The Fault In Our Relationship

I don’t even know why I wanted to write this on here as you’ll probably never see it… Likely because I know you’re not happy in a relationship with me – not any more anyway. I can tell in every look you give me, and I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for everything I have put you through over the past few months – all through the exams, all through the last days of school, probably even before that… I know I haven’t been there for you as much as I should have – I seem to have hardly done anything right in this relationship actually – and I can only apologise repeatedly and it will still never be enough…

I knew I would disappoint you – I knew straight away that you wanted more from me than I could offer, and that I would end up making you miserable… I knew this in January when you first asked, and I knew this in April when you decided to persevere again. I could tell you wanted a nice, friendly guy who was clever and confident. I could tell you wanted this guy to help motivate you through Sixth Form, and help you beat your insecurities. I could tell you wanted someone to hug a lot, to kiss a lot, and even to eventually trust enough to have sex with.

So maybe I filled the ‘nice’ and ‘confident’ criteria. And I always tried to help you feel more confident in yourself – those I knew beforehand that I would give my best shot; that I would try very hard to fulfil those parts. Same as I knew that my lack of commitment would always be the thing that you eventually hated me for.

You did get one thing right about me though – I’m not just any normal guy… But that’s not necessarily a good thing. I consider myself to be ambitious and optimistic, but also honest and realistic at the same time. I always try to look confident and sensible on the outside to conceal the horrible torrent of emotions I feel inside when under pressure. Being fairly intelligent has led me to being a perfectionist in my work, and that led to great levels of stress (though apparently not clinically) and worry. But through all of this, I try my very best at everything I do, and for everyone with expectations. And I realise that I have got nowhere near your expectations of me.

You do deserve better. Above all, you need someone who you came see regularly and spend time with and get to know them better outside of school. And you need that more than you need the other things – you need that much more than you need me. You are absolutely stunning; gorgeous fiery hair, beautiful smiling face, elegant pale body. You have such an adorable nature too – always wanting to laugh and joke, but such a kind heart when you need it. The only thing that ever holds you back is your lack of self-confidence, whether with your body shape or eating habits or intellectual capacity. And you need a guy who can guide you to bettering those fears. And that guy hasn’t been me.

Now you have finished exams and I only have one left (grrr…), we will see each other less and less. But, in some awfully terribly cruel way, I think it’s better if we don’t see each other much. Maybe it’s better if you grow to hate me more and more so that, when the time comes (as it now seems inevitable), you won’t even feel sad that I’m leaving because you never really spent time with me anyway.

You want to spend the whole day with me next Wednesday so we can just have some ‘us’ time and then go to Ultimate and then go to the cinema for the ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ showing. And it’s unlikely I’ll be able to go, and you’re gonna hate me even more for that. And it really is all my fault…

Further Pure Torture

First exam over; suffice to say it didn’t go well. And it’s so annoying – I had revised the syllabus so thoroughly, ensured I had completed all the past papers from the past few years, and I felt really confident when I sat down at that desk. Further Pure 3 is 8 questions of challenging Further Maths in a 1 hour 30 minute paper, but I still even still felt positive as I reached halfway through the question: 4 out of 8 questions completed successfully in around 20 minutes. As usual, the paper suddenly launched into questions that had much harder twists and tricks woven into them; I think causing me to panic and lose concentration.

Why is it that I have been studying Further Maths (and all my other A-Levels) for a good two years, and the only thing that matters is the exams this month?? How is that representative of the hard work and effort I’ve put in to Sixth Form??

“Don’t worry, if you struggled then I’m sure everyone else did too”, my teachers say. “The grade boundaries will be lower – you’ll be fine”, say my friends. But I’m not everyone else!! I don’t care how other people did compared to me!! I just want to succeed and get it right and prove I can do this!!

I used to be an Oxford candidate. I’m now trying desperately to get into Manchester. The back-up is York. And I’m really panicking now that I’m not gonna get into any of those. If things continue like this Further Pure 3 exam, feeling my grades slip away after each paper will be torture beyond compare.

