Funny Things My Brother Said #1

So this is my first official post documenting all of the hilarious/ridiculous/baffling things that my nine year old brother says. From now on, I'll call him C.

C dressed as Grandpa Joe for his school's Roald Dahl Day.

On our way to Dr Who Live last October

C's extremely clever, especially for his age, funny, cheeky, and never ever shuts up! People say I can talk, but I've got nothing on this kid. His favourite things include history, dinosaurs, Dr.Who, art, grey wolves, chicken noodles, any other food, sleeping in weird positions, and the colour yellow. His hero is Ben from Outnumbered, and he sometimes likes to think he actually is this character. We might not get along all the time (the age difference is confusing for him!) but he's extra special and I wouldn't have him any other way. Anyway...without further to-do:

C is on the PC. I'm in my mum's room talking to her. Suddenly C skips (actually skips) into the room:

C: 'I've found you on twitter! *hehehehehehe* I've found your actual twitter! Come and look, there's pictures of you on there! Of your room!' 

Me: 'I know, I put them up there!'

C: Oh. *goes back into my room* Oh my God! There's pictures of you on google! Look! There's me! I'm on there!

He keeps looking while I get on with stuff. A few minutes later, to himself.

C: *hehehe* I love being famous. I love being on google. 

General update-y stuff.

Howdy. Aw, it makes me happy to see my spiffed up blog. Anyway...

NaNoWriMo


As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm (slightly) taking part in National Novel Writing Month. I say slightly, because everyone who knows me knows that I have the attention span of a squirrel and so writing 1667 words a day, every day, probably wasn't going to happen. I've gotta admit...I'm a little lot behind schedule. I'm on 7,310 words and I've got 16 days to go. Probably more than likely not going to finish. Apparently if I write 2512 words a day from now on I can finish in time. I don't write every day though (cos I'm lazy) so if I want to finish I'll have to write a lot when I do write. I prefer it that way anyway. Once I get into writing a scene, I won't stop until I've finished and I'm happy with it. If I don't finish, I'l be disappointed, but it won't be the end of the world. It is my first year, so I'm taking this as my 'practice run' (yeah I know, excuses, excuses!)

I'd been planning this story for a while though, so this month is just a way to get the writing of it off the ground. I'm going to carry on writing the 'zero draft' as quickly as possible, even if I don't finish it before the end of November. Then I'm going to edit the hell out of it and turn it into a first draft. Then decide if I want to continue with it, or file it away foreveeeeeeerrrrrr. I love the story though, and I'm a bit in love with my characters. Even the minor ones. I have all of their stories and backgrounds planned in my head, and I know what motivates them to do whatever it is they do in the story. The main character is extremely similar to me, which is making me feel a little vain, but aren't all main characters thinly veiled versions of the author in some way or another? I'm certainly learning a lot about myself as I write how Sarah (my protagonist) reacts to certain situations.

I've been posting snippets of my story (I don't have a name for it yet) on my tumblr. You can find them here, if you're interested!

My Internship 
I'm going to write a post about my internship on book blog, as I think that makes more sense! Again, you can find it here if you're interested! Which of course you should be, because I am extremely interesting! ;)

Happy 2012 Project
I'm starting to plan my Happiness Project for 2012. I've mentioned this before, obviously. The idea is based on Gretchen Rubin's book and blog The Happiness Project. 

(Clicking the picture takes you to Amazon)

I'm doing my own version, obviously with much different goals than a married mum of two from NYC. Brilliantly though, Rubin offers 'Happiness Project Tool Kits' for people starting their own project, so that will be lots of help. 

Blogging updates 
I've made several half arsed vows to myself and others to blog more regularly, but as well know by now, I'm exceedingly lazy, and so I often forget/can't be bothered to blog. Or maybe it's just that life as an unemployed ex-student is rather dull and not worth blogging about. Hmmm...I'll say a mixture of the two.


Anyway, this time I actually am going to start blogging more regularly. Promise. PINKY PROMISE. Ooohh. Can't break a pinky promise, or...bad stuff will happen.

Regular updates and reports on my Happiness Project will be happening, at least once a week.

