Sunday, April 18, 2004
April 18th, 2004-Camille, aged 21, a university student in Montreal, Canada
Today at noon, I put my boyfriend on a bus back to his home, which is 7 hours drive away and in a completely different country. I've done this countless times over the past 2 years, but this time was different. This time was the last time I'm going to have to do this. He will never come back to Montreal to see me, and I'll never have to make the 3-bus trek down to see him. This is because in 2 weeks, I am going to be finished with university, and I am going to go back to my home, in Vancouver, which is on the opposite side of the continent.
Today's goodbye scene was also different for another reason: he came up with his bag and his backpack, but he left with the bag, the backpack, and a cardboard box. The box contained some of my sweaters, towels, t-shirts and Tupperware, a couple of books, mittens, and my beloved red polka-dotted teapot. Why did he take my teapot? Because as soon as we can afford it, we're going to both move to Boston and live there. Together. After 2 years, finally, something concrete. I gave him my things, and I won't see them again until we're together again. And then they won't be my things
anymore, but our things.
Now he's driving home, and I'm going to go study for my next final exam, but I don't think I'll be able to concentrate on Shakespeare today, because my future just poked its head into my life and winked at me, and now it's going to be real.
Posted by February 29th @ 11:05 pm GMT [Link]
Thursday, April 15, 2004
April 9th 2004- Schoolgirl, Scilly Isles
I can hear the familiar sounds of our family house waking up. My father riddling the grate and getting the Rayburn going to produce our hot water. My mother filling the kettle to make breakfast. Then I hear him kissing her goodbye as he gets off for work. My sister gets out of her bed and goes to the bathroom and I hear her getting dressed. If my mother doesn’t shout foe for me to get up soon I’m going to be late for school I think grumpily. Finally she calls me and in minutes I’m dressed and ready to go out.
“You’re not going to school without breakfast” she says and hands me a weetabix spread with marmite and butter-the only thing I can face in the morning. I run to school-2minutesaway.
The morning passes quickly enough Its Friday so that means maths tests. I run my finger through my hair as I’m working and watch sand fall onto the test papers. At last it is dinner time and mum is waiting at the school gates for me and my sister. We dash over and fight as who is going to push the canoes which is laden with swimming costumes and towels. 5 minutes walk to the beach and as we are swimming and playing with our with our friends school is completely forgotten.
I live on an island and I hope I never leave because it is the most beautiful place in the world.
Posted by February 29th @ 08:22 pm GMT [Link]
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Monday April 12th 2004-Anne, aged 16, Paxos, Greece
I lie on my stomach on a lilo, hands dipped in the water, sun on my back looking back at the sheltered cove where my family sit. If I hadn’t been told so many stories of people drifting out to see on lilos I would be relaxed. I press my lip against the lilo which is the rough canvas kind. It tastes reassuringly salty.
If I stay still and lean my head over the side I can see the pebbles through the water. The clearness of the water has amazed me since I got here. English sea looks blue when the sun shines, but I can’t remember ever being able to see the bottom of it. It is always to swirled up and muddy.
In my mind I start to plot a murder mystery story but my mind gets bored and I start to remember books I have already read instead.
This is the first time I have ever been outside of Britain and the world suddenly seems so much bigger. The clearness of the water is not the only thing I’m finding it hard to believe. Everything is a different colour here, everything smells differently, and everyone acts differently.
I don’t want to think about going home tomorrow so I tumble from the lilo and into the icy cold water.
Posted by February 29th @ 09:56 pm GMT [Link]
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Sunday April 11th 2004-Tom, aged 32, UK
Well it’s the morning after the birthday before and I’m feeling hungover and old, as Ben Folds says. The sun is shining but its windy, and I am tucked in the library. People have mobile phones in here and they shouldn’t. I’m actually trying to smile at people, and be nice to them. Its hard work, I can tell you!
