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From China with Love…

I am here, safe and sound, the country known as China! It is very, very, very hot here and the air pollution is one of the main reasons. I learnt about this in Yr 8 Geography and am glad I can finally put it to use. Pollution starts to build up around the atmosphere like a blanket, the suns rays can pierce it and reach us but then when they try to escape again they hit the blanket and come back to earth, bouncing around like the rainbows we get off crystals.  I am not blaming the heat on this alone but by hell it doesn’t help.  Enough science.  The flight was only nine hours long, rather than the eighteen I had expected (due to me being a complete tool and not guessing they had accounted for the time difference) but I was so tired that I nearly fell asleep at Beijing International Airport. A plus side? China Airways simply throws the food at you so I was well fed. Downside? One of the in-flight films was Fame. I wish I could wash my eyes, it was that bad. But I got here, two flights later and I am sat in Khai’s room in the city of Xian. 

So here are my adventures so far.  We went to the supermarket which was awesome. I wanted to buy everything I saw. I did buy a pizza…it doesn’t taste like our pizza tastes but I still like it. The bread is less pizza base and more like a bread roll.  Lots of cheese and I mean LOTS.  Lots of onion and some straaaaannngee sauce that definitely isn’t tomato.  One not-so-good thing about the shopping trip is the staring.  The staring is pretty bad, we went out to get some food last night and no one was staring but today they were. The women’s staring is worse somehow, cattier, like they’re sizing you up.  Its also horrendous when they start to stare, then talk and THEN they laugh.  I mean, sure, people write about this, they try and warn you.  But nothing compares to the being stared at like this.  Imagine being an outcast at school and everyone staring.  Now times that by a billion because you’re the only outcast there and it isn’t school.  It’s a whole frickin other country.  You see the problem?

We visited the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, tourist destination for the Chinese as well.  Now for all of you wondering…there were NO geese. Not a single one. We walked through a park full of funny statues, one of which looked like Sir Ian McKellan playing the drums. Best moment so far. I also found a statue of a family, mum, dad and two kids, so I jumped behind it and pretended my Dad and Anne were here! Part of the park also had this old stony grotto with a sign in English asking us not to climb on it…so what does Khai do? Hops on the top!!!!!!! Yeah, stupid tourists destroying the culture. As I said before, even the Chinese come here for tourist trips so I didn’t feel like such a goon when I was taking pictures of everything or having my picture taken outside the pagoda.  It was really beautiful, clear sky for once with this amazing structure piercing the skyline.  It’s built out of red brick and is tiered and is genuinely more beautiful than a lot ok buildings back home.  I’m not sure what it’s for though.  I’ll investigate and let you know. When we got back we had an election party for the ex-pats.  We drank to the last night of the elections and I know I shouldn’t share political views on here but most of us were praying for a Clegg shaped miracle.  Too bad but at least Cameron didn’t get complete control. I had a brilliant email from my friend Lewis saying “Whoop for hung parliament.” That was all it said.  Superb.

Last bit of an epic entry, so if you got this far well done.  The day before yesterday Khai and I went to get some lunch. We went to a noodle place around the corner.  Since getting here I have usually let Khai choose and order what I eat but today I did the brave thing and pointed to a picture of something different to him. Aces. I ordered noodles with spring onion and beef and it was dee-lish-ows! Really tasty when washed down with ice cold Fanta. After lunch I made him go to the supermarket with me, officially the most exciting place in Xian. I did the ‘girl’ shop and bought washing up liquid, dusting cloths, scourers, tissues and loo-roll. I also bought face-wipes, a comb and some snacks. The only problem was that you weren’t allowed the comb till after you had paid and the woman in the shop was trying to explain this in Chinese. Big mistake. I can’t speak it. There was a girl bhind her who spoke some English though and she saved the day and explained about the whole pay-first-get-comb-later debacle. On the way home Khai began to feel ill and decided, in true Khai manner to distract himself by teasing me about the men staring at my legs. Yes ladies and gents, Hannah wore shorts today! Above the knee shorts! And boy did they notice. When we got back he went to sleep and I cleaned. Then I watched some TV, then The Sound of Music, some Futurama, the Doctor Who Movie and to finish off, Shoot Em Up.  I even had to go and get dinner! Not on my own, Jim is one of the ex-pats and he came with me, but I ordered the food and paid and totally bought a drink ON MY OWN! How ace is that! My language problems were over come by much pointing and just speaking in English.

