Several things for you to think about.

Hey all!

I'm finally back in good ol' Hertfordshire after an excruciating journey home involving three bags each probably heavier than me, a taxi faaar too early and other such shite.

Found out that I got a 72 for my Morrison Dissertation. That's a First if ever you saw one and am v. proud. Has also appeased Mama who was bloody disappointed I only got a 2.1 for my dissertation. Sorry, but I have a life (such as it is).

Anyway, despite all my exertions today I'm still awake and have just finished watching Never Been Kissed on video. I have come to some conclusions.....

Do you remember being told that once you got to university it would all be well and good? That you would be taken not on how cool you are or what clothes you wear, but how clever you are, how kind you are, how friendly you are?

Well, I'm here to tell you that this is true. But, and this is a huge but, it does not eradicate memories nor does it make an uncool person cool. It does not transform an unconfident self-confessed geek into the life and soul of the party. After three years at university (and thus three years away from the horrors of school) I have enough distance to begin viewing my schooldays with something approaching an objective eye.

My first mistake was to be myself. My second mistake was to let people know my real self. My third mistake was not to give a damn. These might have been forgiveable had I learned in the first few days, but subtlety is not a strong point of mine. The death knell began to ring when during the first Music lesson I proclaimed, while everyone else said they liked Take That or rave (like 11 year olds go to raves), that I was a fan of Abba. I was at the time and saw absolutely no reason to hide it. I have since seen the light and take them as they are- glittery pop fools capable of catchiness but hardly earth-shattering. This was pre-Steps, pre-S Club Abba fandom. It was not cool. The death knell's ring was finalised when, on the first Non Uniform Day, I chose to wear my favourite shoes- a pair of Converse baseball shoes. In shocking pink. These are things that secondary school children do not forgive. I spent the next seven years teetering on the brink of depression, sometimes wallowing right in it. I spent the next seven years never going out- often not even into the town centre with my parents for fear that someone would see me with them and think I was yet less cool. Even my friends, who were hardly cool themselves, abandoned me in the end. Things were not always bad and there are a few occasional moments that shine out like beacons, but not many and usually tinged with regret of some kind. By the time I left school at 18 I was a shadow of the happy-go-lucky girl who had commanded attention and respect at primary school. Nothing about me since September 1993 could truly be considered happy-go-lucky. I left school at 18 with four A-Levels, a handful of friends that would honestly be better described as good acquaintances and in round numbers exactly no offers of dates.

Like Josie Gellar in Never Been Kissed I needed to share this excruciating information to give you the context in which I write. I had a horrible time at school and I make no apologies for the way I regard it. I am proud that I came out more or less intact although very bitter and yet more cynical. I am proud that the lemmings (or sheep, whichever metaphor you dig best) did their best to grind me down and did not succeed. I leave university now with a 2.1 in American Studies, three best friends from Lancaster I wouldn't trade for all the DVDs in HMV and a great knowledge of motion pictures and music, the things I care about most.

And yet... It doesn't matter. That saying about university being different is true, but although situations and scenery change, we do not. People do not easily change. I am, underneath the uber-confident wisecracking front, still deeply scarred. It doesn't always take much for facades to crumble, either. If I hear people laugh anywhere as I pass by, I immediately tense up and wonder if they're laughing at me. Maybe they are and maybe they aren't, but it is one of the last hold-outs of the Old School Clare (for Old Clare not at school was a much different creature) that remains. It doesn't take much sometimes for me to be transported back three, four, five years to when Craig Snell belittled me in front of everyone in the dinner queue by calling me Bigfoot. It doesn't take much for me to remember sitting in the Sixth Form Common Room apart from everything and everyone- even my so-called friends. It doesn't take much because I am still, underneath it all, the girl that nobody liked. I wasn't even on the popularity scale- I wasn't important enough.

Perhaps I should add here that I am one of those irritating people you all know that just has to have some sort of attention. I am an entertainer at heart and I need to know that I'm entertaining someone. It may be self-centered, it may not be, I don't know. I do know that to be ignored by everyone for seven years was, for me, worse than the more obvious forms of bullying. I am eternally grateful that I never had any of those ritual humiliations as suffered by Josie Gellar at high school and by other real life kids whose only crime was to exist. I was never beaten up, although my mouth probably got me closer more times than I realise. I was ignored, which was far more devastating to me. Had I been beaten up or had my head shoved down a toilet, something would have been done about it. As it was, the humiliations served upon me were far more insidious. After awhile I did get with the program. I shut my mouth and didn't open it much until I got to university.

I have people of different ages reading this LJ- some of you left school before me, some of you are still there. Some of you were/are popular at school, some of you weren't/aren't. I say this to all of you: it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean anything in real life unless we let it matter. I know this is far easier said than done. I know that I should smack myself in the face and tell myself not to care anymore. Most of the time I couldn't give a rat's arse. Craig Snell no longer matters to me. I no longer want to wreak bloody revenge on him. Yet sometimes... I'm still that unpopular girl and there's maybe nothing I can do about it. Geeks will always have that niggling feeling of inferiority and Cool Kids will always have the feeling of confidence and self-assurance that being lords and masters of their school brought. I know I'm generalising a great deal here, but generalising is often more accurate than we give credit for.

