Blasting News

In case anyone's unaware, I've started being published on this website! Very exciting, here's my page for you:

http://uk.blastingnews.com/editorial-staff/poppy-evans/

I wrote a poem...

I don't know if this is really lame, but I wrote this a while ago and I kinda like it. It's a poem... see what you think.

The ashes have burned,

The last documents read.

Ready meals lovingly cooked by those you hardly knew,

Pile 

Up.

You’ve dialed and heard my answerphone 

A hundred times.

Smelt the last few scraps of my scent in what’s now just your bed

Broken a glass and screamed.

The neighbours came to check you were ‘doing okay.’

And that’s just today.

Back to work,

A hundred names on cards in your wallet.

Therapists. Shrinks.

You have dreams ahead of you,

A new girl. Not me,

But special.

She smells wonderful,

White rose and lime.

She can cook better than I could.

Then,

You’ll have chocolate milk,

Red kite on the end of little girl’s fingers.

Hand prints in clay and school plays.

This is how it should be.

But it’s today.

So today, weep to your hearts content,

Think about what I whispered under the sheets.

Laugh with my friends.

Tell mum and dad that I still have their cake tin.

Say I’m very sorry,

I’ll leave it to them in my will.

Today is a celebration, glass half full.

I could only give half, but you filled mine to the brim.

Today, the sun shines,

The birds continue to sing.

The traffic flows.

I am a constant past,

Just like you all have an inevitable future.

Health

 I don't know how normal it is for a first year to feel completely bewildered and crazed by the start of university. I am.

 I spent my whole childhood looking to two elder brother's - both much more capable and intelligent than I will ever be. At every new phase of their life, I wanted to be involved. I loved being with them, I wanted nothing more than their attention. I'm pretty sure they both thought I was just an annoying lump for the 11 or so years we lived together, but I was always craving their satisfaction with what I'd done. I wanted them to be impressed by me.

 At the point where they went to university, I was around 15. For the next three years I felt desperation to get there, I hated school for that time. I always wondered whether it was just jealousy for the life they were leading, but now I wonder if I was desperate to have something in common with them: to be living the life with them.

 Speaking to a friend at university on Skype once, she was boiling some pasta, which she then poured accidentally into the sink. The sink was filled with grime but she had no more pasta and had to pick it out. Then she got the tomato soup she'd been heating and poured it over the top. When she got back to her room I asked her what she was going to do the rest of the day; she told me she'd watch some more tv or a film. I got this picture of uni life being a breeze.

 Now I'm here, I feel the constant need to get home and stop to catch my breath. The work is never-ending, always something I should be doing. This coming Friday I have one 1500 word essay due, the following Monday 15% of my Persuasive Writing is due, followed by another 1500 word essay the Friday of that week. And I just know, when I go into German tomorrow she's going to ask me if I've managed to do a book review yet. No I haven't.

 The transition between school and university has been piss poor. I have no idea what is expected of my essay writing, and no way of getting help with it. I'm not allowed to hand in drafts and I'm not being heard when I've asked questions. I feel set to fail at the moment and that's not a nice feeling.

 The travelling has still been taking its toll on my body: I'm having indigestion and feeling close to peeing myself every so often. I've tried choking back every pill: done blood tests, I've pooed and peed in a cup. I've tried Yakult (and had one stolen from the fridge - who steals Yakult?!).  I eat healthy, I drink plenty of water. Nothing is working so I have to go BACK to the doctor this week and watch someone stare at me blankly again as if I'm wasting their time.

 The stress is stopping me sleeping. So is the busting to pee situation. Plus today I had to reach into a bin to get my campus card that I'd just accidentally dropped. It's not going well. Not coping. Help.

Blasting News

Just a quick one to say that I've had an article published by a website called 'Blasting News'. They have global representatives who post articles about stuff happening where they are... anyway. Here's my first!

http://uk.blastingnews.com/tech/2014/11/why-we-shouldn-t-trust-everything-we-hear-on-social-media-00171875.html

Ambition

 Recently I've been feeling swallowed by my own ambition. I had so many dreams when I got back from travelling that I've mentioned before. I have so many projects I want to dabble into it's overwhelming my brain - and I'm not making them happen.