I will also be introducing a feature called 'Funny Things My Brother Said'. I've seen quite a few bloggers/twitterers I follow do this with their kids/other relatives and I always enjoy reading them. Then I thought well hey, my brother is hilarious. He says funny things all the time that make me think 'I'll have to remember that one...' I sometimes post stuff he says on Facebook/Twitter, but I think it would be nice to keep track of them all here. An additional benefit, other than the happy memories, is the amount of material I will collect to humiliate him throughout his teenage years. I'm so a great evil big sister!

So yeah, hopefully those two features, along with any random musings I may include, should hopefully get me blogging more regularly!

Any other general/random stuff

• I have an induction into Berkley and Scott on Wednesday. It's a catering services employment agency...thing. They work with hotels/restaurants etc and send them staff to work at events/functions. Hopefully I should get quite a bit of work out of that over the Christmas period. Yay, money. It's always good. Helps buy Christmas presents. 
• I'm volunteering to help out with the tea/coffee counter at King's Church. This will hopefully stop me being lazy and make me get out of bed and go every week, instead of deciding that I'd rather have an extra couple of hours in bed. It will also hopefully help me meet new people and make some new friends. I'm not the most confident person around people I don't know, and having something to do always makes me feel more comfortable. 

Aaaaaaaaand I think that's about it. I need to go write a post on my book blog, and then get to writing a bit of my story before I crash out! 

Busy, Busy, Busy November!

Dear family and friends,

I feel the need to apologise in advance for neglecting you in the month of November. You see I have quite a lot on this month, and even though most of you will be glad of the peace and quiet that the lack of me and my chatter will bring, I feel the need to excuse myself nonetheless.

NaNoWriMo

Tomorrow (well, technically today) marks the start of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). 30 Days/50,000 words. An epic challenge. One I can't wait to start, and will probably want to end in about 4 days time. I have my story all planned out though, I know my characters inside out. I've had a fun few weeks naming them and coming up with their personality traits, but now the hard work starts. As long as I can put my editing OCD to one side and can accept that I'm basically going to be splashing shite onto countless pages for the next 30 days, I should be ok. The point isn't to write a masterpiece, or create a work of art. It's to create the 'zero draft' of a novel, a basic structure of a story on paper to go back and edit and perfect afterwards. For someone like me, who puts everything off until the last possible minute, NaNoWriMo and its pressure is perfect. It is giving me the tight deadline that I always work best under, and making sure I actually finish what I started, unlike the several half written stories lying around in folders on my pc/in notebooks etc.

The Writer's Coffee Shop Publishing House

Of course, just writing 50,000 words this month would be too easy, wouldn't it? I also start what promises to be an amazing marketing internship for The Writer's Coffee Shop Publishing House (TWCS) tomorrow. It's an absolutely amazing opportunity and I cannot wait to get stuck in. My main role is to help get publicity for their three UK authors. I've 'met' (over skype/ email/ chatrooms) some lovely people from the company already, and they've all made me feel really welcome on the team. I will probably tell you much more about it when I've got settled in and know what I'm doing!

On top of these two awesome things, I hope to get a job. I REALLY NEED A JOB. I miss having money. Whoever said money can't buy happiness is a big fat liar. Money might not be able to literally buy happiness, but having some money certainly helps! I also miss leaving the house...something I tend not to do a lot in my current unemployed state. I think it's just a huge shock to my system. I've never been unemployed, not since I was 15. I didn't work during uni term time, but I've always had summer jobs. So now it's like WOAH...what the hell is happening?! Hopefully it won't be too long now. Some employer will take pity on me and give me a job. Let's hope.

Anyhow, I am officially rambling. It's 2am and I've been up a rather long time. As you can tell, I have a big day tomorrow, so night all and I will update soon!

Laura's Misadventures in Italy

My amazing Italian flag bow that Amie made for me!

So I've been putting this off for quite a while now, and I was considering not doing it at all. However I think, if only for the fact that it means I can stop avoiding peoples' questions and just point them towards this blog post for answers, I should definitely write it. I can also imagine that it will be very therapeutic!

Anyway, for those who don't know, I had a bit of a (mis)adventure a few weeks ago in Italy. I had planned to spend a year there, as an au-pair for a family. I chose a family from Rozzano, a town about 50 minutes from Milan. I went. It didn't work out. It worked out in an epically bad way. I came home....That's the very short and occasionally curt answer I have been giving most people when they've asked about it. Here's the slightly longer version!

