Bye Bye, Boarding

“You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.”            

So this is it! I'm finally writing the blog that documents "The end".

...not of my life, but certainly my college/boarding life, the one I built up and made all by myself nearly two years ago. As I type this I'm lying in the same bed I anxiously tossed and turned in the night before I left; the same one I would cry in because I didn't want to go back and felt I had made the wrong decision; and the now the one I'm going to be sleeping in a lot more, because this time is nearly over. And frankly, I am gutted.

A year ago, I couldn't have been more keen to get the ball rolling, wrap up my exams and return to Germany. A2? Pffft, get it over with - that was my mind set. But after an unexpectedly amazing second year, it's almost completely over with and I feel a little bit lost. It was such a life changing, character building thing, to leave home a bit earlier than usual and enter a period of almost-sort-of-independence and make some of the best friends I could have wished for and study subjects that challenged and stretched me. I am returning to a place that I love, but will never quite fit in to like I did before the Peter Symonds era began. There is a definite sense of being in limbo here, with no real direction for me to take off in.

There's the friends I have made in boarding, who I consider more like family these days. These are the hip cats who have felt every trip, witnessed every bad moment and have been brave enough to face me in my most ferocious, hormonally-charged fits of rage (you can't hide anything when you do 'communal living'). These are the friends you'll make in life who have seen every little twisted and messy part of your personality, but love you anyway. But it's these people who I have the most amazing memories with: warm ciders in fields became cocktails in bars so quickly, and it's hard to believe that soon I won't wake up and see any of their faces first thing ever again. If any of you are reading: yes, you, you're a beautiful, crazy bastard and I bloody love you.

There's Alex, my lovely boyfriend who I will amicably part ways with in less than 3 weeks. Here's the thing; this isn't my first relationship, but it is the one in which I really grew to understood the cliché of there being a 'thin line between love and hate'. There have been times when I've just beamed at him and thought "I am dead lucky to have you", and times when I've bitterly glared and thought "I would so much more lucky if you were dead" in equal measure. But the really good, positive feelings always outweighed the despairing ones for both of us, and that's why it's worked for so long. It's a bitter pill to swallow, the anticipation that it's going to end abruptly in a matter of days now; bitter in a "it's 3am and I'm awake thinking about it all" kind of way. The one great thing to remember, however, is that one day he might be the drummer in some cool band, and I will have an awesome claim to fame. Silver linings, right? He may soon be reason for the endless frowning I'm going to do for the first few weeks of the summer and become a bit of an issue for me, but he'll be the good kind of issue. The kind of issue I'll ultimately be grateful to have.

And of course, the lessons I learned along the way - not just the academic type - are ones I'm going to remember forever, which I probably wouldn't have taken on board so much if I had just stayed at home. For one, your parents are usually right and should be listened to, since believe it or not, they're genuinely motivated by love over kicks to make your life as miserable as possible. Furthermore, if you don't work to the point that at one point or another you do consider sacking it and working at ASDAs, you won't get the results. Good work doesn't appear with no work ethic and nights in with the Here Comes Honey Boo Boo over The Crucible. Also, don't wear summer dresses in the winter and think it's fine because you're wearing boots. It's not fine.

Still, I sometimes have trouble keeping my gaze firmly ahead and into the future, when everything so solid and good is crumbling away and life is set to resume a very slow, quiet pace. This isn't like a regular old military move, when I pack my life up with my family in one place, and open it up again somewhere else with someone to supervise every step to make my life easier. This time, it was just me, with nobody to bail me out of tough times; building things for myself which I now have to take apart and kick elsewhere for the time being. I do know there's a good future ahead of me though, but as with life sometimes it is far easier to concentrate on everything that's disintegrating, rather than coming together.

But things will come together again. Yesterday, I found out I had been offered the summer job I really wanted. Fingers crossed, I will be going to the University of Glasgow in September. For every damn good door that closes, another one opens, and until then I'll just have to be patient.

Yet there's no denying the bitter truth; this will be a door I'm sad to close.

A Less Than Titillating Problem

I have an issue. Perhaps it is not the most dire, pressing, or deserving of your valuable time. You may be in predicaments far worse than my own, and you have my sympathies. But it is an issue that is undoubtedly close to my heart.

Quite literally - my issue is my boobs.

It's alright for some.

Indeed, it seems odd that mine are seemingly causing so much offence, to the extent I feel the need to furiously blog about them (because it's clear this blog is a platform for serious, topical issues...). At the end of the day, we all love a good rack, and mine is frankly not too bad. But sometimes, the "cushions of love" are more like "the furniture of fun-hoovering", particularly if they're attached to me.

For want of a statement a little less dramatic, THEY ARE RUINING MY SELF PERCEPTION.

They are. It is making me tired, bloggees. Tired of going into a clothes shop and finding a dress in my size that I seriously suspect would make me look a little bit like Mila Kunis from a distance, trying it on in the changing rooms, then weeping in despair because it won't fit over my boobs. I am not a big girl. I do not want to feel like I am. I cannot afford tailoring. I rely on these shops for their affordability and accessibility, and if they can't offer clothes to flatter my shape, what else will?

Truthfully, this isn't a blog purely about the humble tatty-bo; it's about the high street. Sure, it is commendable that many high street shops are starting to stock clothes for the larger and petite lady. Less of us feel marginalised, and that's actually wonderful. But I don't feel wonderful when I have to summon a feeble looking shop assistant to physically pull me out of a dress that my boobs have trapped me in.

Oh yeah, that happened. TODAY.

I know what some of you might be thinking - complaining about having a pair is selfish, or ungrateful somehow. On the contrary; thank God I have them. I love mine dearly - they're womanly, fill out a bra nicely and double up as excellent cushions on long train journeys. But they become a problem when I can't find clothes in my size that also accommodate them. Why should I buy a larger size that still won't fit? How is that okay?

If we're entering a new generation that celebrates women of all shapes and sizes, I would like to be a part of this. Anonymous Clothing Bigwig, if for some reason you're exploring the Bloggersphere and find this - help a sister out, and sort it out. I would not like to be left out of wearing pretty clothes I feel good in because of the very curves that we are supposedly embracing in the first place.