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My Holiday in Brief.

I've started going camping. I went to a party. I've been drunk a handful of times. I gave up on someone. I fell for a stranger from my past. I was crushed accidentally by said stranger. I've sewed up a hole that I'd simply sellotaped. I've slept in the rain. I went sick down my sleeve. I've weeded in a few fields. I've had to be dressed by other people. I'm a volunteer. I've met a fellow vegetarian who is my exact height. I've finally bought clothes from Jack Wills. I've met a lot of weird and wonderful strangers. I've got myself a social life. I've found inspiration. I've snuck into somebody's house for food. I went a little bit lesbian. I actually scared myself. I saw the campuses for the Cheltenham bases of the University of Gloucestershire. I've written some monologues on Tumblr that I'm happy with. I've cried and not had anyone notice. I've decided against reading the prequel to the Hannibal trilogy. I've slept in the car coming home from England. I've had some dreams that have blown my mind. I've worn my favourite woolly jumper outside the house. That's all that comes to mind, if you want to know anything else, simply ask me at:

http://www.formspring.me/TofuBrown

Vuvuzela (or something)

On the night if July 25. 2010, I went to bed at six in the morning. I then awoke at half past twelve and left the house at half past one in the afternoon. Destination? CARDIGAN! Nothing much happened on the car journey, I sat and listened to Hollywood Undead, The Smiths and Alkaline Trio, then when I got out of the car, I fell and smacked myself in the throat with the book that I am currently reading, 'Hannibal' by Thomas Harris. (I must add that I looked good today - size six turquoise vest, my darling flares, a white and navy starry neckerchief. Oof.) Then I was weighed and measured, which was different as they had a weighing chair, then I gave Pa my iPod and he started watching 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' on it, as instructed. (He finished watching it later and thoroughly enjoyed.)

Anyway, we saw Dr. Fountain-Polley and after a brief conversation, he said that we might never get to the bottom of the back pain and that he'd be putting me on new pain medication (the name of which sounds like VUVUZELA!) because he thinks that when I'm uncomfortable, my brain screams "PAIN!", so I don't do anything and therefore don't build up the muscles or core stability required for me to do things properly. For example, I've been given some exercises by my physiotherapist, but because they're so uncomfortable, I thought I was in pain, so I didn't do them, which meant that I was back at square one. This medication, that I have to take regularly (three a day with four paracetamols a day for six weeks to tackle the pain from 'two completely different angles'), will enable me to do my exercises. Then my brain will sort of be 're-wired' and I will be able to carry on doing them without any medication. If this doesn't work, he said he'd have to have a serious conversation with the both of us. Now, I remember before when he said that all the people at the pain clinic do is stick people on anti-depressants, which leads me to believe that maybe this 'serious conversation' will be about putting me on those.

I hope something turns up on my MRI, if that's what that idiot Dr. Richards meant when he said 'special scan'. Let's hope it's special in that it actually shows something that's wrong with me. Yeah?

The Shortest Day Of My Life

(Almost) Every Tuesday and Thursday I come home and spend half an hour to an hour going on and on about my day volunteering. The, let's call them quirky, characters that are regulars in the shop, the weird and wonderful donations we have in, the stories we come up with behind each donation, all the different personalities of all the different volunteers, all the things I tried on and didn't fit... However, I will not bore you with all of those stories.

I've been using my Tumblr blog quite a bit, but that's no to say I won't stay to this one. It's just that that one isn't for every day ramblings, it's for monologues, creative writing and poetic things. The sort of crap that you have going around and around in your head all day, so you just have to let it out. I didn't want to clog up this blog with junk and creative explosions! (Remember, the link's on the side.)

