Braver

Today feels like the first day in a while that consisted of more than work and Criminal Minds.

Last night I was trying to put together a simple cover letter that would be suitable to send to an agent when I finish one of my novels. It took longer than I thought it would. Hours. When I decided I was okay with what I had, I went to bed, only to lie there staring at the ceiling for another hour. I think I fell asleep sometime around 6am, and then I was up again at 10, but I stayed in bed sort of in-between sleeping and waking until 11. Then I figured I needed to get my shit together and got ready for class.

I was running a little bit late as I went down the hill, but not late enough to make me pick up my pace. I was just walking along, hands in my pockets, minding my own business, when a taxi drove past and clipped me from behind. I’m fine, but the driver had to readjust his side mirror. This has increased the number of vehicle-related incidents I’ve been involved in that have resulted in some sort of contact in England to 3, for those of you keeping track.

On the way to class I stopped to print off what I had been working on in the early hours of the morning. I arrived at the room five minutes late, only to find a group of first-years instead of my class. Confused, I checked my laptop and found an email from last week notifying me that this week’s class was somewhere else.

It’s days like these when I’m glad my university has such a small campus. See, you can split it into three parts. there’s the top of the hill, where I live and students study serious stuff like law and business. There’s the middle of the hill where the main campus is which has more artsy stuff like film and creative writing. And there’s the bottom of the hill with stuff that doesn’t seem to belong in either of the categories, artsy or serious, like archaeology.

My Monday class is usually at the bottom of the hill, and I had to walk from the top of the hill, but this week my class was at the middle of the hill. So I went back and completely forgot which of the buildings was the one I was looking for. Not that I forgot the name of the building, or which buildings are which, I just happened to pass it twice because I wasn’t paying attention. When I finally found the right building, a strange twisted maze designed to keep students from escaping, I did the obvious thing and got lost. I eventually stumbled into the right classroom, sweaty and slightly out of breath. Because there was a presentation thing today, it wasn’t just my class there. Four classes-full of my peers were staring at me. And there were no seats left.

Luckily, attendance was still being taken and some chairs were brought from another room.

The presentations were pretty cool. Three former students who’ve graduated from the course I’m on and who’ve gone on to do bigger and better things came to talk about what they’re doing and how they got to where they are. It was inspiring

One of them, Gracie, has a really good blog over at almostamazinggrace.blogspot.co.uk if you want to check her out. She said something about having a blog. She said “you’ve got to be brave” and “write the things people don’t want to write about”. This resonated with me. I’m always scared of posting stuff. I want to write about my adventures in England, good and bad, but I don’t want people I know in real life reading my posts and pitying me or thinking they know me better for it. I dunno, it’s just a strange feeling. I don’t mind friends and family reading my blog or hearing their thoughts on my posts, but I hate when it becomes a big deal. Yes, this blog records my life, but only a small part of my life from a small perspective. You know?

Anyway, I’m deciding to be braver with these posts. I started blogging to get myself writing every day and record my life studying in another country, but if I’m too afraid of feedback to post anything, what’s the point of having a blog?