To start with, I have to admit that the decision was mightily rushed into. I am an incredibly indecisive person, but once I've made my mind up about something, there's really no changing it. I was originally going to Italy in March next year, just for a couple of months. Then, during a conversation with my mum, it was decided that I might as well go sooner rather than later, and why not?! Since graduating from university in July, I'd been sleeping during the day and working in a bar at night. I really didn't have anything to lose by just going for it. So I set up my au-pair profile and started contacting families.

As I said, once I've made my decision, I'm ridiculously stubborn, and there's no going back. I chose a family I liked the look of and messaged them. They messaged me back saying they needed someone ASAP. In a huge flurry of excitement, and with no time to think, I was there in 11 days.

This is not me.

I don't really want to go into detail about the many things that went wrong while I was there. Basically, the parents and I came to an agreement on the Friday afternoon that I would look for another family, and they would look for another au-pair. Then on the Saturday morning, the mum suddenly- and for absolutely no reason at all- decided that she couldn't trust me. We got into a huge argument. I had no choice but to leave. I spent three days stranded in Milan before flying home.

At least Milan had pretty things!

 I was lucky enough to encounter some lovely, extremely helpful people along the way. I nearly proposed to the adorable man in the Tourist Info Office because he was just so nice and helpful and concerned. On the Saturday afternoon he got out a map and drew all over it, pointing me to a hostel and exactly how to get there. He even phoned them to check they had room for me (it was fashion week in Milan, and he was very worried that the hostels would all be full). I went back the next day to discuss with him how to get to the airport, and he was very relieved to see that I had made friends (with some lovely Australian girls from my hostel) and he was very happy to direct me. He also called me ma'am after everything he said, which was charming.

So what did I learn?

1. Loving kids and being able to look after somebody else's, while living in their house, are two very, very different things. Especially when the family have had au pairs constantly since their eldest child (seven years old) was a baby. This put me at a disadvantage because I was constantly being compared to ex au-pairs. It put the parents at a disadvantage because they clearly had no idea how to deal with their own children without help, and were completely unwilling to try. Mostly though, having 12 au-pairs, most of whom couldn't speak Italian (or English) in 7 years put the kids at a huge disadvantage. To the point that the 3 year old was still being spoon fed at the table and was allowed to wear nappies because she was too lazy to go to the toilet.

2. I learned to stand up for myself. I'm the first to admit that I'm a yellow bellied coward, and I hate any kind of confrontation. I cry when I get too angry, which is extremely unhelpful in any argument. But when you're stuck in another country and are having to defend yourself against somebody in their own home, the time comes when you have to man up. No matter what I feel about the situation as a whole- how embarrassed I am that I came home after 11 days when my family and friends gave me money, bought me presents, and generally made a fuss of me leaving for a year, or how gutted I am that it didn't work out- I have to admit that I am proud of myself for how I acted during the confrontation with the family, and how calm I stayed when I was stranded in Milan on the Saturday.

Milan.

3. Saying that though, a braver person than I would have stayed in Italy. Before I left the family, I had decided to go to Rome to work with another. The decision to part ways on the Friday was mutual and civilised, and I believed that it was just a shame that it didn't work out with that family. I know a few people have said- and many others probably think- that I could have still gone to Rome. I could have done, I know that. And I'm kind of gutted that I didn't. However, even though I managed to turn being stranded in Milan into a bit of an adventure, I was still terrified and in mega shock about what had happened. The idea then of trusting another family, and the possibility of having to go through the whole experience again, was not appealing to me, to say the least. As I said, a braver person than I would have done it. I just couldn't. The only thing I wanted right then was to fly home and be surrounded by people who love me. So that's what I did.

4. On a lighter note, I learned that it's easy to make friends if you just paste on a smile and talk to people. I met three really lovely girls from Australia, Phoebe, Amelia and Jess, who were travelling around Europe and were staying in my hostel. They kept me company and kept me sane over the weekend, and despite everything, I had a lot of fun with them. We went into Milan on the Sunday, met up with a lovely girl called Ali from Canada who they'd met on a train, did some sight seeing and went for pizza, wine and ice cream. On Monday they then helped me lug all of my luggage (ha, is that why it's called luggage?!) to Milan central station to catch my bus to the airport. I was extremely blessed to meet them, I don't know what I would have done without them that weekend!

