Wilhelm Scream

Dear all,

I left a little late this evening, to go to the now-customary pub quiz with some friends. It’s a regular occurence with a rotating crowd, so you’re never quite sure who will be there each week. It’s a loose affair, with no arranging or checking beforehand. You just turn up. But this week I turned up and no one else was there. I had a quick scope round the whole pub before walking back out to consider my options.

Sitting alone in the pub didn’t seem like a very good idea, as I’d read almost all of the newspaper I had with me and I’d look a bit sad alone on pub quiz night. I could go home, but my parents weren’t expecting me back until half past eleven, and it seemed a shame to waste these precious hours of total freedom. I do find it curiously freeing when no one knows where I am or is expecting me to be anywhere. It’s like going out without my mobile phone, meaning no one can contact me and I feel liberated from all social obligations.

I decided to walk home. It’d be a long walk – up to three hours – but I needed the time to think. By this time it was spitting a little, but I decided to sod the rain and walk anyway. I stopped off at Tesco’s to buy some plasters, as my shoes were beginning to pinch. I applied them liberally and began to walk home, following the bus route I used to take to school. Not only did I know the way well, but I would ensure that I was never too far from a bus stop should I get tired or bored.

Very soon, it was pissing it down. The rain came down in torrents. I was soon drenched, despite my attempts to walk mainly under the trees. I began to feel chilly. As if I wasn’t wet enough already, a bus roared past and the spray soaked me from head to foot. I was feeling thoroughly miserable and lonely. I passed a few people, but they just hurried on to shelter. Then, one wonderful young man walked past and offered me his umbrella. I weakly tried to protest, but he insisted and I took it with profuse thanks. I cried a little, I was so happy. I never thought people really did things like that. The human race isn’t a total loss.

I walked to the next bus stop and caught the bus home. It was warm, if a little draughty. I finally made it home two hours after I’d left the pub, wet and with pinchy shoes. I lied to my parents, saying I’d left early because someone else did and offered me a lift. The bus-drenching had happened near our house, as had the umbrella thing.

I desperately want to find that man, to thank him. I can hardly remember his face – it was very dark. It’s a black fold-up umbrella with a white recycled sign on one panel. He was wearing a grey coat, and had sandy coloured hair. I sent a message to the “Spotted!” section of the local paper (where people send in such missed connections) but I have no idea if they’ll print it or if he’ll see it.

Anyway, I am cold and tired and going on holiday tomorrow.

Lots of love,
Wilhelm Scream.

Dear all,

Chris said to me last night that I haven’t changed since we met. I feel I have, but I suppose he doesn’t see it because he doesn’t see me in my everyday life. My greatest change was actually just before we met.

Ever so slight plus: Nadia doesn’t want to meet Luke properly. He signed off on fb chat by saying “hugs”, which he hasn’t done before. But it’s happening again. If I love someone and can’t have them, then I make myself hate them. And I can hardly stand talking to him now. If there’s no hope of us dating, I don’t want to see him again. We can still chat online and keep in touch, but I think seeing him in the flesh would half kill me. So I shall have to make excuses about our proposed meet-up.

Lots of love,
Wilhelm Scream.

Dear all,

I am so lonely. I feel so fundamentally disconnected from other members of the human race. I feel I have more in common with Peruvian peasants or the Chinese office workers I see on TV than I have with my “closest” friends. And, once again, my love life is non-existent. I am now convinced at Luke fancies Nadia, even if the feeling is not reciprocated.

Chris seems to be AWOL on Facebook, and he is usually the one I can count on to give me a little hope at times likes this. It’s too late to call. I’m not that desperate. Just low.

It’s strange. I seem to have it all academically, I have friends, I don’t seem to be unhappy. Yet instead of measuring my self worth by what I am good at (school grades, for example) I choose to let my defining characteristic when it comes to self esteem be my romantic/sexual successes. And given my track record, this is not a good thing. It’s a rubbish thing. And I essentially allow the actions of others to seriously affect my self worth.

I’ve been kissed three times. All by the same person. Who was my sort-of boyfriend at the time, but I don’t know why we ever got together, really. There’s nothing really wrong with him, apart from inattentiveness – we’re just not well suited. And I haven’t so much as held hands with a member of the opposite sex for nearly eighteen months. And now it looks like it’ll be another eighteen months at least.

Luke and I were going to meet up this Thursday. But he’s been asking to meet Nadia in person, as apparently it’s weird being facebook friends without being real life friends. So he asked me to invite her to our thing on Thursday. And now I don’t know what to do. Because it will be awkward if it’s us three together. But I can’t not go because then they’d be alone together. And Nadia would never forgive me for deserting her. But I can’t bear to be near them, together. I’d be watching Luke’s every move.

I think I need to meet someone new. Someone no one else knows. And to capture them quickly. But how? I’ll never manage.

And so my heart is breaking, breaking, breaking. What, oh what, to do?

Love is overrated,
Wilhelm Scream.

