Opinions

Literally everyone will tell you that other people's opinions don't matter and that you should just be yourself etc, but I've been thinking about that. The only reason someone's opinion should matter to you is because you like that person, and you don't want them to think you're weird or whatever. If it's their opinion on the way you look that matters to you, they're not worth your attention. But if you're telling me you don't want people to think you're nice, and likeable as a person, you're probably lying. If you like someone as a person, you want them to like you back, which would be why you're bothered about your opinion. Which is annoying really, because if they don't like you when you're weird, and you get closer to them, you'll have to spend your whole life faking who you are around them. I don't know, it's just another one of those weird ways our brains decide to work.

Skill development? idk that sounds too fancy

I've sort of suddenly realised something (again). I'm 12. Well, I knew that, but it never really clicked. I haven't had enough time to be as good at things as the 16 year olds in my social media feeds, so I can't expect myself to be as good as them at something they've practiced a lot more than me. I'm not going to be as good at art as the fine art uni students on my instagram page. I'm not going to be as good at playing an instrument as someone who's been playing for ten times longer than me. I'm not going to be as good at photography as the professional photographers on my PicsArt & Tumblr feeds. But that doesn't matter, because I enjoy making art, playing music, taking photos- and if I carry on doing them out of enjoyment, maybe one day I will be as good as the people I look up to. It's not like I haven't made any progress over the last couple of years. I found a painting the other day which I did about a year ago and remembered being really proud of it, but if I did something that looked like that now, it'd be in the bin. I literally laughed at how bad it was. I always date my art so that I can look back and track my progress, because it never feels like I'm improving. But I look back at something I did six months ago, then look at a realism sketch I did today, and they look like I did them six years apart. So now, if I do something and it's slightly off, I won't get mad, I'll just think of how I'll feel in a year's time when I look at my improvement. If you're already perfect, you can't improve. And getting better at something you enjoy is one of the best feelings.

Perspectives

I read something recently, and it's completely changed my perspective on life. Firstly, if you have a family you can go home to who are going to care about you, your problems aren't as big as you might think.
Secondly, everything seems pointless now. All I'm doing everyday is school, and all school does is give you a better future. But that future might not even exist. Right now, while I'm sat here writing this, something could kill me. I could be dead in 5 seconds, and then that's it. The majority of my life spent fighting for a future that might not exist. If I had more freedom and things were easy, I'd just go and do more things which are actually going to have an impact on the world. You don't need maths to change someone's life. Right now, while I'm sat here writing this, I could be going the extra mile to help someone. Even if we're not close. I could have a really positive impact on someone's life. My perspective on this type of stuff used to be that I wasn't good enough too help anyone, but now, that seems pretty selfish. Being too absorbed in your own issues and insecurities to even try to help someone, or find out more about them if you're worried about them. Because I guarantee, if you really, really try, no matter what insecurities or anxieties you have, there's always going to be a way you can help someone.
Thirdly, you should never, ever, assume anything about anyone's life. You'll never even know half of someone's story. Even if you've been inseparable your whole life, everyone has secrets, and some of them might be a lot bigger than you think. It doesn't matter how well you think you know someone's life, you should never think you know anything about it, because the only full story you'll ever known is your own. And you probably don't even know the full story for yourself.

One year of Lucy Isabel

I need to rant, but I'm going to do another post for this because I want to make something positive for today.

So, one year ago today, I made this blog. No one reads it, I'll probably look back on it and cringe, but I don't care. Particularly recently, it's been a massive help for me with getting my feelings out without having to talk to someone about them (something which I find extremely uncomfortable and I always feel very self-absorbed in those situations). I'm not going to make anything extra long, but I wanted something on here to mark it, so here we go. Thankyou :)

School chats

Everyone says they hate school. Most people probably do, but for the generally loud, basic group, I can't see why they would? They see their friends, they mess around and have fun in lessons, they don't hate anyone who they can't control- they say that lessons are boring, but doesn't all the messing around they do make it fun? I really don't understand.

