My amazing friends

In the four and a half months I've been living in London, one of the things that tend to overcome me is a feeling of isolation. When I came, I believed that I wouldn't find it too hard to make friends. I knew that it would take a particular sort of person to want to hang out with me because there are very few people who share my eccentricities about life. There are a lot of people who just seem to be too sane* to be friends with me for whatever reason, I don't know but it's simply a fact of my life. Whenever I slyly mention it to someone they'll go "Well, I've not talked to anyone who has a problem with you" which is basically the story of my social life. Everyone has this sort of pleasant indifference to me. Pfft, Whatever. However, I believed that there would exist these sort of people who i would naturally click with  Didn't quite work the way I planned though. 2011 has been better and I'm starting to actually gasp talk to people and am getting closer to a few people which is awesome. On the rare occasion, I may even sit next to someone at dinnetime (a very notable situation in catered accommodation). Despite this, I still mark myself as someone who is not very good at socialising... with anyone. If anyone has any ideas why, I'm desparate to hear them.

This blog isn't about my lack of finding erstwhile companion though. It's about the people who by some means or another, I am friends with.  I am constantly being shocked and amazed at how fantastic my friends are to me and I love them so much for this. There are a lot of people close to me who don't know most of the important drama in my life but when they are really supportive of me based on the little rubbish things that get to me, I just feel so loved. I have to admit, recently a lot of it has been about lending me little bits (or big bits!!) of money here and there while I struggle to get my student loan through and a job. I know I shouldn't revolve my life around money but what people have done for for me in this sense has been so overwhelming that I genuinely had to stop myself from crying last time it happened. And everyone else has just shown me a lot of friendlove in a way that makes me feel so happy and fuzzy inside. Don't get me wrong, there are still people who would be happy to be friends with me just so they can talk about themselves/get in my pants but usually I don't pay them much bother. In the same guise, someone who you put a lot of effort into talking to/being friends with who doesn't reciprocate also isn't worth it. That one happens a lot more. But I like to think I've chosen the good'uns and if you're reading this and wondering you are one, you probably are. Which makes me feel that anyone who talks to me one day and then fails to acknowledge me the next day at college isn't really worth it.


There are some people in my life who I really truly love and I really owe them everything. There are people who I'm desparately scared of falling out of contact with now that we've all separated off into our different Unilands. I can't wait to get back to LARP as well. Larpers are such a supportive bunch and there are very good reasons that I see a lot of them as my surrogate family. I've been a bit absent from it recently and so I hope when I get back into it, I will be talking to more people and will be back with this lovely bunch once again becuase so many of them come under the love addressed in the previous paragraph. The people who I've known and saw practically every day for 2/5/7 years are extremely important and stand by me like conjoined twins with their shoelaces tied together and I would fall apart without them.


Love you all <3

The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl

This is a repost of an article that was published in The Heythrop Lion - I have to confess that I'm not desparately keen on the finished article but here it is) 

Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour. 

I’m going to make a speculation here. A large number of us know very little about prostitution. Many of you have probably never been or hired a prostitute. I certainly haven’t. In fact, my first and most meaningful experience of prostitution to date came in Fresher’s Week. Not having a laptop or enough money to go to all the Fresher’s events, I sat in my room and read The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour. The book consists of various blog posts published on the “Belle de Jour” weblog between 2003 and 2004. At this early point in the article, I want to discourage you from believing that this is the book of ITV2’s Secret Diary of a Call Girl because, although the events are ever-so-loosely based on the blog, it is also largely dissimilar. 

The book contains exactly what it says on the cover. However, this would probably be even more accurate if the book was entitled The Intimate, Explicit and sometimes just plain Icky Adventures of a Perfectly Normal Londoner. As you can probably guess, it’s mainly focused around Belle’s exploits as a £300/hour call girl but it also looks at her general “normal” life too. It’s not beautifully written. Perhaps that’s all we can expect of someone who’s a blogger and not a novelist. It certainly doesn’t make for great novel-reading and is hardly a page-turner unless what makes you turn pages is trying to find out how someone is going to be anally penetrated today. 

I think one of the reasons people tend to find this book annoying is that Belle de Jour’s life is just too gosh-darned normal. There are no scenes of her injecting heroin into her arms while her 8 illegitimate children Sesame Street. She texts her boyfriend, gets annoyed at the Underground, visits her Mum, has break-ups and buys lightbulbs. Sure, somewhere in the middle of that you’ll read about a guy peeing on her in the bath while she cries for erotic purposes but unfortunately she generally has quite a normal life. And to add to the sheer mundanity of it all, you then find out that she was using her money to fund a PhD in informatics, epistemiology and forensic science. She also used the money to buy lots of underwear but that probably goes with the territory.  