The first time I saw Never Been Kissed was in the first year of university, not long after I'd left school and it affected me in a much different way then. Then I wanted to cry desperately and have that same opportunity to put things right. Now, I'm not so sure. I am now in a position to better understand that everything that happened to me at school and happens to other kids on a daily basis is only important if we all let it be. I mean, who decides who's cool anyway? Is there a secret vote that nobody told me about? It's not all about who's the prettiest because to be honest, there were some popular kids at my schools who were trolls in both looks and personality. Is it about liking the right kind of music and tv? In that case, surely I have the advantage, or is rock music not cool anymore? Is it being a sheep? In that case, I throw down my pen because even when I was eleven, I was no fucking sheep. Is it something scientists just don't understand, along with the stuff that gets under computer keys and the enduring popularity of Russell Crowe?

So I say to all of you, no matter how old you are, take that baggage and throw it out. If you're past school like me, take the regrets and the popularity issues and dispose of them once and for all. If you're still at school, take a look around. Are you popular? Aren't you? If you are, take a good long look at the kids that aren't and really see the person, not the status. After all, my best friend in the whole world was the most popular girl in her school more or less. Had we been at school together, we may not have even spoken. What are you missing out on by denying yourself experience? If you're not popular, take a good look at the popular kids. Are they who you really want to be? All of you: take a look at yourself honestly and realise that you are not defined by your popularity. You are not defined by what clothes you wear or how cool you are.

Cool is the most subjective thing in the world. I personally think that Robert Plant is one of the coolest men to ever walk the planet. Some people think he's a puffed up, pretentious rock star/peacock. Some people think that Britney Spears is cool, but they're generally caught and taken back to their padded cells pretty quickly.

After all that? Bottom line: it doesn't matter. Don't spend your life wishing you could be Josie Gellar and re-do it, because the chances are slim and one day you'll wake up and realise you daydreamed your life away. The recently deceased Katharine Hepburn always marched to the beat of her own drum and you know what, something tells me we'll remember her. Not the thousands of Hollywood sheep, but Katharine Hepburn.

Some of the coolest people on the planet are closet geeks. George Harrison loved gardening, David Bowie apparently loves ukelele music and one of the original naughty boys, Dean Martin, loved nothing more than to sit at home and watch Westerns on the telly.

We are who we are. Ignore the hype and love it.

Several things for you to think about.

Hey all!

I'm finally back in good ol' Hertfordshire after an excruciating journey home involving three bags each probably heavier than me, a taxi faaar too early and other such shite.

Found out that I got a 72 for my Morrison Dissertation. That's a First if ever you saw one and am v. proud. Has also appeased Mama who was bloody disappointed I only got a 2.1 for my dissertation. Sorry, but I have a life (such as it is).

Anyway, despite all my exertions today I'm still awake and have just finished watching Never Been Kissed on video. I have come to some conclusions.....

Do you remember being told that once you got to university it would all be well and good? That you would be taken not on how cool you are or what clothes you wear, but how clever you are, how kind you are, how friendly you are?

Well, I'm here to tell you that this is true. But, and this is a huge but, it does not eradicate memories nor does it make an uncool person cool. It does not transform an unconfident self-confessed geek into the life and soul of the party. After three years at university (and thus three years away from the horrors of school) I have enough distance to begin viewing my schooldays with something approaching an objective eye.

My first mistake was to be myself. My second mistake was to let people know my real self. My third mistake was not to give a damn. These might have been forgiveable had I learned in the first few days, but subtlety is not a strong point of mine. The death knell began to ring when during the first Music lesson I proclaimed, while everyone else said they liked Take That or rave (like 11 year olds go to raves), that I was a fan of Abba. I was at the time and saw absolutely no reason to hide it. I have since seen the light and take them as they are- glittery pop fools capable of catchiness but hardly earth-shattering. This was pre-Steps, pre-S Club Abba fandom. It was not cool. The death knell's ring was finalised when, on the first Non Uniform Day, I chose to wear my favourite shoes- a pair of Converse baseball shoes. In shocking pink. These are things that secondary school children do not forgive. I spent the next seven years teetering on the brink of depression, sometimes wallowing right in it. I spent the next seven years never going out- often not even into the town centre with my parents for fear that someone would see me with them and think I was yet less cool. Even my friends, who were hardly cool themselves, abandoned me in the end. Things were not always bad and there are a few occasional moments that shine out like beacons, but not many and usually tinged with regret of some kind. By the time I left school at 18 I was a shadow of the happy-go-lucky girl who had commanded attention and respect at primary school. Nothing about me since September 1993 could truly be considered happy-go-lucky. I left school at 18 with four A-Levels, a handful of friends that would honestly be better described as good acquaintances and in round numbers exactly no offers of dates.

