Why oh why did she write this list? [Part 1]

As Terrie watched Hannah pass through the wide library doors, the notebook sat glaring at her. The clean, blank pages called out to be written on and the pen was proclaiming an invitation to be picked up. Hannah had left behind various notebooks in Terrie’s care before but Terrie had never had such a strong desire to write in one. There was something different about this notebook; something magical. To turn away was agony. Terrie tried thinking of anything and everything else but not even thoughts of the purple man could tame the inescapable desire to write in Hannah’s notebook.

Seconds and then minutes passed while Terrie played an intricate mind game against Hannah’s seemingly innocent notebook. Oblivious to this silent war the other students continued their studies in peace without even a glance in Terrie’s direction. As her mind battled against this immovable force the pressure built up. Words and phrases began rushing into her head. Memories of lost jokes packed in tight; cold nostalgia freezing her mind. A low scream built up in her head getting louder and higher until the high pitch scream dominated Terrie’s mind. Pain tore down her spine causing Terrie to cry out in agony and grasp for a friend’s arm.

Terrie’s fingers brushed against a cold, hard surface. The pain and pressure rushed out of her head and Terrie jerked her eyes away from the notebook. Glancing around the room the pain was soon replaced by fear. Everywhere she looked was still. No drop of a pen lid, no rustle of paper. Teachers and students alike sat cold and hard like marble statues. Terrie slid her chair back and stood up. Glancing at the notebook her mind began running through all the possible options but each one returned to the clean, blank pages of Hannah’s notebook. The searing pain had gone and the desire to write on the pages had diminished but that had been replaced by nothingness. No sounds, no movement, not even the ticking of a clock. Time had stopped dead leaving Terrie trapped at ten past three for an eternity. Gone was tea-time, break-time, lunch-time, home-time, telly-time, YouTube-time... any-time. Never again would she talk to another person or look forward to tomorrow. In despair, Terrie tried shaking her friend hoping for any sort of reaction... nothing.

To be continued...

Doctor Who?!

Just a short little blog here...

As you probably know, I'm a big fan of Doctor Who. I absolutely love the complex storylines and the crazy monsters. I especially like the episodes written by Stephen Moffatt so I am obviously looking forwards to the new series where he’s the head writer (Tennant deficient or not!) However... the latest trailer is just insane. I think it makes no sense and it has made me wonder if we are going to get yet another companion who falls in love with the Doctor. (At least with Tennant playing the Doctor I could understand it a little more...) Also, at one point, Matt Smith puts on rather an odd accent. I’m hoping that in context this will all make sense but this short trailer has certainly left me sceptical of what is to come.


Why not have a look-see yourself...


Oh, and just watched it again... what is that thing at the end?!
(Leave a comment and tell me what you think...)

“My life is your fault”

I blame you. Yes you: the one staring blankly at the computer screen. Not your parents, not your friend, not your next door neighbour... YOU!

Terrie is always blaming me for things. Whether it’s her love of David Tennant or anything maths related, I’m bound to receive some of the blame. We all do this though: shift the blame. We hate blaming ourselves and if we aren’t blaming someone else, it’s something else. Inanimate objects would never survive with feelings as they’re always being blamed for something or other. You blame the pen when it leaks over you, you blame a shoe for tripping you up, and you blame the weather for ruining your hair. You never blame yourself for chewing the pen, leaving the shoe in the middle of the floor or forgetting your umbrella. Instead the poor inanimate objects receive the brunt of your frustration.

We don’t even like seeing others blaming themselves. Obviously sometimes it legitimately wasn’t their fault but even if it clearly was, we try and tell them it wasn’t. For these sorts of situations we have come up with replies such as “it could have happened to anyone” or “you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Blame is a concept pretty unique to humans and I think it’s odd how people hate finding faults in themselves. They hate blaming themselves, but are quite happy to pass the blame on to someone entirely different. However, what I find even odder is that the same people who constantly blame shift are not necessarily amazing at picking out where they themselves excel.

Writing things like CVs and personal statements are hideous jobs and I always feel like I’m boasting rather than just picking out my talents. I think part f this is how we generally hate to express extremes to most people. We don’t like appearing excessively good in too many areas and at the same time we don’t like seeming excessively bad. I don’t know about you but when I’m given a survey to fill out, if the responses are on a scale of 1 to 5, I will rarely pick 1 or 5. And I will rarely tick the ‘strongly agree’ or ‘strongly disagree’ boxes. You have to be pretty passionate about something in order to express extremes to more than those you are close to. Most people don’t want to appear a failure so often blame shift; So Terrie...

“My life is YOUR fault!”

Hehe :)

My frustrated Potter fanatic friends

I’m afraid I have something to tell you that may shock some people. I advise making sure you are firmly seated and have a glass of water handy. Or maybe, if you have a strong affiliation to Harry Potter, I suggest not reading on at all…

I don’t like the Harry Potter books.

It’s not like I’m judging without due cause; I have previously attempted to read the books. Although my Potter fanatic friends think my attempt was measly, I hold on to the fact that Harry Potter is one of the few books where I’ve had to break my unwritten rule of reading. My rule to “never put down a novel before finishing it, regardless of how rubbish it seems.”