Dear all,

I am becoming increasingly worried about my diet. I frequently skip a meal (by accident, not be design) then get hungry and eat junk. Also, as carbohydrate is my favourite food group (cake, biscuits, pasta, toast… mmm!) I don’t think I eat enough fruit and veg.

Furthermore, my teeth are getting seriously bad. I have this sore patch at the back of my mouth which might be an ulcer (and it probs is) or might be gum disease. Without the routine of the school day, I forget to brush my teeth frequently. And I mean really frequently. I brush them about once every two or three days. It’s disgusting.

Lots of love,
Wilhelm Scream.

Dear all,

Exams are over and today I slept in until lunchtime! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Today I am going to a party and then four of us are going on to the summer solstice celebration at Stonehenge. I have several exciting things lined up for June and July, and am so very excited about what this summer will bring.

I had a smigelet of a fight with Luke on MSN last night. I am a bit fed up with him, actually. Or maybe I’m just bitter. Probably just bitter… =P

Anyway, lots to do before I go out, so toodley pip.

Lots of love,
Wilhelm Scream.

Dear all,

Yesterday was amazing.

My vajayjay smells weird.

I promise you those two statements are entirely unconnected.

I’m going to bed.

Lots of love,
Wilhelm Scream.

Dear all,

Polphil was amazing. Mill was so awful. Spanish was good, but boring.

I have strange thoughts when I finish exams and I’m left sitting there until we’re allowed to go. I had an hour of free time in the Spanish exam, just waiting and letting the world drift by outside.

I think about all the people who are taking this exact same exam as me at the exact same time all across the country. I think about all the people who have taken this exam in years gone by, and wonder what they thought when they looked at questions which I’ve only seen as past papers. I think about all the people who have sat in the same seat as me, whatever exam they may be doing.

I wonder if maybe the world outside is on hold for the time it takes to do the exam. I wonder if maybe North Korea’s launched a nuclear attack, and we won’t find out until after the exam is over. I wonder if the zombie apocalpyse has arrived and they’re keeping us in the exam hall until we’re done even if it would mean certain death if the zombies got in.

Maybe too much free time isn’t good for me… 😛

Lots of love,
Wilhelm Scream.

Dear all,

Today I had my French A2 exam. I don’t think I did very well (in a relative sense – I’m afraid that for me, “not very well” in French means a low B or even a C). The listening was really confusing, because although I understood it all, the questions were rather ambiguous. I didn’t know which bit of the information they wanted with which question. In the end, I just wrote down a lot for each question on the basis that they couldn’t take marks off for writing wrong things, so if the right thing was in there somewhere I’d still get the mark.

I found reading easy at the time, but am now starting to think I buggered up the translation. It seemed too easy. I must have missed something somewhere, some little grammar trick.

The essays were all rubbish. The titles were so bad. Not a single one was decidedly on a topic we’d covered – they were all just vaguely to do with the A level course. And nothing on the environment! Damn them! That’s usually one topic you can count on, although I suppose they did have it elsewhere in the exam. I wrote about encouraging people to go to university, and it was a very poor and unbalanced essay, and very dull linguistically.

I bought black liquid eyeliner, a gold eyeliner pencil and a pencil sharpener on the way home. I’m hoping to wear something a little dramatic to the events this Saturday.

When I got home, I did try to revise, honestly. But it is so difficult, it really is. I fell asleep, I’m ashamed to say, although Lucy says she keeps dozing off while revising too. It’s just so boring, because I’ve done it all before so my brain is saying “Yep, yep, done this, lovely, yep”, when really it’s recognising it but not remembering it. Still, by this time tomorrow I’ll have two out of the way and only one left! Lord, I hope Spanish goes better than French.

Mary Queen of Charity Shops is on tonight! Last one in the series, I think. I feel a particularly special affiliation with it because I worked for two years in a charity shop of my own, so I know how it is different to running a normal business – something which I’m not sure Mary has fully grasped.

Lots of love,
Wilhelm Scream.

Dear all,

I have been thinking about what I want to do when I leave university, and it troubles me that I don’t know. I want to be good at whatever I do, and university is an excellent place to develop skills for all sorts of professions. I know that excellence requires dedicated practice, but I can hardly dedicatedly practice something when I don’t know what it is. I think that this summer I will try to read some careers guidance books in order to work out exactly what I want to do, because I have four conflicting passions. They are not all equally strong, but where they are weaker they are balanced out by being more viable or reliable and easier to get into and practice.

How will I ever decide?

Lots of love,
Wilhelm Scream.

Dear all,

Although last night I was utterly miserable, I woke up this morning rather more contented. I have had another urge to write a play, this time inspired by the rather dull performance last night. However, I cannot possibly involve myself in anything like that until I have finished my exams.

I have to go and have coffee with Amis now, but after that I am going to a radio recording with my father and my brother, which should be very exciting.

Also, I might enter this. But I’m not sure. I feel angry enough, but perhaps not well-informed enough.

Lots of love,
Wilhelm Scream.