Examining My Life

I haven’t written on here for a long time… Maybe because I know that although it started off as a diary, it transformed into a place where a lot of my stress and emotions and… darkness comes out. Life is full of stress and emotions and darkness, and most of the time I can face it but I guess this is the place I come if it all gets a little too much.

So here I am again. Only this time exam season has arrived, and that changes things. It means the problems I could previously pass off as worrying need to be faced head on, the stress needs to be tackled, the darkness beaten before it consumes me.

Ok, maybe that was a little dramatic, but basically – the time has come to prove who I am.

My first exam lies in wait on Monday morning (what evil person puts an exam on a Monday morning!?!?)… My life is genuinely in the balance this next month, and I’m honestly so scared its not gonna make the cut…

In Reaction To Chemistry

I feel like I’m losing my grasp on everything – that all the constants in my life are slipping away and soon I’ll just be left with uncertainty and stress…

I think today’s Chemistry test has put me in this bad mood but, to be honest, I’ve had this feeling lingering since we started back at school. I realise a holiday will throw me a little – easy to get out of the habit of early mornings, hard work, and juggling homework, but it’s more than that. Suddenly all my subjects seem too difficult and I appear to be failing in so many aspects. My Physics mock comes back with a D on it – not great having said I want an A*… And the Chemistry test today was really very difficult…

I feel my stress may be eating into other things as well; maybe it’s having an effect on how much attention I give Her… I mean, She’s not the kind of girl who needs constant attention – She’s a very confident, independent young woman – but I get the feeling She thinks I’m brushing Her off a little because I’m spending more and more time working and revising and not with Her. And I’m not, or I’m not trying to shut Her out on purpose anyway.

I love Her to bits, I really do. To be honest, I love Her so much that it’s kinda taken me by surprise; I never expected to feel so attached to Her. When our friends first told me She liked me – probably about this time last year – I wasn’t sure how to react. I think I was probably flattered, but my overwhelming thoughts will have been of how I messed things up with Jess and I didn’t want to do that again… But She wasn’t just gonna give up apparently, and tried again towards the end of April last year. I gave in, and here we are. I felt a little attraction to Her and She is a lovely person, hence why I had offered to help teach and revise Chemistry with Her. But I never thought we’d end up being in a relationship together.

Since then I have grown to know Her more: I can tell immediately when She’s sad, I know what makes Her happy or how I can make Her smile, and I have learnt what She is most likely to be sad about without even asking Her, ‘What’s up, honey?’. Getting to know Her and being such a big part in each others’ lives has made me feel emotions I have never felt before – such strong emotions I can only assume are feelings of affection, devotion, and love.

I just hope She understands how much I love Her… How much I don’t want to hurt Her… But how much I really need to pick myself up before I fall too far into that black hole of stress that is now every Chemistry lesson.

A Lost Future

Today I received that fatal email from Oxford – “your application is no longer under consideration by any of the colleges”… The email was only to notify me as to whether I received an interview or not – not life or death for them at all – but apparently I’m not even worth a couple of days of their time for an interview…

I think the main reason I’m so sad about it is that they didn’t really get to know me at all. So they (supposedly, although not necessarily) read my Personal Statement, they (again, were supposed to have) read my reference from my teacher at school, and they have a load of academic data about me, but they don’t really know me. I just feel that if only they’d given me an interview to meet me, see what I’m really like as a person and not just a few sheets of paper, it could’ve turned out differently…

Everyone has said already, ‘Never mind’, ‘You gave it your best shot’, ‘Don’t let it get you down’… But it’s no good; Oxford has been my inspiration for so long, the thing I strived to work hard to achieve, and it’s been taken from me in one short email. I feel like I have no sense of direction, that I have no meaning, that my whole future has disappeared and I’ve been left lost within a void of nothingness…

Dreaming of a White Christmas

As the first flakes fell this week, my thoughts turn to Christmas. I understand that people have differing opinions on a wide range of things; from the big ideas that dominate the media, down to irrelevant preferences, but how some people have such a hatred for Christmas I don’t know. Well, I don’t know currently – this may well be the Christmas I find out.