One thing that China is really showing me is how ill at ease I am with myself.  I think it takes a big adventure to remind you that you are twenty.  Still a baby to everyone else.  But you can’t help but expect more from yourself.  I am starting my first year of university again next year and it feels like since leaving school I have wasted a lot of time.  I haven’t, at all, I have grown up, I have met myself for who I am and know what Hannah Chapman is all about but still.  Anyone else feel like that?  Or is being in a scary country getting to me?

LOVE YOU UK xxxxxxx

Thicker than a pair of boots.

I was fully of good intentions today.  I was going to write my blog all about the amazing people I met last Friday at the conference.  I WAS!  I woke up, wrote one of my university assignments and skipped down the stairs with my work in hand, ready to open the door and walk to university.  Then BLAM on the doorstep was a letter that held all of my hopes and dreams.  Ok, maybe not the WHOLE of my hopes and dreams but I had been freaking out about it for a long time.  But what is in the letter?  A lovely little note saying ‘Thanks but no thanks!’.  I hadn’t made the shortlist for the writing competition I entered.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame the judges or anything, so many people will have had the same letter and they did send me the AWESOMEST little pack of post it notes.  They seriously made my day.  But it knocked my confidence more than I expected.  It did teach me a couple of lessons though, firstly that I need to grow a much thicker skin and where God closes a door he opens a window.  Or is that not the right way round?  Who knows.

So grow a thicker skin?  The plus sides to this are three fold.  Firstly you have the courage to try again.  I went horse riding once a few years ago and was thrown from the horse.  It was the single most painful memory of my life, I badly hurt my hip and my helmet came off when I fell so I hit my head really hard.  Have I been riding again since?  No.  And that’s not a good thing because it means when I finally have a chance to do something this thing I love again I will be too scared.  So I know now that not getting short listed this time means I need to try again, write harder and better than last time and make the cut.

Secondly it will teach me to take criticism better.  So I didn’t win this time.  Why?  What could be improved?  What did I do well?  Should I have gotten a second opinion before handing it in?  Its taught me that I shouldn’t just rush in like I usually do.  I think I need to try and consider these things I am doing and make sure I am 100% confidant with the work I am submitting.

And thirdly it has made me all the more determined to make it.  Who has ever heard of a successful writer who won from the very start?  You haven’t.  I have years and years of rejections and hard work ahead of me and that isn’t because what I am doing is necessarily any worse than other peoples but because it isn’t right for the topic or maybe, just maybe someone else’s work was genuinely better than mine.

If you’re reading this and you are going through something similar or just doubt yourself…don’t.  You’ll make.  We’ll get there.  And we’ll come out the other side with a smile on our faces.

And the door window it opened?  I am going to be involved in an exciting project with a friend of mine creating a newspaper full of art, literature and funny news stories from around the world.  I look forward to this immensely and of course will keep all my readers up to date.

P.S My next blog will be coming at you straight from CHINA so stay tuned for four weeks of a student abroad!

x

Me at the conference.

Ok, O.K, OKAY

Tomorrow is the big day.  The MASSIVE day.  I am speaking in front of forty people at the conference in Leicester.  Forty people, I hear you say, surely that is not so many.  All I have to do is get up on the little podium, do my business and get down again.  I have my talk planned, my PowerPoint organised and now I am trying to unwind while writing this.  It’s going to be really interesting hearing people discuss the issues we were studying in semester one.  A big concern is that I am not good at public speaking.  I am Ok but OK isn’t good enough.  Sometimes OK just isn’t good enough but it is too late to back out now, the big day looms in t-minus seven hours.  Something I am really looking forward to?  My packed lunch!  I totally love it when someone else makes me a sandwich.  It makes my day looking at those two little slices of bread cuddling up to some ham or chicken.  What a lovely image that is.