It’s probably time we sat down and accepted that sex doesn’t need to be something sensationalised. I have little doubt that the main reason that people are buying this book and subsequent others that Belle has published is because they feel that they are missing out on something and, rather than try it out themselves, want to read about someone else doing it. 

I should probably add some sort of public warning here saying that although being a high-paid prostitute may seem like a good way to pay off your student loan at the time, it may lead to, amongst other things, nuns being displeased in you. 

So, if you see yourself as the sort of person who might enjoy reading about fisting over a light lunch at Pret, then Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl is the book for you.

"And what do you want to *do" with that degree...?"

I get that a lot.

I don't tend to get people telling me that I don't do a "proper" degree because it takes people's brains a while to catch up between the time when I say "Phi.." and when I finish with "losophy, Religion and Ethics". I tend to get "Well, you're covering your bases like that" and "Woah, that's a lot". They just can't comprehend that really, those are three very similar subjects and that whatever happens, I'd still spend most of my degree hiding from St Thomas Bloody Aquinas. 

However, people are always asking me what I'm going to do with my degree. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be a professional philosopher or ethicist and spend my days stroking my long philosophical beard but with the way education funding in England is going at the moment, I'm not sure any sort of charity concert is going to help me raise the money I'd need to be able to do a Masters or a PhD in such a "non-priority" subject.


So, this is what I tell people who ask me these questions.

"Well, you see, I don't think that universities should be anything like some sort of job-preparation centre. Sure, there are some degrees such as Medicine, Engineering or Dog-Grooming that could ultimately lead to a job. However, the fact of the matter is that we're not all going to become doctors, engineers or dog-groomers. And it makes me sad to think of an 18-year old, full of youthful energy and hope, who has already settled on what their entire future holds before they've even left the treacherous territory of teenagehood. No, I think that university should be a time when we develop ourselves personally and academically. I just want to spend three years doing a subject that I really love. The skills that you gain from a university degree are often a lot more useful than those that you gain from sitting in an office being depressed about life. A degree is Sociology is about as useful as teaching you how to be a manager as a degree in Marketing."

Developing oneself personally and academically probably sounds like a bit of a cop out but some of the most influential people out there are people who did Arts and Humanities degrees. Oscar Wilde, JK Rowling, Barack Obama, you name it.

Also, of course, this sometimes worries people when all they wanted to do was make small talk. They sort of give me that familiar look all students are given in that moment where someone thinks you're going to throw a fire extinguisher at them. If my Small Talk Senses start tingling, I often just say "Maybe Journalism or um, teaching". 

The main problem with the Browne report isn't that they are raising the tuition fees (although this is very important) - it is that they are drastically reducing the funding for Higher Education in the UK and they feel that they will be able to counter this by raising tuition fees? Not likely. 

Also, I do find the emphasis on STEM (Science, Teaching, Education and Medicine) subjects depressing. Why, in yhwh's name, would someone feel that it would be a good idea to discourage people from lower income families from going into Arts and Humanities? I'm pretty sure there's a reason for the image of the "starving artist". Historically, people from backgrounds where they have very little money/a pretty shitty time create gritty, realistic pieces of artwork/writing. They've seen the world, known pain and suffering, that sort of malarky. Maybe that's where the fascination with rich people and "slumming it" comes from.


That was horribly stereotyped and probably mostly untrue but I don't think there should be a situation where someone is "too poor" to do an Arts degree. We also don't want a situation such as in the US where if you can afford to go to university, fantastic but if you can't you have to work very hard to get a scholarship. We're past that, right??

Also, think, Adolf Hitler got rejected from art school. Obviously, we know who the good guys are


So,

"No ifs, no buts, no education cuts"

"Don't be a Kant, don't cut our funding"

"Down with this sort of thing"

and

"This sort of shit wouldn't happen at Hogwarts!"







-Hazel 
Student loan still hasn't come through. Spare a bottle of Sprite, guv'nor?

5 Shows that Must be Commissioned

Right, I've had it. Television is useless. Useless, useless useless. And rubbish. Here are five television shows that should be commissioned instead.