For as long as I can remember, the first sign of festivity was Dad hauling in all the big boxes encased in black bags that housed the tree decorations. This, of course, was swiftly followed by the arrival of the tree and then the decoration of the tree. By now, it’s probably around a week or two before Christmas Day and I’m already sufficiently excited. I should probably mention that the reason we start so early is due to us hosting most of the family – the sooner we start, the better organised and tidier the house is when the guests arrive. By the time everyone is here, Christmas is almost upon us, and so the days are filled with sleepy mornings, lovely meals, and plenty of rowdy games being played. Even through the inevitable arguments, I loved Christmas.

But last Christmas, the arguing reached a new level, and now we won’t be seeing the family – it’ll just be the five of us. I get the feeling it’s going to be tough – when there are around 12 people walking through the house, it’s easy to sit out for a while and be my own company, but with so few of us I expect it will be a very lonely, awkward Christmas. Of course, I might be just being really pessimistic.

I think the best thing that could happen would be for it to snow. Snow over Christmas would make everything a lot better, I think. We could go on walks that will take a long time and I can bring out the camera for the beautiful, white landscapes and for a while I can just take in the sights and it will be nice to get away from the noisy clamour of home.

Hopes and Dreams

Have you ever got to a point in your life that you feel is such a major decision that if you go one way, you will never be able to get to the other path?? I am usually the optimistic one – the one that is always laughing, smiling, trying to make everyone around me happy. But sometimes, you just have to be realistic. Sometimes, you have to make those decisions that will change your life and you will never be able to go back or to change paths. In my case, it’s less of a choice or decision; more of a humongous 2.5 hour long exam.

Ever since I first visited, I’ve always wanted to go to University in Oxford – the atmosphere as you walk amongst the stone buildings, the determination to contribute to the human race, the sense of belonging to a place so full of study and research. It has always been my greatest ambition. Well, being an astronaut was pretty high up, but at least getting to Oxford was slightly more realistic. Even walking round on the Open Days I got the distinct feeling that I fit in here and it would be the best place to study. And yet, for all my enthusiasm for my subject, for Oxford, for my aspirations, the thing that could well stop me getting there forever will take less than 3 hours of my life this Wednesday morning…

Everyone says ‘You can only give it your best shot’ and they are right, but this time when I walk into that exam room, I really do think that my best will not be good enough. And I don’t want it to end – the desire to be an Oxford alumnus, the yearning for that exciting new challenge, my life’s aim; this may well shatter my dreams. And all I have left is hope. Hope that I can stay calm and focus, that I can manage to make sense of the questions, and that I can express myself through my scribblings so that the professor or lecturer or tutor will see my enthusiasm and passion. It really will come down to just my final hopes and dreams.

The Cake Was A Bit Of A Blowout!

What a weekend!! It’s been such horrible weather but I can honestly say I am truly grateful to my friends for the amazing time we’ve had.

Ok, so I should probably explain that I had a camp out at my house to celebrate my 18th with around 20 of my closest friends from school… And it was amazing!! I don’t know whether it was the fact that everyone joined in and had a good laugh with a few activities, or maybe the staying up til the early hours of the morning, and then, of course, the fantastic spirits of everyone as they woke late the next morning. And all weekend, we had awful weather – the light rain started yesterday morning making all the wood for the fire, all the tents and all the ground wet. This eased off but left a cold, damp feeling in the air for the rest of the night which meant that, waking up this morning, the rain was back and so restarting the fire was near impossible and all the seats were sodden. I think it was only this afternoon that the sun finally appeared and everyone had already left by then.

