Mums know best

Dear All

There are no other words than those of my sincere apology to any and all of you who seldom check in here to see what the weirdest species of this planet are up to. There is no other reason for our absence than a simple "just didn't have time" excuse. I know how you must feel. It must be the same feeling that I get when I hear Lalita's answering machine say to me "I am not really in the mood of picking the phone even though I am sitting 5 steps away from it, so leave a message after the tone. Or not, I don't really care" or something along those lines.

So are we now going to be one of those couples who fight and then one of them acts like nothing has happened and go on living like usual, hoping that the other will come around too ? As annoying as that must be, I'll do just the same. Ignorance is bliss !!

We are currently on our second work placements and I am working at a special needs school. I work with some of the most beautiful children and some of the warmest hearts to have been blessed to this world. It wasn't the most ideal place in accordance to my aspirations but I am very glad I ended up here. It has been my honour to see this world in a different light and to realise that love needs no words for its introduction. It is purely in the act, the smile and the way you look at someone. There are angels on this earth in every corner but we are made not to see them. Our loss.

I have been swarmed by extra stress recently which gives me a water-tight alibi that I have not been up to my dark lord-ly ways (I am afraid I am losing my touch). With all my due busyness, I felt that I had to write this blog post today. My mum has left this snow cold city for our warm hometown glory, for three weeks. When she left, I thought to myself "How bad could it be ? ". Turns out very. I am now in charge of everything from waking up on my own to not only feeding myself but also my sisters and my dad. I could almost write a book about my hardships faced in my first week (so 3 books by the end of 3 weeks) but doing that would mean that I had time to breath, which I didn't. Not until now I haven't. The worst part is that I am not even at the liberty to complain about the matter because my mother, that petite little thing with an un diagnosed border line OCD of cleanliness does all of these things all day every day 365 days of the year. I don't think I can actually do this any longer than I am required to do. I have almost started to lose my temper which I have been sworn (on the life of harry potter) to keep under control (we're only into our first week of this un-voluntary social experiment).
The evenings are lonely and the TV is boring without her. No one sings to the theme music of The Secret Circle or suggests that they should put that on before and after every advert break. I have reached the conclusion that mums have special super powers like Clark Kent (because that's the only explanation)
So don't under estimate the power of mums because even with all the crap she gets from everyone at home, she still smiles for you when you want and makes you feel warm no matter how cold it is outside. Most of all she is the very best you've got.

“Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together.”

With love
Emily xx

The Boy That Might Not Have Been

Hello Dear Readers,

It’s been a while since my last posting (Amanda) and I apologise for that, as you may have gathered from the other posts I am a little lazy. Having said that, I had to share a thought Emily and I had a few weeks ago. Is CG real?

I now imagine you all sitting there and sighing, oh dear, not the "boy obsession" again, but really, maybe he didn’t really exist. A figment of our imagination, the boredom of lectures getting to our head, the lack of males in a Psychology degree, so the deprived Lakes, who share a brain (rumours have it) made up a creature so beautiful and amusing that we felt content and if so, reality came crashing back too soon :(

CG isn’t here anymore, our damned brains lost their power of concieving the beautiful being, and I think we may have caused him to fail the course (woops, sorry CG.)

The flaws in our creature started appearing when he arrived 12 minutes late to each lecture, surely that cannot be possible? but denial hit too soon and we quickly let that thought pass thinking he might live 12 minutes from campus and always left on time, the same attitude kept up with CG not having very many friends, again, maybe he was shy? or liked to keep to himself. The second flaw was when CG stopped coming to some lectures, especially near exam season, again denial didn’t let reality crack through as who knows, maybe he was revising and thought lectures were a waste of him? It's possible. The breakthrough came when CG did not attend any exams (well, one). That is when we seriously doubted his existence, a guy, who comes from Greece to the UK to study, pays almost double the tuition fees as we do, gets into his second year and then suddenly does not appear to most lectures and more importantly exams. Makes no sense, not to mention he has now suddenly disappeared.

Its time to wake up from our wonderful dream of an almost perfect boy. Which is a real shame because at the moment The Lake's are suffering from CG deprivation, and surprisingly Emily is more so than me. Who'd know? But I assume that’s because Emm did try to befriend him.

So The Lake's are having a bit of a glum time at the moment, CG is no longer here, workload is increasing and placement applying comes soon too. On the bright side however, we get Friday's off, wohoo! :D

" I have a very firm grasp on reality! I can reach out and strangle it any time!" Author Unknown

So readers, till next time, farewell, take care and stay safe!

Amanda xx

The British summer (or not)

