She was just another student like me and we had nothing in common. Yet we both clicked and started spending every free minute together, we could make each other laugh and we never ran out of things to say. We would spend hours together at school and when we got home we would spend even more time on the phone to each other talking about everything and nothing. Soon our parents met and we would hang out all together since they got along very well too.

We never fought and hardly ever disagreed. She was obsessed with the Backstreet Boys and wanted to marry one of them. I would tease her endlessly about it. We supported each other and when things got ugly with another student I was there having her back like she would do for me.

She changed school but nothing changed between us. We would still talk on the phone and exchange stories of how our day was. She still wanted to come to the prom but she was still not reconciled with that other student. She may had plans to actually cause a scene during the prom. In a conversation with her mother at her house, my mother said that maybe she shouldn’t go if her plan was to cause a scene because that would not solve anything but simply make things worse and in this case things could get worse for me too since I was the one who had invited her. There was a mild spat between the two but I didn’t think too much about it. My mother told them that we had the tickets and to let us know if she wanted to go after all so we could arrange how we would meet so and all go together.

We left their house and I discussed it with my parents. Could it be that she just wanted to come to the prom just to cause a scene and not to simply be there? We agreed to not call them until they did. They didn’t. I was upset that she never called to even say that she didn’t want to go. It was a matter of egoism. I could not believe our relationship had changed so much that she would put that first. The more she didn’t call the more upset I got. My own egoism had kicked in.

The phone never rang and a text message was never received. I never heard anything from her and never saw her again. It was not right that she put a fight with someone else over our own friendship. After 6 years (has it really been 6 years? it feels longer) I am still waiting for that call. I am still hoping to hear from her, learn what she’s been up to. I still miss her. I didn’t say goodbye. We just stopped.

Last night I found her on facebook. I could not believe my eyes. I would not recognise her if I saw her somewhere. She had changed a lot just like I have, I suppose. And yet, I could not click that link. I could not add her as a friend and I could not send a message. I was too afraid. I know, it sounds silly but I was. My mouse kept hovering over the links and then I couldn’t see any more. My eyes were flooded with tears and I was sitting there doing nothing. I could not click away from the page. That tiny little photo of her made me freeze.

There must be a better way to do this than over the internet. I could call, besides I still have her number stored on my phone even after 6 years. I transferred it over every time I got a new phone just in case she called or I would master the courage to call her. But then again no, I shouldn’t call. Things will never be the same between us and I don’t want to start this again. The memories will do for now. Maybe some day we’ll bump into each other in person. Maybe then she will want to talk to me. I know I want to talk to her. Until then I will keep all the memories and hope.

I didn’t always take care of my looks which is fairly normal. No one comes out of the womb and asks for hairspray. Except maybe Dolly Parton. Until around the age of 12 I didn’t care at all about how I looked. That is good because at the time I was chubby with braces and was wearing the most hideous glasses ever made. Yes, there’s photographic evidence of this. And to prove how much I did not care about my looks I took every opportunity to make myself look more hideous. It was a defence mechanism I suppose. I still do it, whenever I am uncomfortable or just feeling out of place I will resort to saying something extremely embarrassing to me but hilarious to others.

A couple of years later I started noticing myself and the way I looked and started taking small steps to make myself look a bit more decent. I started using hair gel and made my own choices when it came to clothes and eye wear. I started experimenting with different hair styles but nothing crazy. It helped that my metabolism changed and I lost a lot of weight over the course of one summer and I got rid of my braces. However, it wasn’t until I moved out of my parents’ house that I truly started looking at myself and my image.

Since then I have developed a taste in clothes and style. I have changed my hair a million times and made some embarrassing choices (when it comes to hair style and clothes). The problem now is that I have reached a point where I always want to look my best. Earlier I popped out of the house briefly to get some booze and stuff for dinner (since I was already going to the super market) and while I knew that I only had 30 minutes before the super market closed, I actually took the time to do my hair.

That’s right, I was going to be out of the house for about 15 minutes (since the super market is right around the corner) and yet I actually dried my hair and styled it. I could had popped a hat on and called it a look but I didn’t. The problem is worse in the mornings when I have to get ready with no caffeine in me and not being a morning person does not help. I usually take up to 45 minutes to shower, shave, get dressed and, as you probably already guessed, do my hair. Some mornings it takes longer depending on how slow I move and other times it takes half the time (like if I’m already running late).

Okay, I’ve gotten too drunk to actually finish what I wanted to say in this post so I will stop here while I’m still making sense.

Do you have little obsessions with the way you look, like your hair or clothes?

I always wondered what I was in my past life. I don’t really believe in reincarnation but I accept the idea because it brings humour into my life. For instance I can do something bad and then say “In my next life I’m coming back as toilet paper”. It helps me put off worrying about the stupid thing I just did until later. I tend to do this a lot in my life. I put things off until there is no time which would partly explain why I am so stressed and busy with coursework at the moment. I say it is only partly the reason because it’s not only my laziness that has put me in this situation but also the amount and nature of the work I have to do.

