How am I going to be an optimist about this?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F90Cw4l-8NY

Maybe I got last in translation, maybe I asked for too much.

Time to take a minute and just look this is the life you've created. Take a breath. Be proud just for a minute.

Turning 21 in three weeks terrifies me. I never wanted to grow up. I didn't want the family of my own, nor my own home and all of the responsibilities that came with it all. For most of it I didn't even want to get married. I didn't want to be anyone's just happily myself. I had dreams of travelling the world seeing all of the things that before those moments I had only ever heard of. I wanted a life of adventure and culture. To become a part of something and then leave just as quickly as I started and move on to the next world. My life hasn't turned out so Family Swiss Robinson.

In these 21 years I have made friends some that I shall keep for the rest of these years to come, some who I would happily forget. I have fallen in love with too many celebrities, covered my room in posters dedicated to Jared Leto. I have fallen in love with real people too, some I could regret, but luckily I never regret anything life isn't about that. However its taught me never to be reckless with people's hearts it will only make them reckless with mine, this I have learnt all too well. I have made the most fantastic memories and built the most treasured relationship with my mum, without her I wouldn't be a fraction of the person I am today. I have travelled, abroad and in this very country in a little caravan with my grandparents staring out of the window wondering where we were off to next.

I have made fortresses out of pillows and chair cushions. I have fought dragons and befriended all kind of creatures in the stories I have read, heard and created myself. I have taken many photo's some I still laugh at and some that make me cry. I have acted like an idiot most of these 21 years, in the rare moments I have got my shit together and acted half like the adult I am turning into. 

I have headed certain advice, such as "One day you'll know you deserve better, until then keep being yourself" and ignored other advice such as "Don't dye your hair black the colour will change yours forever" all I have to say to that is "Sorry mum you were right" and "Sorry about the years of wrecking the carpet, and the years to come of me wrecking it some more".

I have tried and succeeded and like everybody tried and failed, for example today my 17 year old brother passed his driving test and is driving his brand new Audi round, I have failed mine three times and my Peugeot 106 is still sat in my yard growing moss and its own plants!! You keep going though. 

I have met people that have inspired me to keep going and others that I have come across who have made me want to lie down and give up. These are the ones I am throwing away just like every letter I have from my bank! I have danced like a fool (that's the only way I know how too) alone and in the company of people that I couldn't ever imagine being without.

I have a best friend who makes my day without even trying, she understands me more than a person could and even the days when I think "Hurry up Em we are four hours late" or "Nevermind then we've missed the film" I love her and her family they really are like another part of my family and I wouldn't change this for the world.

I have a boyfriend who could make the sternest person laugh out loud, he is hilarious. He makes me a better person and I didn't think that could happen from meeting a stranger in an ice cream shop. His family make me realise even further just how he became so amazing. They are as a family everything I would like when creating my own. There is being in love and then there is this. No point in writing any more really as a writer he makes me speechless. 

I have stayed up far too late, rushed to work as if its a new olympic sport and been pretty useless. I have walked out of jobs as easily as I have luckily walked into them and at the age of 21 I am currently on my tenth job. Its hard working the  9-5 when your dreams do not fit into this. I will write, somewhere, one day.

I have put "holes" in my body as everyone tells me, I have an unhealthy addiction to piercings, and am trying to not have any more much to everyone's relief. I have loved and lost, loosing my grandmother is the hardest thing I have ever gone through but through this it has taught me about inner strength and that includes having days when even the smallest of things makes you burst into tears and you still aren't exactly sure as to why. It made me see my mum for the person that she truly is and this only makes me proud to be a part of this amazing woman.

Learning more and more about my mum as I got older has been one of the most amazing things, Doing what she has done single handedly is just mind blowing and I hope I can be just as she has been when I become a mum. Her inner strength yet ability to show such vulnerability bowls me over. Her honesty has been instilled in me as a woman and her knowledge (definitely about hair dying) makes me better everyday. I owe everything that I am and ever will be to my mum.

I look back on these two decades and a sparkly little year and think "Ohmydays" Time really has flown even on the days when it really felt like it couldn't have gone any slower! I am so very lucky to have the people that I do in my life, I would say blessed however in these past 21 years a love of God has never found its way into this heart of mine. I am truly overwhelmed by just what I have and what I have achieved. Life isn't measured by how much money you have in the bank and if it was then mine would certainly look pretty hopeless right now, but how many people you have around you and the memories that become your treasured possessions. I have too many of these and for this I may as well be the richest wannabe writer there ever was. 