Some days, at dinnertime, if I’m in the city, I go and sit and listen to one of those mad preacher men who carry placards proclaiming “the end is nigh” etc. What is most impressive is that they are sure of their own destiny, and unwavering in the beliefs. This same man is there every day, and the other day after I finished my sandwich and left, he said “so long my friend, enjoy all the sunshine you can get” which was such a nice thing to say to me, a total stranger.
I’m going stop writing now and go for a wee walk now, to see if Mr Preacher is there!
Posted by February 29th @ 10:19 pm GMT [Link]
Monday, April 12, 2004
April 6th 2004, Paul, 30, Osaka, Japan (just)
You arrive in a place and the place you arrive in is like no place you have ever arrived in before. Nobody understands you, everything is written in a language that you don't understand and, only just into April, it's already too hot. Your first shop is for the only thread of continuity: beer. You walk into the store and look for signs of anthing, anthing familiar. There are no European beers, not even any American beers, just beers written in a strange language and then embalmed in the craziest of English. You choose the one that says, in English, "A light bodies draft let the good times roll." The good times are
around here somewhere and that beer sounds just about right to you. Purchasing the beer is neither easy nor hard. The cashier is speaking to you but you have no idea whatsoever as to what they are saying. You just nod your head and smile. Somehow that does the trick and you leave the store with your beer and some change, some gold and silver that you cannot fathom. You go to your flat and open the window onto the balcony. You are on the third floor of a block of buildings adjaecent to the subway. Down below the night workers are getting ready to tear up some more road and drill through the dark and into the dawn. You return indoors, turn on the TV, then turn it off again because it is all in a language that you don't understand. You open another beer and then put your headphones on. There emanates from there a sound with meaning attached to it, words written and sung in your language, emotions conveyed in a way you are used to.
Finishing your beer, you open another then re-open the window that leads onto the balcony. The workers down below still holler their incomprehensible holler but, crawling into the beer and the music, you don't mind at all that you have no idea what is going on outside, in this new home of yours. For now, you'll make do with the inside.
Posted by February 29th @ 10:09 am GMT [Link]
Sunday, April 11, 2004
Friday, April 9, 2004- Tania, 40 (in 13 days), Virginia
I wake up and glance at the shelf above my TV. I see the silhouette of a large spider and smile; it's my pet tarantula Rosy. I get up and check on the other two, Fred and Junior, and wonder if it will get warm enough today for them to eat. Tarantulas really hate the cold.
As I get ready for work, there is a howl outside my bedroom door--Blackie, our big male cat, wants to come in. He climbs all over everything--the sink, my dresser, my lap--trying to get close. He doesn't care that I have things to do. When I go to fix my breakfast, he wants a snack too, even though he was just fed half an hour ago. I give him something which brings the other four cats running. Sigh . . . I satisfy everyone, then finally get my own.
I try to read the paper while shoveling cereal in my mouth, but Blackie is in my lap again. After taking his paw out of my bowl, I manage to finish breakfast and head to work.
Ahhh . . . freedom . . .
Posted by February 29th @ 08:26 am GMT [Link]
Saturday, April 10, 2004
Wednessday March 17th 2004-Heather Aged 24, Colorado
I got out of bed this morning thinking I want to lay in this bed for days. Lately I've been tired, been doing the Atkins diet, and not taking the vitamins I should. So it leaves me lagging most of the day, and about 8 pm I'm ready for bed. Now I'm 24 years old, I should not be ready for bed at 8. Rarely do I get to sleep that early but if I could *sigh* I so would.
I got out of bed, and was grateful I had green on cause it's St. Patties day, and my BF wanted to pinch me and couldn't. If we could find a babysitter we could go out tonight. Seeing how we just moved here it's so hard to find someone trustful to watch your kids. So I don't see that happening. Nice thought though.
The drive to work this morning sucked like every other day. And I'm sure the drive home will be the same. People in this state can't drive, not that I'm much better, but come on some of the ways they drive, it's just amazing they have licenses at all!