I honestly tried to read Harry Potter. I picked up the book with all intentions to read it from start to finish. Nevertheless, before I had reached the end, I had lost the will to live. I felt like I was trudging through mud. Novels are meant to capture your imagination, transport you to an alternate dimension and swallow you up in the ins and outs of their world. Harry Potter never did this for me.

(At this point, while I was drafting this blog up in chemistry, my friend Maryam decided to infiltrate my notes with this:

“Harry Potter is awesome – shuddup! He took me on the Hogwarts’ Express and now I have lots of cool wizard and witches as friends AND Ron is my best friend ever!

I battled Voldermort with Harry and Snape and Dumbledore made me cry – there’s something WRONG with YOU!”

Thank you for your concern Maryam. It has been noted…)

It’s not that I don’t like the magical genre. I love the Inheritance Cycle (i.e. Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr and whatever book is to follow) but the whole plot and style of writing in Harry Potter just bores me. Maybe one day I’ll attempt to read them again… but I doubt it. No matter how much Terrie bugs me to.

However, there is one thing that I appreciate Harry Potter for:

Doctor Who, Series 3, Episode 2 – “The Shakespeare Code”

In this, Shakespeare is trying to get rid of a load of Carrionites (witch like aliens) who are trying to enter earth through this portal and what word does Martha suggest? “Expelliarmus!” The power of words!

(You may also note my random question on my blog’s profile is:
What spells can you cast with magic markers?
With the answer:
Expelimarkus!
Expelliarmus is my single, lone indulgence in the Harry Potter world...)



And yes, I know this is going to be an automatic fail Terrie, but I'm sorry, what else did you expect?!

Bits, bobs, and thingamajigs.

It’s usually the little things you come across in life that amuse me and make me happy. Little things like finding that you have enough change to buy something extra or finding that Matalan now sells £1 bags of sweets. Sometimes one of these little things is what can change a rubbish day into an alright day.

As I was walking down the road the other day, I noticed a van with “plants and tools hire” written on the side. I found this highly amusing. I mean, tools hire, fair enough, but how do you hire plants?! Last time I checked, plants were pretty permanent things that don’t appreciate constantly moving from one home to another. Besides, why would you hire a plant?

“Yes, I would like to hire a small fern.”

“Certainly sir, for how long do you wish to hire this plant?”

“Well, the plant is required for making my garden look good when my mother comes to visit so I’d like to hire it for six hours on Saturday.”

“Ok sir; please hold while we search our database for a free small plant.”

Really, what use is the opportunity to hire a plant?

Also, the other day I found a pair of white shoes. You’re probably thinking: ‘what’s so special about a pair of white shoes?’ Well my friend, white canvas shoes, a Sharpie pen and a bit of imagination makes for brilliantly unique shoes. For ages, I’ve wanted to have a pair of shoes that I could design myself but I could never find a pair that I liked at a decent price. However, I now have a unique pair of shoes with random Sharpie patterns all over them!

And for more randomness news... wait for me to post again! =)

Oh, and DFTBA, Terrie, I have not forgotten!

“You see the name of a group, you laugh, you join, you never look at it again”

I have joined a ridiculous number of groups on Facebook and I don’t think I have ever looked at any of them again. Yeah, I thought they were funny at the time but I have never looked at a single one of them again. In fact, for most of them, I just pressed the ‘join group’ or ‘become a fan’ button and never even looked at the page.

Have you ever thought of the large number of people you see every day that you’ll never meet again, just like the many Facebook groups you’ll never even glance at again. Usually you don’t know their name either and when you pass them they may as well be robots for all the attention you pay them. However, they’re not robots and that’s what makes life interesting. The person you walked past when heading towards the shops could be your friend’s mum’s cousin’s friend or your teacher’s uncle.

In reality, you have no idea what links you have with the people around you and you will probably never see them again. However, even if you had seen them before would you really know? Was the guy in the queue behind you the builder working on the building next door? Did the lady serving you pass you at the bus stop yesterday? We will probably never know but sometimes it is just interesting to speculate.

Nevertheless, there are some people that you see everyday that you have no idea who they are. For example, there is this lady who walks past my bus stop each morning. I have no idea what her name is, I have no idea where she’s heading but I see her every morning heading into town wearing a red fleece. Also, there’s this guy I see waiting at another bus stop who I see out of the window every morning. Always waiting at the same bus stop with the same bag and the same smart clothes.

What I find odd is where you see these same people in other places when you’re so used to seeing them as part of your daily routine.Like the man who I see every day at the bus stop through my bus window. Sometimes I see him getting on the bus I get on after Jazz Band on Thursdays. Or maybe you see them just walking down the street casually in a totally different context to normal. It’s the same with teachers: seeing them outside of school is just surreal. I don’t really ever remember thinking that teachers lived at school as such, but seeing a teacher anywhere other than a classroom is strange. When it snowed a few weeks back, I am convinced I saw one of my teachers in my town. I was totally not expecting it as I sort of assumed he lived closer to school than the town which I live in which is a whole half hour from school. Anyway, I saw him and thought ‘that guy looks like one of my teachers’ and then as I walked past I sort of turned back round again thinking ‘hang on! That is one of my teachers!’ So odd!


So there are those people in your life that you see every day and talk to in many different contexts while others you rarely see outside a set area of your routine. Even more just pass you by. You’ll never know their name, you may never see them again but they exist... somewhere in the world living an alternate life that you crossed over to, even just for a second.