Journal.

So as you'll well know by now, I've been on the search for the perfect bag, travel journal, and pen for the trip to Oz...yes I know it's in 6 months time but haven't you ever heard of forward planning?

Now, as far as the bag goes, I may have made progress! It turns out there is a leather maker in my very city, not 10 minutes away, who's online catalogue does have some bags in similar styles to the Saddleback Leather Briefcase, and considerably cheaper. He also apparently does do custom made bags, whether its just tweaking one of his existing bags or trying to make one to order. You can check out the link here. I've just been down there this afternoon, drove me and my dad and didnt kill either of us, but unfortunately his workshop was closed. Apparently he doesnt work weekends so I'm going to try going back in on Tuesday I think. I've got plenty of print outs and drawings and sketches of what I want, so I'm hoping he can help me out. In terms of price, the SBL bag was about £350 + P&P from America; this guys bags are about £115. Brilliant :)

As for the travel journal and pen, well...I'm very happy :)

Originally I thought the Midori Travel Journal was on the button, but after closer inspection I'm thinking not. It's not the right shape, too tall and while the refill system is very cool, its not what I'm looking for specifically for Australia.
Now some of you might know I'm a fan of the Moleskine notebooks, and have about 5 waiting for me, but again as with the Midori, I dont think they'll be as suited for what I have in mind for Australia. For starters, I'm looking for something softback, and I've already got hardback ones and dont fancy shelling out for a Softback Moleskine when I'm pretty sure its not right. Secondly, from what I've read online, I'm not sure how well it will lie flat.
I've also been looking at the Cartesio but think its a bit too Moleskine-ish for my requirements. Basically I've been reading through the Black Cover notepad review blog for inspiration, so take a look.

Then after much perusing, I discovered the Ciak. The review is promising, and I have found a site that sells them here, even 3 for 2! AND even more excitingly (cough) they actually do a specific travel journal, though its only in the medium size and part of me is leaning more towards the large. But the EXTRA special good news is that I suddenly remembered while reading some comments, that Paperchase at least used to have that very notebook. So after college yesterday I popped in, and they had ONE, single, solitary, lonely Ciak Travel Journal in red! It was perfect! It was the sample they'd had, and while the rest of the travel journals had sold, no one wanted the bashed sample one. I was the opposite! I'd been looking at the red one anyway, so I had to ask how much they'd knock off considering it was the only one left and the sample at that. Originally, the manager said she could give me 10% off... from £10.50. I was hesitant. She then offered me 15% off. And then, out of nowhere, while we were just talking and she was seeing if there were any other notebooks that were suited to what I wanted, she just said "Oh you know what, I'll give it to you for half price. It's been sitting there on its own for ages and no one else wants it, and you do, so I'll give you half price." Brilliant. £5.50 in the end, means I got the medium Ciak Travel Journal for less than they were selling the pocket version! And I couldn't be happier it with it. It's got the standard first page for information, but with more travel-specific details such as Passport Number and Drivers License. Then there's an itinerary page, and a world map, which is perfect for me because I can draw in the flight paths we take :) Then you've got the usual pages of distances, and units of measurement and such like, then finally a check list before the journal proper. And what a joy it is... the paper is so smooth and soft, and though I cant bring myself to write on it just yet, I'm confident it will be a joy to write on. It comes with alternating blank and lined pages which is perfect for sticking photos on and writing notes. It doesn't fully lie flat, which is perhaps the only downside, but other than ring bound notebooks I havent used many notebooks that do lie sufficiently flat, and its not as if I'm going to be using this in a situation where I've only got one hand.

As you can see from these pictures, one great thing about it is that the elastic band is horizontal, not vertical like the Moleskine, which is perfect for holding a pen and keeping loose papers and such like inside. Its also slightly bigger than the pocket Moleskines I'm used to, yet still a really nice size to hold. It really does feel nice in my hand :) the soft faut-leather cover is smooth and supple with enough flexibility. I'm not bothered about the fact it looks bashed, because it was only going to get that way anyway. In some respects, if I'd bought one new I'd be too worried about bashing it, because I'm odd like that. So it suits me down to the ground. I'm not brilliantly keen on the lines in it, they dont go all the way to the edge and there's a top margin which seems a bit pointless, so I'm debating whether or not to bother getting one for my next notebook, but for this use, I love it.