But our spirits were certainly not dampened – fire building and lighting as well as just generally getting comfortable in the tents as people arrived yesterday afternoon; a really good quiz (thanks Dad) that caused a little competitiveness and raised the friendly banter levels, getting everyone joining in; plenty of nice food and then the launch of the karaoke – it was such great fun!! I went round and spoke to everyone, being the good host and making sure everyone was warm (or as warm and dry as they could be), fed and watered – but once they’d hit the karaoke, I could finally relax a little.

That’s a slight lie – I wanted some time with Her because She deserved it. At school, I’m Head Boy and am so involved with so many different teachers, projects and subjects as well as trying to study four A Levels that I have very little free time. After school, if I haven’t got a meeting for one thing or other, and I’m not going to Ultimate Frisbee or Badminton club, then I go home and try to actually do some school work. So after all this, there is very little time left in my week and I feel bad that She is always the thing that gets put aside; always pushed down the list of things to do. Again, that’s not quite true – I do leave certain times free to make sure I’m not completely avoiding Her but last night was finally a long stretch of time that we could properly spend together.

To start with, we sat around the glowing embers of the fire just talking about school and our friends and life in general, huddling together to try to keep warm. We could’ve spent all night like that (temperature dependent) but after a few others emerged from the karaoke tent, we went for a wander. And boy did She take me by surprise.

We had traipsed around to part of the house that was a little more shielded from the wind and was pretty private so we could continue to chat. Inevitably, I apologised for being so busy all the time. She told me to stop being silly and kissed me, but it wasn’t just a kiss; it lingered and I could feel it even after She had pulled away. Maybe it was the look in Her eyes but I could sense another kiss coming so I kissed Her back. No prizes for guessing what followed – we spent what felt like hours kissing each other passionately, pausing every now and then to catch our breath, our bodies leaning into each other to conserve warmth. Without writing every single detail, suffice to say our hands may have been involved as well – running my fingers through Her hair, Her pulling me closer to crush our mouths tighter together, my hands tracing down Her spine…

Anyways, maybe I’m slightly biased now but I believe that was the best party I’ve ever had and I think it’ll stay with me for a long time!!

At the Extremes of the Apex

It’s that time of year again; Apex Extreme time!! The Apex Challenge is one of the highlights of every year, it’s so much fun and it’s really nice to meet new people and take part in such challenging activities. How do I describe Apex Extreme to someone who has never experienced it??

Imagine you’re in the wildest parts of the countryside, a small rucksack on your back with some light snacks and water, a map and compass in your hands. The idea of Apex is to navigate your way across tough terrain to activity bases, complete the activity to score points, and collect as many points as you can before heading back to the start point before your time is up. Sounds easy so far. But factor in that the night before, between roughly 2200 and 0100, you were running around trying to collect your first points of the event; then you were up at 0800 for the staggered start this morning, and you’re out for another 7 hour slog all the way across the map and back. And that’s without mentioning the mega running you need to do tomorrow and the assault course that’s usually thrown in to finish most people off at the end.

Now it sounds harder. But trust me, it’s superb fun. And it’s only 3 days away!! Cannot wait!!

Are We There Yet??

You never realise how valuable your life is unless you have something to point it out. Every second of every day spent with your friends and family, the people you have to live with and the people who you need to live, loved ones and not-so loved ones; we should make the most of it. Having just visited my Grandpa’s grave as we near his 2nd anniversary, I think about how much he would have loved all this hype about Uni – the open days, the statistics, the Maths training for the admissions test – he would’ve been great. Sometimes, I think he does actually look down on me from Heaven or wherever he is and tries to give me a push in the right direction – today being one of those days as I’ve finished my Personal Statement!! So happy it’s out of the way, and it means I am a huge step closer to submitting the whole UCAS form. Now that will be a good day…

In other news, it’s almost my 18th birthday!! I can’t believe I am actually this close to being an adult… To be fair, I obviously just never noticed. I mean, I passed my driving test back in April, I’m going off to Uni this time next year, I’m starting to properly budget my money… I don’t think I’ll feel any different either – I guess I may be old but not necessarily mature!! But I’m not there yet – still a few days to go…