I'd like to start afresh.

The first thing you do upon meeting a stranger is introduce yourself, therefore: hello. My name is Katherine Ruth Leaver.

I am eighteen years, three months and twenty-five days old. 

I have a cat called Bingo:

a cactus called Brutus:

a brother called Rob:

and a sister called Liz:

They're both much older than me, and they're both married. My sister and her husband have a son called Leo; he's nineteen months old now.

(They made a boat)

So it's just Mum and Dad and me at home, now.

We moved to Suffolk almost four years ago for Mum's job. She's a vicar.

I did my GCSEs at this place here:

It's the private school in Woodbridge and for two years I was, to put it eloquently, fucking miserable.

I did, however, come out of it with five A*s - but then I also came out of it with an unhealthy dislike of anyone with a spare two quid to rub together, which is unfortunate because it also sparked a chronic obsession-slash-hatred-slash-immense desire for money.

Which brings me onto employment.

I once worked for three hours at a Chinese takeaway before I was discharged on account of my being utterly useless.

That there is my entire employment history.

Onward.

I moved to Farlingaye High School for sixth form, and it's only since I've moved that I've been able to be happy with myself.

That said, it hasn't been easy.

Last September I was diagnosed with OCD, which manifested itself through incessant handwashing and relentless cognitive issues. In the middle of November, I had my first (and hopefully, only) breakdown. I stopped being. Not long after I was diagnosed with depression as well.

However, things have been begun to get better. It's not exactly that wonderful things have been happening one after the other, but life is starting to get its rose-tint back for me.

Ahem.
My best friend is Sophie.

 

We met when we were eleven, and we're similar in all the ways that matter, and different in all the ways that make me love her most.

We both love reading. When we were thirteen we read the Twilight saga obsessively, and, for a good six months, Edward Cullen was the only thing that mattered to us.

I think her favourite book is Secretariat by William Nack. I'm more fickle; my favourite book tends to be the one I've most recently read. As it happens, the book I am reading at the moment (The Book Thief, Markus Zusak) may be a strong contender for a more permanent favourite.

However, in the last two months, something has changed. It was one night at the start of the Easter holidays, about one in the morning on Film4, when Battle Royale was showing. I'd heard my brother mention it a couple of years previously and I had nothing better to do so I watched it, and it broke my heart in all the right places. I've since watched it twice more, read the book by Koushun Takami twice, and the manga once. (I like it a lot, if you hadn't guessed.)

I also made a thing:

(Yes I am an Instagram whore shh)

It's the BR collar! To me this is exciting.

This here is my friend Sam:

He is a supernerd also.

We have tentative plans to invade ComiCon later this year and dress up. He refuses to do BR with me though because he says it's rubbish.

Someone else who means a lot to me is Shakespeare.

This here has got to me my favourite text in the world, and I am so, so glad that we've been studying it for this past year in English Lit.

I love Shakespeare. I love the worlds he created in his plays. I love his brilliance. His utter understanding of the human condition - or, if not direct understanding, he acknowledged the complexities of humanity, its cruelty and its beauty, and how the two so often overlap, and he toyed with the thin line that stands between genius and insanity and he was, and remains, superlatively incredible.

If I was given a loaded gun and had another pointed at my head and was told to shoot someone else, I hope I would not.

I like my mouth.

I hate small-talk.

I ship Johnlock.

And Frostiron.

And GeorgexLuna.

That isn't it. Of course it isn't. A person is made up of the things that have happened to them, and in eighteen years and three months and twenty-five days, so freaking much has happened that I can never know exactly who or what I am. Like the gun hypothesis; with reference to the moral choices that I have previously made, it's likely that I would shoot - and yet, I still hope I would not. Humans are creepy and weird and unreliable and brilliant, and it's taken me this long to see that I'm the same.

We are all amazing. Isn't that great?