As for the pen, well its there in the pictures. After we went to Paperchase, dad needed to go to the LCE for some new binoculars (£300 but he gets a free pair of compact ones worth £150?!?! Mine!), and then I persuaded him to let us go in Rymans. I spent about 10 minutes trying pens before I found the Uni-Ball Jetstream SX-210 1.0 pen, also known now by me as the perfect pen.
It's gorgeous. The barrel shape is brilliant and the pen feels evenly weighted when you write with it. The only flaws are that the rubber grip is probably not rubbery enough, and there's a plastic ridge right where I hold it, but nothing major. It really is ridiculously comfortable to write with, and this coming from someone who hasnt had to hand write anything much for months, so anytime I do my hand aches after about 2 minutes. But not with this pen. The ink is a very dark black, not like some of these 'black' pens that come out grey, and you dont have to apply much pressure to get an even line. I think its technically a rollerball, but it looks and feels more like a gel ink to write with, its that smooth and flowing. Apparently the ink is meant to me fade resistant and waterproof too.

All in all, after a good days driving today too, despite HTLeather not being open, I'm feeling rather contented today. Some of the things I'm selling are in the paper now and I'm hoping we do get some interest, as I need the money.

So yes, happy. Cold, very very cold, but happy.
And to top it all off, I'm going to see Jon Richardson and Shappi Khorsandi at the Exeter Northcott tonight!!!

H.x

EDIT: Another advantage of the Uni Ball SX-210's likeness to a gel ink is that it gives you the smoothness and darkness of a gel ink, with the durability of a biro/ballpoint eg it wont bleed through paper at all!

Mothers day: Chocolate truffle, Jade Goody, Dancing On Ice, and a little bit more Jade Goody.

Ok so I didn't actually complete this blog entry on the day, I just posted the title thinking I'd get round to writing it the next morning...whoops. So mothers day...went well considering the previous evening. I realised when I woke up that no matter how crazy she drives me, she's my mother and I love her. These past few months have been horrible; I've been struggling to get over what happened, and so have my parents - I think I forget that sometimes. It does put me in a difficult situation sometimes though, as I'm trying to deal with what happened to me in a way thats best for me, but it impacts on them too, so I try not to hurt them. Anyway, more on that in another post - back to mothers day. So for presents I got her the bear on the right --> and a Willow Tree ornament - 'Close to you' - yes, she cried. I guess it showed her how much I do love her (despite, as I say, how crazy she can drive me sometimes). After she stopped crying we all went out for a family lunch, with my brother, father and nan. (+ me, mother & father, just to be clear). It was a lovely meal, as followers of my tweeting will know! After stuffing myself silly we all went home to watch Dancing on Ice...here we go.
So yes, I agree on some level that Ray should have won; he was the best skater in the competition; but, like a lot of people, I too felt that there is just something about him that makes the skin crawl! Plus, he basically performed at the same level from start to finish with no improvement (because he didnt really need to improve), which brings me to Donal. I will be the first to admit his improvement throughout the course of the competition was astounding, but I never really warmed to him. Jessica on the other hand...again, as fellow twitter-ers will know, I am a huge fan of Jessica (in fact I always have been, ever since her Popstars days) on a lot of levels (lol) and I truly believed that in terms of what the competition was about, she should have been the winner; a) she improved a lot, which is surely the point? and b) she ended up as a fantastic skater. So she trumps Donal in the skill-stakes and Ray in the improvement-stakes. For her not to get to skate Bolero in the final 2 made me literally shout out loud in anger! Ok so if she'd been in the final 2 Ray probably would have still won, but this years run of DOI has been consistently full of wrong results - Todd Carty lasting as long as he did, Coleen 'Jon Sargent' Nolan getting further than Zoe Salmon and a lot of the costumes, so perhaps it wasn't surprising. Still - I'm bitter that Jess didn't win. Ha.
On the Jade Goody side of things; what a sad day for her sons and family. I could say more, in fact on the evening of mothers day I got into a full on debate with a couple of people about the whole situation, but all I will say is that despite whatever she did in life, a mother died on mothers day, two boys are without their mother, and people should have some respect.

UCAS - Yesterday.

Yesterdays picture (apologies for the lateness, was too tired last night) is not too exciting on the face of it; a stack of all the prospectuses/prospecti I gathered throughout the course of the UCAS convention yesterday.

