It's funny -

I'm sure no one envies me, and yet I consider myself unbelievably fortunate. University? - pff, maybe later - and yet my own skepticism doesn't compromise the excitement and fear and whatever else is being felt at this moment by everyone waiting for the first day of uni. And so it shouldn't, of course - but I think the reason I'm in such distraction by the impending Year of Complete Isolation, is that I just don't understand why everyone's going. I mean - I've had to explain my reasons for not wanting to go. I suppose you could say that I'm worried that my friends - the overwhelming majority of my friends - are going off to university with no clearer idea of why they're going than I did six months ago when, amid revision and UCAS and all that bollocks, it kind of just occurred to me one day that I didn't want to walk this path being laid for me.

When I'm feeling particularly fluffy, I like to compare it to a pasta machine, with "it" being this big, ugly, proverbial SYSTEM that everyone likes to throw around and exploit and criticise - present company included, naturally.

Try and take me seriously for a minute. I know it's hard.

As I said - this SYSTEM is like a pasta machine. A pasta machine that primarily makes tagliatelle. The windy thing on the side of the pasta machine turns; this, within the context of the SYSTEM, is the passage of time. It turns, and churns out string after string of tagliatelle - and the tagliatelle is delicious, and edible, and everything that it should be, "and the Lord said that it was good" blah blah - but then, from nowhere, a lump of pasta-dough doesn't want to be tagliatelle. It wants to be a bow-tie, or a curly ribbon, or a shell, or a loopy-loop, or a windy tunnel. The pasta machine, unable/unwilling to accommodate the wishes of this nonconformist, rejects it; it gets caught in the workings, slows everything down, gets put on the receiving end of a thousand disapproving looks and exasperated lectures, all of which the pasta has heard before, until the words "You'll like it when you're tagliatelle" become the bane of its existence and it is left with two choices: to force itself to mould into tagliatelle, or to leap headfirst out of the pasta machine and pray to God that they'll land safely. 

That is what it's like, admitting to everyone who ever said, "You'll do well at university" that, eheheh, I don't want to go. First, the silence, then the questioning, then the unhelpful advice, then the "Oh, well, you can always change your mind". Thanks, lady. Further invalidate my autonomy, why don't you.

Without turning into some neo-hippy/hipster in vintage clogs and a fifties housewife petticoat, fuck the PASTA MACHINE.

So, uh,

now I have to admit that I didn't do as well as I'd have liked - but FUCK IT I'M NOT GOING HAHAHAHA oh dear lord I'm so grateful that I didn't have to go through clearing. I hate pitying people, because I know that no one likes to be pitied, but fuck me - I imagine clearing to be a massive pit of disappointed teenagers fighting to the death for a place on the Communication Studies course at the university of Bedfordshire and it's just depressing to think about.

*Where Katherine is once again a massive snob and fails to care*

Impending Results

In terms of immediacy, my A levels are basically irrelevant. I think that's why I'm not scared to find out how I did on results day, Thursday.

It feels a bit like someone said to me, a few months ago, that I'm going to receive a present on Thursday 15th August - and they're honest with me, they've said that it could be a nice present, or it could be a massive disappointment - so I know next-to-nothing about this present I'm getting, so I don't really think about it, but then when I do think about it I get kind of excited, because a present is still a present, and that's quite exciting.

ONE DAY MORE

Okay I've got work in 10 minutes and UGH I'M SO TIRED DON'T MAKE ME DO IT GOD

I don't think I know how to not complain about stuff anymore

I'm getting kinda chubby. I should regulate my eating, but I really love pie. This is a genuine dilemma.

Going up to Scotland in two days. TWO DAYS. It really cannot come fast enough - I am utterly whacked. And increasingly sounding more and more like my mother. Which is fine, she's a wonderful lady, but I'm eighteen and the preferred lexicon for "very tired" is "knackered".

When did I become such a dick.

Work is hard. Which sounds obvious, but it doesn't negate my point. Working in a pub, sometimes we're so busy that I want to cry with exhaustion, and other times there is nothing at all to be done and I want to cry with boredom. I find myself doing a lot of cleaning. Compulsively, you could say. Which isn't good, but it's something I do well.

I like being in the kitchen, because I'm learning so much, and not at all in a sit-down-with-a-textbook-and-here's-a-recipe-for-quiche kind of way. It feels like osmosis - I watch these chefs, who've been in the business for longer than I've been alive, and their knowledge and confidence makes me feel so stupid - but then they never make me feel insignificant, and I really appreciate and respect them for that.

I like being behind the bar, because the air conditioning is really good, and I like pretending to be charming and cheeky because, trust me, the punters lap that shit up like it's going out of fashion. It makes me sad, in a way, because the customers that I'm getting to know are the ones who're in there every day, and - of course - they're in there every day because they're all raging alcoholics. And that makes me sad, because they ask for a double Bells and Coke and I want to punch them in the face and say "NO, GO HOME TO YOUR WIFE AND NEVER COME BACK" but that would get me fired so I just serve them and try not to think about their ever-decreasing life expectancy. If anything, working behind the bar has given me a very, very clear idea of the kind of person I never want to be. So there's that.

