mortals have to tread carefully in there beautiful path. They float through life, a bubble of protection around that prefect even in a hurricane hair of there's .Oh how it must be lovely to know that, you’ll never be fully alone, an entourage will always follow in your wake not matter how vile you may choose to be.Your beautiful and that is all that matters.

What happens to these people, if and when the looks fade? The admiring glances stop? Do they become desperate older ladies ,mutton dressed as the proverbial lamb ,looking for one last bite of the “ it girl” cherry I guess I’m just jealous? Right? Actually I’d rather be a sometimes sexy girl, safe in the knowledge that I am not the bee knees but I can make myself her for the night if I want to do ,not living on borrowed time when the day comes that I can't rely on my looks to get whatever I want in life .

Best friends forever?

I have always found friendship to be one of the trickiest aspects of life.Friendship can be very fragile, without realizing it you can be treading on very thin ice.

How many people can say they have every friend they’ve ever made still? I think you would be very lucky to claim this, lucky and have a very busy social calendar .Friendships can break down for many reasons, neglect, life getting in the way or worst case scenario a horrendous falling out .I myself have experienced all forms of friendship decline .Ultimately we don’t need friends ,they provide us with companionship sure but when It comes down it it’s every man for himself and I have learned from bitter experience that no matter how much you may trust and have love for someone outside of your own family ,you never really know them fully .They will never be loyal to the end because at the end of the day you are replaceable Friendships are transient they change over time and circumstances ,if someone better comes along ,there no blood ties to stop them from ditching you all together.

Without delving deep into my own personal circumstances too far ,some time ago now I found myself what I call “friend guzumped’’ ,traded in because a better offer came in,replaced for a newer model .Its not like being dumped by a lover ,you can’t go out and replace them even for one night .It is raw and painful ,there is no immediate remedies.Friendships cultivated over years ,the hundreds of shared memories are not easily  forgotten.On the outside you may be seething with resentment for the former friend but deep down you long for the good times to return ,the times you laughed uncontrollably together ,the shared mistakes discussed at length, the feeling that someone else in the world understands you like no one else.

Years can pass by ,but they are never forgotten.They just become memories .

Is that time already?

I seem to have reached an age and it's a shocking age, one I didn't see coming .The age at which all your peers start to get married .This feels an affront to me, how can I possibly have married friends? and not the types who marry impossibly young ( and divorce it too ) no, married at the national average age married .Been together 6 years already married .Always thought they'd get married one day ,married .Expect it suddenly is one day . It's crept up on me out of nowhere it seems .While I was busy partying and "messing around'' with inappropriate men ,who think a phone number exchange is a commitment too far ,they were all busy setting up the foundation for the rest of there lives .The absolute liberty.

 Barely a week seems to pass with out notice of another impending wedding or engagement notification ,hen party photos infiltrate my Facebook news feed daily .I don't even have a "steady" ( Four seasons of mad men in 10 days ,I am also bringing back the use of the word "swell" ) .It's 2012 you say ,why should I be worried because it's just the same as the 60s .I still want to feel normal ,to ''grow up" ,get married and have babies Sorry if this crushes a century of women's liberation .Expect I had my blinkers on and didn't quite realize it was that time already ,can't we carry on having fun for just a few more years? Is it that time already? 

I don't want to be saddled with the old maid label just yet ,despite being made to feel like I drag cobwebs by my own mother .I feel like I've forgotten to do something ,got an education ? Check? Made the most of my youth? Check? Someone how picked up appropriate husband material along the way? Dam I seem to have left him behind somewhere. 

"Mirror Mirror on the wall  ...who was it?”

Among my quarter life crisis's is the idea that perhaps I did meet him along the way .One of the inappropriate or the seemingly unobtainable ones .If I were a character in a chick lit novel ,I'd be tracking the culprits down just to check .Obviously resulting in a wedding to the best looking ,least likely candidate .

''No love, to be honest I'm not sure I even remember you? Are you sure we've even meet?''

Now it feels like I'm playing a game of catch up, so that I can join the ranks of the proper grown ups .In till then I will always be the youngest, where biologically or not .In till I start spending my weekends going to homebase and visiting in laws (This is what married people do no?), I might as well be a child.