Exam Week- Countdown and The Stars

Beyoncé - Countdown

It's 5:32 in the morning. I am fixated on the music video for the Beyoncé song "Countdown". It is playing on a website which multiplies the video and runs each square slightly more delayed than the previous one. I keep staring at the flashing, flowing images, which create a wave of colour. What makes me fixate on this roll of fascinating images is a mystery. It's possible I want to be Beyoncé. It's either her or Rihanna I'd most want to be in this world. Maybe the lyrics make me want...to dance and sing. Perhaps it is only the colour and costumes of the video. Whatever it is, it is 5:47 in the morning and I am still falling, still the one I need, I will always be with you, oh...

(It's also worth noting that if you send someone this Rickroll, very similar to the Beyoncé video, it would be the best Rickroll in the entire universe)

John Green's signature

I've finally gotten around to reading The Fault In Our Stars by John Green, whose name you might recognise because I mention him and his wonderful writing nearly every time I write. Side Note: Amazon UK puts it in the Children's Book section, Amazon US puts it under Teen. Then I realised that Amazon UK doesn't even have a Teen section. Why does the UK not believe in Young Adult Literature? It's incredibly insulting, or at least I find it incredibly so, to put a thought-provoking book about teenagers with cancer which asks hard questions while still managing to be witty and playful in the same category as That's Not My Puppy (No offense to the people over at That's Not My. As we all know, of course, I own That's Not My Princess, signed). I would rant about how Young Adult Lit should be taken more seriously as a genre of literature the same way that animation should be taken more seriously as a style of film-making, and that it can be enjoyed by young adults as well as adults (or even possibly "children" if those children were really mature and were allowed to read about mature subjects). However, I'm not going to rant because that's not as interesting as I think it sounds in my head.

The book came out on the 10th, but I didn't want to go collect the parcel from the front desk because I didn't want to be so consumed by the book when I had to study for my exams*. The book is so amazing. I'm not just saying that because I'm a big John Green fan. I'm saying that because the book is so amazing. That link has, along with information about the book, reviews from readers which are fairly to exceedingly positive. And I know that if you do click that, you're probably going to look at the negative reviews and the criticisms just to show me up and prove that this isn't the best book in the universe. Keep in mind, though, that I do believe that there are flaws in this books, just as there are flaws in any of John Green's books. It's just that this book has many, many amazing parts to it that are wonderful.


I think this book might be John Green's best work to date. It has great, warm moments, as well as funny moments, and, of course, the saddest moments you could imagine. The book could be analysed in an English classroom, I swear. I'd be willing to be the teacher who teaches that!


(*Speaking of which, I took my exams. Latin didn't feel like it went very well. French seemed to go as well as I assumed it would go, which means "okay, but not spectacularly". All in all, I hope I pass both.)

I had a conversation over dinner with Lucy and Hannah in defense of why I feel the need to put my life out there, so to speak. I was asking the same question I asked last post about whether or not a Tumblr would be worth my time, proving that I cannot even keep my internet life out of my real life. I've already pointed out how many things I manage online, so I don't feel a reason to explain what I have on the internet, but mainly why. I believe that I do it because I know the odds. There's a higher likeliness that people who are skilled, interesting, talented, or famous will be talked about now and, for the most part, forever. People will write books about them, study them, watch them, quote them, analyse them and experience them well after they cease to be. I know I am not one of those people. No one's going to publish me or research my life or figure out the secrets of my mind. There's only one person who's going to remember who I am, in the grand scheme of things. That's me. 


So what do I want there to be of me out there that is me? The parts of my life that, at the very least, I find interesting. The things that I am thinking, whether right or wrong. I keep every sort of internet presence possible (except a Tumblr, of course); as well as a journal, which I write in every day; the various stories, or the starts of stories, that I type down quickly on my computer; notes I jot down, hoping no one will ever find them; and ideas and arguments I have, mostly with myself, which sit in word processing documents on my external hard drive. I think I fully understand myself in a way which I would like to believe is self-empowering, but is probably narcissistic. No one else is going to care, so I might as well put as much out there as possible in the hopes that I keep analysing my own character in the story that is my life. Who knows -- maybe in the process, someone, somewhere, will care just a tiny bit about what I have to say.


So back to things that are less abstract and philosophical and a bit ego-centric. 

Recently, I went to the Old Course for tea, which happens quite frequently when people want it to happen. Even though it's the tea-place of choice of my friends, I never feel like I'm allowed to be in it when I walk into it alone. I always feel like I'm sneaking around, despite the fact that I have a right to be there just as much as anyone, plus I would be giving them money to enjoy their cappuccino and sandwich.

Regardless, when I showed up early to tea because I, of course, overestimated the time it takes to walk anywhere in St Andrews, I snuck into a hallway called the Hall of Champions, thusly named because there were big pictures of ye olde golfers and lists of all the winners of whatever big championship takes place in town. I felt really small, even though these guys had only ever won at golf. I found a seating area where I continued to read The Fault In Our Stars. I was alone, but a rebellious-type of alone. Although guests were supposed to use these chairs, I wasn't supposed to be in the Old Course. In a way, I felt like no one should be. It should be pristine and lonely forever.