First impressions don't count.

It's mad, looking back. Today my sister and I were talking, and those old times kinda talks just drifted in and out of our minds. Remember when we used to be friends with [insert name] and when we used to spend all of our time [there] and, well, you get the picture. 

It's all so chaotic. I have fragments of memories hidden in the shelves of my brain, and yet, certain things that didn't seem to matter at one point, really do now. Like, for example, as everyone says, first impressions count. Well, I can't remember the first time I met most of the important people in my life, because, I suppose, at the time it didn't really seem significant. A first conversation, an impression, a look, an action. Whether the first time you met me was drunk or sober, at 14 or 18, in a pub or a classroom or a bus stop, I probably couldn't tell you what I thought or what I said. If I do, you must be pretty damn special. (Either that, or maybe I was younger and just didn't have the opportunity to get drunk!) 

But there are one or two I do remember. Not vividly, but in fragments, some pieces are sharp and clear, others are blurred around the edges, softer, out of focus. Maybe I remember the first thing you ever said to me, or what I was wearing, or what you were drinking, or the class we were in at the time. A smile, a laugh, a clumsy introduction. A handshake? A kiss? I'm damned if I remember. The significant people in my life are just that because of what they are to me now, what they've become, not who they were when I met them. I guess that's what fascinates me. You never know, when you meet someone, what they're going to end up meaning to you. That's kind of scary, but also kind of brilliant. 

Plan B.

Wrongly, I've always been one of those all-my-eggs-in-one-basket kinda person. I throw every inch of myself into something if it's what I really want, in the same way I won't make the slightest bit of effort if my heart isn't in it. All my choices are based on what I really want, but there's always a little voice in the back of my head whispering something about a Plan B, a second choice, a back-up. 

"Or you could always go into teaching?" I hear one of my relatives say when I tell them for the millionth time (vaguely) that I want to write when they ask about my career prospects and "what are you really going to do with a Literature degree?" My face expression goes blank. I don't even have enough self-restraint to hold the bored, unimpressed grimace back. It's too close to home. My face scrumples as if someone has just spat on the pavement in front of me, as I wonder how I can explain to the people who I love that the only thing I will ever consider doing and happily, is writing. It's unrealistic, ambitious, dreamy, naive, whatever. I've heard it all. It's arty, risky, "a tricky field to get your name known in" it's "not great money" and "not a steady wage" and "you'll never get a mortgage" and "how will you support yourself on that?" SHUT UP.

How I see it is this; I'm not choosing, even unwillingly, to get myself into 30 grand's worth of debt (bearing in mind I'm a normal person from a normal working-class background) and I can't even envisage how much money that actually is.. To then settle for something that doesn't make me happy. Something that makes my blood race and my veins pulse and my brain explode in ecstasy. It's what I want. Simple as. Back up plans maybe aren't for me. 

Blind Panic.

I'm typing this on my brand-spanking-new laptop, (let's hear a cheer of relief, excitement, whatever) because it's taken me days to fully work out even its navigation system. Who knew, Windows 8 is really confusing, especially with a touch-screen. Armed with industrial strength coffee, I am attempting to steady myself. Sleep deprived, on the edge of a nasty hangover, I'm procrastinating like never before. With an assignment due on Thursday, all I really want to do is hide under my bed covers and channel my avoidance for the foreseeable future. I'm too tired to function, so let's all forget the work and bask in the laziness that goes hand-in-hand with Sunday evenings. 

#blindpanic.

I'm a sentimentalist.

Okay so let's get one thing straight. I'm one of those sentimental people who has the ability to fall in love with something in about three seconds flat. Whether it be a person, a material object or more commonly, and brilliantly, a line of a book. I have just picked up, and when I say just, I mean, like, literally (see my Instagram @eleanorward_ for evidence!) Rainbow Rowell's widely acclaimed novel Eleanor and Park. I have had this book, along with about half a dozen others, sitting on the draws beside my bed since around Christmas. The titles visible when I open and close my eyes, there when I wake and when I drift heavily off to sleep. There is absolutely no denying that literature may be my one and only true love. (Sorry, to anyone this may offend, it's nothing personal.) 

But seriously, it's amazing. That feeling. I can't describe it in clearer terms. I just read half a page's worth; an inserted extract before the novel actually begins, and that's it. I'm in love. Properly. Like doe-eyed movie kinda love, intoxicated, overcome, totally and utterly seduced with the words on the page in front of me. If you know what this is like, you'll be pretty familiar with the feeling. My smile is happily escaping from my lips, as I get ready to discover a book that has been flung into my grasp too many times to even count. Plus, and this is the obvious bit (and I can't even explain why) I mean maybe I'm a narcissist, but I kind of like the fact I'm going to read a book entitled with my name (even partly so.) Vain or what? Who cares, let's do this. 