So I took a test! Just for fun. Here are the results:

Your past life diagnosis:
I don’t know how you feel about it, but you were male in your last earthly incarnation.You were born somewhere in the territory of modern France around the year 1800. Your profession was that of a seaman, dealer, businessman or broker.

Your brief psychological profile in your past life:
Bohemian personality, mysterious, highly gifted, capable to understand ancient books. With a magician’s abilities, you could have been a servant of dark forces.

The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:
Your task is to learn, to love and to trust the universe. You are bound to think, study, reflect, and to develop inner wisdom.

Do you remember now?

No, I don’t remember and fuck you, old self! I would much rather learn the art of just sitting on my ass at the beach sipping cold drinks. France in the 1800’s? No wonder I love the arts so much and constantly feel the need to express myself through them but couldn’t you have given me the skills too? I can’t draw anything! I used to be decent back in my 10’s but since then everything went wrong. Which is fair enough as in my previous life I was either a seaman (ha!), dealer (wait, what?), businessman (I have no brain for business this can’t be right) or a broker (I can see how I’d play with other people’s money, I’d like to do that now too).

As for the inner wisdom thing; my ex told me once that he had never seen a person more in tune with himself and being able to know exactly what is wrong inside, psychologically. It is true. I know myself very well. I know my limits, my weaknesses, my strengths and how everything will affect me before it happens. Another way to put it is, I think too much.

The test can be found here. Leave a comment if you take the test. I’d like to read your past life diagnosis.

It’s almost 6am here and I can’t fall asleep. Insomnia has kicked my ass again. I tried but it didn’t work. I just can’t sleep tonight. There are thoughts in my head tonight and lots of them. I accidentally played a song that made me reminisce about when things were simpler and I had no cares in the world.

Uni coursework was not an issue and even if it was I didn’t seem to care about it. I didn’t have a boyfriend and I didn’t mind. I was out having fun and enjoying myself as often as I could. It was my second year in Brighton and I had just come out of an almost year-long depression. I just let everything go and had fun. But you see, things were going very well for almost a year and that doesn’t sit well with my karma.

After finally feeling free to enjoy myself, finding the right friends to hang out with and eventually finding a boyfriend things started going downhill. I started having very big problems with my housemate, had a bad break-up and I decided to slow down. Actually, it was a combination of a decision and other factors like getting back to studying and finally finding a part time job where I worked on a regular basis and not just once a month. Being the emotional person that I am, the break-up had affected me more than I wanted to admit. I stopped going out as often. I did not want to meet anyone new. I was only interested in making new friends and it was enough. It actually fulfilled me and I didn’t feel I was missing anything but things were not as great as the year before.

Since then, things have been slowing down even more and lately they’ve come to a screeching halt. However, I know that everything will get better. I have to believe this otherwise the depression will get so bad I won’t be able to get out of bed again. I sound worse than I feel and I hate it. I am a happy person and I can’t stand to see myself break down or get depressed about small things.

To use the lyrics of the song; I will always get up after a nosebleed and I will jump into puddles again.

Hey, look! It’s raining outside!

I give you Hoppípolla by Sigur Rós: (I am putting the video before the audio because the video makes the song even better and you should definitely watch it)

Update: I have replaced the old video I had with the HQ version of it. It was a bitch to get it to embed but I found a hack for it and you can now enjoy it in it’s full glory (well at least fuller than before).

Audio and Lyrics after the bump…

Some things change and others remain the same. While I have been missing for a few months I can’t say that I have changed much. I am still me only with my stress levels increased and my happiness levels reduced. Being a student on my final year is proving to be more than I was prepared for.

I was never a very good student to start with and final year coursework is harder than everything I’ve faced so far. During my year off on my placement job I forgot most of the things I had learnt on the previous two years which has put me in an even worse position. My break up with my boyfriend back in October put me in a blue funk which lasted for about a month. I got used to staying in and stopped going out, I lost touch with a lot of my friends and I haven’t seen most of them since. Even now, I don’t feel like going out, not even for a drink or two.

With me it is also that if I know I have work I should be doing instead of being out, it stops me from having fun. I get this wrong feeling in my gut which tells me that I’m screwing everything up. If I stay in, my intense laziness and procrastination take over making it impossible to get anything done and so I am stuck in a vicious circle.

In the meantime, worrying about exams as well as my coursework made it even worse. My exams were back in January and in fact it was only one exam I had but it was a real bitch. As soon as I was done with it I needed to get away. I needed to feel comfortable, numb and detached. I needed to run away from here. I have never in my life felt that way before. I needed to disappear, to hide and pretend none of it was real. I left Brighton the next day and went to my parents’ for a surprise visit. It was the best time I’ve had away from Brighton in years.

A little less than a week later I returned to Brighton slightly recharged and smiling. Since then things have been getting better. I am gradually finding my old self and I’m starting to get in touch with my friends again planning dinner dates and nights out. I haven’t done any of it yet but this time I will push myself to go out and find my old smile again the one that came out naturally and not because I had to as to not seem rude.

Things are looking up on planet Colin and it is time to get back to my therapeutic process of blogging and poking fun at my life’s mishaps.

Ladies and lads, I am back!

