Status: C'est fini!
A Life In A Day
This is who I really am?
So. This is me. My life in a day. The rambles of a 16year old girl, fresh from her (over-active) imagination. Failing electronics, failing music, failing maths, too many dreams for just one person and destined for a 9-5 job. My name is Jessica Rose and this is a fraction of my life in a day.
“I’ve got troubled thoughts,
And self-esteem to match,
What a catch, what a catch…”
I reach under my vibrating pillow and shut off Fall Out Boy’s dulcet tones, switch my phone on to snooze, turn over and attempt to return to the places only my dreams can take me to.
I snuggle further down into my duvet, pull my teddy bear closer to me and shuffle around until my quilt covers my head.
Outside a barn owl screeches.
I toss and turn. Sleep does not return.
I turn off my phone alarm, snap on my lamp and throw off my covers. It’s freezing in my bedroom. I sleep with the window wide open. In the winter I like the smell of the thinner, cooler air. I love the smell of damp soil and dry leaves in the autumn, the occasional scent of wood smoke on the back if the last of the sunshine’s rays.
My energy efficient light bulb gradually finds the strength to shine and I swing my legs out of bed. It is 5.30am and this is how my day begins.
I like the winter mornings. I like waking up in the dark and watch as the watery sun rises to illuminate the world for just a short while, before sinking once again, behind the horizon, only to shine strongly down upon the southern hemisphere.
I like the frost. I like the way it accentuates natures perfect art forms, every leaf, every blade of grass, every spindly, skeletal tree, making them more alive than ever. But, as the sun rises and adds a sparkle to their dead splendour, the sun slowly destroys their momentary beauty. Until tomorrow.
The house is quiet – only the ticking of the many clocks in our house audible over the small humming of the fridge. The kitchen is dark until I switch on the light that slowly, reluctantly, grudgingly flickers to life, deliberately threatening to plunge me into darkness for waking it so early.
It’s nice getting up early. I understand why my Grandad liked it so much. He died four years ago, today. It was on a Thursday. I was twelve. I’m sixteen now. He used to get up early and blast out classical music though his stereo. I get up early and blast out a mixture of My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Billy Talent and The Used. He was the only one who called me by my real name, Jessie Rose.
I munch my way through a bowl of Tesco Honey Nut Cornflakes (Kellogg’s Honey Nut have too much honey…) feel my way back up the dark stairs, wash my hair, face, brush my teeth for the first time in the morning, wander back through to my bedroom, turn on my old radio, wake up my laptop, wake up my parents with some nice, loud, post rock or alternative rock music, comb my hair, clamber back into bed and begin to type.
Sometimes I write some more of my book, Moth Flower, but at the moment I am writing for my unborn niece/nephew. I’m making a book and filling it with the only gift I can give, words. Ten fairy tales, some brand new fairy tales, some borrowed, some too old to be remembered. I enjoy writing. I just hate writing about myself. I sound pretentious and melodramatic and like a moody, ‘misunderstood’ teenager. I’m not really. I just sound like that when I put myself down on paper. I sound better when I write in metaphors, when I mix myself in with a twist of fantasy, hiding myself behind a fictional soul.
So I get dressed around eight in the morning if I can get a lift with my Dad. I drag my still damp hair back into a ponytail and loop it around so my hair doesn’t brush my neck during the day. I grab my blazer, my lunchbox, my phone, realise I am late and forget all the books I need for the day, normally including the homework I bothered to do the night before. I suppose putting my books in my bag the night before sounds like a good idea in this situation, but when I was younger my Mum used to nag me about my organisational skills (of which there are very few) so, in a stubborn, rebellious bout of teenage rage, I ignored her. And my books will lie scattered underneath my desk until the day after I need them, dormant and collecting dust, all thanks to my somewhat obstinate behaviour years before.