Our servers went down today, and we can't get into e-mail. It's sad when this is the high light of my day. I really have no desire to work today, the boss is being an ass, and has been for like a month. He has no emotional consideration when speaking to anyone about anything. So I've decided not to
really do anything today and just "look" like I'm working.
The weather outside is beautiful and I so want to be there and not in this little cubicle. But alas the only time I will see the sun or feel the great weather is when I go to smoke. It's not fair. I wish I could just leave here and run away to, hell, anywhere.
Posted by February 29th @ 11:21 am GMT [Link]
Friday, April 9, 2004
April 2004- Ola, aged 20, Poland
I looked up and the lamp was smiling at me. Still. My face muscles would go, had I ventured to grin for so long. The glass ball must have been white once, but in the course of time it developed a fetching dusty hat and a blue-all-surface-marker-misused(?)-by-some-inventive-student countenance. That was smiling at me. (The agglutinative aspect of English is a challenge, don't you think? How many words can be juxtaposed like that without detriment to the reader's mental integrity? A kind of linguistic perversion,I guess).
Thoughts were scattered around my mind, but I just let them lie idly. I hovered above them, reluctant to swoop down on one idea or another, for fear of destroying the frail balance. I had long forgotten the feeling.
Hidden from other future linguists, translators and interpreters, locked in a vain attempt at making myself comfortable in the compact space between the wall and the last row of chairs, I felt grateful for the ill-equipped classroom. Why, had there been enough chairs, I probably wouldn't have managed to stray so far from Practical English Grammar.
I looked at the window (wish I was outside). I glanced at the ceiling (aye, still smiling). I peered at the teacher, or rather at the part of his shoulder I was able to discern. (Now that is loquacity itself disguised as a man. Just wish he would elaborate on something other than 'You're the young generation, you should rebel!', I was tired)
I concentrated on my thoughts again, and felt my long-lost creativity come back like a wave. Would it linger?
Next week there were enough chairs in the classroom.
Posted by February 29th @ 01:10 pm GMT [Link]
Thursday, April 8, 2004
Thursday April 1st-Tim, just another student, aged 19, Edinburgh
I must tell you about the perfect moment. A moment of clarity and a moment of freedom. I need to write quickly before I forget because it is fading fast as I sit on a train in this world of other people and noise.
It was a moment of silence…
I had left the house and everything warm but cooling and the sun hung low in the air behind a light covering of clouds. The river was there in front of me and it struck how the number of times I had seen it, it had never looked the same. It framed the land and sky capturing feeling with more ease than anyone could ever describe.
Maybe at another time I would have been sad that its beauty was so fragile, but not then. And maybe at another time I would have tried to capture it in some was but its beauty would have been lost like a butterfly caught in a bell jar.
I was just lost in the freedom of a moment is that is almost unimaginable as I sit on a train with the memory slipping away and the fears creeping upon me, surrounded by people and noise.
Posted by February 29th @ 08:38 pm GMT [Link]
Wednesday, April 7, 2004
Saturday 3rd April-A tired mother, aged 42, Hereford, England.
I wake up at 6.30, or rather I’m awoken by an excited daughter:
“Is it time to go yet?”
She trips into the room with a bag full of lego and weebles. She is like a time bomb waiting to explode and although I don’t need to get up for another hour I know that if I don’t get up in the next few minutes disaster will strike.
My other daughter is still asleep. I peer into her room and am only able to see a few tufts of her hair beneath the duvet decorated in rabbits.
An hour later and we are on the road to the coast. Tent pack clouds threatening rain, daughters strapped in the back singing songs about buffalos.
30 minutes later though and they are both asleep and they don’t awake until we arrive at the secluded Welsh Campsite. Excited daughter half falls out of the car grazing her knee and the clouds open. But it doesn’t matter because this a magic place with rock pools, and sand, and rocks to scramble up.
