Creativity

I've always wanted to be an author. I love the feeling of staring at a blank page and being free to write whatever you want a lose yourself in that world and hope that whoever else reads it will have that feeling too.

I think that as I've grown up all my creativity has taken a back seat or, at least has manifested into a more grown-up form. I love to film videos, I love to write radio-dramas and I love to make-up film ideas yet I only do this as part of my college course.

When I sit down and begin these things I don't get excited and wonder if people that watch/listen to this will be taken to a different place and if I can escape while I write it, I think 'What's the easiest way to get a distinction?' That makes me sad.

One of my upcoming units is going to be fictional writing and I'm really excited about that. I'm hoping I can flex my creative muscles once again and be able to submerse myself in my story and my writing. 

At the moment, I'm trying to come up with a really exciting and orginal idea (without boring you too much, this idea will count towards three units in the end, so it's gotta be good) which'll hopefully completely and utterly capture my imagination.

Right now, my idea is something to with suicide pacts that is giving me very little inspiration so I might change it. I just have to come up with something good.

I'm hoping this will ignite my imagination once more and I can be creative in the way I once was, hopefully. Is this something that's happened to you?

On another note, and as some shameless plugging, if you are creative go to www.creartive.uk.tt and check out my exhibition.

Family

I know a lot of people say that their friends are their family and, although I think that's so amazing to be able to be so close to someone like that, I've never had that really tight, close bond with such a large group of people, maybe one or two - but even then it wasn't close enough to call them my 'family'... My family was always my family.

I'm really close to my Mum and my brother. Those two are my life and there's nothing I wouldn't do for them. When I was really young my Nan died and then my Dad left my Mum, I think it was this that pushed me closer to my Mum and brother. We were all we had left and I wanted to protect them for anyone hurting them ever again and, because of everything that had happened, I knew they would do the same for me too.

Yet, the same two events had the complete and opposite effect on mine and my Dad's relationship. I blamed him for everything, at the time I was 12, I'd always been closer to my Mum and, without going in to too much detail, I felt he had abandoned us when we needed him most. 

My Dad smokes and drinks a lot, about two years a go he had to be taken to hospital for alcoholism and told me he thought he might have cancer. I'd always been worried about my Dad and his health and when my Nan died, of cancer, I was terrified it would happen to him too. I was really close to my Nan and I didn't want to lose another person I loved, so I pushed him away. I screamed and I shouted and I cried and told him I didn't want him to be in my life, when, in fact, it was the opposite that was true - I didn't want him to be out my life. 

This is only something I've come to terms with recently and, since he moved to France nearly two years a go, I haven't spoke to him an awful lot. I hated him, really. He made a lot of bad decisions when he was in England and living with us, he chose girlfriends over me and would drop us and leave us whenever it suited him. 

In July of this year, I am going to France to spend a week with my Dad - I'm terrified. I'm scared we're going to fight, I'm scared we're going to scream and I'm scared everything that has happened in the past will be brought up.

I think it's because I have a new family now. My Mum got remarried to one of the nicest guys around and his children are incredible. They're my family now and, slowly, Chase is becoming part of it too, more than just my boyfriend. I don't feel I need my Dad anymore, he caused me nothing but trouble anyway, I have this really new, incredible family.

I don't want to see him in July and I'm hoping, really hoping, that after that I'll be able to close that chapter in my life and move on. Hopefully.

[In other news, I take back everything I said in my last post about Chase no expressing his feelings. On Monday, he told me he loved me, he'd missed me and we're going to live together, just for a week while his Grandparents are away, but I'm really happy and excited.]

