Summer

What is this? A blog entry? I know it's crazy. I'm partly writing this because maaan, I'm supposed to aspire to be a writer but I've barely written anything all year besides private diary entries - which may I point out, are not for the public eye, they're just my majorly over-dramaticised emotions. I mean, I have some excuses. It has been the year of all of my exams, and now I have this extra long summer, I've been trying to do as many active things as possible. However, my excuses run out quickly, because I have had plenty of free time at home as well. So how have I spent this time? Procrastinating on the internet, watching merlin, listening to music, moping, thinking. Not much else comes to mind. So as you can see, it seems that I have been neglecting two of my great pleasures in life; reading and writing. I don't really know how this has happened, seeing as the amount of books that I want to read is ridiculous, and also because I have this idealistic hope for myself in the future, that I will publish a book at an unusually young age. This is never going to happen if I don't pick up my pen and paper. Maybe it's a mixture of not being bothered or lack of creative idea's, but I think laziness is the key thing here. Now I've started writing this, even though it's nothing, I have lots I could say. But why has it taken me 6 months to submit anything? I've been lazy and dismissive. But now this will change! (I hope). So, onto my summer so far.

I've enjoyed myself, but it's been nothing like how I imagined. When daydreaming about the summer whilst tapping my pen against the desk during exams, I imagined crazy parties every night, going to the beach constantly, seeing everybody all the time, learning loads of new skills etc. I imagined the best summer of my life. But to put it bluntly, I am still only 16, it is limited what I can do with my free time. Instead of what I imagined, I've been often staying at peoples houses with 7 or so people, what we call 'social gatherings', been to the beach quite a few times, listened to a lot of music, and gotten myself a job. A job! Exactly what I hoped for. Although I am glad and extremely grateful to get the money, this does limit my freedom slightly. When you work in a cinema and finish at 11pm, you tend to miss out on things. The social gatherings have varied in fun-ness. Some have been great, others not quite so much. One thing that's been relatively consistent is the people I've hung out with. I've spent most of my time without about 7 people in particular. I love them, and have met with people I don't know quite so well which is great, but I thought I'd be some kind of social butterfly. Something else that's been different has been my relationship status.

I'd never had a boyfriend in my life, but since February, I'd been involved with this guy. We had definite ups and downs, we kept starting and stopping, flourishing and failing. I never thought I would have a boyfriend during the summer I left school. It just sounded impossible. But in May we started an official relationship and the impossible happened. Despite us getting along colossally well and him introducing me to so much of my favourite music it's crazy, once we actually began a relationship, issues kept arising. Neither of us seemed happy, ultimately, for different reasons that I won't care to explain on here. We broke up on Monday 15th July. So not only did I manage to experience my first relationship this summer, I managed to experience my first break up too. Luckily though, it was by no means a disaster. We agreed to stay close friends and I've seen him since. But my point is, that although I haven't even been to one party yet (so much for all of my daydreams), summer has still been eventful for me, and it's barely begun.

I have a 3 week family holiday coming up. I don't know whether to be excited. I am in a way, but I'm missing two festivals that I really wanted to go with. However, it'll be an escape, and nice to spend time with my family again. I just hope they don't irritate me too much like they have been recently. I think I've just been moodier than usual, it's led to me getting frustrated at the tiniest things. But I love them really, so I'm sure it'll be nice. Then of course I have results day, college coming up.....and I'm sure I'll eventually go to a party or two. Wish me luck.

Lack of inspiration

Hey there. So..I'm still new to this. Still not entirely sure what I want to be posting and what I should be posting. I guess I wanted to create a blog for several reasons, firstly so that I could create something full of my opinions and feelings, so that I would be encouraged to write more, and to maybe meet and get talking more to the 'internet community'. But it's really not so easy. I'll look at amazing blogs that just seem to have everything, and I aspire to be like that. I think, do you know what? I could definitely do that. But do I have any idea's? Do I think that anything in my daily life is much worth writing about? Not really. So where am I supposed to find this creativity?

Genuinely, I don't think people want to hear about how I woke up at 6.30am this morning. Or how I had a maths exam. But then I don't really think fashion or music is the way I want to go, and I'm not sure if people will be interested in just hearing me drone on and on and on about random things. 
Blegh. My inspiration has run dry.

Faith

I said that I was going to write about my ideas of faith last month, seeing as that was Rookie's December theme. Yeah I realise that now it's January, but hey. I've just been so busy. Watching films, sleeping, reading, eating, procrastinating on the internet rather than revising  - it's a tough life.
But I still kind of want to write about my faith and what it means to me. I don't think I've ever really spoken about it too much, purely because being an atheist, I don't follow a religion. But I've realised recently that faith and religion are different things, y'know? The idea that everyone believes something a little bit different, and even the idea of different religions both perplexes and fascinates me.

When I was younger, I went to a local church and Sunday school. But if I'm honest, I don't think I really knew what I was doing there. I went to make collages and eat Kit-Kat's and sing a few songs about someone called 'God' (did you know that God is just Dog backwards??)
Eventually we just stopped going. I don't really know why, as my Mum still says that she identifies as a Christian if I ask her. But she in no way practices the formalities of the religion, she simply believes in God. My Dad however, shares a similar view to me. Although I have a great deal of respect for Christianity, and other religions for that matter - the idea of a God never made any sense to me. It started off with my young and simplistic brain just thinking 'I can't see him. I can't hear him. There is no real proof of his existence. Why do people believe in him?' Now I think about it in a slightly more complex way, but that is still the basis for my belief.

A big reason why I don't feel able to follow a religion is because people say that their religion gives them hope. I'm glad for that, if people believing something makes them feel good, I'm all for it. However, all of us atheists manage to hope just as well as any believers - but without relying on a sort of guidance. This just makes me think that the hope we feel is created by ourselves. People thank God for things all of the time. But from my perspective, many of the things that we are thankful for come from ourselves. Our friends, family, our grades, our health. Of course, some things may seem unexplainable and happen for no reason, and I know that people find comfort in turning to God in these situations. I just think that some things are meant to be left unexplained. We, as a race, cannot possibly know everything there is about life, the universe and blah blah blah. But what I mean when I say that we create the things that we are thankful for (or sorry for), is that it comes from how we have chosen to live our lives, not from how God is treating us because we've been a good/bad person. It's hard to explain. In no way am I saying that my views are any more right or accurate than someone who believes in a God, in reality, we'll never know. But I wanted to put how i feel out there.

Some people think that being an atheist means that you just believe in science. In nothing other than what is proven. That all atheists believe that when you die, you just die. Your body decomposes, and your mind ceases to exist. I don't believe that at all. Maybe that means that I'm not a 'true' atheist, or that I'm agnostic. But really doesn't agnostic mean that you're not sure? Well I do feel sure about what I feel. But...not everything that I think fits in with how an atheist is 'supposed to be'.
I believe in life after death. I can't explain it, but you know that thing in your head, that voice, the thing that feels and is just so ALIVE? I feel like it would be impossible for that part of me to just disappear. I just can't comprehend how something so alive can become nothing. I can't comprehend that after all of our lives, successes and failures, we can simply fade away. I don't know whether I believe in a kind of heaven, or reincarnation...but I believe in something like that. I don't know how it would be possible but....it's kind of the same with me and magic. Even though I know it's almost definitely not real, I feel like it could be. But does that mean that my views are contradictory? That I can't understand how a God can exist but the idea of magic feels possible to me? Maybe. 

I think what I'm trying to say is that it's hard to put labels on a persons faith. I kind of believe in everything and nothing at the same time.