So what am I going to tell you? I'm going to tell you about my acupuncture, next time... Here's a brief snippet about today though: I woke up at 2pm, bathed and had acupuncture at 3pm. The 'spleen and lady problems' points on my shins were so painful the lady (who I though was related to Mr Moses but when I smoothly brought him up there was no recognition at all) had to stop. She said they were tender on a lot of girls, but mine might have been so bad because of my endometriosis. Then she couldn't get them out. I nearly cried. She left and I went to bed at 4.30pm and awoke at 7pm to eat three crumpets, sweet tea (freaking four sugars) and Grandpa. I then went on MSN to make some plans for tomorrow. I'm going to see my friend, who I haven't seen in ten years, play drums in his band. Actually, I then had a semi-jokey-argument with Hammy over the guitarist. I won't go into details, but I was dying from laughter and she was probably wanting to stab me. I've had to put the fan on because I'm dying from over heating. I think I'm generally dying anyway. Which reminds me, my yellow nail varnish has died. Damn cheap thing.

I've also fallen out with my oracle.

My Full On Epiphany

So a few months back, I had what I thought was an epiphany. I have a friend called Jay, and Tess liked him too, then all of a sudden, boom! She didn't want me to have anything to do with him and she kept pulling a face of pure revulsion when he came up in conversation. I thought to myself, well he hasn't done anything to me so why should I care what he's done to anyone else? Yes, that was my epiphany, to not care about what anybody said about my friends, to trust my own experiences with them, to choose my own friends and not have them chosen for me. This seemed to work, or so I thought, but yesterday I received a message on facebook; it was a cross between an apology and an explanation from somebody who I believed to have hated me - we've been at each others necks for a while. That's when it struck me. The main reason I was so 'against' her was simply because that's what I was expected to be. I was expected to hate her, and to be unsympathetic to her, and to not show any doubt in what my actions said about my feelings towards her. This sounds petty, but I can say without a doubt that this was the case with her too. My epiphany a few weeks ago was good, but it wasn't a full on epiphany. This was. This was the next step, building on what I'd thought a few weeks ago. I read this facebook message and thought to myself, why should I conform to anybody's expectations of how I act and who I like? It was so subconscious that I'd had no idea it had been happening, and I'm not ashamed either, in fact I'm proud that I can see that now. By discovering this, I can now confront it and try to be the best person I possibly can be.

Words.

So I'm thinking about writing to the newspaper again. A few weeks back, Mother, Pa and I were in the car talking about public transport, and there was an opportunity to write something, but I never did because it isn't really something I care much for. Sometime buses don't turn up, well that's a shame but if you go to catch the bus with other people then it's not like you're stranded, and if you're only catching the bus to a few miles down the road, start walking until the next one comes up. I don't even have to ask for an under sixteen all day ticket any more either as they've now introduced a teen ticket, which is only £1 more expensive than the under sixteen but £2 cheaper than the adult. Needless to say, that didn't captivate me in the way that the whole 'emo suicide cult fronted by My Chemical Romance and other such music' did. I always wanted to write to the newspaper again, but I was worried that they'll sigh and think 'Not her again...' and that they'll think I'm some attention seeking whore. But lately I've stopped caring about that because I've found something new that I care about, and whilst I've always cared about it, I never realised to what extent until I had some real experience on the topic. You might have already guessed the topic that I'm referring to: charity shops.

The first time I wrote to the newspaper, I read an article and got really angry. I then whipped out a piece of paper, tackled the article point by point and wrote bullet points of what really got my goat. Then I just had a pure, raw rant. There was no technique like there is when I'm writing, this was pure argumentative emotion, and it got me into the Daily Mail with a huge picture of myself. (One of my favourite memories has to be when the Daily Mail photographer came over unexpected whilst Carys and I were watching Russell Brand on the laptop, and then once he'd left, Carys, Tess and I sprinted down the garden and screamed.)

This time though, I'll be writing to inform, and not in a defensive way. There are so many things about the charity shop that I had no idea about, and if awareness was raised, then charity shops' business could increase and their outgoing costs could decrease. I mean, is it really right that charity shops have to give out reimbursements to their volunteers for things such as bus money? You have to be sixteen to be an all-round useful volunteer (because only at sixteen are you legally allowed to use the till), and the legal bus ticket for a teenager is £3.75 - as we know though, many of the volunteers are over eighteen, meaning their bus tickets cost £5.75, which adds up to £34.50 a week at least, based on the assumption that at least one return ticket is bought by an over eighteen every open day of the week. That's taking from charity in order to help charity. We've been listening to Radio Two on both days that I've been volunteering there, and on Monday they were discussing whether or not it was right for elderly pensioners to have free bus passes, in particular rich pensioners. I thought what many though - they've paid their taxes, and the richer people have paid more. The opposing party argued that the economy couldn't really fund or handle this though, which is when I had an idea - reduced bus ticket prices for the elderly, like the same price as an under sixteen. Elderly pensioners' tickets are always the same price as childrens, so why not have the same system on the bus? Then that's when it came to me, reduced prices for volunteers. If they have a pass, they can also get a reduced price. This is obviously mainly for the majority of volunteers who are over eighteen.

