A year in the life.

A year ago today, I published my first blog post on here.

A lot has happened in a year.

I've had 6,393 views on my blog from 6 continents and 60 countries. I've written 45 posts on this site, but I've also written for Autostraddle, Thought Catalog, Bloomsbury, Total Film and of course Nouse. I've become Deputy News Editor for the campus newspaper! That's pretty groovy.

I've been on more dates this year than in the rest of my life put together. I'm yet to fall in love with a person, but I've fallen in love with some places - with Japan and its gentility and culture, but also with York and its winding streets and perpetually smoke-grey sky.

I've seen a little bit more of the world than I had before: there are now 10 more countries I've set foot in compared to this time last year, and I'm working on seeing even more countries by this time next year.

I've started university, made new friends and maybe lost a few too - but that's okay, because life is all about gaining and losing things.

I've shared my bed with many bodies and even my head with one or two people. I'm slightly officially insane, and the hyperbole makes me feel better - but so does one of my friends holding me in the middle of the night.

I've learned I'm not as smart as I think, but perhaps a bit kinder than I give myself credit for.

Am I a better person than I was a year ago? Probably. I still have a lot to work on though. I'm not as confident as I was, and I'm still self-centred and insecure and liable to flail uncontrollably when tickled. I still wear my bleeding heart on my sleeve and hold onto old grudges like scars and keep raking over the same old wounds, despite knowing how much it'll hurt, but I'm trying to be better.

That's it, I suppose. I'm trying.

Here's to another year of trying.

Will we stand for this?

Sometimes I find myself distracted from doing the things I should be doing - like reading George Eliot books and going to lectures on David Hume - by things that are marginally less important. I spend a lot of my life trawling the internet for places to try and do work experience, and it never goes particularly well.

I end up in rabbit-warrens of despair that all media work experience seems to fall into one of three categories:

1. Unpaid hovering

This is what all my work experience placements have technically been so far - turn up for a couple of weeks, watch people do things, try and be useful. I've managed to get a fair amount out of these though, from pretty much single-handedly generating a week's content for a magazine's website to interviewing a pop star. The problem is you don't get much hands-on experience, and usually expenses aren't paid. Even if I'm only commuting to London for a week, that still costs me about £80 in train fares.

2. Slave labour

The type where you get a job for three months with no pay and expenses only, and are expected to be grateful for the opportunity to do real work - and basically be a short-contract full-time employee - without any promise of further work, or actual help breaking into the sector. These are the sorts that annoy me the most. Science students seem easily able to get themselves paid internships over the summer, even with only a year's academic experience under their belts; but arts demand that you grovel for the chance to make a mediocre writer's tea for twelve weeks.

3. Misadvertised jobs

The final sort are the ones which advertise themselves as "internships". They are not internships. They are year-long schemes for graduate students which will probably end up with permanent employment. They are actual jobs, operating on a year-long contract, which eternally succeed in getting my hopes up, before dashing them - because I'm not eligible to apply to them for at least another two years.

All of these are kinda shitty in their own ways, but type 2 is the worst. Not only is it elitist, by shouldering out of the sector anyone who can't afford three months of unpaid work, but it also devalues the contribution of the interns.

As a kid, growing up, I was taught that if I worked hard in school then I would go to a good university, and if I worked hard at university then I would get a good job and be able to make money doing what I love, and that would be that. I realised at 16 that life doesn't work like that and I couldn't just walk into a job after graduating the same way my dad did. If I want to make my money writing, I have to do it for free, and for a long time. It's one of the only jobs I know of where that's true. 

Honestly, I will probably be a better writer by the end of my degree than I am currently, but it will have less to do with what I studied and more to do with the fact I've had an extra two years to hone my skills. As it is, I am probably a better writer than some graduates, because it is the thing I am good at - and there are going to be some high school students who are better writers than me, if that's the thing they are really good at.

I think we should just ban unpaid internships. Flat-out outlaw them. I'm sure I would be a valued member of your team, but why should I contribute as much as the snotty-nosed 24-year-old next to me when he's on £17,000 a year and I'm on £100 a week expenses?

The sad thing is, I know I'm going to do them. I want to challenge of working on real projects and getting my name in print beyond my brilliant student newspaper - but I also know I'm going to resent having a job and not being paid for it. Will we stand for this? No. But I might well sit at a computer all summer and type for it.

Adventure time.

I want to see the world.