Posted by February 29th @ 06:55 pm GMT [Link]
Tuesday, April 6, 2004
Friday March 5th 2004-David, Aged 27, Scotland
I woke up at about 5.30a.m. on a Friday in March in my parent’s house in Milngavie on the outskirts of Glasgow. My dad gave me a run to the airport for my flight to East Midlands. Lorna, my girlfriend, had gone down the night before to stay with her sister, Lesley, who lives with her husband in Markfield near Leicester. We were going to a charity ball in aid of cancer at Leicester City’s Walker’s stadium. The news about Leicester’s players being accused of sexual assault was all over the papers, so I thought that they might be unlikely to attend the ball.
I was picked up at from the airport by Lorna and Lesley. We stopped at a café for rolls and while waiting I was phoned by a recruitment agency I had been to see previously. After some indecision agreed to take a job working for ‘Exult’ in Glasgow on Monday.
Lesley, her husband John, Lorna and myself were given a lift by their neighbour to the stadium, where we met Lesley and John’s friends. At the reception we grabbed as much of the free wine as possible before dinner.
At dinner, I remembered it was for charity and made a donation. Alan Duncan MP then made a speech. I didn’t know he was going to and was particularly annoyed when he slaughtered my favourite joke. Then, on a much more welcome note, comedian Jim Tavare then appeared (for free we were told), only mildly slaughtering his own jokes and probably doing so intentionally and for effect.
After coming 2nd in the Irish bingo, I had my kilt lifted on the way back to my table by a curious English woman, which resulted in everyone discovering that I really was a true Scotsman, which I would rather not have disclosed.
More wine followed. Then brandy.
From this pint on the booze blurs my memory. Although I know I’m still alive today, my liver knows it far more keenly.
Posted by February 29th @ 05:41 pm GMT [Link]
Monday, April 5, 2004
Saturday March 3rd, 2004- Gill, aged 38, Liverpool, UK
Another Saturday. It started the same as it usually does by tidying the house and eating breakfast.
After some tidying its off to Tesco’s. Head down trying to make it through the crowded shop and back out again. All in one piece. Dodging trolleys and children and couples arguing. Standing bewildered by the choice of coffee I begin to feel very tired and start to wish I was back at home.
I hurry through the rest of the shopping throwing things I don’t need into the trolly forgetting things I do.
In my rush I’m startled as a man comes charging down the aisle towards me. He is whistling and smiling and in this hectic shop which everyone else seems so eager to get out of a light seems to glow around him.
He picks items off the shelf with determination, is courteous to other shoppers, and seems genuinely happy with what he is doing.
I head off home with filled with a fresh desire to stop taking my life for granted.
Posted by February 29th @ 07:24 pm GMT [Link]
Sunday, April 4, 2004
Saturday 3rd April 2004-Laura, aged 20 from Devon, Southwest England
Things I have worried about today:
- That I would fall asleep and my morning tea would get
cold before I had a chance to drink it
- That it didn't make any difference whether I got up or
not as I have nothing to do today
- That I won't have time to do all the nothing I want
- That I'm not independent enough
- That my parents aren't encouraging me to be independent
- That I'm starting to hate my parents
- That my mum smokes too much
- That the headache that keeps coming and going is from
spending too much time on the computer and I will be forced
to do something else with my time
- That I won't get the job I applied for
- That I will get the job I applied for, but won't enjoy it
and won't meet any people my age also working there
- That even if I do enjoy the job, I won't earn enough to
move out by the end of the Summer season
- That even if I do earn enough, I won't have anywhere to
move out to and will have to spend another depressing
Winter here
- That I wouldn't be able to stand another depressing
Winter here
- That I'm losing contact with my old friends
- That I won't find another boyfriend as lovely as Jon
- That I won't find another boyfriend
- That the line I get when I frown at myself in the mirror
is slowly turning into My First Wrinkle
- That I frown too much
- That I'm immature
- That I'm wasting my youth and will be old before I know
it
- That everyone's having much more fun than me
- That I worry too much
Posted by February 29th @ 10:16 am GMT [Link]
Saturday, April 3, 2004
Tuesday, March 30th 2004, Susan aged 16, Yorkshire, UK.