Duomo at night. Beautiful!

Sneaky pic of Da Vinci's Last Supper

Best pizza ever.

5. When God closes a door, he opens a window. Truuuuuuuuueeee dat. My big Italian adventure didn't work out. Yes, it's a shame. A huge shame, actually. The only thing to do now though is to move on to bigger and better things. This experience has given me the kick up the backside I needed to try and sort my post-education life out. It's made me see that I need, and want, to get on with my career.

If I won the lottery, I'd be off to London to look for publishing internships there. Actually, no I wouldn't. I'd be off to Chicago to bribe a publisher there to sponsor me a work visa. But I haven't won the lottery, and for now I'm happy to be back in Manchester surrounded by my family and friends (who have proven to me yet again over the last few weeks just how amazing they all are). So I'm now looking for a part time, evening/weekend job so that if I am lucky enough to get some publishing work experience from houses in Manchester, I can do that during the week! 

I'm going to start updating this blog again, keeping anyone who cares up to date about my personal life and my Day Zero challenge (I'm starting a new and improved one in January) as well as any random titbits I fancy writing about. I'm also going to throw myself into my book blogging. You can find my book blog here.

I'm more than likely talking to myself right now, but if you've made it this far, you are a champ. Thanks for reading, and peace out! Much love x

Exciting Times Ahead.

As you can probably tell, I gave up on the challenge, because I've been too busy pretending to be a good student!


Anyway, it was Emily's Birthday on Tuesday, and I went back to Manchester in order to celebrate it with her. I'm normally utterly rubbish at buying presents, but because it was her 21st, I wanted to get her something good this time, so I racked my brains and decided on a goody box full of 21 gifts. Here it is...

As you can tell, she likes pink/purple. And baking. And chicken noodles.

Quite proud of it, I must say :D And Emily loved it, so that's all that matters! We had a really good night, and I got to see Martin, Hannah and Ray, who I haven't seen in ages :) Emily had her makeup done by the Mac people in Selfridges, and she looked absolutely bloody gorgeous!

Ignore my stupid eye.

Now it's only 8 days until my Birthday :D Yay! I'm so excited, you'd think I was 12 not 21! I'm having a party at my house, with my family and friends from both home and Bangor, so it's going to be a great night :) Then I'm skiving off uni for a week (Shhh!) in preparation for our holiday to Sissi in Crete :D 

I like to think the recent amazing weather is preparing me for it :) I've been wearing shorts for the last couple of days, and today I'm even wearing a dress and sandals :O

Of course, the flip side to all of this is the amount of work I have to complete before I can enjoy myself for a couple of weeks! I have another (much less fun) blog to write for my Writing for Publishing class, a presentation to prepare for, (which also ties in with my LAST.EVER.LECTURE!) next Thursday, and of course, the big D. But the less said about that, the better! 

So, it's Friday, and from tonight until Sunday night, I'm imposing a 48 hour isolation period for myself, setting up camp in my room and not leaving until I have at least 5,000 words written (other than the obvious toilet/kitchen visits).

This just made me laugh.

            

 Sounds fun, doesn't it?! Needs to be done though, or else, knowing me (which I do, very well), I won't ever get it done, and it'll ruin both my Birthday and holiday. Nobody wants to be sitting in Crete and writing an essay. At least nobody I'd like to meet!

I suck!

So yeah, it seems I'm seriously failing at this! I was tempted to give up, but there's not that long left, and I was enjoying it before I started slacking, so I might as well carry on! So this is a three-in-one because I've been uber lazy. (Well, actually I was busy writing the world's worst essay, but hey!)

Day 21 - A picture of something you wish you could forget

I spent the last few days writing a sci-fi essay about whether Rocky Horror could be classed as sci-fi or not. It was rubbish. I'd like to forget I ever wrote that. 

Day 22 - A picture of something you wish you were better at

If I could have one skill, I'd love to be able to draw. I struggle drawing stick figures! My cousin Joe, and my brother, are amazing at art, and I envy them so much! I just think that it'd be something I could spend a lot of time doing and would help me relax. It certainly keeps Cameron quiet for a long time!