Re-reading that last paragraph has just reminded me of a disagreement I had recently.

I was playing the name Bannagrams which is a simple word game.  You have to make a sort of cross word with the letters you take from the pile.  One of the rules is that abbreviations are a massive no-no.  And what do I see as I look over at my Aunts words?  OK.  Bright as brass and winking at me.  Surely, I asked, you mean Okay.  Because if you do then really, technically, you cannot use OK.  I was shot down quicker than a 1940’s aeroplane.  I was told I was wrong and that in the history of the world, OK has never been longer than two letters.  Is this a big deal?  To me, yes!  So please, if you can help me get to the bottom of this I would be thrilled.

It is strange to think that I only have to hand in three more pieces of work and then we are done for our first year of University.  It all seems to have gone so terribly fast.  Looking back I really wish I didn’t have a job.  There’s something about working when your friends don’t that separates you slightly.  Not going into work drunk or hung-over seriously decreases the amount you can go out and the amount of time you have outside of university to socialise.  The fact that I spend more hours at work than at Uni doesn’t help at all but you never know.  Next year I could be busy as sin!  One thing that I have definitely learnt from this year is that you have to grab life by the nads.  There is no point in thinking you cannot achieve something because you are still young/only a first year/have no experience.  There are so many things that we can do when we are students that we should be making the most of every single opportunity that we have.

Well, I know this is a terribly short blog but I really need to get some sleep.  I’ll describe the joys of the 2010 London Book Fair.  A teaser?  I got Eoin Colfer’s signiature.  “To Hannah.  Thanks for the Mangoid.  Eion Colfer.”  ACES!

Speak to you soon

zzzzzzz

Gettiing rid of the Rust

It really has been a case of being a bit rusty this year, so it is a good job that non of the marks count to my final degree.  When I started the course in October, I hadn’t done an essay in 10 years, so it was no real suprise when I didn’t do too well on this one.  It was also no suprise that my organisation skills were pretty rusty and that is why all my first assignments were rushed in at the last minute.  The hope is that not only do I feel far more polished for next year, but that I will not fall in to the same pitfalls as I have done this year with this experience behind me.

I suppose it is like going down the same road more than once, on the second journey you know where the potholes are and can more skillfully keep away from them.  Of course, no doubt there will be new ones for the second year, but you are a more skillful driver and should therefore fare better in the long run.

Well I’ve managed to get the second essay in for my novel module despite being ill 3 times in the past 6 weeks.  Certainly, this really has been a trial for me and I have at times felt like banging my head up against a brick wall out of frustration, but despite losng at least a week of studying with time in bed feeling like somebody had been literally banging my whole body up against that brick wall, I still should get to the finishing line.

I guess sometimes it is about knowing when you have to say thats enough research even if you don’t want to and just writing the essay.  It is definitely likwe pulling teeth, but eventually you have a finished draft and that sense of holding your breath and then releasing it , ready to relax, is wonderful.  I just have 2 more weeks or so to do my last essays, so they probably won’t be as good as the first two, but after the 10th of May I can finally do just that for the last time, and I can’t wait.

This year has been a really wonderful experience despite having little time to study and juggling so much..yes it has been stressful especially recently, but I know it will be worth it.  I have loved English Language, it is such an interesting and varied subject, from phonetics to the origins of language itself…it has been so uplifting, whereas Lit has been a little less exciting for me…I have enjoyed some of the books and yet not many of them.  Poetry has been better with Swift, who is just wonderfully ironic and graphic and thoughtful and charming.

What is great is how much support there is out there for you and how flexible the university is, from classes to help you with your academic writing skills or researching skills or one to one sessions with your tutor and feedback on assignments has been very constructive, even the last assignment required you to show how you had improved on your first one taking in to account your feedback, which shows just how important the staff feel that learning journey is.  They are also very good with classes, say for example myself, who could not do a Wednesday class, so I was allowed to change to a Monday one, which helps get rid of some of the stress at least with childcare.

Next year both my children will be in school so in theory it should be a lot more plain sailing, but who knows what is round the next corner, I can only keep look forward and doing my best.

Move a little Closer.