And that is only one of the issues that gets my goat, the main one is this: people have no idea that they're costing the charity shop by their ignorance and lazy disrespect. A lady walked in with a full bin bag of donations and said the words that tear a smile off all understanding volunteers' faces. "They're really good, they just need a wash." I can't speak for all charity shops, but the Red Cross doesn't have any washing facilities other than a steamer. If something is dirty, it gets ragged, meaning it is put in the rag bag and sent away to India or Russia. If it's clean, it gets hung, tagged and steamed, checked over, priced and put out. Sometimes the steamer uncovers deep dirt, and then the item of clothing gets ragged. This 'rag bag' costs the Red Cross a whopping £20 for a roll, and the more dirty clothes the charity shop gets, the less time they'll last. Seriously though, why would you give dirty clothing to the charity shop? I've always been brought up to wash everything before donating it, but that was purely through respect and convenience for the charity shop. You see, the charity shop actually has a high standard. It sort of frustrates me that more young people don't go in. There were some really nice skinnies in there, and a bright turquoise MTV tee that I snapped up after I'd finished working. A girl from my school was dragged in by her mom, and she was so mortified that she'd been caught by somebody in her school in a charity shop that she covered her face with embarrassment the whole time. I simply don't understand.

In other news, my back's been killing me ever since yesterday (after my five hour shift). I went to bed in extreme pain, it took me two hours to not only find a comfortable position that hurt my back as little as possible, but to also stop my mind from racing. I sent two texts before putting my phone on the 'Sound Of Silence' profile, meaning that it was not only silent, but didn't vibrate either. I woke up in extreme pain but a text cheered me up a tad, then I somehow managed to come downstairs. Mother handed me a letter and basically, here's what's happened: A year ago, I wrote a, what was in my opinion, crappy poem entitled 'No Stranger To Death' and Mother threatened to enter it into a competition. It turns out that she did and I had no idea. Anyway, I've been chosen to feature in one of the books in the Poetry Rivals collection. Mine's been chosen for 'A Sugar-Coated World'. If it's picked by the editors to be in the top fifty for under eighteens, I'll have to perform it and I'll get £20, then the over-all winner gets a top-of-the-range laptop. No matter what happens though, as long as we send the consent form away by August 13, 2010, it will definitely feature in the book, which is released on Halloween.

I've posted the poem up on my Creative Juices Blog (yes, that's a link). If you haven't noticed, I have a new link list on the left hand side of this blog. Life on Jupiter is my old blog, Tofu Brown is this blog and Creative Juices is a new blog on Tumblr, designed simply for things such as scene settings, monologues and poetry.

A Good Start To A Long Holiday

Wednesday June 30, 2010 I went down to Carmarthen to see Tess' and Hannah's flat and to generally spend the day with my sister. I took her to the music shop to see the accordion that I've had my eye on. She always seems interested in my weird phases, or at least when she's alone with me. She's a sister then, not a wannabe mom. She (unlike Mr. 'I-Can't-Do-That-Because-I'll-Look-Like-A-Freak-Even-Though-I-Know-You-Are-And-I-Still-Go-Out-With-You-For-Some-Unforeseeable-Reason', whose name says it all!) asked the man working tehre about the accordions because I was too shy in case they weren't even accordions, and I shall tell you all that he told us: The £120 that I've been looking at for a few weeks MIGHT be leaky, and would cost £150 to completely restore, but once restored, it could be sold for £1000. The accordion that Tess liked is a standard and cost £360, he then worked out that if you rented that accordion for four months, it would only cost you £90, which is just over £20 a month. Interesting, huh? I thought so anyway.