So the UCAS convention; wares were flaunted, incentives were waved and various 'We're better than they are' speeches were paddled; all in all, quite an enjoyable day. The bottom 9 or 10 prospectuses are the 9 or 10 Uni's that I took a liking to within the short time of the convention, and the top half are those that didn't look quite as exciting for me and the course I want to do. However, last night after the convention I made the mistake of looking at the University League Tables and saw that most of the ones I had been looking at were quite low down. Now I know that shouldnt matter, a degree's a degree after all, but as a naturally competitive person I am bound to feel a bit confused. "lol"

But I do still have quite a while to think about it, so I don't need to get myself too worried about it. If any of you have any University recommendations or 'dont-go-there's then please feel free to let me know :) All thats left for me to say now is, Happy Weekend!

EDIT: Just realised, this photo is technically not for yesterday as you had one then too :)

Insomnia, again.

It just gets later and later doesn't it? Or earlier and earlier, depends how you see it I suppose; the time at which I get to sleep. I am still awake at this time. I have to be up at 10 (not that painfully early I know) to get ready for a UCAS convention where I will have to browse for hours all the different Universities vying for my attention and money. Fortunately I have done a bit of research into which Uni's do the kinds of courses I'm interested in, so I won't be stumbling as blindly as some I know. Ok, I'm going to try this sleep malarky again now. Oh yeah, and there's your photo for today too. Only kidding, I'm sure I'll find something interesting to snap during the day proper.

20 slow - I froze today.

So today was not the best of days. After my mini breakdown last night. As my entries and twittering from last night would have shown to all who saw them, I spent my evening panicking about a 2250 word essay I had to write for today, and subsequently suffered huge writers block.

Now you may think; writers block, everyone gets that from time to time, its certainly nothing to get so worked up about - this is where I would scream. I have never suffered from writers block before, or if I have it has lasted so short I time I have not even noticed it. This is different. I have always been able to write. I'm the kind of person who could leave an essay til the night before and still churn out something to rival that of someone who has spent weeks on it, I've always been able to do that. I've always been able to call upon my writing ability, but recently that ability has disappeared. So yes, last night I had a bit of a breakdown. Everything has been building up and the fact I couldn't write again just freaked me out. An extension for the essay has since been arranged.

After that exhausting night, where I still didn't manage to get to sleep until around 4am despite not having to stay up to write the bloody essay anymore, I took the morning off college and went in for 12.20 for a one-to-one tutorial with my oh-so-lovely-and-supportive-of-my-current-situation English Lit lecturer. Prior to my meeting with her my parents had been in touch with her to ask her (from her Deputy Head of English Department position) to speak with the lecturer of the other English (Language) to arrange said extension. Here I spoke to her about what had happened the night before and explained that when faced with having to write 'creatively' or 'at all', I literally freeze. She empathized and told me it will get easier.

2 hours later I was back in her classroom for the usual English Lit lecture. 45 minutes in she asks us all to spend 10 minutes on a creative task. I freeze. My mind goes as blank as the page in front of me. I start getting worked up. As she wanders round the class checking on people she sees me panicking a bit and asks me if I'm struggling. I tell her in no uncertain terms I am. She tells me to breathe. I try that but unfortunately I still can't write anything. I ask her if I can take a minute out. She'd said in previous meetings with her I always could if I needed to, so she said of course and I practically ran out of the classroom, down the hall and sat down in front of a radiator.

Of course she came to check on me a few minutes later and proceeded to apologise for setting a creative writing task after I'd told her it makes me freeze. I mean, how lovely is she? I wouldn't have expected her to change her lesson plan for me at all! She told me just to take another few minutes then come back in when we'd be reading through some other stuff. I kept apologising and got quite upset and angry and I think that honestly surprised her, seeing me like that. So all in all, not the best of days. I've just got to keep hoping this will all get easier, and got to keep trying to get through this. "Some days are harder than others"; that's what I would have said a month ago - now, most days are horrible.

On a photo note; 2 for today, both taken after the one-to-one whilst having a cigarette. I love the first one so much, I have no idea why. It was an accidental photo really, but I'm glad it happened as I find there's something cute about the little leaf. The second just about sums up the speed I'd give anything to be going at, 'cos right now, I feel like I've ground to a halt!

Source of life.

This is dedication for you; despite needing to write approx. 2250 words in about 3 hours of an A grade quality to be handed in tomorrow, I am still blogging. Actually, this isn't so much dedication as me desperately trying to find something else to do other than what I should actually be doing. But lets not be picky here.

Rather aptly, today's photo is of my macbook; apt because I am constantly glued to it these days. As we speak I am trying to write those previously mentioned 2250 words, and once I've got those done I'll have to get started on another 1500, and after those anther 100, and then...well, you get the pattern of my life at the moment.