Let the word be spread that I have finally chosen the play I want to adapt.  I have settled on Closer by Patrick Marber.  The problem I face?  What to write!  I haven’t a clue how I will take such a well-constructed piece of writing and add to it or even how my own writing will be anywhere near as good.  Another big ask?  Do I dare write as explicitly as Marber does?  Or do I risk alienating my lecturer?  If anyone has any thoughts, please let me know because I am at a total loss here.  Speaking of mammoth tasks, I still haven’t faced the music and looked at my fiction essay.  It is a colossal challenge and I don’t fancy taking it on.  My various forays into the world of Facebook have made it clear that most of my contemporaries feel the same.  Why tackle the wolf when there’s still a Chihuahua to tame?

Some good news?  My trip to China is now only two weeks and six days away.   I am starting to get butterflies and find myself smiling manically as I walk down the street.  I’ll start getting a reputation if I’m not careful, the weird smiling girl of Brummigan!  I am a little concerned that the first day of my trip will be spent alone, getting from one side of Beijing to other…and I don’t speak Mandarin.  EEP!   If I get lost I am pretty much screwed.  I speak a tiny amount Cantonese but alas, that’s not spoken in a single City I am visiting.  A really exciting prospect has cropped up though.  I sponsor a little boy called Manwei, he lives in a little place called Nianqing, and I get to go and visit him!  The lovely people at ActionAid are helping to organise the whole thing and have asked to document the trip for promotional purposes.  Exciting?  Hell yeah!  I’ll set foot on that Chinese Airways plane a nobody and step off it a nobody in a promotion video.  Nice.

Oh blog, what else to say.  Not a lot really.  Funny how you always get to this point.  If only there was someway I could set myself themes to write about!  Like…student life…or trips to China…oh…wait…

Have a good week!

x

Get on with it, love!

This week I have been working on my second poetry project for this semester.  We’ve been asked to put together an anthology of ten poems and write a 500 word fore-ward.  I didn’t think I was going to enjoy this at all but it has turned out to be a hugely rewarding activity.  If you ignore the hours, yes hours, spent choosing a font, the days wasted as I mulled over which layout to use and the morning I just spent designing a front cover, then it really didn’t take me very long.

In the way of all students I had to make several phone calls to a year mate of mine, desperately trying to find out what was meant to be said in the fore-ward.  The main problem I had with it was that it kept sounding like a 500 word essay and not an anthology beginning.  However, that is now all behind me.  All I need to do now is print it off and bind it, et voila, one completed anthology.

It’s funny that something that sounds so simple actually turns out to be quite a difficult task.  A lot of thought goes into which poems to include and what order to put them in.  I tried various different methods of choosing the order.  Chronologically didn’t work as it lacked flare and they all seemed a little jumbled up.  Pulling them out of a hat?  That didn’t work well either…I couldn’t find a hat and as I discovered, pulling slips of paper out of a sock is massively demoralising.  In the end I chose what I hope is a sensible order, the most obvious poems to the most obscure.  I want to take the reader on a ‘journey’.

The poem I liked best from the collection is by Roger McGough.  It is grim but also deliciously malicious.

The Lesson

Chaos ruled OK in the classroom

as bravely the teacher walked in

the nooligans ignored him

hid voice was lost in the din

“The theme for today is violence

and homework will be set

I’m going to teach you a lesson

one that you’ll never forget”

He picked on a boy who was shouting

and throttled him then and there

then garrotted the girl behind him

(the one with grotty hair)

Then sword in hand he hacked his way

between the chattering rows

“First come, first severed” he declared

“fingers, feet or toes”

He threw the sword at a latecomer

it struck with deadly aim

then pulling out a shotgun

he continued with his game

The first blast cleared the backrow

(where those who skive hang out)

they collapsed like rubber dinghies

when the plug’s pulled out

“Please may I leave the room sir?”

a trembling vandal enquired

“Of course you may” said teacher

put the gun to his temple and fired

The Head popped a head round the doorway

to see why a din was being made

nodded understandingly

then tossed in a grenade

And when the ammo was well spent

with blood on every chair

Silence shuffled forward

with its hands up in the air

The teacher surveyed the carnage

the dying and the dead

He waggled a finger severely

“Now let that be a lesson” he said

Who can say that teachers do not fantasize about these things?  I’m sure after they have read the anthology my lecturers will be eager to try out stanzas 3 and 5.