But I really need to go to Scotland. I'll read lots and swim lots and take lots of pictures and I'll hang out with ALL my family and Mum and I will climb mountains and then we'll have barbecues. Many, many barbecues.

What was that I was saying about getting chubby? Oh, well. At least my jeans still fit.

"So what do you want to do with your life?"

oh gee shit NO, ANY QUESTION BUT THIS, HOW THE BOLLOCKS AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT I WANT TO DO WITH MY LIFE I MEAN FUCK I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT FOR LUNCH TOMORROW, HOW THE EVER-LIVING DICK CAN I BE EXPECTED TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE AND ALL THE PEOPLE I EFFECT AND INFLUENCE, FUCK, NO ONE SHOULD BE INFLUENCED BY ME, HAVE YOU SEEN THE DUMB SHIT I DO BECAUSE BELIEVE ME NO ONE SHOULD BE DOING THAT AND I DON'T WANT TO GET IN TROUBLE WHEN SOMEONE COPIES ME AND GETS INTO DEEP SHIT AND BLAMES ME WHEN FUCKADOODLEDOO I'M NOT YOUR BABYSITTER DON'T BE SUCH A DUMBFUCK, AND THAT THERE IS WHAT I STRONGLY BELIEVE OUGHT TO BE THE FIRST RULE OF LIVING ON EARTH, WRITTEN IN THE SKY AND IN THE MOUNTAINS AND IN EVERY DIFFERENT LANGUAGE, "DON'T BE SUCH A DUMBFUCK" BECAUSE REALLY A LOT OF CRIME WOULD BE HUGELY REDUCED IF PEOPLE COULD STOP BEING SO DUMB, DOING STUPID SHIT LIKE IMITATING IDIOTS LIKE MYSELF WHICH, SHIT, WAS NEVER A FUCKING GOOD IDEA, OH DEAR GOD PLEASE NEVER GIVE ME CHILDREN OF MY OWN TO CORRUPT AND TURN INTO MINI-MES BECAUSE THEY'LL NEVER CATCH A BREAK WITH A MORON LIKE ME AS A MOTHER, OH ME OH MY WILL SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN, THE POOR BASTARDS, AND ARGH STOP GIVING ME RESPONSIBILITIES, I AM PHYSICALLY REJECTING THEM ALL - LEARN TO DRIVE, KATHERINE, NO FUCK YOU GO TO UNIVERSITY, KATHERINE, NO FUCK YOU GET A JOB, KATHERINE NO FUCK Y- OH OKAY I'LL GET A JOB OH HELLO MONEY WHERE DID YOU COME FROM, IT'S RARE FOR US TO SPEND REAL TIME TOGETHER, Y'KNOW WHAT WE SHOULD DO, WE SHOULD START AND MAINTAIN A SMOKING HABIT, JUST BECAUSE I HAVE SOME CASH AND LUNGS TO BURN AND WHY THE HELL SHOULDN'T I IT'S MY OWN FREAKING BODY FUCK ANYONE WHO TELLS ME OTHERWISE BUT WAAAIT YOU'RE A WOMAN DO YOU WANT TO JEOPARDIZE YOUR CHANCES OF HAVING HEALTHY CHILDREN IN THE FUTURE OH WAIT NO HOLD THE FUCK UP DON'T GIVE ME CHILDREN OH MY GOD PLEASE DON'T GIVE ME CHILDREN I'LL FUCK THEM UP WITH MY STUPIDITY AND UTTER, UTTER LACK OF COMMON SENSE - I DON'T WANT RESPONSIBILITY, I WANT TO GO INTO A WORLD THAT DOESN'T EXIST YET BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH I'M YET TO INVENT IT, IT'S STILL A HELL OF A LOT EASIER THAN THE ONE I'M ALREADY IN AND IN GENERAL JUST fuck

"well y'know i kind of want to live in a cave and never see anyone ever"

Employment

is hard

School was always kind of easy for me - even when I wasn't doing so well academically, it was never a struggle to sit behind a desk and write whatever I needed to write in order to overachieve. And now I'm in an uncomfortably hot industrial kitchen, making pastry and hacking up bits of chicken carcass and washing up and generally spending my time handling slimy things and it's weird and gross and I love it - jeez, do I love it. I'm using my freaking body, and I'm in a confined space, and it's an unhealthy environment, and I'm constantly in danger of grievously injuring myself with the crazy samurai swords we use to cut vegetables, and I just freaking love it. 

My official title is "kitchen apprentice". Which sounds cool to me.

Whatever. 

Presenting...

...a CONTRIBUTING MEMBER OF SOCIETY
YES
I HAVE A JOB
omg i'm so glad
think of all the monies

i'm off for a drink by myself at the shitty little pub in my village that does obscenely cheap jack&coke
ciao