Day 23 - A picture of your favorite book

This one was probably the hardest choice I've had to make yet with these! To be honest, this has been a recent change. I've always classed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as my favourite all time book, but I absolutely fell in love with Eat, Pray, Love. I have to admit that To Kill A Mockingbird came very close to stealing the title again, but although I do love that book and can't wait to read it again, Eat, Pray, Love touched me and changed my outlook. (I never thought I'd ever say that about a book, but yeah, it's powerful.) 

I read Eat, Pray, Love during the summer, and it took me an unusually long time to read, I have to admit. For those who don't know, here's the blurb:

Elizabeth is in her thirties, settled in a large house with a husband who wants to start a family. But she doesn't want any of it. A bitter divorce and a rebound fling later, Elizabeth emerges battered yet determined to find what she's been missing. So begins her quest. In Rome, she indulges herself and gains nearly two stone. In India, she finds enlightenment through scrubbing temple floors. Finally, in Bali, a toothless medicine man reveals a new path to peace, leaving her ready to love again.  

The book is one emotional rollercoaster, as you can probably imagine just from that snippet. I first heard of it when I saw the trailer for the film, which I instantly wanted to see because I adore Julia Roberts, but I knew that the film couldn't possibly compare to a book with that much personal thought and feeling involved in the story, and it doesn't!

I gave the book to my mum and my friend Jasmin to read, and both of them ended up giving up on it, which I don't blame them for at all. It is hard going, especially during the India section, where Gilbert spends most of her time talking in detail about her struggle with meditation and prayer. I think that it's something you really need to have the patience for, and an interest in, to work through. But once through that, the finding love in Bali is worth it! 

It's basically a story about going on a journey and finding yourself and figuring out what you believe in and what you want from the world. I've been reading a lot of books like this lately, I think because it's what I'm trying to do myself at the moment.Gilbert is extremely easy for me to relate to (although I'm not a 30 odd year old divorcee travelling the world, there is a moment when she's in India when she talks about her relationship with God, and I was just like 'wow, you've just summed me up'. It was amazing.)

Anyway, now I've showcased my extremely lame book reviewing skills, (which I should really try to improve, considering the career choice!) I'm going to shush about that! I think that if you haven't read Eat, Pray, Love though, you definitely should. 

Oops...slacking!

Argh, I've missed a day again! I did spend the beginning of yesterday giving a presentation and in another lecture, and the second half of it asleep, so I think I've got another good excuse! Anyway...

Day 19 - A picture and a letter

Cutest. Thing. Ever.

This is a picture/letter combo. This is the letter my brother wrote to me before I moved to Bangor. He was six at the time and spent about a week very upset because he thought that I was going away for three years without coming back, and that he wouldn't see me until he was nine! He cheered up considerably when he grasped that I was going to get the train back every few weeks and that he couldn't get rid of me that easily. Bless him. If you can't make it out, here is my translation...:

Dear Laura,

I want you to have a good three years at university.

I love you lots and lots. I do hope that you do that good.

Bye bye Laura.

I love you.

Good bye Laura.

From Cameron and mum.

Then he has drawn a picture of a rabbit, and under it, it says 'I'm a rabbit. I'm a pet. I have got a circle tail. And the rabbit is saying 'next door's got three rabbits'... I should explain that when he was about four, and first got his glasses, we thought he looked like Jonathon Lipnicki in Jerry MaGuire, who said 'next door's got three rabbits' to Tom Cruise, and we used to always say it to Cameron...

I read the letter to Cameron over the phone the other day, and my mum said he was extremely embarrassed! He's obviously too cool now at nine years old to admit that he ever cried because he thought he wouldn't see me for three years haha!

So, moving on...

Day 20: A picture of somewhere you'd love to travel

Africaaaaa

Aha! A way to get my Africa answer in afterall! I've always wanted to go to Africa and volunteer, but it costs a lot of money and I'm very poor, so it's a no-can-do. Hopefull I will be able to do, when I have a job and have saved up that lot of money! ...But then I'll have a job. Oh well, I'll definitely go at some point!