Next on my list?

Finish that god-forsaken fiction essay.  I swear it’s started to whisper at me as I sleep!

Have a good week blog-o-sphere!

x

The show must go on…

There’s a reason this blog has taken as long as it has.  And that reason is despair.  As you know last Tuesday was the day of our performance…and everything that could have gone wrong…did.  We were thrilled when one of the other groups offered us the use of their wheelchair.  But Abu got stuck in a curtain as he came off stage.  Everyone was remembering their dialogue really well.  But Nic then decided to skip a page of dialogue and come in early.   We also realised that there was no way Abu was going to be able to get back on stage with the drinks so I had to quickly cover my costume with a hoody (yes, hood up) and pretend to be a barmaid.  The fact that I was beet red and giggling probably didn’t go unnoticed. With these problems arose giggles, loss of confidence and a general feeling of why-the-hell-are-we-bothering.  It was the worst seven minutes of my life to date, truly.   However we persevered and come through it in relatively one piece so that’s all good.  Afterwards everyone kept going on about how they couldn’t tell it had gone wrong and it was sweet for them to lie…but seriously…not fooled.  We won’t know how badly we have done until we get the marks back and I am dreading the day.

It isn’t all bad however, we have broken up for Easter now so if you thought this blog was lacking in the ‘study’ side of my life then maybe stop reading.  The next three weeks are frankly a study free zone, other than working on essays and my final, individual, play.  Though this has just reminded me that I forgot to pick up my annotated essay before term ended.  Oops.  I’ll be flying blind on this one then.

Climbing the Mountain

It has been a busy few weeks not suprisingly!!!  It really does feel like mountain climbing or like  staying balanced at the moment!!!  It is all very much about keeping yourself well organised and focused, especially when you have so much more to think about other than essays.  I can feel the pressure building up gradually the nearer I get to each due date and then the sense of release when an assignment is handed in… this release was today for my first essay for my poetry module – I have had a draft written for a fortnight, but over the past few days I have focused all my energies on refining it and low and behold, you think it is going to take you a few hours and then this develops in to 6 or 7 over a couple of days.  This highlights the whole cycle of learning – because it is a process in itself.  Rather like a sculptor, you have a shape, that you gradually chip away at it until you have the right design.  Sometimes of course you leave it too late and you have to make the best of what you have, but at least this time, because I planned my time better, I was able to give myself time and then when I went back to the draft, I found so much to change and then again following those changes..I actually wrote on Jonathan Swift and I found it really interesting…he was a bit of an enigma in terms of his personalilty and the life he led, but his poetry is graphic and ironic and cycnical, but excellent.  Still, it really is wonderful to have that sense of release, as I have one down and only 4 more essays and 2 exams to go.  The pressure will really start to ramp up soon though, because I have less and less time left and so much going on in the next few weeks, all outside of uni.

There is my daughter’s birthday party, my best friends hen do’, the easter holidays and the kids at home every day etc etc…I am just hoping my lovely parents will help me out over the first couple of weeks with childcare, so I can at least keep the momentum going, because I have lost a week with being ill with a throat infection and therefore, understandably, I really need to get myself in gear.  For me the next 3 weeks really count and my focus is going to be completely on essays, for goodnes sake, I have been dreaming about them all the time, I am that involved.  It is also important to keep yourself healthy as well, or else this is a trap easily fallen in to, when illness takes away your time.  Still hopefully it is the end of illness for me and I can take my next step up the mountain to the top with my Novel essay due in the next 3 weeks.  I have already done most the research, so again I am ahead of the game.  Still alongside keeping well it is also important to keep organised and focused, but also to take time out, or else it gets to much, having a night away from studying is something over the past few days, I have found to be very important.  It also helps you keep focused on the essay and a fresh perspective on what you are looking at.  This really benefited me for my first essay and by giving myself time, I hope it will work the same for the others, although nearer the time that is not always possible, especially with my languuage essays, which are due in 2 days apart.

