The Other Side

It's a week today since my last exam. I've spent my freedom reading, thinking and going out 'til 4am with my friends. I guess, at 18, I finally feel like a proper teenager. But all these late nights have finally caught up on me and I'm tired all the time. I guess it's good I decided to save the late nights until after college. It seems I have this weird thing where I think I'm different to how I actually am. I think I'm better and I ooze that confidence when I'm out, but it doesn't fit. It's not my personality, but my looks. I just can't decide if it's a good thing or not?

We will never be able to see ourselves, only our reflections and pictures - to me, that seems really strange. I wouldn't ever say I'm the best looking person, because I'm not, I've never thought that, but I do always think I'm better than I actually am. When I walk down the street, I don't think about my chunky thighs banging together, or my round tummy wobbling. I imagine myself as someone else, someone that doesn't exist, someone with a lot of confidence, who can get up in the morning and leave the house with a smile on their face. I don't do it in order to do those things, I just naturally picture myself like that. Sadly, you can imagine my disappointment when I expect so much but get so little because of my imagination.

You can imagine my shock when I see photographs of myself, or I look in the mirror. But even then, I don't hate myself. But I don't change myself when I know I can and probably should. I have one life, or so they say, and this is what I'm trapped in. I think this persona I have in my mind is me, just not who I'm projecting.  Sometimes I feel like unzipping this current layer and stepping out as the person I assume I am - but it's never that easy. It seems this is similar to the 'fake it 'til you make it' saying - perhaps this is what I'm doing. Or maybe I'm just mental.

Perhaps I don't ooze this confidence, but I feel like I do. I'm an introvert, sometimes. It always depends who I'm with. With my friends, I breakout of my shell and this is when I'm this 'other' person. I do like to think that this must be the real me. I feel like this is what Allen Ginsberg was like, or maybe he really was just a confident, pretentious twat. Or the same with any other poet, writer. I feel like you need this other side of yourself because without it, will be ever have art with meaning? If people were fully their confident type, art would be selfish. Without confidence, we would live a lifeless existence without literature to get us through it.

Well, I don't know where my mind is going with this. I didn't plan for that ending, that's for sure. Maybe it's because I recently finished an amazing book (The Song Of Achilles by Madeline Miller) which I think you should all read. If you've read a really good book recently, please recommend it to me, I'm in need, now I've finished my book, I don't really know what to do with myself. Also, now I've finished with my a levels, maybe you'll be seeing more of me...or maybe I'll still be stuck in my writer's block. Either way, keep sending me messages to inspire me please.

(Just had to, look at that moustache - oh and relationship like Paul and Linda's please: favourite song at the moment.)

Fake it 'til you make it?

I'm quite a shy person when it comes to talking to new people. If I'm surrounded by others, then I won't be. It's a strange thing, but I seem to be more confident with people than on my own.  Maybe they're a kind of support for me? I don't know. But one thing I do hear often is the phrase - 'Fake it 'til you make it'. And I've struggled to understand it. If you're already shy, how are you able to 'fake it' in the first place?

If I have to have a one to one meeting with a teacher or something, I automatically feel nervous about it. No matter what it is. In the past, they haven't gone well (with me ending up crying) so maybe I'm haunted by the past. But anyway, yesterday, I had to talk to my vice-principle about something and before going in I had 'fake it 'til you make it' circling in my head. I walked in. Sat down. And fought for what I wanted. I came out and my face was bright red, but at least I didn't cry. Maybe it was because the man I was talking to was really patronising and I felt that I had to show him that I can speak up for myself. Or maybe I did in fact....fake it. Either way, I got the outcome I wanted.

But in the past I've pondered on this phenomenon. It doesn't make sense to me that someone who is naturally shy would be able to fake it. I have some sassy friends who repeat that phrase to me but ever since I've known them, they've always been confident - they couldn't have been faking it when they were eight...could they? I feel so much admiration for them, because to me, being sassy with teachers is hard, but they get their way. I'm confident at home, with my friends, outside of school. But there's something about college/school that makes me quieter.

College is a place, for me, where I go in, get the stuff done and leave. I work hard and in return, I don't want it to stress me out - even though it of course will. I don't want to be embarrassed by getting a question wrong and I don't want to annoy teachers by pestering them about stupid little things. However, this year, I've started doing those things. Every Friday I go and pester my tutor to ask if I have to go to tutorial that day and even if the outcome isn't what I wanted, I'm pleased I did it. I still rarely ask teachers for help but I do have a rapport with them, which is hard in a class of thirty.

What I guess I'm trying to say is that, I don't think I'm 'faking it', I think I'm growing up. Talking to grown ups gets easier once you get older and I seem to have only realised that after my meeting yesterday. I'm actually so proud of myself. My 15 year old self would have given in but here I am, two years on and I now have less stress to deal with. I don't think I'm going to suddenly become really confident in classes but I'll get there in the end. It turns out instead of faking it, I have to wait to make it.