But I have my daily essentials in my hands. My phone, containing my favourite music of the day (not used for communication, god forbid. That may be verging on a social life, something I do try to avoid…), my lunchbox containing the materials I need for my favourite lesson of the day (Lunch. A valuable lesson in which I learn to communicate with the species I share this planet with. Humans…) and my decorated blazer. I run down the garden slabs, hopping across them trying to avoid the attack of the overgrown orange blossom and the viburnum. It’s 8.23am. I should have left three minutes ago. I try and hold my muddy school boots in one hand, my lunchbox in the other and endeavouring to shove my phone and headphones in my blazer pocket, all whilst trying to open the garage door. Some mornings I succeed, resulting in a good day, my ego soaring as I contemplate my multi-tasking feat. Most mornings, however, I drop everything in a muddle, swear, bang my head on the garage door, kick the step with frustration and fall into the car, hurriedly changing the radio station from BBC 4 to Radio 1 with Chris Moyles.
Radio in the morning is essential. For some people they need their daily dose of coffee to get their heart beating again in the morning, for others it’s Weetabix. Mine is the radio. It never fails to bring a smile to my grumpy, tired face in the morning. I even have it on under the loud sounds of alternative rock coming from my laptop in the morning. The blend of the two sounds are like black coffee, bittersweet but delicious.
My day at school begins, normally, with something being thrown at my head. I just learn to duck now as I mooch into my tutor room, head down, hands in pockets, music melting my ears and more often than not, a huge scowl plastered across my bare face.
I never wear make-up anymore. I used to, but then I thought ‘What’s the point?’ It’s got so many chemicals and rubbish in that can’t be good for your skin and it just adds another thing for me to hide behind. I just want to show my face, you know? And not pretend to have flawless skin, black eyes, or one, thick eyelash stuck to a heavy eyelid. It’s all so fake.
Don’t get me wrong, a little bit of make-up now and again is nice if you wear it properly. If you wear it to accentuate your natural beauty instead of smothering your skin with…(if you would like to listen to this rant in full, please stop by my tutor room in the morning when I regularly lecture my friends, who have flawless skin, lather gallons of chemicals on their faces in order to conform with what societies concept of beauty.)
Lessons normally pass by slowly. I listen (most of the time), I do the work (again, most of the time) and even sometimes I participate when I have something to say. If I don’t have anything to say I just sit there and generally shut up, taking in what is being said around me.
I need good grades. I want to do the International Baccalaureate next year. I don’t want to narrow my options just yet, I just want to learn so much. I don’t necessarily want to learn what they teach at school, the exam production line. School is just a process, a compulsory process in which any individual spark of creativity and unusual imagination is wiped from the minds of the students and replaced with the knowledge to get the school a good reputation. I hate that. It’s just all so hypocritical. Everything that actually happens within the school is swept under the mat. I’ve seen drug dealing occur, I’ve watched students get drunk, I’ve watched students roll cigarettes during lessons, I’ve seen one girl panic because she thought she was pregnant. The school’s name is just a façade to allow this to happen. I just hate the fact the head teacher seems to ignore these factors, he just polishes the school sign and shows the photos of royalty faking an interest in the school. But that’s another rant…
Lunch comes and goes, full of friends and giggling, forgetting to breath, drop kicks and dancing, inside jokes and innuendoes, fairy tales and, for me, loud music. Sometimes, even when in a room full of my friends, I just need to escape from it all, just to be by myself, all alone…
I suppose that’s what sets me apart from them. I don’t really like being round people too much, not even my friends. I just don’t trust them. I try, but stuff happened, lots of stuff, stuff that I’ve blockaded from my memory, a time of depression, cuts, loneliness, tears and being so alone. Loneliness and being alone are two different things. A world apart from each other.
But I digress. I just don’t trust people. Full stop. End of story. Next chapter.