Thwe only thing about my assignments being due in is that everything else has gone to pot…my housework, my relationship ( not entirely), we hardly ever see each other, because most evenings I am studying…I am also missing out so much on the kids at the weekends – hopefully I can make this up over the holiday, but here we have another dilemma – do I stay poor and have time with the kids or do I try and work a little to make the money situation better – decisions..decisions – well I worry about that one later!!!

Mothers Day tapping

It’s not been plain sailing this week.  We have to perform our play next week and I only finished writing the script last night.  I managed to email it to the gang and I hope they learn their lines in time.  One of the main problems we have had are the fact that Irwin is in a wheelchair.  Not a cast.  Where we will find a wheelchair at such short notice I haven’t a clue. But the script is passable and the group is amazing so the ‘Performing Pumas’ will be fine.  I get to play the part of Timm’s, lovable, chubby Timm’s so that suits me fine.  My favourite line?  “Would you rather shag a midget or a cripple?”  If I can deliver it with a straight face I’ll be ecstatic.  Note to self: meet nobody’s eye.

News for the blog-o-sphere!  In just seven weeks I will be in China.  I’m so ridiculously excited that I am crossing off the days on my Super Hero calendar.  Batman.  Gone.  Superman.  Gone.  Wonder Woman?  Halfway there.  (One of the main reasons I am getting so excited is that I get to go shopping for all the clothes YAY)  Another reason is that I am in talks with the people of ActionAid about getting to meet Hui, the little boy I sponsor.  It would mean such a lot to me, as I’ll be sponsoring him for six years.  Ideally I’d like to go out to China few times, especially as there is so much I won’t be getting to see this first time.

Do the drink Sangria in China?

OH!  Thank you so very much HEA, my lovely book vouchers arrived today.  I am going shopping on Thursday and there are several books I am looking forward to purchasing.  I think it’s time I bought some of the books I read in my library days, Deathscent and The Rope Maker are at the top of my list.  The last time I had book vouchers (£100?!?!?!?) I bought this delicious pile of books I wouldn’t usually have picked.  I read Revolutionary Road, The Reader, Death of a Salesman, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mrs. Dalloway and The Various to name the ones I can remember.  It took me so long to read them all as I kept having to add shiny new books to my pile.  But there you go, I’m looking forward to it happening all over again!

BUT ENOUGH!

I’ll report back once the drama presentation has been completed.

x

Red Bull, it gives you shakes.

I am increasingly conscious that every blog I write becomes more and more depressing. Filled with the strife and turmoil of being a third year. But, I am bound by the conditions of this blog to write about my academic life. And currently, my academic life and feelings of panic, stress and strain are inextricably linked. So here you are.

But this isn’t the first time I’ve felt this way. No. At the end of last year I’m pretty sure I got dangerously close to a nervous breakdown. But I got Firsts in all of the essays that were the root of this stress. Thus, I dared to whisper to myself ‘it was worth it’.

Now being under pressure in third year can be expected. Indeed, our tutor sent us all an email at the beginning this term, in which the first line read ‘Our students often find this terms the hardest of their degree’. Damn, was she right.

But this time, the phrase “we’re all in the same boat”, really rings true. I think for the first time in my academic career, my fellow students are feeling the strain themselves. It is worrying when a time comes that the School of English foyer has accrued such a collection of empty ProPlus packets, empty Red Bull cans, empty Relentless cans and empty bottles of those new little energy shot drink things (which surely can’t be healthy), that it looks like a caffeine-addicts recycling bin.

When fizzy drinks and pick and mix become a substitute for sleep, that’s when you know you’re at the business-end of your degree. Of course, I still enjoy what I’m doing, and love the English Language, but I would be much happier if every time I thought about an essay I didn’t get a very brief yet very real feeling of nausea.

So, faithful readers, I bid thee farewell,

My fellow students, I feel I must tell,

Now I’ve finished my blog, I must go away,

Cos’ I’ve got an essay

And the deadline’s Thursday.

(Apologies for the impromptu and truly horrific poetry).

Tags: David, English Language, Stress, Third Year