1. Super Violent Twin Death Match - In this first, never-before-seen-(apart-from-possibly-in-America), live show, two sets of famous twins will compete to the death for your amusement. The first set, often dubbed the most annoying thing to emerge from Simon Cowell's womb, weighing in at zero pounds due to the helium balloons attached to their hair areeee.... JEDWARD. They face a pair of shop-owning ginger twins with magic. You heard me right: gingers with magic. What could be more terrifying. You're right, it's........ FRED AND GEORGE WEASELY. Who will win? Will Divine Retribution interfere to save our souls from blasphemous renditions of Queen? Will Voldermort butt in and try to ? Will a crazed fangirl jump in, shout the word twincest and make the whole ordeal a little bit tasteless. All will be revealed in Super Violent Twin Death Match.
2. Weekly Apologies on The Apology Channel - Every week, each Member of Parliament will appear on this new terrestrial channel (to replace Channel FIVE) and you will hear live as they apologise for everything they've done wrong or haven't done that week. Any MP who has too much to apologise for will have to carry on in to the next week's show. Next Week - Nick Clegg apologise for promising not to break promises, then breaking a promise and trying to make the students look bad for it.
3. Surprise Sex Switcharoo! - In this gritty new reality show, we choose people at random from the electoral register, go round their house, kidnap them and then give them the sex change they've (secretly) already wanted! This show will go right from the moment that we bash them round the head, right through their reaction at their new sexual identity, through the impending lawsuit to the point where they finally begin to accept their true self. This show will explore societies views to gender and sexuality. Trained professionals such as Dale Winton and Fearne Cotton will be on hand to help the victims with their inevitable emotional struggle. 
4. Morgan Freeman Narrates Your Life on the Your Life Channel - Everyone deserves to be able to occasionally watch parts of their day through again. And what a better way to do this than by this being accompanied by the soothing and objective voice of Morgan Freeman. Watch as Freeman makes your seemingly mundane life of eating, sleeping and going to buy milk sound majestic and meaningful. Customers have often commented that Freeman's narration of coitus is both complimentary and exquisite. Happy customers have already included a bunch of penguins walking across the South Pole! Amazing! You can also have your life narrated by Dave Lamb (Come Dine With Me) Michael Buerk (Ethiopan Famine), Your Mum and yourself in Ten years time. For just £50 a week, the possibilities are endless!
5. Let's Make Fun of Stupid People LOL! - Sorry, I was going to suggest that we create a program where people just poke fun of people they feel are not as intelligent as themselves or are ignorant is some way, shape or form but then I realised that X-Factor, Britain's Got Talent and most other television programs had that sorted.

Hazel
- Really wants to know what happened to "My Man Boobs and Me"

Good First Impressions are SO 0AD!

It's quite hard to start off a blog when you have no real reason for wanting to write a blog. The last time I wrote anything vaguely resembling one was in the good ol' Go Cry to Livejournal days. I miss those days. I'm sure my three followers do too.

However, perhaps I should start by telling you something about myself. My name's Hazel. At time of writing I'm 19 going on 7. I'm reading Philosophy, Religion and Ethics at Heythrop College, University of London. Most of my conversations nowadays involve the nature of my beautiful Bachelors. They all inevitably boil down to this:

Inquirer: So, what are you studying?

Me: Philosophy, Religion and Ethics.

I: Oh, wow, that's a lot. Where?

M: It's a tiny uni you'll have never heard of as it specialises in Philosophy and Theology. It's called Heythrop, part of the Uni of London.

I: Oh, no, I've not heard of it.

M: There are nuns walking around everywhere.

I: Oh, wow, really?!?

M: Yeh, my halls of residence is attached to a nunnery.

I: Woah, nuns.

I love what I study. It allows me to think about things that I've never thought of. You can really look at things in the world in a different light. I rarely come out of lectures feeling uninterested in the subject I'm studying. Most times I just come out of them believing it was probably a silly idea to wake up at 10:20 for a 10:30 lecture. Even worse when I wake up at the same time for a 9:30 one.

I have thoughts on tuition fees. Many thoughts. I won't share them in this introduction.

I don't ooze art nouveau. Sometimes I try but when it gets to wearing a chic hat and pair of glasses and posing with a cigarette for a black and white photo, everything just goes to pot. I don't conduct my life through succinct Sisyphun quotations or through tidbits of art or poetry. I know that I love Oscar Wilde. I know that I find some art beautiful. I know that I find some music magical. I don't need anything else to make me whole.

I'm a bit of an odd sort of female creature. I try to wear nice clothes (sometimes) but generally I tend to shun makeup. I have this odd feeling that if people don't really want to get to know me without make-up, I don't really want them getting to know me with make-up. I guess, luckily for me, I don't look in the mirror and feel that the person staring back at me is lacking in beauty and in want of strangely tinted powder. Furthermore, apart from the occasional appearance of the notorious guyliner, men don't have to wear make-up. And some of them aren't exactly lookers. I'm not the most attractive person in comparison to what most people would call attractive but the same goes for most of the rest of me so who really cares?

I mostly tend to deflect talking about myself apart from when it comes to the superficial. When you start believing that no one will care about your problems you inevitably start to ingrain the idea of bottling things up and it becomes very hard to actually start talking about things that start affecting you. This is so just so that you know that there won't be any emo rants on here.

I'm also known for being someone who has a penchant for Sprite and sweets (especially pixie sticks).

I also have Boobs.

I have run out of profound things to say about myself.

I also really hate Times New Roman