 I could blame it on the fact that I don't have enough minutes to make the calls I need to make about a certain Christmas project, or the fact that my mum's had heart failure so, you know, it's all a bit much right now. But the real utter truth as it is whenever most things in life aren't progressing, it's your own fault. Because if I really tried things would happen. 

 I started trying a while ago with my idea of Christmas boxes for the homeless, I was going to try it for Cardiff this year. I contacted a tonne of companies asking for discount cards, fully stamped coffee cards, that sort of thing. They would be compiled into a box to give out to those who don't have permanent housing over Christmas. Of course these big companies don't respond to emails, so I've had out of about twenty companies, one reply. And it was a no. What I really need to do is call them, but my dad would be paying. So I need to figure that one out.

 Then there was my big 'become toned' plan, which is urrr... still in progress. I've been to the gym pitifully few times this term. Must book into classes. Must... Did eat a salad today though, that's good?

 I miss singing but don't want to do Choral stuff anymore. I was hoping there'd be an A Cappella group in Reading but there isn't, so I'd have to start one and I can't read music and am scared of singing in public... that's a great ambition. I want to do something I'm afraid of.

 Plus I wanted a writing job, and I'm still waiting for that to appear in my mailbox. I have been applying though. That's alright I guess.

 Then Milly and I tried to start a nail thing and it turns out our halls aren't insured so we were threatened to be kicked out of our accommodation... woohoo. That was that. Bye bye £90.

There are others but I actually can't remember them now... what to do. Want to read, write, apply, call people all at once. AAAAAAH.

Help me, myself. 

A&E

 Last night I went for a re-union meal with Francesca and Milly (fyi, 40% off Pizza Express for students on Mondays and Tuesdays). Took a few scrambled attempts to nail down what Franji wanted to eat, much to the delight of the waitress, but we got there in the end. I think she liked it. She said at the end 'We should come here every Monday!' Followed by 'We should try Tampons'. After we'd stopped laughing we realised she'd been trying to say the name of a restaurant but neither of us could figure out which one she meant. I still don't know.

 Anyway, after that Milly and I went back to Milly's room to watch Made In Chelsea and at around 10:30 we were both thinking of going to sleep. Then Milly checked her phone and Charlie had texted to say he was in A&E and could she bring some food for him. Much groaning - and £6 for a taxi about 3 minutes!!! - we came into the hospital in pyjamas. 

 He'd been knocked out in a rugby game and has a slight cut on his massively swollen right eye. He could barely see. Already having spent 2 and a half hours waiting to be seen, Milly and I must have been there for another couple while the doctor examined him. Turns out he has concussion, but no eye damage luckily.

 But the waiting room entertainment is priceless. There was a woman in with a young lad who'd locked himself in the toilet and despite her yelling at him through the door wouldn't come out. She then went up to the desk and burst into tears and eventually they had to bring a stretcher out with a nurse and doctor and get this guy out. Turned out he'd been injecting himself with heroin in the toilet... The people around us started saying things like 'They should just chuck him back out on the street' and 'that's one way to get seen faster.'

 Then another woman told us she was waiting for her son who'd ridden his bicycle into a wall. The woman next to me had been having, prior to her arrival, a huge nose bleed that filled four tea towels. She said 'The dogs thought it was a game! I was trying to stop my nose and they were jumping up.' She laughed, 'It's probably nothing, I wished I hadn't bothered now.' I doubted that last statement but said nothing.

 Then there was a woman I noticed in the centre of the room, sat on the edge of her seat, gaze cast onto the floor the whole time looking worried. I felt bad for her. And a couple of women who we called in by a surgeon which isn't a good sign either. As we left there were wheelchairs by the doors full of people open mouthed and snoring. Empty coffee cups all round the room.

 It's odd how many people come together at once. I always think the variety looks fascinating when you gather a hand full of strangers. There we were, three university students, with two farmers and people on drugs and people from far away wearing wellies thick in mud. It was interesting. Especially when they played the Apprentice with sign language. That was wicked. I learnt lots. It was a great couple of hours.

Polaroids

I finished my polaroid frame!! For now... I want to back it with dark wood but the bulk of it is done.