NEXT. Thursday July 1, 2010, I went to The Red Cross in Llandeilo had a 'poster' on their door (pictured) which I took an interest in. I really like charity shops, mainly because you end up with things that not everybody has and sometimes look vintage but also because of the whole 'Green Thing' that I rock so well with being a regular public transport user and a vegetarian, but I'd never thought of volunteering, mainly because you could be working in the hours your giving to charity for money, and I know that could quite easily sound awful, but you do have to make money to get on in life, to not live in poverty. Yes, I'll be the first to admit that the Certificate in Retail is what made me go in about it. So anyway, I went in on Thursday July 1, 2010 and spoke to Amanda, the shop manager. She took me to the back room and I sat on a foot stool whilst she sat on the floor and talked through some forms with me. Then came the exciting part, the showing me around bit. Here're the interesting highlights: They aren't allowed to use normal bags, they have to pay £20 for a small roll of special purple bags from the council, so by giving them junk, you're costing them money. They haven't got the facilities to wash or iron clothes, so if something's dirty, it has to be sent away to a Soviet country, like Russia. They have a steamer, which they use on everything before it goes out, meaning that sometimes things that look clean have to be sent away too. They have a special tag gun to put the tags on things, and it's really cool. They have to go through bags of donations at waist height because you're not meant to bend, and there're two different areas - one for donations and one for unacceptable items. There are some weird people that not only send filthy clothes, but send in broken glass and china, and just leave the bags outside the shop in bin liners. The till is computerised (not like the typewriter kind that I always lusted for...) and sometimes crashes. There is actually a system, so for example, if someone bought a book, you'd press 'Books Fiction' and scan. It's a touch screen unfortunately. They have a price chart, which tells you (on a scale of £ to £££££) how much you should price a product from certain lines, such as Next, Primark and Matthew Williamson. I loved all of this, and they liked me so much she offered me five days, but I could only make four. I only have to do twenty hours to get the Certificate (which is sponsored by Tesco) and I start on Monday, I'm doing a 'full day' which is ten til three, with an hours lunch.

FINALLY. I was going to go shopping with Abi on Friday July 2, 2010 but she had to cancel because she had to play violin at Newton House, where there was a sort of Art and Textiles show thing going on. I was upset, because I've had my eyes on this dress at Hobos for months and was getting scared that it wouldn't be there anymore. It's pink with white polka dots, and whilst before I'd never have thought about wearing it, a certain Mr. 'Sunshine Monster' has given me a stupid amount of confidence in such a short amount of time using not as many compliments as you'd imagine. I had to go with Ashley instead. We got to the door at half past ten and discovered it was closed. I saw a green polka dot dress in the window on the mannequin and exclaimed, "If that pink dress doesn't fit, I'm trying that!" We were only there a few seconds more when this weird but lovely dude walked over, tried to open the door, squealed in confusion when it didn't open and then said "That's not how you do business... Are they like, picking up litter or something because they're hobos? It must be something serious..." We parted ways, unfortunately. We went to HMV and I bought Darwin Deez's album at full price, we went back at eleven and it was open. I ran in and picked up the pink dress and saw that it was a size two, I then picked up the green polka dot dress (there were many different colours, but the green was the most striking and therefore the most me) in two sizes, a to and a three. After a seconds thought, I put the size three down with a smug smile on my face. This is rather poignant because it shows once and for all that I have defeated my teenage female body dismorphia.

I tried the pink one on and it looked weird - I didn't have enough boobs to fill it and as the had been tailored to emphasise the boob area, it stuck out at weird angles as opposed to being stretched tight around real ladies curves. I then tried the green one on and I fell in love - the neckline wasn't too low, the shoulders stuck out so much that they were not only quirky, but hiding my freaky deformed shoulder, and it doesn't even need an elasticated belt at the waist it's so flattering! I wondered if I should buy it, and I thought of all the things that Jason has said to me, and with that in mind, I strode over to the till and got out my last £20 note. That's the only important part of that story really. Thank you Jason... x

Then that night, I went to Jess' house party - yes, the one I spoke of in my last post. It was amazing. Started off slow, never went fast, and I'm grateful. As I'm growing older, time doesn't speed past me as much, and I'm fine with that. It was amazing. There were unexpected moments and moments that should have happened about a year ago. I'm not going to tell you about it though, surprise surprise!