I want to put into words everything there is.

I want to gaze at the northern lights in Iceland and dance under falling leaves in a New England autumn. I want to see the clouds from the other side at the top of a mountain and come face to face with whales in the sea.

I want it all - all the cultures, all the tongues I don't understand, all the new places and experiences. I can't understand why anyone wouldn't.

I've got itchy feet just thinking about it. There is so much of the world to see that we can't ever see all of it. But it feels like we ought to at least try.

I want to feel my heart thudding against my ribs as I abseil down a building. I want to drive across deserts of sand in straight lines for hours. Catch a train across Russia. Backpack through Italian countryside. Headbang at festivals. Gaze in wonder at the same stars in the same sky in all the different countries I can.

In the book he gave me for my birthday, my then-boyfriend wrote: "To settle down is to admit you've seen all the world has. Never stop travelling." He spelled traveling wrong - because what does spelling matter, compared to the jungle islands of Micronesia or temples in Jordan?

What's the world for if we don't try and see it?

That is why I don't have the money to go out this week. It's all in my bank account, saving up for posing in front of signs in Gangnam and visting the hells of Beppu over Easter. I can't wait.

There isn't much of a point to this, except that mostly I love how my university loan is going to be spent on going new places and having new adventures. There's no education better than trying to see the world, is there?

The meaning of life...

This is post #42 on my blog. Really, if I hadn't gone into radio silence between July and December, this day would have come a lot sooner: but, alas, the past is in the past. Unless Dr Who kindly lets me borrow his TARDIS - which, I should point out, has far better uses than being appropriated to retroactively update a blog - there is no way to change that. Anyway, the fateful day has arrived.

Forty-two.

The meaning of life, the universe and everything.

Pretty big, huh.

And who am I, to speak on such a broad topic, you may ask?

Well, honestly, nobody. I'm just a person. But we all are, in the end. It doesn't matter if you're the CEO of a multinational corporation or a toddler drooling over a sticky spoon - we're all just people in the end. Made up of our relationships, experiences and memories. Some people have more of these than others. That doesn't necessarily mean they are more wise, interesting or kind, or any of those other lovely things we should all endeavour to be.

I don't know much. I've never been in love, never had a best friendship so strong it could shipwreck everything else, never achieved anything huge and miraculous that people look up to, never found anywhere I can definitely say I belong. I sort of muddle along, scared of everything and pretending not to be, laughing the loudest to cover up my insecurities... just like everyone else.

But I do know one thing. Well, really, I know many things, like Pythagoras' theorem and how to change a tyre and who Rihanna shared a cab with last night. But I know one really important thing:

Nobody can tell you the meaning of life.

It's not a piece of information that gets passed to you like a dictionary definition or instruction manual. The nearest thing I can work out is that we find our own meaning of life through our actions and interactions. We work on what we want and do what we must to try and forge meaningful moments. The worst thing I can imagine is being on my deathbed, looking back on my life and feeling like it was worthless. It's got to be worth something, doesn't it? The problem is, the only way life can be made meaningful is if you do it. Nobody else will do it for you.

I've written 42 posts on this blog now. Most of them are mediocre. A few are awful. A few might be good. Maybe one of them is brilliant. I suppose I'll just have to keep writing until I can consistently create things with meaning - and, even better, that maybe hold some meaning for the people reading them too.

Bruised.

Natasha Beddingfield can fuck right off: if anyone can talk about getting bruised, then it's me. And no, I'm not talking in the metaphorical sense. I mean literally, physically, black-and-green actual bruises. If there are bruises to be had, I probably have them.

At the moment, I am quite impressively bruised. My bruise catalogue is as follows:

1x hickey, on my neck, from a night of necking in Willow. Reddish and almost invisible.

1x bruise on my left leg, circumstances unknown, but presumed to be from the infamous Party Harty. For reference, Party Harty was almost two weeks ago. This bruise on the outside on my thigh is roughly the size of my fist, presently brown, but has faded full the full spectrum of colours.

4x bruises on my right leg, circumstances also unknown. From their uniform colour (green) and similar locations (in horizontal bands up my shin and to the knee), I presume these are from walking into things - but again, I can't tell you for sure.

1x bruise on my right outer forearm, from either tree-climbing or my habit of shrugging a tote bag off my shoulder and catching it on my arm. Only perceptible because the skin still feels slightly tender, otherwise gone.

