You name it, I've got it!

So I'm a bit of a hypochondriac. Well, a LOT of a hypochondriac haha!

You name an illness, I have it. And, if I can't figure out a way I could have it, I'll worry myself sick that I start to feel the symptoms. Oh dear.

I've had quite a few dealings with websites such as the likes of Net Doctor, so no wonder I'm such a paranoid state! The smallest lump, bump, cut or pain and it's likely to tell you you've got a tumour. In fact, I can't remember exactly what it was, but I once typed something to do with my foot in and it'd linked it somehow to my brain or some other un-connected organ! It's mental. And dangerous.

If you've got a problem, have some calpol and rest for a week. That's my new solution.

Bye bye Net 'Doctory' type websites!

I am a bit strange in the way that if I start to feel ill, I'll self-diagnose myself with something; I'll self-diagnose myself with something that deep down, I know is 10 times worse than it could ever be. I go in the frame of mind that if you think it's something BAD, anything less is a bonus. It's a strange way of thinking, but it seems to work for me. This way of looking at it covers everything aswell. It covers every angle and I feel like it prepares me for everything.

I'm trying a new approach now though. I've resigned myself to the fact that nobody ever feels 100% due to the odd ache, cut or pain. So, here goes, unless I feel like I'm reaching the end of my life, I'm not going to worry.

(I'll try my best.)

I've realised you don't die THAT easily...

Can we ever really recover?

It's not unusual for a mix in communication or a bad first impression to result in some kind of hatred towards one person.

We should never judge a book by its cover. What a cliche! But I guess it's right; many of us have an idealistic image in our heads of how we want ourselves to look therefore we use our image to portray ourselves. Or it may work the other way with what we can only describe as a mix in communication between us and ourselves where we don't even realise how powerful our image is and we find ourselves making bad first impressions without opening our mouths!

There are many examples of each in today's society; we judge what we call 'emo's' for their use of black eyeliner and their black attire which adorns their white skin for the contrast! (So I think!) And by dressing and acting in these ways, they socially attach themselves to every other 'emo', leaving the rest of us with endless opportunities to play with stereotypes and judge one person based on another whom may have looked similar.

It's like anybody who wears a hoody or some tracksuit bottoms is automatically branded a chav; automatically branded an acronym which stands for 'Council Housed And Violent'. What a compliment to those of us who just wanted a day of comfort!

People too often perform mass internal judgements on slight first impressions.

But it's always the case, if you come across nice a few people will find out and you might get a few more smiles each day; make a bad impression and everybody within a sixty-five mile radius finds out!

Dress how you want to be seen and don't allow your nerves to put you in a state of ignorance!
- Or whatever, look up, above and beyond, and do what makes you happy.

Kacee xx

One day we'll all expire...then go on forever?

I often wonder if it's us making the decisions in life.

We could be in a computer game.
We could be a tiny part of something, like a small ant's nest.

It's all too much to get your head around; too many possibilites and too much uncertainty.

We live in a world where there's always somebody higher who can help; there's always somebody who can control the situation. But, when it comes to life, afterlives and natural occurances, nobody is in control and we find this hard to accept because it's not something we're familiar with.

We rant on about the 'chapters' in our lives but what if 'life' is just a chapter of something bigger, something we aren't aware of. We've already established my mind works in weird ways, so just roll with what I'm saying! It kind of makes sense. I can't get my head around the fact that we die and then supposedly go to some place else. Well, according to some people, but to others, we come back as another animal or creature depending on how we behaved in our previous life. And so if this is the case should we live for the moment, or for our next life?

Everything we do is to a time limit, even though we may not realise it. When people say 'nothing lasts forever', that's the reality. Everything comes to an end, has a start and finish and eventually expires so to speak. I find it so difficult to think about what happens when we die. My mind can't physically think about or imagine the term 'forever'. And we use the term 'forever' too loosely because as I say nothing can be forever unless it's 'our' forever, until there is no forever left. See I'm not even making much sense now because my head slightly explodes inside itself when I try to imagine us laying underground forever...there's no end, that we know of. It makes me slightly panicky and warm.