A Cry For Change

So I've decided to live life like I want to live it, but this is easier said than done. I want to wear my old man woolly jumpers, I want to have an accordion to stare at when I have a mental block, I want to party and stay over peoples' houses just for the sake of being out. In an ideal world,I'm sat in a park wearing my old man woolly jumper, with my oversized (fake) leather bag and huge Morrissey glasses. I have bright red hair, cheek piercings, amazing Jeffree Star make-up and I have a best-selling novel under my belt and a sketch book full of studies on many quirky pieces in many different mediums - there's a delicate study of a harmonica done in watercolours, there's a Vincent Van Gogh inspired study in done in oil paints, a ridiculously detailed study of an accordion done in pencil... But in reality, I'm just sat on the couch blogging, wearing a charity shop shirt. I have practically black hair with no fringe, no piercings and only mascara on. I can't find the time to write a book and I can't keep my mind on one story line. My sketch book has two crap pictures in that I want to burn because not only do I have no inspiration, but I have no skills either.You may be wondering what's brought this up now, hasn't it always been like this? Well the answer is yes it has been like this, but I'm sixteen and still go around places with my parents. I've been invited to a house party by someone I use to hang around with, then briefly lost touch with. The important detail here is that we never fell out. Mother said that she's tried to keep me from the Ammanford people, but the truth is that she's tried to keep me from the Carmarthen people, Brynaman people and Drama people. Well, I was stopped from going to Drama in its entirety because it was 'turning me into an asshole' but the way I see it, I was making me happy - me being an asshole is obviously me being happy. I want to go to this party badly. I want to hang out with these people, I want to share these people's experiences, I want to be able to be part of the stories that people remember.Mother says she's concerned because I'm never at the parties that people post pictures on on facebook, but when I off-handedly mentioned this party, she responded with "You know I don't like you hanging around with those people..." I believe the term used here would be double standards. I mean, I thought you were meant to grow apart from your parents, you're life shouldn't be constantly entwined with your parents. I'm pretty sure that that was in the Bible somewhere. Apparently, I was wrong. I have my mother as a friend on facebook, she reads this blog (which makes it harder to write) and she talks to Ashley a lot. Tess says that she and others think that it's not long until I rebel, and to be honest I do sometimes feel like freaking out and leaving, but that wouldn't achieve anything. I have to go to school, and they give me money to do so, and as my last post indicates, I'm seriously not independent. My parents and even my grandpa are involved in practically every element of my life - where I go, what I do, who I talk to, etc - and I can't change that or they would hit the roof. I remember the days of hope when I'd stare at sixth formers or the elders in Carmarthen and think, "When I'm sixteen..." I don't want to sound ungrateful, but it's felt like the equivalent to thinking "When tomorrow comes..." and tomorrow just turns out to be the same as today. There was no point in me turning sixteen. Hell, there'll probably be no point in me turning eighteen or fifty-nine, but I seriously wish there was. I've turned into Rob Fleming (from High Fidelity) already. I'm bitter, I'm resentful, I'm jaded, and more importantly, I'm too young to be any of these things. The quote "If you really wanted to screw me up, you should've gotten to me earlier" seems to apply for almost everything and everyone I meet now. It's not right. I'm not right. Nothing is right. It would be such a breakthrough in my life if I could go to this party. My parents keep on saying "You're turning into Tess... don't make us throw you out!" I'm sorry, but Tess was expelled from school, smokes and takes drugs, had the reputation of a whore, had sex with someone when she was allowed to go to a party at the age of fourteen, continued to have under-age sex and then boasted about it to me, has multiple naked photos going around the whole of Carmarthenshire, got kicked out of the college that is renowned for being full of drop-outs, is a lesbian, has no job or any intention of working and lives of her girlfriend. Yeah, I see what you mean, I am totally turning in to Tess because I happen to have a bad attitude. I so deserve to be kicked out the house with my bad attitude that absolutely every single teenager has. That's fair. That's completely fair. I suppose if I was kicked out of the house, I could write another rant to the newspaper... I seriously want to be like all the other sixteen year olds, I guess why I feel it so important to start now, a mere eight months after my sixteenth birthday. It's not much to ask. This holiday, I want to do at least two things a week. I want to have life experience, stories to tell, a chance to mature on my own, without any help or prompting. So far all I have planned is meeting up with Tess and shopping with Abi.