My macbook is probably my most beloved possession (rivalling only my cuddly toy monkey and my iPhone), and I use it everyday for everything. I am a self confessed internet addict - I literally go a little nutty if I can't get access for a few days - camping in low signal areas will just not do - so I have to check/modify/post to my emails/facebook/livejournal/blogger/twitter/hotmail/flickr/various other internet time-stealers every day. I also record music, edit photos, edit films and much more, so my macbook literally is my life force most of the time. I don't know how I managed without it (and of course my 320gb portable hard drive), and could not do so in the future.

Of course, my macbook is also my creative center in terms of writing; apart from the obvious access to lj and blogger, I have folders upon folders of half-written novels, abandoned plays, and to-be-re-worked poetry. If my macbook were to be stolen or broken, I would break every finger of the person responsible. Therein lies an important lesson with me; my macbook reigns supreme - watch your step. Or something like that anyway.

Now I have essays to write.

Sheilded bloom.

Evening all, here as promised is the photo blog. However, I highly doubt I will manage the longer post I spoke about in yesterdays entry; I've just got so many essays to do and not a lot of time to do them in, so any time left over the next few days will be dedicated to those.

One of these days I will get down to using this blog for what I aimed to use it for; working up the courage to post my writing again. Almost daily now I've wanted to write something more substantial but haven't had either the time or energy to do so, or sometimes it's that I don't quite know what I want to say.

I started writing a long reflection on how I'm worrying more about my future now than ever, but it started to drive me crazy so I gave up. Story of my life? Soon I will actually say the things I need to say. For now, I leave you with something funny I saw/read on twitter from the cute and almost-hilarious @sockington; munch munch munch I'M HAVING DEJA VITTLES THE STRANGE SENSE I ATE THIS BEFORE munch munch munch. I love it haha :)

Windows.

Another day, another photo - or in my case, another day, another two photos. Admittedly and obviously this really is just the same photo, just edited in two different ways, so you could say I'm cheating.

Although this/these photo/s were taken (as you can see) at 01.14 on the 15th March, and Iam also writing and posting this entry on the 15th March, I am counting this as my photo/blog post for the 14th - a day filled with hangover TV and sleep, which did not leave much time or energy for taking photos. However, at 8pm I decided to go to the pub (as twitterers will know) and the alcohol clearly gave me a new lease of energy, naturally.
Thus upon my return I rather viciously seized my camera, opened the window and...took a photo. The first few snaps were blurry haphazard attempts, so I made myself calm down a little and play with focus. That was honestly the first time I have ever thought about depth of focus etc in a photograph. And so this image was born; I pointed the lens at the frame, held the button half way down, then centered the slip of outside and pushed down. It seemed to work. I shipped the image over to iPhoto and once more fiddled with exposure, highlights and contrast. And B&W. I liked what I saw - I hope you do too.

On a non-photographic note: All day today (14th March, remember) I had been meaning to sit and write a fairly lengthy entry about all sorts, but alas, my sleepy body and brain had other ideas. Therefore tomorrow (today, 15th March) I will endeavour even harder to do so, while of course aiming not to repeat the neglect of photo-taking on the correct day. Hoping I can stay awake and focused for enough of tomorrow to a) complete overdue work and b) honour the afore-promised promises.

Wastefulness.

Another day, another photo; but today I have 2 :) both edited a fair bit, played around with saturation and noise levels, and both up (in slightly better quality) on my Flickr.

Took these today over lunch, where my friends and I enjoyed a nice game of 'tear up as this lovely drugs advice leaflet into as many pieces as possible'. Don't worry, we put it all in the bin afterwards. Got a couple of strange looks when I started taking random snaps of our rubbish consisting of apple cores, half eaten chips and various food wrappers, but I had a promise to keep to my blog so I carried on :)

Something about all the different colours, textures and shapes compelled me to take these particular photos - the piece of paper that looks like giraffe skin is my favourite, although I honestly can't remember that being in the booklet - and then I had a little play with iPhoto to alter the colours even more.

Bottled it.

Yesterday I had the bright idea of saying I would try and take at least one photo per day, and make at least one blog entry each day; so here goes for today.

The story behind this photo is fairly simple; as with every day I got on my normal bus, although today it was a double decker which threw me a little bit as it offered me more choice of seats than I could cope with, so I dithered in the aisle for a millisecond whilst I tried to scan and pick without people noticing, and then I took my seat at the back on the left hand side. I have to sit on the left hand side of the bus - it doesn't matter where really, although the back is preferable. I'm not sure why. Anyway, I chose my seat at the back and put my feet up on the opposite chair (which is the one in the photo), pressed play on the iPhone's iPod, sat back and started rolling a cigarette to the sound of Fleet Foxes.

When I'd finished that little job, I brushed the little flakey bits of tobacco that had fallen into my lap onto the floor and sat up, feet on the floor, leaning forwards. It was as I did this, and looked out the window, that I saw this bottle wedged between the window and the chair opposite, and then noticed the pen next to it. Something, and don't ask me what, grabbed me about it, so I dived into my pocket, wrenched out the iPhone and took a photo.

Todays image has also been through a fair bit of image editing because the light levels made the original image look faded and over-saturated, but I still can't decide if I'm as happy with this picture as I am with the traffic lights. Something about that photo really grabs me, and its quite possibly one of, if not the, picture I am proudest of having taken.

Daily photo aside, today went well. Still slowly working up the courage to post some 'original writing', but that will come with time. I hope. I am still physically writing things, lots of things, but that's about as far as it gets at the moment. Just too scared of letting something go out there, of letting others see something so personal. In time. In terms of tweeting, today was a quieter day from me, didn't have as many conversations going or as much to tweet about. Tomorrow is Red Nose Day - that means costumes, friends, fun and music; and all for a brilliant cause - I can't wait. Having been to one of the poorest countries in Africa myself, I know how much good Comic Relief money does. Give generously, raise enthusiastically, have fun, and remember what you're doing it for.

Night all.

Snowy lights.

Now I'm not a photographic whizkid by any stretch of the imagination, but I took this photo during the recent snowfall and I liked it, but as it was taken with the less-than-brilliant iPhone camera, it lacks in quality. Therefore I popped it onto iPhoto and had a little play. Some of the edits I quite liked so I thought I'd whack my favourite one up here.

I played with contrast, saturation, sharpness, temperature and highlights :) whatever that means?

EDIT 11/03/09: I'm pretty sure this might be my favourite photo I've ever taken. No idea why; technically, it's rubbish, but there's something about it I love.

EDIT 16/03/09: I'm still bloody proud of this. I keep on scrolling down to it whenever I'm on my blog page. How bizarre.

Maybe

I was thinking, maybe it will be easier to start posting 'poetry' again if it's here, on the new blog. Perhaps an element of the courage-to-post struggle I've been experiencing is because lj is something that remains the same as from before what happened, so I don't want to go back? Which really annoys me, because I'd built up a good sense of community over there that I don't want to lose. Another element is probably that, technology wise (blogs in particular) I get bored easily of the interface, themes, general layout etc, so probably sub-consciously that was a part of it. All in all, I don't want to lose my writing because of this. He's taken enough; he's not taking this. Writing has always been important in my life, from the little stories I used to write as soon as I learnt how, to the many discarded attempts at novels, plays and movie scripts, but most importantly; my 'poetry'. Personally I hate the word 'poetry' (but we'll save that for another day) but I guess I've always written it. I'm a musician too and lyrics are basically poems, so 'writing poems' is something that comes naturally. Over the last 18 months or so my confidence as a writer had been growing, (you could say it was even overtaking my confidence as a person) as I found the courage to show my writings to those in the know. But now, after what happened, I find that my stomach fills with a crippling sense of dread at the thought of posting anything online, where anyone else can see it. I didn't, no couldn't, physically write anything for about a month after, but then gradually it started coming back to me; little phrases here and there, that would just pop into my head like they used to, need writing down again; complex rhymes and rythmns would float around and need to be accounted for; once more, I would find myself desperately having to write something down for fear of losing it. The mojo was returning. But now, at this stage, despite having written full 'poems' and pages on pages of phrases that all could be developed into something more, I still can't show it to anyone. If he had left me my ability to write, I would almost be able to forgive him everything else, but the fact that he has taken my confidence as a writer...sounds ridiculous I know, but it's true. Writing was all I had, it was the only thing that I was even slightly better at than others, it was my art. Maybe one day, it will be again. Here's hoping.

A fresh start here.

I am opening a new door today.
Starting new blogs, but not abandoning the old one. Continuing my twitter adventure as Holly-Alyx.
She is a pseudonym, and I will never pretend otherwise.
I find it easier to write as someone else. I find it easier to live on electronic pages, as someone else. I am re-building my life after recent events that have damaged me. I am trying, at least.
I'm getting there.

image credit - http://www.flickr.com/photos/waynephotoguy/