But if we all came with an expiry date, like the milk in my fridge and the bread in my cupboard, we could make sure we do everything we need to before it's too late.

Head? Heart? Forget it?

We all deserve to be happy right? But saying that, to what extent should we go to make ourselves happy? To what extent is it right to hurt someone else in order to gain ourselves happiness?

I can’t figure it.

There’s no guide to life. And, aside from the law, there’s no right or wrong. So, how are we supposed to make decisions?

I’m only 19 and so far I’ve learnt that sometimes we have to have jumped in the deep end and nearly drowned for us to learn a lesson. But often, even that isn’t enough.

I still can’t seem to gage when it’s worth taking the leap.

In awkward situations there always seems two ways out; one which hurts us and one which hurts somebody else, but which should we take? Should we perform acts of selfishness so we can have a smile on our own face? In life we have ourselves. Not each other; we can rely on nobody as much as we can rely on ourselves. No-one will tell us what to do, although if we’re lucky, they may advise us.

Trust no-one and don’t depend on anybody so much that you’re leaning on them because if they step to the side you’ll be on the ground. At rock bottom.

The question is, do we follow our heads or our hearts?

(almost) speechless!

It’s a quick one, because I’ve just got back from London and I’m totally worn out!

If I’m honest, I’m not sure where to start or what to say. I’m totally appalled at what I’m watching on the news, and appalled at myself for watching what I’m watching. It’s absolutely disgusting that children in hoodies are running round cities committing arson and throwing things are police and any general public who are getting in their way. From the footage I’ve seen, the police are just acting as invigilators watching over them, like in an exam hall except in this case the kids running about are too young to even sit an exam! It’s disgusting. Where are their parents? And more to the point, what do they think they are getting out of their actions? Is it the thrill, the adrenaline or just the fact that they’re causing problems?

I take that back about the Police, I know and the whole country knows how much they are doing for US. We need to piece it back together so we, as a whole, can move on from this heartless act of so many people.

The media sector are doing nothing more than scaremongering and encouraging further riots. They’re handing it to the little shits on a plate. And they don’t even realise. The internet is going mad with constant updates on where the riots are, who’s been injured and what shop has become the next ‘free-for-all’ and the more we sit at home taking it all in, the more we panic. Rumours are spreading faster than the fires by the arsonists and the rioters are buzzing off the reception which the news channels and public are giving them. The news channels could have done nothing better than mention the streets were a little unsettled, warn people to be safe and then move on.

I’ve been in London the past few nights while the riots have been slowly spreading from Tottenham and it hasn’t even felt like a big deal. It’s only now we’re home that we have realised the extent of what has been going on. In a few of the pubs there were big screens to keep people updated but it never seemed like an issue. This morning we considered jumping on the tube to check Camden out, where there were riots last night. Funnily enough we had planned to go out in Camden last night and at last minute changed our mind, purely for the fact that with the money we would pay for the tube, we could buy an extra glass of wine in Leicester Square instead! It’s a good job we had our wine heads on or we may still be stranded in Camden now!

Now the riots have moved up North. I clicked on #manchesterriots which is currently trending on Twitter and it’s mad to see how mental people are going. One of the best things I read was about the looting, somebody mentioned how crazy it is that people are stealing shoes because they clearly haven’t realised they’re only going to get either a right or left foot! And I’m not even going to mention the image which has been uploaded of the idiot planking in the middle of the riot.

I’m getting tired now so I’m just going to finish by saying when I was 11 I could just about spell my own name, I’d never have dreamt of going out with petrol bombs or bricks. And I didn’t even know the definition of looting.

Where’s the justice? And, where’s our water cannons, guns, or any sign of violently fighting back? Wow.

We’re hosting the Olympics next year, just saying!

….more on my FIRST trip to London soon! xx

What really matters?

I'm working nearly every waking hour at the moment; most people I know are.

Why?

I'm starting to find that the majority of us are living to work, rather than working to live. It's all work, work, work yet we don't seem to get any down time to spend the money, nor see the benefits of such excessive working hours.