I can assure you that our lack of effort to update the chronicles has nothing to do with the less than average British weather. Well actually I take that back, the weather should be blamed for every audacity. The sole reason for which is the chaos and confusion it causes. I think Britain shouldn't have a calender, and they should NEVER mark the 29th of May as "British summer time begins". Do we have no right to know the truth ? What has the world come to ? Because telling a child in Britain that June is a summer month is a plain lie. How can we expect them to grow up as truthful human beings when we betray them in matters like the weather. I would hate for my child to grow up and think that summer is supposed to be cold and rainy and winter, well winter is supposed to be cold and um, snowy. Weather telecasters are just for the show and to fill the 5 minute slot every hour in the news otherwise we all know you can NEVER predict what the weather's gonna be like apart from the fact that it's gonna rain. take for example the last week. I had actually given up hope of seeing my sunflowers grow, observing the lack of sun. I was actually thinking of writing to the seed company to let them know that they have published the wrong timings for sowing and flowering. I think God heard me when I complained to Lalita about this not being June and how the weather was a disgrace to June because two days ago all hell broke loose, weather wise of course. It hurt to look outside because our eyes are not accustomed to see in such bright light. We are like those cats that are put through unethical experiments of being born and reared in a small box with vertical lines so when they are taken out, they can't see anything else because they have seen vertical lines all their life. Every surface was like a furnace and any contact with the skin felt like  it was going to melt. People were happy and naked, maybe too much naked hence today it rained cats and dogs. It rained like we were in the amazonian rain forest. I rest my case your honour.
But fear not, I tell myself. Soon I will be begging for rain and cold because I am going to a place where the sun shines like its on the ground, the air is like an oven fan set at 180 degrees and rain comes like an oasis in a desert. I think the eggs can fry themselves, no joke. To top it all off the electricity graces it present like it's God's gift, well it is but still no need to show off. I know I am gonna miss everything here most of all the Lakes and I know they'll miss me and my declamation about how no one bother about the blog. :) I hope they are nice enough to not forget about it but I can never be too sure hence my little piece before my departure. This doesn't mean I am not going to keep you posted about all the exciting things (may be) that come my way. I love this too much. I'll try IF I am done depleting the world of all the mango supplies. Which is a big IF !

"Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it"

But whose complaining ? :P

"There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart"

With love like the summer rain
Emily xx

It's Not Sad

It has never been my practise before to start writing a blog post with no title, no subject and pretty much no idea where it’s going to go. I would not choose to start doing this now, if it were not for the dark forces at work. Ok, there aren’t really any dark forces, I’ve just been watching a lot of Harry Potter (there can never be too much HP) - 8 movies in 2 days, which is not bad if I say so myself. Since we finished out exams on May 20^th, I have been dedicating a large portion of my time to chilling out, and why not? All I’m looking forward to is exam re-sits in August and more university in September [insert sad face here], so for now I plan to spend time doing what I love: crocheting a blanket, completing a 3000 piece jigsaw, watching movies. I’m planning a Lord of the Rings movie marathon this Friday if anyone wants to join me. I’m not bothering anyone, my mum doesn’t mind, so what’s the problem I hear you ask?

A certain person who shall remain nameless (it’s not Amanda or Kathleen) has been bugging me pretty much every day to write something on the blog. The problem, however, is that I haven’t done anything that I deem blog worthy, and therefore I have nothing to write. This person refuses to listen, and won’t accept my explanation, and so we arrive at the problem: what to write? It’s come to the point where I have to write something, anything, or say no in a very blunt way. It probably doesn’t help matters that I have a stubborn streak a mile wide when I’m told to do something I don’t want to. However, I rate friendship as slightly more important than an internet diary, and so here is my anything.  If you don’t like it I don’t really care, to be perfectly honest.  

3 chapters in, I have decided on a subject to discuss. I was almost tempted to write a one-line post and leave it at that, but I would not be happy with myself and the quality of my work. Therefore, I have decided to discuss doing activities alone, since it’s a subject that I think some people regard as a social taboo. I’m not talking about being alone constantly, and having to do everything by yourself, just sometimes, occasionally, choosing to be alone. First off, I would like to say, it’s not sad: hence the title of my post.  About 6 or 7 weeks ago, I went to see Scream 4 alone. I went into the cinema by myself and asked for one ticket. Be warned, you will get a few strange looks, and the ticket person will ask you if you only want the one ticket, but that’s pretty much the only downside. You can see the film you want to see, you don’t have to share your arm rests and you can sit wherever you want. Whoever said cinema was supposed to be a social activity anyway? You go there, to sit in absolute silence not even looking at your friends, and then you leave. Really social.  I admit that it’s fun to talk about the movie afterwards with your friends, but if you just want the fun element of actually watching a film, then going alone is fine. And if you are interested, the film was good. Not as good as Scream 1, but better than Scream 3. I for one did not predict the ending, despite whatever other people may claim they knew 20 minutes in or whatever.

Last week, also alone, I went to Regents Park for a walk. It was a spur of the moment thing, which really are the best kind of things. Just get up and go, no planning, no plans going horridly wrong. I got lost (it’s a big place) but it was ok, kind of like having an adventure, and then I got found again. I walked down the same walkway that is featured in the film The King’s Speech (really good, check it out) although it was much less foggy. I went to the inner circle of the park, a place I’ve never been before despite only living 20 minutes away, something which took all the navigational and map reading skills I possess and was totally worth it. I have to commend the gardeners there for their excellent work; some of the roses there were as big as my hand and incredibly beautiful. They were honestly unbelievably huge, so of course my camera decided to break. I saw some weird looking birds that I had to edge my way past, praying I wouldn’t get attacked; I wouldn’t miss not seeing them again, but it was all part of the experience. Then, on the way back, also on the spur of the moment, I decided to walk back to my house along the canal. It’s like a whole other world- people keep houseboats there, and on the walkway they have chairs and tables, lights and flower beds, it’s like entering a magical world when you walk down there.

Choosing to do activities alone that you would normally do with others is actually a very liberating experience, and if you haven’t done so already, I would recommend that you try it. When you go out alone, you do feel slightly self-conscious, but if you take two minutes to look around, you will suddenly notice that a lot of people are also out by themselves, and you’re not as weird as you feel. It’s not sad.

"I have to be alone very often. I'd be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That's how I refuel." – Audrey Hepburn

"I'm an introvert...I love being by myself, love being outdoors, love taking a long walk with my dogs and looking at the trees, flowers, the sky."- Audrey Hepburn

Unusually, I have decided to have two closing quotes as they both seem so relevant that I couldn’t pick 

just one.

Love, Lalita xxx