The afternoon lessons pass by slowly, dawdling by, time pausing mere seconds before the bell rings. At 3.30pm exactly I am out of my last lesson like a shot out of a gun. I am at my locker within the next minute and out of school within the next thirty seconds. Plugging in my headphones I walk as fast as I can, my legs pounding relentlessly. A quick smile and a polite ‘thank you’ to the lollipop man, there rain, hail, sun, wind and snow. On Mondays I wander back to my Dad’s work in BAE Systems and sit quietly for a bit, doing homework, reading or just sitting. I walk back on Tuesday and Wednesday, across the water-meadows and up the machinery track or through the grave-yard depending on whether or not I want to partake in any scrumping. On Thursday Mum picks me up from the car park because I go to violin in the evening and I want to practise before I go. Fridays are different though. I hate walking on Friday, I just want to get straight home. So I catch the bus with my friends. It takes ten minutes but I like to be lazy on a Friday. Five hours in front of the TV, eating apples and not doing anything at all.
But today is Wednesday. A long walk home and an early night is needed. I can’t normally keep my eyes open by Wednesday. So my bag is discarded on the floor, my blazer shrugged off and left where it has fallen like road kill. As I flop down on my bed with my laptop on my knees my tie is thrown across the room, hiding to make it’s location as hard to plot as possible to ensure a fun search the next morning.
I am in bed by 9.30pm. I have surfed the internet for a bit and have even sent the occasional instant message to the closest person to a best friend to me. I don’t use any socialising sites like Facebook, twitter and MySpace. Mostly because of my paranoia of subliminal messaging (I don’t watch SKY television anymore thanks to Media Studies when I learnt about the man who owns it all. You never know, just because he says he doesn’t send out any subliminal messages it does not mean to say he doesn’t.)
Sleep reimburses my energy supplies at around midnight. I lie awake dreaming of my Europe trip (I plan to travel Europe in a small campervan during my gap year) and I dream of the land that I will one day own, living in harmony with the earth and being completely self-sufficient. I dream up new stories to write, I dream of…
“I’ve got troubled thoughts,
And self-esteem to match,
What a catch, what a catch…”
I reach under my vibrating pillow and shut off Fall Out Boy’s dulcet tones, switch my phone on snooze, turn over and attempt to return to the places only my dreams can take me to.
“I’ve got troubled thoughts,
And self-esteem to match,
What a catch, what a catch…”
I reach under my vibrating pillow and shut off Fall Out Boy’s dulcet tones, switch my phone on to snooze, turn over and attempt to return to the places only my dreams can take me to.
I snuggle further down into my duvet, pull my teddy bear closer to me and shuffle around until my quilt covers my head.
Outside a barn owl screeches.
I toss and turn. Sleep does not return.
I turn off my phone alarm, snap on my lamp and throw off my covers. It’s freezing in my bedroom. I sleep with the window wide open. In the winter I like the smell of the thinner, cooler air. I love the smell of damp soil and dry leaves in the autumn, the occasional scent of wood smoke on the back if the last of the sunshine’s rays.
My energy efficient light bulb gradually finds the strength to shine and I swing my legs out of bed. It is 5.30am and this is how my day begins.
I like the winter mornings. I like waking up in the dark and watch as the watery sun rises to illuminate the world for just a short while, before sinking once again, behind the horizon, only to shine strongly down upon the southern hemisphere.
I like the frost. I like the way it accentuates natures perfect art forms, every leaf, every blade of grass, every spindly, skeletal tree, making them more alive than ever. But, as the sun rises and adds a sparkle to their dead splendour, the sun slowly destroys their momentary beauty. Until tomorrow.
The house is quiet – only the ticking of the many clocks in our house audible over the small humming of the fridge. The kitchen is dark until I switch on the light that slowly, reluctantly, grudgingly flickers to life, deliberately threatening to plunge me into darkness for waking it so early.
It’s nice getting up early. I understand why my Grandad liked it so much. He died four years ago, today. It was on a Thursday. I was twelve. I’m sixteen now. He used to get up early and blast out classical music though his stereo. I get up early and blast out a mixture of My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Billy Talent and The Used. He was the only one who called me by my real name, Jessie Rose.
