Overprotected

I was brought up in a very overprotected kind of way, and so I’m still developing independence.

My first real taste of it was when I started earning enough money from web design to pay my first bills – hosting ones. Soon after, I bought a green ipod mini – the first major thing I’d ever bought with money I’d earned myself. I still have it and it surprisingly still works.

After that, the only way I earned money until I was 19 was through babysitting, which was a tiny bit of independence. Still, it was a step up in that it was a physical ‘job’, of sorts.

When I left home to go to university, there were steps of independence there. I was living 70 miles away from home, I learned how to do my own laundry, and I was pretty much living alone in a room.

This year, I moved into my own house. I’m not fully financially independent, but I’m relying on my dad less as I have student loans, rent and my job to pay the bills. Water, gas, electricity, Internet, phone and mobile are all in my name and paid from my bank account. I got a decent job in the I.T industry – still not technically a ‘proper’ full time job, but it was a big step up for me. Particularly as I’m doing something I mostly enjoy, it’s an office job and it has pretty good pay. I’m doing e-mentoring volunteer work and helping other people. I have been donating handmade crafts to a local charity shops. I don’t think twice about getting the bus or train anywhere alone. I am comfortable within myself about being alone for at least a few days at a time if necessary. I’m also beginning to learn how to cook, and surprisingly finding out that I’m not that bad.

For me, these are all pretty big things since I’m a dreamer. I don’t like living in the real world. It’s imperfect, and I’m a perfectionist. I like theories and open-mindedness and thinking in new ways (and helping other people to think in new ways). Give me any book in (any kind of) English and I will read it, and probably enjoy at least part of it. Ask me for advice with a computer problem and I will most likely be able to help you out. Start any kind of philosophical or political debate and I will love to argue/agree with you.

Ask me to cook meat or when I’m intending to pass my driving test and I will glare at you. Even though it’s a learning curve of experience for me, that doesn’t mean I enjoy doing most practical things. There is a reason why I’m an arts student. My love of science is limited to computers and some aspects of geography and anything which aids my love of English or accepted knowledge (e.g. statistics). Because of this, and because I have a lot of scientist friends, there are people out there who get impatient with me very quickly, either because I can’t do something or because I flat out refuse to. In that sense I’m perhaps surprisingly narrow-minded, even though that is (hypocritically) a quality I hate.

On Friday I went swimming with Laura, which turned into swimming + lunch + book shopping + an ice cream by the lake as it was a lovely day + hours of wii gaming at my house. Later that evening an amusing but scary thing happened. Andy called me to ask if he and Alana could stay over. He also asked if he could bring his dog but I didn’t hear that part. Later, I was watching Peep Show with Hwan-Min, and the icky picture of the dead dog in the bin was on the screen – then next thing the front door to my house was opening and a dog (Andy’s) rushed in! OMG I got so freaked out, my brain was ’ahh! dead dog!! the dead dog is alive and in my house!’

That night I ended up going to the library with Hwan-Min, going to his for a BLT sandwich on pitta (yum), then heading back to the library. He dropped me off at about 5 am, after witnessing a horrible crash on the roundabout I fell asleep about half 6 I think, at which point the birds were tweeting, the ducks were quacking and Andy and Alana were getting up to go to his cycle race. I got up about 10:30 and rushed around like a madwoman before my dad, mum and sister arrived, and we ended up spending the day shopping in Nottingham, then getting a Chinese. There was one particularly amusing moment when my sister said, ‘Hey, you know they call riding in the front of a car in America riding ‘shotgun’? Let’s shout ‘shotgun’ and see who can get there first.’ I said to her, ‘Lara, if you shout “shotgun” in Nottingham, gun crime capital  of the UK, you will freak people out and maybe even get arrested.’

So I’ve been living off the Sainsbury’s version of Red Bull – Blue Bolt, because Red Bull tastes like piss. My caffeine intake is normally really low because I hate tea and coffee, eat very little chocolate and don’t drink fizzy drinks all that much. So a glass of Blue Bolt will keep me up until about 5 am. Then off to bed, wake up about 10 the next day, and carry on with work. Am beginning to get really worried about my assignments now.