Absolutely love it.

Interiors again...

 When I went travelling I bought a Fuji Instax polaroid camera to take with me. I came up with the aim to take one good photo for each country I visited, and then I could compile them and make some sort of memoir. It's the first time I'd ever worked with film, and having James with me he was constantly wincing as I let full daylight into the back or dropped it in the ocean.

 Eventually I've managed to rust the rollers, meaning every photo I took at the end of my journey has nice blank lines through the middle. I think it gives a nice aged look to my trip. It did become a bit of a pain by the end: when I'd press the button at the crucial moment and nothing happened. The worst was when I was stood at the top of the pyramids in Mexico City and had the PERFECT shot ready and nothing came out. After I smacked it about a bit in my hostel room I managed to get it up and running again but had to settle for a photo of a view from my room, which was annoying.

 Plus when I arrived at Brazil, my last destination, I was up the top of some building over looking the sky scrapers and realised that while the camera thought I had 6 photos left, I really had none. So that was the end of that. However, I was only in Sao Paulo for 5 days so I figured I'm not at a huge loss if I leave that one out, this time. Plus that leaves me neatly with two rows of 5.

 Anyway, I wanted to do something different with the photos to make them look really good, so I went online and looked up a bunch of photos for inspiration:

 This is a rough idea of what I'm aiming for. I went shopping in Hay on Wye yesterday to find a cheap frame from one of their kooky second hand stores. Went into an antique shop and rummaged through frames which were about £30-£50... not what I wanted to spend. Managed to get a faux wood frame for £3 somewhere else, made to look like dark wood and with a gold line on the inside. So I've painted it with Annie Sloane chalk paint and am going to distress it slightly so the dark wood colour comes through a tiny bit, and possibly splatter it lightly with some black paint. Hopefully I can find some dark wood to put underneath it.

 I collected some photos of the projects happening in my house also. This is what happens when you let my mum lose in a playground...

The first thing she's big on now is flower arrangements, as I've touched on before. There's now become this weird mix in my house between bohemian items and fresh florals. Or dead branches...

The felted wall hanging I was on about...

Those dead branches I mentioned earlier?

Twig light fitting... obviously.

Up-cycled jumpers...

The staircase patterns so far...

Home

 Sat in my FREEEZING cold house in front of the fire, trying to design patterns for the staircase, while dad is in the next room belting out some classical music. I have one dog in my lap trying to eat my hand and the other pawing at my back because he's jealous of the attention. The cat has been in the same place on the sofa for two days because she's injured her paw. Upstairs I can hear mum banging away on her keyboard getting ready for the choir she's running tonight.

It's good to be back in the mad house.

 I've been diving back into my scrapbook this week and trying to fill all the pages with as much as I can find: memories, cards, places, people. It's good to document everything that seems important at its present time. I know that in months and years, what and who were the most important disappear, but I want to hold onto it and keep it all sealed forever. This week I'm going to add some drawings as well, it's been a long time since I drew anything. It was the only thing I was good at in art. People around me would be painting ceiling high portraits and gluing layers onto architectural sky-scrapers, while I was sat loudly singing Nero and sticking small papier mache shoes onto larger ones... But I could draw.

 It's the first time I've seen Mum since she had heart failure, and I was shocked at how skinny she looked. The latest is that depending on her up-coming results for something heart related, Barney, Joz and I may have to go for an echocardiogram to see if it's congenital. If it is, it means we have big hearts! I think that's rather nice. She's in good spirits and I'll be glad when she can finally slow her work down.

This is the design I've been working on for the staircase:

 I'll take some decent photos of the house tomorrow and get them uploaded. The latest projects seem to be: a curtain made from coffee sacks, a felted wall hanging and a new plan to make a vase from cardboard. Mum's current obsession are flowers. She's going to plant a new batch of local ones in the garden. Today I was handing out my cv for some part time work over Christmas here and unsurprisingly she was sending me to the florists to hand it in... I see where that's going.

 Last night we cooked a potato and celeriac tart de flette and covered it in cheese. Unfortunately we left it in the oven at 30 degrees and it was raw when we got it out an hour later, so that's dinner tonight. Typical week in my house so far.