I munch my way through a bowl of Tesco Honey Nut Cornflakes (Kellogg’s Honey Nut have too much honey…) feel my way back up the dark stairs, wash my hair, face, brush my teeth for the first time in the morning, wander back through to my bedroom, turn on my old radio, wake up my laptop, wake up my parents with some nice, loud, post rock or alternative rock music, comb my hair, clamber back into bed and begin to type.
Sometimes I write some more of my book, Moth Flower, but at the moment I am writing for my unborn niece/nephew. I’m making a book and filling it with the only gift I can give, words. Ten fairy tales, some brand new fairy tales, some borrowed, some too old to be remembered. I enjoy writing. I just hate writing about myself. I sound pretentious and melodramatic and like a moody, ‘misunderstood’ teenager. I’m not really. I just sound like that when I put myself down on paper. I sound better when I write in metaphors, when I mix myself in with a twist of fantasy, hiding myself behind a fictional soul.
So I get dressed around eight in the morning if I can get a lift with my Dad. I drag my still damp hair back into a ponytail and loop it around so my hair doesn’t brush my neck during the day. I grab my blazer, my lunchbox, my phone, realise I am late and forget all the books I need for the day, normally including the homework I bothered to do the night before. I suppose putting my books in my bag the night before sounds like a good idea in this situation, but when I was younger my Mum used to nag me about my organisational skills (of which there are very few) so, in a stubborn, rebellious bout of teenage rage, I ignored her. And my books will lie scattered underneath my desk until the day after I need them, dormant and collecting dust, all thanks to my somewhat obstinate behaviour years before.
But I have my daily essentials in my hands. My phone, containing my favourite music of the day (not used for communication, god forbid. That may be verging on a social life, something I do try to avoid…), my lunchbox containing the materials I need for my favourite lesson of the day (Lunch. A valuable lesson in which I learn to communicate with the species I share this planet with. Humans…) and my decorated blazer. I run down the garden slabs, hopping across them trying to avoid the attack of the overgrown orange blossom and the viburnum. It’s 8.23am. I should have left three minutes ago. I try and hold my muddy school boots in one hand, my lunchbox in the other and endeavouring to shove my phone and headphones in my blazer pocket, all whilst trying to open the garage door. Some mornings I succeed, resulting in a good day, my ego soaring as I contemplate my multi-tasking feat. Most mornings, however, I drop everything in a muddle, swear, bang my head on the garage door, kick the step with frustration and fall into the car, hurriedly changing the radio station from BBC 4 to Radio 1 with Chris Moyles.
Radio in the morning is essential. For some people they need their daily dose of coffee to get their heart beating again in the morning, for others it’s Weetabix. Mine is the radio. It never fails to bring a smile to my grumpy, tired face in the morning. I even have it on under the loud sounds of alternative rock coming from my laptop in the morning. The blend of the two sounds are like black coffee, bittersweet but delicious.
My day at school begins, normally, with something being thrown at my head. I just learn to duck now as I mooch into my tutor room, head down, hands in pockets, music melting my ears and more often than not, a huge scowl plastered across my bare face.
I never wear make-up anymore. I used to, but then I thought ‘What’s the point?’ It’s got so many chemicals and rubbish in that can’t be good for your skin and it just adds another thing for me to hide behind. I just want to show my face, you know? And not pretend to have flawless skin, black eyes, or one, thick eyelash stuck to a heavy eyelid. It’s all so fake.
Don’t get me wrong, a little bit of make-up now and again is nice if you wear it properly. If you wear it to accentuate your natural beauty instead of smothering your skin with…(if you would like to listen to this rant in full, please stop by my tutor room in the morning when I regularly lecture my friends, who have flawless skin, lather gallons of chemicals on their faces in order to conform with what societies concept of beauty.)
Lessons normally pass by slowly. I listen (most of the time), I do the work (again, most of the time) and even sometimes I participate when I have something to say. If I don’t have anything to say I just sit there and generally shut up, taking in what is being said around me.