Today, somebody told me they had a brain tumour. I can't stop thinking about it. I've known her a while and yet never knew. She hasn't let it stop her living her life though, no. She's still working nearly 15 hours a day, headaches aside, and nobody knows of her condition. I've been trying to think why she has kept it to herself and the only conclusion that I can get to is that she wants her life to continue as it always did and if people knew, they may take pity on her and have negative effects on the way she's trying to keep going as normal.

It's really got me thinking though. We work every hour god sends, and for what? To pay the bills, to buy the food shop and for the odd new outfit. Some of us have bags of disposable income, so we go on numerous holidays and go shopping for luxurious clothes, as oppose to those of us who shop for clothes purely to avoid being arrested for 'indecent exposure'. But those of us who are working purely to pay the bills and stay alive are just stuck in a viscious cycle, and that cycle seems to be 'life'.

But surely we get to a point where we say enough is enough? Or is that what is known as 'retirement'? What if we never make it that far? After all, we don't all reach the finish line of life. It's scary.

I've begun to think that although working 60 hour weeks to save up money for my future seems a good idea now, and I will look back when I'm in the future and be thankful that I did it, what's to guarantee that I will reach that time. What if one day in the near future I realise I won't make my far future? I'll have wasted hours and hours of valuable time for nothing. If we're always living for the future, we're missing 'now' - or we had 'now' a long time ago. If this is the case, when people ask 'how's things at the moment?' we can't truly answer unless we can remember and pinpoint a day and time when we were working for this moment. Ok - that's looking a little deep in to it but it's not hard to see where I'm coming from. My head works in weird ways.

Some say we live once; some say we have afterlives. Either way, there's no guarantee that we'll meet the people we have in this life again; our mother, father, family and friends. I'm starting to think that the only thing that matters in life is the people close to us so why are we fighting for other things, such as money?

- Live life to the full; but don't cross the line and live everyday like your last - you'd blow all your money and do everything you've ever wanted, so what'd be the point in living on?
- Don't waste time regretting things, just add them to your lesson book and try to steer from getting in to that same kind of situation again. And don't regret things you've said because at that moment it had reason and it felt right.
- Do what you enjoy, whether you're good at it or not. If you like singing, sing, if you can't sing, still sing.
- Do something new everyday.
- Do something nice to somebody everyday - you never know when it's going to be you who needs a hand with something.
- Be nice to people you don't know, people never forget that 'lovely' person they met - they never forget the 'horrible' one either.
- If you live alone, or sleep alone, wake up to the radio - waking up with somebody will give you a good head start to the day, even if it is Chris Moyles and he's talking to the whole nation - it put's you in a group.
- Stop waiting for the perfect moment, what if it never comes? Dare yourself to jump...
- Don't think too deeply in to things - don't think too much about new opportunities, by the time you've thought of every possible outcome you'll have missed the opportunity.

So far for me, life seems a series of sharp turns on a country road. You can never see what's coming around the corner towards us, whether it's a bike which'll nicely pass us by, or if it's a lorry on our side of the road about to cause problems. Whatever happens, there's no controller, no stop button, rewind or fast-forward - no matter how much we wish for one.

We're stuck in what we think is the present and always will be.

We never see tomorrow because yesterday's tomorrow is today and now tomorrow's another day away. And there it goes, another cycle. It seems Ronan Keating was right all along, tomorrow never did come.

Standard Procedure

It's standard procedure, once a year.

I can't remember a year where I've not had exam results. I vaguely remember the time where life revolved around who was 'on' in Tig and the only thing we had to worry about was who had the most sweets. That's laughable now.

We've gone from have no responsibility and hardly even a purpose in life, to planning and determining our own future. And it's serious.

When it comes to results, to most people you either pass or you fail. To me, you fail, do badly, do ok or get 100%. For me, it's all about self satisfaction and getting out what you put in. I remember the first results we got from University and I threw out this cringy line, the one about self satisfaction and getting out what you put in; this was the point where I re-branded myself as a joke!

Maybe I am a bit of a joke.

Kacee xx

It's because we're British...

We moan when it's cold, we moan when it's hot; basically, we're always going to moan.

