Mental Breakdown of a Native English Speaker

I had my iTunes on shuffle today, and the song Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve) by Buzzcocks came on.

Now, after staring long and hard at shouldn’t’ve (which I’m still not sure is even grammatically correct) for long enough, I decided that the English language makes absolutely zero sense.

Somehow, I can look at the disaster of letters and apostrophes and make sense of the muddled word and not think twice about how should not have becomes shouldn’t’ve.

Now, “Should not have”. Say it out loud. Does that even sound right? It just sounds so wrong, like when you finally get the correct spelling for a word and it still doesn’t look right. I really do not even know any more, I need to learn a normal language and speak that for the rest of my life, because even though English is all I can speak, I’m so over its rules and stupid spellings and irregular verbs and homophones and ARGH.

HOW DO PEOPLE IN NON-ENGLISH SPEAKING COUNTRIES LEARN THIS SHIT?

I give up. I seriously give up.

Unfinished Stories

My mind is one of those highly imaginative ones that pops up with a brand new story idea at least once a week. Normally, I cave in and come up with a part of the story so that when I find the document in the future, I’ll think, “Hey! I remember this! I’ll carry it on and finish it because it’s amazing and I can get it published and be famous and I can act in the movie and I’ll be best friends with John Green and Jo Rowling!”  But then I never do. Welcome to the life of a procrastinator.

Last week, I was sorting through my documents and getting rid of anything I didn’t need to earn myself some more working space. That was when I found a folder full of no less than twenty story beginnings that I’ll never finish.

I suppose one day I could take all of the ideas and somehow merge them together so that they don’t go to waste – or I can give them to somebody so they can finish them and give me credit for the idea if they get published... but for now, I’ll be keeping them in my sad lonely file of lost hopes and dreams.

The reason for this blog post is because I just came up with a really, really good idea and went through that too-familiar thought process of, “I’m actually going to finish this one! I’m going to be MASSIVE if this gets out!”

But I never do. The most I’ve ever got into a story is 47,000 words. I’ve been working on it for almost four months, and I’m a long way away from finishing. Even when I finish, I can’t do anything with it because it gives out a really bad message and no publisher in their right mind would want it. I just want to finish it to say that I’ve finished a book.

The shortest is 90 words... And that was the one I had the highest hopes for. That’s the trouble with wanting to be a writer – It sucks. It’s a good kind, though. You just have to get through the walls and barriers and write until you’re finished.

I think that one day I’ll make my mark. I have tonnes of ideas if I ever run out, right?

New Years. New Beginnings?

I'm one of the world's Scrooges who couldn't give a flying crap about any kind of day in which other people see as a need to celebrate and get so drunk that they can't even remember what they were celebrating in the first place. I got texts this year over Christmas and New Year's from people I hadn't heard from since Christmas and New Year's last year.

This brings me to the concept of celebrating a 'New Year'. Everybody hopes that the New Year will bring them some kind of superhuman luck in having an amazing life and, in their New Year's spirit, they set themselves challenges which (after two days to a week) they get bored of. This leads to them failing, growing into a phase of depression and then having a year as shitty as the last.

Luckily for me, I don't fall into the trap that those other people do. I live every day as though it's the same as the last. You know why? BECAUSE IT IS. The human race is said to be 'superior' above all other types of species. And what do we do about this? We destroy our planet, kill each other and complain about everything. Oh, I'm sorry that you're a human. Boo-hoo. But we have days in which we celebrate. Celebrate what? That we're only here because evolution turned us into these killing machines and hopeless romantics that we are? We're just animals who have very complex brains which enable us to think like no other living beings. And, with this advantage over everything else, we screw up everything. Maybe that's our actual reason for being on Earth. To royally fuck everything up.

Now, before I get completely off-topic with my irrational hatred for most humans, I shall get to my point. Here's how Ash spends her holidays, in chronological order to make things more fun:

NEW YEAR'S DAY: The family come over. We over-eat, play darts, eat some more, then play relatively frustrating, though addictive, games. In between all this, I confide myself to my bedroom for a few minutes at a time to play guitar or use my laptop to try and have a normal day in amongst the havoc of entertaining family members.

VALENTINE'S DAY: I believe that love is a myth. Therefore, I have never celebrated this day.

MY BIRTHDAY: I celebrate my birthday by eating an enormous slab of chocolate cake and then continuing with my day like normal, but occasionally using "But it's my birthday!" to get things I normally wouldn't get without this phrase.

EASTER: I generally use it as an excuse to eat lots of chocolate and have it be socially acceptable. And then I feel bad about eating so much chocolate because it's quite sickly after a while.

LENT: Why would I give up anything for 40 days? I spend these 40 days doing things everyone else has given up and feeling all smug about it. Because I'm a bitch.

HALLOWEEN: I don't mind Halloween. But I don't do anything for it. So... Next!

GUY FAWKES/BONFIRE NIGHT: I like to watch local firework displays from my dad's bedroom window because I'm too cheap to purchase my own tickets to one. Besides, it's too cold in November to stand there and have fun whilst shivering and getting a sore neck from looking up for half an hour.

CHRISTMAS: I go to my auntie's house, eat too much, play darts, eat more, play games, eat more, be unsocial for a while and then go home where I then pass out on my bed from tiredness.

BOXING DAY: I go to my auntie's house, eat too much, play darts, eat more, play games, eat more, be unsocial for a while and then go home where I then pass out on my bed from tiredness.

NEW YEAR'S EVE: I endure people's minute-by-minute Facebook updates about the New Year and then complain about them on Twitter where they can't see. I also think all day "This is the last time I'll shower this year." "This is the last breakfast I'll have this year." "This is the last dinner I'll have this year." "This is the last picture I'll take this year." Then I watch the London fireworks on TV, alone in my living room, then sing Auld Lang Syne whilst holding my own hand, and I wonder. I wonder why people get so fussy about certain days of the year.

I guess I'll never understand it, but if that's what keeps the humans happy for a while, then I'll just let them be. I shall now contradict myself like a hypocrite and wish you a very Happy New Year.