You can very obviously expect a blog post/review/babbling document as a follow up in time. Oh, while I'm at it, with books and everything.. I finished Nathan Filer's The Shock of the Fall today, and it's brilliant. I loved it. YOU MUST READ IT. Even @nathanfiler favourited my tweet about it, so y'know, he even knows how good his own work is. 

Happy days: #2

Sunny days when you've got nothing to do but take advantage of the good weather. Taking too many photos just so you can document your silly nights out (or piece them back together the morning after.) Having someone you genuinely could tell anything and everything to, and not worry. Being so comfortable with where your life is going that you have a chance to breathe, (oh and potentially book a holiday, yay.) Anticipating summer 2014 to be the best yet. Grinning so much your cheeks ache and your jaw begins to seize up. Laughing so much that your stomach muscles feel like you've done three hours at the gym. Counting your blessings every single day that you have the most incredible people in your life, and they're happy to be there. 

Notions.

She knew before she ever even said the words, wrote it down or repeated it to another person. Probably before she even acknowledged it to herself. A look. An exchange of words. She had feelings for him long before he admitted his, or brushed her cheek or held her hand. Before the words fell from her bottom lip and hung in the air, clinging on to some forced, grasped sense of meaning. It felt right, it felt comfortable, it felt like it could potentially be everything she ever wanted. 

Happy days: #1

Okay so I've well and truly jumped on the #hashtagging happy days bandwagon and for that, I'm smiley yet also partly sorry for giving into it. It's kind of just too irresistible. I'm going to write happy posts every so often, in a list-like form, of things that make/ are making me, happy. Plus, as people know, I have a tendency to be cynical, negative and terribly pessimistic. Indeed. So, maybe, I think, this may help lift my mood, and focus on positives rather than negatives. Always a good idea, right? So here goes nothing. 

A kind of given, but Alex Turner's voice is just the soundtrack to my life at the minute. I'm unhealthily obsessed with Arctic Monkeys, and AM is, in my view, the best album yet. My favourite song, well, I have too many. I'm too indecisive for that. 

My "reading week" at uni: yes! It's finally here, shh, we're taking advantage of any time off possie. As of Monday coming, I'm off for the week (according to my own schedule anyway) so that means no uni, no stressy mornings and no boring as hell lectures at 9am. Happy days, I've needed time off for ages. Sleep time yes.

My latest read: as some of you may or may not know, Nathan Filer's debut novel The Shock of the Fall won Costa's book prize this year. Immediately, I almost sprinted to Waterstones to get my hands on a copy. As soon as my eyes feasted on the first few pass of this brand spanking new novel, I just knew I was going to love it. I'm about a third of the way through at the moment, and it's really addictive. The crisp pages are just engorged between my fingertips. It's one of the best pieces of writing I've read in ages. Read it. It's making me happy.

My old new-found obsession with My Family. We bought the boxset around Christmas time. If you haven't seen it already, I urge you to google it, or find one of the many sky channels that count on repeats to fund their viewings, because this programme will be lurking around I promise you. Originally a BBC sitcom, My Family follows the lives of the Harper family, their ups and downs, loves and losses, through chaos and celebration, turmoil and despair. I have seen every single episode multiple times, and now we've invested in the boxset (yes..boxsets are the way forward for a quick fix) I just need to watch them over and over again. Also, Miranda, yes, she's wonderful, and the sitcom is just painfully hilarious. Get watching.

Oh, and I can't forget this one. A spin off from the very well known Grey's Anatomy, Private Practise was discovered by me about a year ago, maybe less. I started watching just one or two episodes a week, and now it's five and a half seasons later and things are unwinding like never before. It's already finished, I might add. This programme doesn't run any more. It ended 13 episodes into six seasons, over nearly as many years. I have around 15 hours of it left to watch, ever, and I'm torn between savouring it and completely devouring it in one intense, bizarre, emotional sitting. The latter will probably occur very shortly. 

So, yes. Happy moments. Also, a tiny little shout out to Lukas. I'm not one for soppy exchanges and waaaaay OTT PDA's, but I don't care, this suffices, because, he makes me happy. So there you go. That's really all there is to it.