Like Josie Gellar in Never Been Kissed I needed to share this excruciating information to give you the context in which I write. I had a horrible time at school and I make no apologies for the way I regard it. I am proud that I came out more or less intact although very bitter and yet more cynical. I am proud that the lemmings (or sheep, whichever metaphor you dig best) did their best to grind me down and did not succeed. I leave university now with a 2.1 in American Studies, three best friends from Lancaster I wouldn't trade for all the DVDs in HMV and a great knowledge of motion pictures and music, the things I care about most.

And yet... It doesn't matter. That saying about university being different is true, but although situations and scenery change, we do not. People do not easily change. I am, underneath the uber-confident wisecracking front, still deeply scarred. It doesn't always take much for facades to crumble, either. If I hear people laugh anywhere as I pass by, I immediately tense up and wonder if they're laughing at me. Maybe they are and maybe they aren't, but it is one of the last hold-outs of the Old School Clare (for Old Clare not at school was a much different creature) that remains. It doesn't take much sometimes for me to be transported back three, four, five years to when Craig Snell belittled me in front of everyone in the dinner queue by calling me Bigfoot. It doesn't take much for me to remember sitting in the Sixth Form Common Room apart from everything and everyone- even my so-called friends. It doesn't take much because I am still, underneath it all, the girl that nobody liked. I wasn't even on the popularity scale- I wasn't important enough.

Perhaps I should add here that I am one of those irritating people you all know that just has to have some sort of attention. I am an entertainer at heart and I need to know that I'm entertaining someone. It may be self-centered, it may not be, I don't know. I do know that to be ignored by everyone for seven years was, for me, worse than the more obvious forms of bullying. I am eternally grateful that I never had any of those ritual humiliations as suffered by Josie Gellar at high school and by other real life kids whose only crime was to exist. I was never beaten up, although my mouth probably got me closer more times than I realise. I was ignored, which was far more devastating to me. Had I been beaten up or had my head shoved down a toilet, something would have been done about it. As it was, the humiliations served upon me were far more insidious. After awhile I did get with the program. I shut my mouth and didn't open it much until I got to university.

I have people of different ages reading this LJ- some of you left school before me, some of you are still there. Some of you were/are popular at school, some of you weren't/aren't. I say this to all of you: it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean anything in real life unless we let it matter. I know this is far easier said than done. I know that I should smack myself in the face and tell myself not to care anymore. Most of the time I couldn't give a rat's arse. Craig Snell no longer matters to me. I no longer want to wreak bloody revenge on him. Yet sometimes... I'm still that unpopular girl and there's maybe nothing I can do about it. Geeks will always have that niggling feeling of inferiority and Cool Kids will always have the feeling of confidence and self-assurance that being lords and masters of their school brought. I know I'm generalising a great deal here, but generalising is often more accurate than we give credit for.

The first time I saw Never Been Kissed was in the first year of university, not long after I'd left school and it affected me in a much different way then. Then I wanted to cry desperately and have that same opportunity to put things right. Now, I'm not so sure. I am now in a position to better understand that everything that happened to me at school and happens to other kids on a daily basis is only important if we all let it be. I mean, who decides who's cool anyway? Is there a secret vote that nobody told me about? It's not all about who's the prettiest because to be honest, there were some popular kids at my schools who were trolls in both looks and personality. Is it about liking the right kind of music and tv? In that case, surely I have the advantage, or is rock music not cool anymore? Is it being a sheep? In that case, I throw down my pen because even when I was eleven, I was no fucking sheep. Is it something scientists just don't understand, along with the stuff that gets under computer keys and the enduring popularity of Russell Crowe?

So I say to all of you, no matter how old you are, take that baggage and throw it out. If you're past school like me, take the regrets and the popularity issues and dispose of them once and for all. If you're still at school, take a look around. Are you popular? Aren't you? If you are, take a good long look at the kids that aren't and really see the person, not the status. After all, my best friend in the whole world was the most popular girl in her school more or less. Had we been at school together, we may not have even spoken. What are you missing out on by denying yourself experience? If you're not popular, take a good look at the popular kids. Are they who you really want to be? All of you: take a look at yourself honestly and realise that you are not defined by your popularity. You are not defined by what clothes you wear or how cool you are.

Cool is the most subjective thing in the world. I personally think that Robert Plant is one of the coolest men to ever walk the planet. Some people think he's a puffed up, pretentious rock star/peacock. Some people think that Britney Spears is cool, but they're generally caught and taken back to their padded cells pretty quickly.

After all that? Bottom line: it doesn't matter. Don't spend your life wishing you could be Josie Gellar and re-do it, because the chances are slim and one day you'll wake up and realise you daydreamed your life away. The recently deceased Katharine Hepburn always marched to the beat of her own drum and you know what, something tells me we'll remember her. Not the thousands of Hollywood sheep, but Katharine Hepburn.

Some of the coolest people on the planet are closet geeks. George Harrison loved gardening, David Bowie apparently loves ukelele music and one of the original naughty boys, Dean Martin, loved nothing more than to sit at home and watch Westerns on the telly.

We are who we are. Ignore the hype and love it.