Okay, before I move on is anyone else having as a good a time as I am having tonight! I must thank all the guys at MPYR Radio for keeping each other company and being such good sports! Especially the DJ’s who so far have been amazing with their selections of music and keeping up with our constant requests and even encouraging them!

If you are not already listening head over to MPYR Radio and make sure you join us in the chat room also!

Now back to the normal posting:

Growing up I wanted to be an English teacher. Every time I think about it laugh so much because it is probably the most boring job a child could ever say he or she wanted to do. When I finished school and actually had to start thinking what I was going to study and follow as a career I kept saying either Marketing or Business Management but deep down I still wanted to be a teacher. I ended up studying Electronic and Computer Engineering for a year (before realising that cables and I don’t match) and now I’m studying Computer Science.

I am still not sure exactly what I want to follow as a career.

Did you have a dream job growing up? Did you follow your dream?

For reasons that I won’t go into here I went and visited my ex’s mother with him. There was something of a family gathering and I felt very much out of place. I feel out of place with my family, let alone a family full of strangers. So my ex’s sister went shopping and went into the dressing room to try on some clothing. She came out and asked, “What do you think of this skirt?” We stared, the shop assistant hardly battered an eyelid, “that’s not a skirt, it’s a belt dear.”

I’d also like to take this moment in time to bid farewell to Jay of thedangerousman.com. His blog vanished after two months of inactivity about a week ago.

Well there it went. About 15 days ago I cut my hair. I didn’t do it myself, even though I was extremely close to it. Could this be considered self-mutilation because if it does it would complete the emo state that I’ve been in since last September or so. Yes, not many people knew. I was listening to emo music and looked like an emo kid (Check out my MySpace image to see what I am talking about), only I was less into drama. To set the record straight; still a drama queen but less dramatic than emo kids.

So I was holding my fringe with one hand and the scissors with the other. I decided to wait until the next day as I had already booked an appointment for a haircut. I had stopped dressing too emo-like since around March anyway so cutting my hair was the next step. I liked it a little too much to be honest but it was time for a change.

As if that wasn’t enough, after a few days I had it coloured (a very dark blonde) and had the tips slightly bleached to create some sort of texturing effect as it was too short to look like anything. At the time I hated the fact that my hair was gone but now I’ve accepted it and I’ll even go as far as to admit that I now like it.

Well apparently too many times. To the point of not remembering all of them but just the highlights.

I normally don’t remember most of my dreams after the second minute of being awake but this dream was far too bizarre to forget so quickly. Let’s just start with me being back in the same house with my ex-housemate… Yes, that’s right, THAT housemate;

In the dream it’s only a few days before we move out and away from each other (so around May 2006) and all of the sudden we get all friendly. He’s nicer to me and I’m mean to him because, you know, I’m holding a grudge against him (big surprise). In the middle of exchanging words and bringing up all the things we hate each other for he turns to me and says: “Well, not all our times here were bad” and we hug (a friendly hug)! In the meantime my brain is screaming “What the fuck?!” as loud as it can. From that moment on it was as if almost all our differences were resolved. Maybe resolved is the wrong word to use here so let’s just say that they no longer were an issue. Later on in that dream we say our goodbyes and hug once more.

I believe this is called “dreaming of closure”. Whatever that was I don’t need any closure, I’m perfectly fine the way we are now. I haven’t seen him since I moved out and if things go as I hope, I may not see him again at least until September.

At some point during that dream I am at the university’s cafeteria having lunch with a friend to whom I am describing the story above. Three tables to our right I spot Bill Gates” having lunch with some other people that don’t look like students either. While I’m thinking what on earth could Bill Gates be doing at a University since he could not even stay at the one he was supposed to attend, he stands up and comes towards our table. I don’t pay attention as I’m merely expecting him to pass us by on his way to somewhere else. Instead he stands right across the table from me and says: “I was looking for the most interesting and exciting person in here and I must tell you that you are the most interesting person I’ve ever seen.” I look up thinking he has probably seen my mad programming skills until I realise that I’m not really that good at programming. He goes on to say “You have the most amazing hair ever!” At that point I smile thinking he’s messing with me and that I’m being bullied by the greatest geek of all time and just thank him politely. He explains that he is looking for “cool” people to join his company and creative team so he gives me his card and asks me to call him at some point to discuss.

This leads me to think that I’m either losing my mind and I’m looking to be friends again with my ex-housemate, that Bill Gates is hiring and that my hair alone can get me a job at Microsoft. OR that large quantities of Martini can cause a serious “fat chance” syndrome in my sleep.

I know it’s been a while since Colin or I have posted. I’m not sure what Colin’s excuse is (I’m going to say ‘Sam’ in order to prod him to post here, because his posts are always much more interesting than mine, that and I like the mental image of Sam prodding Colin), but my excuse is the fact that I’ve been vomiting Like Linda Blair in that documentary, “The Exorcist.” Yes, I have indeed been as sick as a dog the last week or so, a fever with blinding headaches isn’t helped by the colourful redecoration of anything that is within reach of the steady stream of involuntary regurgitation.

Listening to: The Sneaky Sound System Album

Still deciding if I should go and see them on Sunday or stay home and catch up on study I missed out on while sick.