I love everyone who has made these 21 years be it good or bad, its been an experience and surely that's what its all about?

Here's to the next 21.

You told me about your past thinking your future was me.

Here we are again in the middle of the night, I remember it all too well.

"So casually cruel in the name of being honest" - Taylor Swift.

 

 

They say that love finds you in the most unlikely places. That's what happened with me. I was lost in every way that a person could be until an ordinary customer who has an extraordinary ability to make me smile changed eveything I believed in. Its hard to love someone, really, honestly love someone because the what ifs suddenly become the most powerful two words in any kind of dictionary. You worry about little things that hadn't previously crossed your mind and you live a life that is completely controlled by someone else's emotions. If they are happy your both on top of this world, but if they are down then you may as well crawl back under that duvet of yours and hide.

My boyfriend is leaving, maybe, hopefully. To follow his dreams and become the best PE teacher possible. Where he is going doesn't matter, nor does the distance even if some days he might as well live on the moon. What does matter is that we are going to do this, we will squash the 'long distance relationship' rumours and make it work. Why? Because some things in life are worth the bare knuckle fight of it all. They are worth the aches from holding on so tightly.

He was that person that came into my life and saved me from everything. That statement alone proves why distance should never matter, my heart stays in my chest and that's where he shall be.

 

Keep your head up, keep your heart strong.

No matter what we set out to do when we leave our homes there will always be obstacles in our way. Some days these may as well be mountains making it impossible to carry on our pathway. So what should we do? I am not superhuman despite wishing I was every day, this means I don't always look at things positively I do not have the ability to think of myself as anything but your everyday average human being. I don't want to have to climb over everything to do the most simplest of things. So instead I look at the bigger picture. I have to push my way through these things be them big or small if I am ever going to get to where I am so determined too. I am a waitress. It's a good enough job, I work with good people (the majority that is) and the pay is horrendous but life shouldn't be measured on this. I am a waitress because it funds my one dream of becoming a successful journalist and later in life a well loved writer.

This means that even on the days when I simply want to go around these things, that superhuman ability that I haven't got comes over me and allows me to go forward knowing you have to go through these days if your ever going to appreciate the ones to come.

Carmarthen Journal Articles - Miss Saigon

THIS week I went to see Miss Saigon the school edition, performed by the wonderful Carmarthen Youth Opera. It had promised to be a spectacular piece of theatre and it certainly did not disappoint its large opening night audience. Miss Saigon opens on a Friday night in Saigon April 1975, and tells the dramatic tale of a doomed love between an American marine and an orphaned Vietnamese girl who has no other chance in life but to work as a bar girl in the ironically named "Dreamland" ran by the money orientated Engineer played by the comically genius Gavyn Brewster who throughout kept the audience laughing. Upon her first night of working Kim (Miss Saigon) played by the mind blowing Megan Thomas (I really predict great things for her) falls in love with Chris played by the multi talented Cuan Rowlands who is in Saigon working as a marine. They suffer a whirl wind romance and soon find themselves separated and the promises made are all they have to cling on too. After three long years apart Saigon has been taken over by the Viet Cong and Kim is living in hiding. Across the Atlantic Chris has moved on and is now married to Ellen (Sioned-Mair Rees) Their stories couldn't be any more different. We now meet Thuy (Brandon Jones) Kim's cousin who since the age of thirteen has been bound to marry her. Kim stands her ground stating her love for her American husband and revealing out of this love their son Tam was born. In horror Thuy threatens to kill her only child and with this Kim too pulls out her gun. The Lyric sat in silence as if everyone held their breath for that little bit longer and in this silence Kim shoots him, he lays motionless as the curtain on Act one falls.

A roar of applause is all that can be heard and then the hustle and bustle continues, everyone has something highly complimentary to say on such a captivating performance created by an incredibly young cast with one member being just eleven months old!