For me, I do hate school. I'm one of those boring nerds who actually wants to learn stuff, and that's why I go to school. I love seeing my friends, but there's always some sort of unnecessary drama going on where you're expected to pick sides, and if you're like me and don't like picking sides unless you know the full story, you usually end up somewhere in the middle with none of the 'sides' wanting you around. Which is fantastic, obviously. Then there's the actual lessons, which are living hell. Loud noise? Nope. I won't explain as I've already explained this like 10 times before, but I don't go well with any sort of noise. And my class is the type of class where at least 3/4 of the people are disruptive and loud and stupid. Which ends in me sitting with my head in my hands and my eyes closed, trying to control my breathing and stuff while the teacher screams at the class, which does nothing but add tp the noise. No one ever learns anything. The teachers are another thing- I'm not one of those people who hates them. I know a few people who are teachers at other schools and they're really nice, normal people, like all teachers are outside the classroom. And they do get a hard time with their job, to be honest. But some teachers just don't know how to control people. Shouting does nothing. I feel like that needs to be written on the walls of every classroom. All that happens when a teacher shouts is they get themselves a bad reputation among the students, and the student that they shout at loses any respect they had for the teacher and behave even worse. Then there's people like one of my teachers, who just shouldn't really be working in teaching. They share things with us which they just don't need to, never stop talking about things that are completely irrelevant ( I once counted the seconds every time they weren't talking, and the longest period of silence was 6 seconds, and most of the others were 3 or 4), they're quite sexist, they assume that all the people with good grades are cocky and straight out tell them that they don't like them, then give them lower work so that they slow down their progress a bit, assume that all the students with low grades are troublemakers who don't care about work and refuse to acknowledge them, setting them the same work as the people with higher grades, which they struggle with, mock people who get answers wrong- the list goes on.

If school days are really the best days of your life, then I'd rather not participate in 'life', I'll probably go and live with a jungle tribe or invent time travel or something. Anyway, rant over, I'll see you next time :)

Lucy x

Time

*don't hug me I'm scared 2 plays in the distance*
warning: probably going to get deep and cheesy, sorry

Time is scaring me. I try not to think about it, live in the moment and all that, but how is it almost a year since I started my blog? And it's almost a year since I went to the Peak District, almost a year since my birthday, almost a year since I went to Mexico- it's scaring me. If all of my life goes this fast, I won't have time to make progress, I won't have time to do everything I want to do,  I won't have time to appreciate anything, I won't have time for anything other than worrying about having no time to do anything.

It's as confusing as it sounds. I know that I need to live in the present, and I would never want to live in the past for personal reasons, but I can't seem to stop living in the future. And I don't mean for things like looking forward to Christmas, I mean with every little thing. And it's really annoying, so I'm going to go and google ways to help myself instead of ranting about it on here. See you soon, hopefully in a more positive post :)

Lucy x

Nerves

I have a no-big-deal trampolining competition tomorrow, and I'm nervous. Not only for the actual routine- which I can't really do- but also because of the amount of inevitable awkward moments. For a start, I've seen the group registers, and I'm against someone I used to know but haven't spoken to for about 3 years. I would just be hoping that it's someone else with the same name, but their first and second name are both really unusual, so the chances of that happening are pretty slim. Then there's the before and after of the performing: sitting in a crowded, loud hall (hell) with nothing to do for an hour, then lining up in alphabetical order between the 2 warm ups and 2 performances, which means trying not to make yourself seem like a social wreck and attempting to avoid embarrassment while making small talk with whoever you get put next to. Which will be even more awkward this year as I've met 3 of the 5 people I'm competing against, but only once or briefly. Luckily, my friend Daisy, who I train with, has the same times as me, so although I'm in NDP2 U15 and she's in NDP2 U13, we'll arrive and compete at the same.
I thought I'd take this opportunity to point out some of the rules of the trampolining world:
-Points deducted for wearing gym shorts or leggings over your leotard, even if they're designated trampolining shorts.
-Points deducted for wearing socks that aren't plain white (why?)
-Points deducted for doing the wrong amount of jumps at the start of the routine.
-Points deducted for not waiting exactly 3 seconds at the start and end of the routine.

So that's what I've got myself into.
On the upside, I'm going to a fireworks display tonight, so you can expect me to be rambling about that tomorrow. It should be fun, I'll probably be a loner in the corner with my camera, but oh well, there's food. There's also a pretty nice sunset outside my window right now, which is making me very happy.

See you soon :)

Lucy x