There is a squirrel in my mum and dad's garden. A cute grey little thing hopping around the lawn, drinking out of the birds water dish and trying to burry something brown looking in the centre of the grass. At least that is what I think it is doing. It could be trying to dig something up too.
My dad's computer is set facing a large window which looks out onto the garden so i have been watching the wildlife instead of working. I have also been dreaming and I have decided that eventually I will have room which looks out onto something pretty where I can sit and dream and write a little bit. Perhaps. Its a nice enough dream to have for today.
It is certainly better to dream than to do homework. Anyway before I drift of to watch the trees blowing in the wind and the birds flitting from side of the garden to the next I should tell you about my day.
It was like this: one slice of toast for breakfast then off to school. In registration I desperately tried to finish my French homework. French next period and it turns out that the home work wasn’t for today anyway. At break time I dodged footballs (or rather tennis balls which were being used as football) and then it was off to maths and then science. At dinner time I had forgotten my money so I borrowed of a friend and in exchange had to find a table as close to the boy she liked as possible. After lunch and more lessons (English and Geography if you are interested) I came home and started watching the squirrel. Funny how I can be bored to tears all day at school and then sit for hours doing nothing but watch a squirrel.
Posted by February 29th @ 12:25 pm GMT [Link]
Friday, April 2, 2004
Wednesday, March 31st-Unemployed, aged 23, Bradford, UK
When I wake up I groan becuase I do not like Wednesdays. I do not like the fact that every other week I need to explain why I still haven’t got a job. I do not like having to list all of the places I’ve applied to and have been rejected from.
My bus gets in 15 minutes too early so I wander aimlessly around the town keeping an eye on the clock. When my 15 minutes are up I sneak into the job centre avoiding looking at anyone in the eye as I go inside.
Then I stand around pressing buttons on a computer screen trying to find suitable jobs. There are a few jobs I could do so I print off the details and begin to feel a little hopeful. This doesn’t last for long as when I’m sitting asking for information I here the person next to me ask for details about the same job.
Soon though it over and I’m asked to sign my form and then I walk out of the job centre as quickly as I can. I walk fast trying to get as far away from that place as possible but no matter how far I walk I can’t shake the feeling of guilt of not being able to get a job.
Posted by February 29th @ 08:06 am GMT [Link]
Thursday, April 1, 2004
Wednesday 31st Mrach 2003-I play 6 instruments, I am christian, I have eyes they are blue, I am aged 15 and I am from Costa Mesa, California
My eyes are shut and the radio goes off. The Fish again. The traffic report, as usual. No music. I am bored when there is no music. I got up out of bed. Ready. Zero period came along. Mr. H scares me sometimes. He’s huge and I hate it when he gets mad, because he takes it out on me a lot. I guess all of the other flute players are too fragile. Or appear too fragile. First period. I suck at clarinet. I should just give up. But no, giving up is for quitters. Quitters, quitters, quitters. Its an A day. Third period is next. Presentations. I am now humiliating myself in front of about 30 people. I don’t mind too much. Nick tries to rub the fact that I proved something that was incorrect in my essays. It sounds strange to me. I question Ms Hayungs on the matter. She says I am right and he is wrong. I laugh. He calls me a hypocrite. I wonder how I am being hypocritical. I decide he is just bitter. Lunch now. Boring, boring, boring. I wonder what Sebastian is up to. I wonder about his friends, if they’re Christians. I wonder if he cusses or not. I don’t know. I’ll never know. I want to be friends with so many people that I just don’t have the courage to talk to. Josh. Sebastian. Others. I need courage. Megan is awesome, but it’s healthy to have more than just one friend, right? The bell rings. Math. There is a quiz. I did okay. Maybe not. I never know on those things. We review for our test. No notes to take. Whew. The bell rings. School is over. I phone my father. Off to La Salsa. Delicious food. Home. Shower. Here.
Posted by February 29th @ 07:53 am GMT [Link]