The second half continues and I have already been warned to get my tissues out. We start at a conference in Atlanta John a fellow American marine and Chris's best friend now works for the Bui Doi children and whilst dong so learns that Kim and son Tam have found their way into Bangkok. John played by the outstanding Robert Parker convinces Chris and Ellen to go together to the city and face this situation. Whilst their its clear to see this won't be an easy task. Upon hearing the news Kim is overwhelmed and sets off to find her husband, however all she does find is his new wife Ellen. The story unravels further and only ends in heartbreak as Kim comes to the realisation for her son to have the life she craves for him she must be left behind. I look around the theatre and all I see are mouths agape and tears streaming down the audience's faces. The perfect atmosphere is set by the unbelievable Orchestra directed by true talent Gareth Kirby, and then silence, followed by a single gun shot. As the lights fade so does Kim's life as she is cradled by her one true love Chris, and with that more than powerful final scene the curtain falls.

There is so much that I can say about this performance. Too much in fact! The dedication of a cast all under the age of 19 is incredible and is what really made this a stand out piece of theatre, that amount of talented individuals all in one room could only make a truly memorable evening of entertainment. The whole thing was faultless. The set was mind blowing the use of a Chinook helicopter landing and taking off really has to be seen to be believed. The thought that has gone into this whole production really is fantastic; the music, costume, set design and the amount of on stage changes of such elaborate sets was more than impressive. Carmarthen Youth Opera once again have produce spell binding work and created a performance that they should be more than proud of. I definitely see the bright lights of the West End shining down on a lot of these performers who are only just getting started.

Carmarthen Journal Articles - Life of PI

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THIS week I went to see Life of PI. Directed by Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) and based upon Yann Martel's booker prize winning novel (2001) Life of PI was set to be a beautifully written and directed piece of cinematic genius. It tells the story of how Piscine Patel otherwise known as PI finds him self stranded in the middle of the pacific ocean, after his family's ship gets destroyed in a horrific storm whilst they uproot their lives from India to Canada equipped with their famous zoo. The story becomes one of survival and with PI's only companion being that of ferocious bengal tiger, comically named Richard Parker, it soon becomes compelling viewing.

They encounter many marvels whilst out at sea, a sky full of flying fish, an ocean brought to life with the lights of a million jellyfish, and a carnivorous island housing more meerkats than you could ever believe possible. All of these portent scenes are brought to the screen with such dreamlike intensity, it felt as if you were taken into this world that had been created. This really is Ang Lee at his best, he brings a seemingly unfulfilling story and turns it into a magnificent piece of cinema. The effects used to create the mesmerising adult tiger had me in awe throughout, as did the relationship built between PI and the ravenous creature, he had once been so terrified of.

However the story did not leave me believing in God as it had promised. Instead it simply proved how resilient we are as humans, and through such overwhelming tragedy, hope can be found in the most unlikely of situations, sparking the most profound friendships which can ultimately end up saving your life. There isn't much to criticise when it comes to the Life of PI however I did feel some of the scenes were a little brutal for the PG certificate and I couldn't help but think if I was sat there crying I wasn't sure how some children would react, and through this personally some of the bewitching appeal was lost.

Together Ang Lee and screenplay writer David Magee created a fantastically written visionary masterpiece that would certainly be worthy of winning film of the year 2012. Lee has set himself as being a director who can take on any challenge at a height not many could reach. The only way to see this film is in its 3D glory, this really is a film to feel a part of. Upon leaving I could not help but remember this one qoute “You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.” I think we can all learn something from this truly spectacular film.

Carmathen Journal Articles - Hope Springs

 21st January I attended the Lyric's monthly film club to watch Hope Springs. Ironically given the name, the staff at the Lyric had a lot of hope of their own that the film reel would arrive in time, coming from near Heathrow in the horrible weather we were having it was a close shave and as I walked in I was told "We've no fingernails left as it didn't arrive until late this afternoon" However the "Snow must go on."