Admittedly, alcohol may have featured in a lot of these stories, but I have always attracted bruises, far more than scrapes or burns or cuts.
At ten I fell over constantly, laddering my tights and getting away with no bloodloss but impressive contusions.
At twelve I was so clumsy that the school nurse, seeing my multi-coloured arms, asked if "everything was alright at home." 
At fifteen I would come out of gigs looking like I'd been beaten up without ever going near the moshpits.
At eighteen a playful bite from a beau turned into a line of angry red marks on my tricep, which relegated me to wearing long sleeves for a week lest I explain it to my mother.

On Hallowe'en I was accidentally hit in the face, and wore an impressive black eye for two weeks until it faded into obscurity. My friends might have forgotten, but I haven't: there's still a small bump on my cheekbone where it healed funny, a permanent lump under my right eye.

I sort of like it, the way I sort of like all my bruises.

They remind me that things really happened, that I was really there, anchored in the material world. This is not to say I would ever put up with someone trying to hurt me - ain't nobody got time for that - but more that I understand accidents and incidents. Most are my own fault, from wandering around with my head in the clouds rather than staying grounded. On my more ephemerally dualist days, my bruises remind me my body is real and active and perfect. There is no good reason for me to bruise like this either: I have no blood disorders, and even my chronically-pale family members seem to have more resilient capillaries than I do.

Bruised emotions are another matter, and a story for another time. But, Ms Beddingfield, until you've managed to bruise yourself sliding downstairs to see your friend on New Year's Eve, or carelessly dropping an empty tin on your leg, or sneezing a bit too violently too close to a wall - don't talk to me about bruising easily. I'm like a fucking peach, and I might as well be proud of it.

Beating the blues with green.

Everyone has mood swings. Everyone has days when they feel awful, and getting out of bed takes as much effort and willpower as running a marathon. But these mostly only last a day or two, and then life goes back to normal.

Over the past three or four years, I've noticed a persistent change in my moods around December through to March. I feel much less ebullient, more reserved and cranky. I crave isolation, and company, but want to withdraw from social interaction. The last time I asked a doctor about it, I got told to fill in a questionnaire and come back in six weeks - by which time, it was the spring. Therefore, although it is not confirmed - and honestly, there are very few ways to treat it - the working hypothesis between me and my ex-nurse mother is that might I have some mild form of Seasonal Affective Disorder. (The best thing about SAD is its highly appropriate acronym.)

Anyway, that is the backstory. Take it with all the salt you want, but take away from it the fact that I was feeling fairly down today. Spending time outside is supposed to help, even on miserable overcast days when the whole sky is the same shade of pigeon grey: and so, I was outside, walking home from coffee, when I came across The Tree.

The Tree is opposite the Philosophy department on a fairly busy commuter stretch of the York University campus. There are other trees of a similar height around it, but this one is my favourite. Some way up there is a conglomeration of flat branches which look perfect to sit on; around the tree as a whole, the branches are close together and roughly form a spiral, so by moving clockwise around the main trunk of the tree it's possible to get thirty, maybe thirty-five feet up. The only way up for someone of my height is to grasp a branch about six feet off the ground, and jump your legs in a most inelegant fashion onto a second, slightly lower branch a few feet away. It's the same way I got up my favourite climbing tree as a kid.

So there I was, tote bag slung over one shoulder, making my way up this tree. I stopped to read some philosophy at a nice little flat branch maybe twelve feet up, the same place where I'd watched the sun rise from one day last term. It was peaceful, and easy to people-watch.

You never realise how much people miss until you're in a position to notice for them.

I got bored and numb after a while, and climbed higher to warm up. I tied my bag to a branch and scrabbled haphazardly up the tree, precariously balancing my feet in weird crevices and wondering why I'd never taken my grandad up on his offer of tree-climbing lessons as a child. I stood still for a while; I turned up my iPod and climbed higher; eventually I reached the perfectly horizontal branches I saw from the ground.

From them, I could see the lake in the centre of campus, and the Eric Milner buildings across it; I could make out buses cresting the hill of University Road, and hear hurried snatches of conversation as students and staff rushed past, caught up in their little worlds. In ancient Japan, ninjas were taught to hide in plain sight, which they often did by clinging to the ceiling: it's easy to see why they never got spotted. Nobody looks up.