I have to say though, it has been absolutely boiling hot today - not that my choice of clothing affected anything! I decided to walk to the shops, which are two and a half miles away, and I didn't even give the weather a thought. I put my full length skinny jeans, a top, my blazer and some pumps on and by the time I had reached the end of my driveway I felt like I'd done a four mile sprint. I marched on like a trooper anyway because I was getting a lift back later on, until I wasn't... I ended up walking back aswell! But my return journey must have been about half the usual time because in my rage, I stormed through the woods and down the road as if I was trying to escape from a stalker.

The point is, when it goes cold again, I'll still be complaining.

When I finally got to civilisation I looked like I'd just travelled from the North Pole because I had more clothes on than the whole of Ambleside put together. That's another British thing though isn't it, we see a bit of sun and we strip off; we dig out our sandals and white t-shirts and we act like we're in the Bahamas. And the best bit is, we do that for one day a year and they aren't then seen for another year.

That's because we're British though; the American's wear sweatpants, the Mexican's wear big hats and according to the apprentice, we're still unsure whether the French love their children!

I finally got the results, and another visit to the Doctor's Surgery. At least I know I'm getting my money's worth of this National Insurance I'm paying over summer - or whatever it is!

The results were useless but they suggested there was some bacteria in my body, somehow. She explained three times and I still didn't understand; not because I'm thick but because the thought of the white blood cells she was banging on about made me feel sick so I tried not to listen!

I should slowly start getting better with rest apparently but my tonsils still look and feel something similar to the size of the tennis balls I'm currently watching on Wimbledon! Speaking of which, I'm really enjoying watching the tennis, despite ignoring it now to write this! It's really occupying my time at the moment, well, the time I have aside from working and trying to socialise. I've never really been in to watching sport, if anything I'd rather be playing it than sat on my sofa watching somebody else.

When you get to my age (oh god I'm starting to sound like my 70year-old grandma) it gets difficult to play a sport; hard to find the players to play with, space to play and of course the time! It was easy a few years ago when I was still at school where the teachers would arrange teams and matches and we were forced to play sport for an hour a week. Now, it's all about the treadmill, the cross-trainer and the exercise bike. And it's expensive!

To stay fit and healthy it costs; it's much cheaper to buy a pizza than cook a proper meal and it'd be much cheaper without having a direct debit out of  my suffering bank account from the local gym.

Call me at 3am, I'll still be awake

I spent the best part of my morning in the doctors today, ew! They're horrible things; the bland walls, aroma of ill people and posters to spark hypochondria in the best of people. But the worst part is the silence.

Personally, I'm not one known to be quiet - more the opposite.

I know it's called a 'waiting room' but today we had to take a bit too much advantage of it. We sat in the depressingly silent room for over an hour before I got called in for my appointment, an hour late. Although, today was a little different because across the room sat a woman; she was blonde, getting on quite a bit and spoke more than those stupid Furby's from a few years ago. Her accent was posh and she was about four stone wet through. I'd say she was knocking on seventy, but it was extremely hard to put an age on her because her hands and legs were those of a pretty ancient woman while her face looked more plastic and molded than the water bottle in the bin next to me.

For the majority of the time I sat in the waiting room, she complained about how empty the lifeless the Lake District is, while she sat in a room full of locals. She spoke how she was originally from Chelsea and misses the culture and theatre from back there. Of course she covered herself by pointing out the beauty of this area. Obviously, today's waiting room experience was a little different because I sat mesmerized with the, I guess, once-stunning lady sat across the room. You could tell by the way she was dressed, the way she spoke and her drooping face that she was once model material.

Eventually, after all the excitement of the waiting room, I was called in to the doctors room where she did nothing but extract blood from my arm and make me feel faint and sick. That meant we spent another half an hour in there where she lay me down to get some colour back in my cheeks and some blood back in my head. I've decided I have some not-yet-diagnosed illness which'll put me on a channel 4 dispatches programme next year! But that's unlikely.

I'm still nervously awaiting the results from all my tests so tonight will be another sleepless night!
xxx