It seems lately that Hollywood has become even more fascinated with turning popular self help books into films, and where Hope Springs might not be put into this box, whilst watching it you would struggle to understand why. Directed by David Frankel (Devil wears prada) and written by the talented Vanessa Taylor, Hope Springs tells the story of what happens to a marriage long after the spark has been lost. Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones play hopeless couple Kay and Arnold Soames, whose marriage progressed to the separate bed stage some time ago. Keen to re-energise their relationship, Kay books a week of couples’ therapy on the coast of Maine with Steve Carell acting as their tweedy counsellor, and after thinking she will be going alone Arnold grudgingly accompanies her. On their journey to Maine, Vanessa Taylor's script comes to life and the perceptive little micro-tragedies start flowing thick and fast. Arnold's inability to pay for meals without whinging or his lack of any emotion are details far too sharp to be invented, and through these moments are where we as the audience could relate. This is where Streep and Jones shone it’s not an easy problem to dramatize, but that’s what they did so splendidly depicting an emotionally unavailable husband and a timid wife afraid to speak her mind. Steve Carell did also not disappoint, soulful as ever in his dramatic roles, he does a brilliant job, of facilitating their performances. I can't personally say if Hope Springs is a film that you will like or dislike, it is more of a film that will speak to you in some way. It puts you as almost a fly on the wall, watching two very real people, working through very real problems that I suspect a lot of people who have been married for decades can relate to. David Frankel concentrates on keeping this film low key putting all emphasis on character and honesty. The root of the film is the importance of not giving up on the marriage you believe in. These are two people who are not separated by long distance, conflicting schedules or career paths, but two people who love each other dearly, who are only separated by their failure to communicate with one another.

Hope Springs is a bravely refreshing film, stepping out from the overly crowded romantic comedies we have all become so used too. Funny at times, it really makes an impact on how we see relationships. Its an insightful take on a recessed marriage that is beyond the help of any romantic grand gestures. These may help you get the "happily ever after" you desire, however it takes hard work and communication to sustain maintain this. Hope Springs both comically and beautifully shows us this process. I think we all left the Lyric, with a little spring of hope in our steps.

Carmarthen Journal Articles - Dodgy Review

On Saturday 19th January The Parrot opened its doors to 90's classic band Dodgy and an array of talented support acts Three Wide Smiles and Charlie Bicknell. Stood elbow to elbow with music enthusiasts both younger and older all eagerly anticipating the arrival of the band that sang hit 'Staying out for the Summer' Charlie Bicknell took to the stage first bringing his acoustic sounds to the fore front of a welcoming crowd. Next was Three Wide Smiles a three piece Indie band. Thanking the crowd as this was their first acoustic set list, they continued with self written songs 'Wierdo' to which received much cheering and 'Lost' they continued to please the ever growing audience right through to the end where the expressed their feelings for super market giant Tesco with 'Ten Pounds'. Unleashing toe tapping brilliance their lyrics told stories everyone could relate to and you couldn't help but smile with the energy they created on the small stage behind an almighty crowd.

Everyone was stood for the arrival of Dodgy, and as they stepped on stage to an almighty roar, it was clear there was a re-kindled love for a band who made a name for themselves in the nineties. The rock/pop trio rose to prominence in the Britpop era and being of a younger generation myself I can still sing every lyric to their biggest record 'Good Enough' Opening with 'In a room' taken off the album 'Free Peace Sweet' released in 1996, the crowd were ecstatic. With some Dodgy fanatics travelling from as far as Newport it was clear that they still had what it takes and still looked every inch the relaxed 90's stars they were. Stopping after every few songs to tell a funny story or complain about something they deemed unfair the crowd were constantly engaged, waiting to see what was next from the band they had grown up with. Every song was greeted with a roaring appreciation especially 'Staying out for the Summer' which saw the front of the stage turn into an almost dancey mosh pit with people flinging themselves around the small dance floor. It's hard to say anything negative about the evening. The Parrot displayed the same amount of enthusiasm as they always do when it comes to creating these events. It's what they do and they do it so perfectly. Even though at times it was hard to move as the venue was so small, it only made you feel as though you were a part of something, and only worked in Dodgy's favour with their 'on stage banter' Speaking to their close friend and someone who tours with them he told me

"This is one of their more intimate gigs, but they are just as important as the bigger ones, they will be playing a selection of new songs from the album Stand up in a cool place, and tracks they are currently working in the studio on and of course older songs and its a set list that we were all happy with, it definitely seems to get the crowds going."

It was clear to see that this is not just the usual nostalgia trip of a 90s band reformation that we are constantly seeing of late but a real working band continuing to deliver new material that matches the quality of their glory days. They are all fantastic musicians and lyricists in their own right and this is proven in their overwhelming dedicated fan base which loves them as much today as they did back in the day. Certainly showing Carmarthen that they will always be 'Good enough'

“You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.”

Yann Martel Life of PI.