I'd been sat up the tree for maybe an hour and a bit when the Security Services arrived. Some of the passers-by had reported me, clearly unnerved by my presence. Because if I wanted to commit suicide, apparently a moderately-high tree on a busy part of campus is a far better bet than throwing myself into Ouse or jumping off the top of the Physics building. Either way, the authorities were here: while they had no problem with me being up a tree, they politely implied that people would keep reporting me if I stayed, and really I had better come down.

I did so, slowly, collecting my bag on the way - because like hell was I going to rush and fall out a tree while being watched by two middle-aged, faintly bored security guards. I got back to base level and presented my Student ID for scrutiny, and wondered why it made so much difference.

Up the tree, reading my dry-as-pirates'-tack Philosophy notes on Natural Law, I had been... not happy, but certainly less down. Maybe it was just prolonged exposure to the cold, but my mind felt clearer. With my feet firmly on solid ground, instead of awkwardly wedged against twigs or dangling into oblivion, my mood had plummeted again.

It was only a couple of hours ago, but it sort of feels like it never happened. Only the photos and the green powder on my coat exist as proof. I'm not sure what helped more: the change in perspective, or the low-level rebellion and the evident nervousness it instilled in the general public. Either way, for at least a little while today, I got the winter blues to go away.

I am not your manic pixie dream girl.

Nobody wants to date me.

Yes, I say this, despite having turned down the painfully sweet advances of a guy I love as a friend but do not want to date. Despite the few-month relationships that characterised my 2013. Nobody wants to date me, as an actual living breathing crying bodily-function-having person. People want to date the person they think I am: a manic pixie dream girl.

I kind of can't blame them, to be honest. I have inadvertently stumbled into MPDG territory. I have short, brightly coloured hair. I'm a creative sort. I'm spontaneous and scatter-brained and clumsy and have a habit of grabbing people and dragging them with me on madcap adventures (or, more likely, to pub quizzes and Willow).

But the manic pixie dream girl trope reduces women down into merely these cartoon versions of themselves, who laugh and smile and exist to help direct the eternally-puzzled man puzzle out his eternally directionless life. I've been guilty of it, too (for a boy); thought how nice it would be to date the Welsh guy who I had a crush on for two years based purely on our mutual love for Fire Emblem games. What did I know about him? Not much. But he was attractive, and he represented a break from the ordinary.

And that's the problem. When someone dates you under MPDG assumptions, they are with you because they feel you will bring sparkle and impulse into their otherwise-lacking world. Like you will turn up and suddenly paint the trees a brighter shade of green, and open their eyes to the hitherto unnoticed beauty of Milan Kundera novels and fake glasses. Obviously, people can't do that: we're not magic, not one of us. We cannot force you to alter perceptions unless that capacity to change exists within yourself already.

Once people realise you exist as more than this human-shaped life-brightener, that is when I find the attraction wanes. I am not a manic pixie dream girl. I am not going to support you through every facet of your life. I have my own emotions to chart, my own existential crises to ponder. I get moody and vent about my feelings at inappropriate times; I talk about myself a lot, and I talk far too much when I'm nervous. I can be manic to the point of reckless, and I don't think about consequences enough, unless I'm thinking about them too much. I'm a perfectionist and spend tens of minutes wondering whether I can start this many sentences with "I" (answer: yes, because it's anaphora for rhetorical effect). I do things purely for the stories they will create, and steadfastly stand by principles even when my opponent is a friend.

I will not make your life better.

This is something my dear friend does not understand. Since I've turned down his advances - gently, and then more firmly to drive the message home - he has turned into the person I vent my woes to. He makes sure I know he's never more than a text away and knows just how to make me smile. It's sort of brilliant. He has manic pixie dream boyed himself. (But I'm still not going to date him.)

The thing is, you do not want to date me, V. S. Wells, semi-professional self-pitier and chronic complainer. You want to date Vee, the Facebook profile I present as my best version of me, the girl who dyes her hair monthly and bakes cookies in her knickers at 2am.

I'm not waiting for The One who loves me just as I am - because, honestly, I am a terrible girlfriend and do not want to inflict that upon anyone. This is not a plea for love. It is a request for the stereotyping to end. Just because Nicholas Sparks and Stephen Moffat can reduce women to personality quirks and value-added tits doesn't mean it works in real life.

I might be shiny on the surface, but - to quote the inimitable Andrea Gibson - "I know all of us are scratched, even if you can't hear it when we speak". I'm scratched. Stop thinking the record's perfect, and don't be disappointed when it starts to skip.