I need good grades. I want to do the International Baccalaureate next year. I don’t want to narrow my options just yet, I just want to learn so much. I don’t necessarily want to learn what they teach at school, the exam production line. School is just a process, a compulsory process in which any individual spark of creativity and unusual imagination is wiped from the minds of the students and replaced with the knowledge to get the school a good reputation. I hate that. It’s just all so hypocritical. Everything that actually happens within the school is swept under the mat. I’ve seen drug dealing occur, I’ve watched students get drunk, I’ve watched students roll cigarettes during lessons, I’ve seen one girl panic because she thought she was pregnant. The school’s name is just a façade to allow this to happen. I just hate the fact the head teacher seems to ignore these factors, he just polishes the school sign and shows the photos of royalty faking an interest in the school. But that’s another rant…
Lunch comes and goes, full of friends and giggling, forgetting to breath, drop kicks and dancing, inside jokes and innuendoes, fairy tales and, for me, loud music. Sometimes, even when in a room full of my friends, I just need to escape from it all, just to be by myself, all alone…
I suppose that’s what sets me apart from them. I don’t really like being round people too much, not even my friends. I just don’t trust them. I try, but stuff happened, lots of stuff, stuff that I’ve blockaded from my memory, a time of depression, cuts, loneliness, tears and being so alone. Loneliness and being alone are two different things. A world apart from each other.
But I digress. I just don’t trust people. Full stop. End of story. Next chapter.
The afternoon lessons pass by slowly, dawdling by, time pausing mere seconds before the bell rings. At 3.30pm exactly I am out of my last lesson like a shot out of a gun. I am at my locker within the next minute and out of school within the next thirty seconds. Plugging in my headphones I walk as fast as I can, my legs pounding relentlessly. A quick smile and a polite ‘thank you’ to the lollipop man, there rain, hail, sun, wind and snow. On Mondays I wander back to my Dad’s work in BAE Systems and sit quietly for a bit, doing homework, reading or just sitting. I walk back on Tuesday and Wednesday, across the water-meadows and up the machinery track or through the grave-yard depending on whether or not I want to partake in any scrumping. On Thursday Mum picks me up from the car park because I go to violin in the evening and I want to practise before I go. Fridays are different though. I hate walking on Friday, I just want to get straight home. So I catch the bus with my friends. It takes ten minutes but I like to be lazy on a Friday. Five hours in front of the TV, eating apples and not doing anything at all.
But today is Wednesday. A long walk home and an early night is needed. I can’t normally keep my eyes open by Wednesday. So my bag is discarded on the floor, my blazer shrugged off and left where it has fallen like road kill. As I flop down on my bed with my laptop on my knees my tie is thrown across the room, hiding to make it’s location as hard to plot as possible to ensure a fun search the next morning.
I am in bed by 9.30pm. I have surfed the internet for a bit and have even sent the occasional instant message to the closest person to a best friend to me. I don’t use any socialising sites like Facebook, twitter and MySpace. Mostly because of my paranoia of subliminal messaging (I don’t watch SKY television anymore thanks to Media Studies when I learnt about the man who owns it all. You never know, just because he says he doesn’t send out any subliminal messages it does not mean to say he doesn’t.)
Sleep reimburses my energy supplies at around midnight. I lie awake dreaming of my Europe trip (I plan to travel Europe in a small campervan during my gap year) and I dream of the land that I will one day own, living in harmony with the earth and being completely self-sufficient. I dream up new stories to write, I dream of…
“I’ve got troubled thoughts,
And self-esteem to match,
What a catch, what a catch…”
I reach under my vibrating pillow and shut off Fall Out Boy’s dulcet tones, switch my phone on snooze, turn over and attempt to return to the places only my dreams can take me to.
♠ ♠ ♠
Since writing this a baby boy was born. He is my nephew. He is beautiful and has the most gorgeous blue eyes ever. His hair is sparce but soft, his skin is new and silky and his fingers and toes are the most stunning fingers and toes I have ever seen. Congratulations to my sister in-law and my brother!!The lyrics are from Fall Out Boy's What A Catch, Donnie. All credit go to Fall Out Boy for awsome lyrics and music.