Love

So I have this boyfriend, Chase, and we've been together for 9 months, nearly 10, which is such a long time for me and the longest relationship I've ever had. He's brilliant - he's lovely and charming and one of the nicest people I know. He brings out the best in me and always calms me down and I feel really lucky to have met him. I love him.
I never believed in love. I thought it was nothing more than fairy tales and made-up stories because if love was real, then why doesn't it last forever? It was when my parents split up I started questioning everything, was love just something made up for greeting card companies and to sell films? I just couldn't understand one bit how if love was this amazing, incredible, fantastic thing why was it not permanent? Why did it not last? Yet, I am 18 and I have been in love 1 and a half times.
The first time, or 'half' wasn't real. It was my first boyfriend and although I thought I loved him, it was nothing more than a playground crush. We shared crisps and kisses in the school corridors, his lips tasted of salt and vinegar and stung mine. He cheated on me and made me lose all faith in boys. He wasn't a nice person, but how could I leave him? I 'loved' him, right?
And now, there's Chase. Chase is always how I imagined everything to be. The way I know I love Chase, more than anyone, is that I'm staying in Leicester to go to University. My dream, and anyone who knows me will tell you, was to study and live in London, yet I found out it was too expensive so I settled for just getting as far away from home as possible - Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Scotland, Northampton... Then Chase came along, so Scotland dropped out for Leicester, 'Just in case'. I thought it was perfect, Chase had applied for Leicester, Leeds and Birmingham too - I still had a chance to move away with him. Yet he didn't get into Birmingham, and the course he applied for at Leeds wasn't exactly what he wanted, which left him with.. Yes, you guessed it... Leicester.
Now, I could've just gone to Leeds or Birmingham - but, as I found out, I don't like long distance relationships, especially since by September we would've been together for well over a year. How could I leave all that just to get away from home? So here I am, with my DMU acceptance letter getting ready for 4 years in Leicester. But it's for Chase.
That's how I know I love him, because Leicester doesn't seem that bad if I'm with him - and everyone makes compromises in a relationship. But my life with Chase is pretty perfect, we spend our days in bed watching TV and cuddling and he's my best friend and he kisses my tears away, yet there's just one thing...
See, the problem with Chase is, not that it really is a problem, is that he doesn't express how he feels. So while I wear my heart on my sleeve, he doesn't say anything - that's just the type of person he is. He's too relaxed, in fact if he was any further laid-back he'd fall over, so he doesn't talk about stuff as much as I do.
Like I said, it's not a bad thing, and normally I don't notice it, let alone let it bother me, but this weekend... ughh, this weekend!
Let me explain something to you, I stop at Chases on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then on Friday he comes to my house for the weekend. This is just what happens. So the only days I don't see him is... Thursday, really, this works for us - we've practically lived together since we started going out.
The past week he spent at his Nan's house meaning he didn't see his Mum all week, so he spent the weekend at her house. That's understandable, and let me make this clear - that's not what I'm ranting about here. So, I left his house on Wednesday morning as normally and on Thursday I didn't see him. Friday I start college at 11am and, because I've dropped a lesson, I finish at 1pm - Usually I hang around college and do some work until Chase finishes his lesson at 4 to get the bus back to mine for the weekend. But because Chase wasn't coming to mine at the weekend I just went home at 1.
This meant, when we're meant to see each other for 4 days, I barely saw him for a few hours. This really upset me (my Uncle died of a brain tumour just a few weeks a go and I'm still overly emotional about it) so I told him, I told him I missed him and all that. He was just like 'I know, I miss you too - still only 2 days now, I'm off to game!'
Sometimes I wished he was more like he was at the start of our relationship - He used to talk all the time about how he felt for me and how I made him feel, in quite some detail. Maybe it's comfort now, he doesn't need to reassure me he loves me, I already know. I know he misses me when I'm not there, so why does he have to tell me?
Sometimes I wish he still would.

Friendship

Okay, so the Easter holiday's have just finished here, which means back to College (boo!) but it also means seeing everybody I love (yayy!) My friends are such a big part of who I am - I love just being with them and spending time with them. There's something so amazing about just sitting and talking with someone for hours on end and I really love finding people I can do that with.

I have a lot of friends that I've met in a lot of different ways, like people I've met from message boards and concerts that I only get to talk to online or see really rarely, which I hate, and then there's people I know through college that I get to see every day, which I love. Irrespective of how I know them, they are all really special to me in lots of different ways and they're all really different people.

Somebody I'm quite close to me asked me a question for a video she's making the other week. It was "How do you choose your friends?" and that got my thinking, like is there one thing that actually... defines your choice in friends? I mean, I'd like to say 'no' and, as I said earlier, all of my friends are really quite different, but there is something, some common factor that all my friends have in common.

They all make me laugh. Now, you might think that that's a given, but for me that's such a huge, massive deal to me. We can have nothing in common but as long as they make me laugh, and, ever better, if I can make them laugh, then I'm happy.

A perfect example of this is my step-sister, when I met her we were completely different - she liked Slipknot and wore nothing but black and lace, I liked McFly and my wardrobe was filled with pink skirts. Yet we got on, really well. Now, were a lot similar but back then we had nothing in common. But she was funny, we had the same sense of humour and that's how we bonded (well, that and boys)
So, if it wasn't for humour being paramount in my friendships I wouldn't have such a good friend in Megan who is responsible for some of the biggest moments in my life.

I found that one question really interesting actually, so I'm going to ask it to you: Is there any way you choose your friends? Anything they have in common? Anything your friends must have or be able to do? 

Hello!

Hello everybody!

Okay so this is my first proper blog (I have blogged before but not for others to see and not actively) so this is quite exciting for me!

I'm planning to blog on here and on youtube, which will happen as soon as I get around to sorting out a camera and I'll post my youtube link on here when I start getting videos up.

I'm basically doing this because, well... there's a lot going on in my life and there's a lot of really exciting things going on so I thought this is a brilliant way to document it and share it with all of you.

So, I guess I should tell you a little bit about myself:

My name is Leigh, I'm 18 and I'm from a little town in the middle of England. I'm studying Media at the moment and I'm going to go to University in September - that means I'll be a grown-up and that's scary!

I'm into music in a really big way. I would say 'I like anything and everything' but I don't. It's not that I have a really specific music taste, there's just certain genres I'm not really into - mainly hip hop and r'n'b and the like.

At the minute, I'm really into The Scene Aesthetic and if you haven't listened to them, you should check them out - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV6d3BAZI94

So if you know any other music that's similar that you think I'd like just send a reply and let me know.

I'm a little bit of a nerd, like I really like Harry Potter and Twilight, and reading as a whole actually. I'm really passionate about film, especially But I'm cool in other ways, I promise! 

Okay, so additionally I am going to attempt for every one of my blogs on here to have some type of theme so it's not just incoherrent rambling and there's actually some type of substance to them.

I'm going to post my first one seperately in a minute.

=]