Money Bags and Lost Opportunities

I have two foolproof system in which I keep my money. One's my 'Every Little Helps' system, and the other is my 'Saving Up For a Rainy Day' system.

Every Little Helps:

I have a camper van money box for my coppers, a huge pink piggy bank for 5p coins, an adorable cow money box for 10p coins, a funky car money box for 20p coins, a classy white piggy bank for 50p coins and a small jigsaw piggy bank for my £2 coins. Notes and £1 coins are kept in my purse at all times. I count them up semi-annually, at the end of June and December.

Saving Up For a Rainy Day:

I have an amazing sheep money box (it's got wool on its body and an amazing face,) which I put £2 in at the end of every week. This came about when I had a £2 raise in pocket money when I turned 16. I figured that I wouldn't miss £2 a week, and as there are around 52 weeks in a year, that should mean £104. It will be counted up annually at the end of December.

As I've said, I count up my 'Every Little Helps' money at the end of June. As I couldn't fit any more 20p pieces in the specified money box, I decided it was time to count them up now. I've bagged up £95 so far, not including coppers. There was £20 in £2 coins, £20 in 50p pieces, £10 in 20p pieces, £10 in 10p pieces and £25 in 5p pieces (which was a shock). Hopefully, by the time I've put all of the money in the bank, the balance will have doubled! In September I should start receiving £60 a fortnight with EMA.

Yesterday was my first time paying money into the bank myself. I went up to Barclay's Llandeilo Branch after my half hour Welsh listening exam, and clutching the pay-in book to my chest, I fired loads of questions at Grandpa. During this scene, one of the main staff members from Gegin Fach y Gwili (an uber tiny, quaint cafe in Llandeilo that I planned on working in over the Summer) watched us. Grandpa said to her "She's never paid money in to the bank before!", to which she replied "How old are you?" Dreading what she'd say next, I quietly said "Sixteen." She said "There's something not right there..." Grandpa continued to embarrass me and then took me to the cafe in question for food. When we walked in, the woman was in the kitchen, and upon seeing me, she smiled and clapped patronisingly. I asked Mother how much, on a scale of one to ten, that damaged my chances of working there. She said eight. Then Dad chirped up and said, "I wouldn't hire you after that!" which means I now have to look for somewhere proper to work.

My Position

So only three more exams to go until two months of freedom. Well, I say two months of freedom, I might be getting a job in some tiny old cafe that's always full of old people, but you know what I mean. I've had all the teachers sign my leaver's sheet, and I've had to re-do a part of my Welsh Baccalaureate because the school happened to lose a piece of it, but I've handed that in now. Today, in fact. Then I was sat in the car thinking, "It would be so cool to go out and meet up with people today..." but my phone's key pad has come unstuck and Sony Ericsson's are under warranty for two years. They didn't mention the fact that it keeps turning itself on and off though... That's the thing that gets my goat the most. The other day, I turned my phone off and I went in my bag to unplug my iPod before an exam and that's when I saw it. The screen flickered and showed me the 'turning on' screen, that probably has a real name but I've forgotten it. Anyway my new phone has a huge lack of contacts - at least a huge lack of contacts that I use, seeing as this phone is the one that I used in 2008. But if you didn't receive my facebook message, then I guess we won't be talking any time soon... I considered boring you with an exam update, but I'm going to give a brief one when they're all over. The last day will be Friday June Twenty-Fifth, Twenty-Ten. The same day that this amazing show comes back onto our screens: