GOOD EVENING, EVERYBODYYYYY! I'M DR GRUESOME, AND I'M HERE TO GRUESOMELY WELCOME YOU TO THE GRUESOME GORY HORROR…

Ok, I'll stop that now! XD

Hello again!!! I haven't been on here properly to talk for almost a whole month, because life literally went mental in the space of four weeks.

My friend had her baby! A baby girl named Alyssa, who's the sweetest thing ever… Next to my Miss Murder, of course!

The biggest thing though, and the reason I've not been active for quite a while, is the fact that two weeks ago I had the last lot of university assignments to do and hand in. I had three, one being a presentation on Shakespeare, and another being my 3rd Year dissertation. So that couple of weeks consisted of very little sleep, and a lot of emotional trauma. Most days I didn't know where the heck I was, and I couldn't tell whether to burst into tears or throw up. That was the range of my emotions. And I convinced myself that there was no way I was going to get my dissertation finished. I had a lot of problems with it over the year, and had a couple mental break-downs over it early April. My friends and I did our presentations three days before the colossal dissertation hand-in. Had my marks back for that today, and thank God we did really well! Because at the time I was really panicking about whether the dissertation would come back from being bound on time (had to get it properly spiral-bound together!) and whether it would look right and everything…
And, of course, as is per usual of my body, I had to have an illness thrown in there, right in the middle of the most stressful week of my whole university life. Literally the day after the presentation it was as if my body went "Right, Claire! You've got some time on your hands now, YOU'E GOT TIME FOR AN ILLNESS! HERE YOU GO! DON'T COUGH IT ALL AT ONCE!" It was awful. My throat was so bad that I was struggling to swallow SQUASH. Who the heck has problems swallowing LIQUID?! I had a headache, I went really faint and nauseous, all I wanted to do was go to bed and I was shivering all the time. Was not right at all. But I knew it was on the cards for a while. My body likes to beat me up at regular intervals.
Luckily it only lasted over two days, and I as well enough to celebrate with my friends and tutors after the dissertation deadline. We threw a massive party in our Students Union and it was such a good evening. I will even admit that by the time I rolled back into Newport at 6pm (having been celebrating since 1pm), I was a bit drunk. I apologise for the guys I was speaking to on Facebook chat afterwards (you know who you are) because they just got pages of random nonsense from me. You enjoyed it though, I bet! It was nice leaving uni on the bus; the sun was out, golden in the late afternoon, it was warm, I had BVB on my headphones and had a really happy buzzy feeling It was the happiest I've felt in a while.
So that's the last of the proper essay-style assignments I will ever hand in on my degree. Quite a milestone! But I felt so proud of myself. I can't believe the little girl who fell up the stairs in her first ever lecture survived long enough to submit her dissertation!

Also (told you this month was mental) straight after it was my boyfriend and sister's birthdays. Tom was 21, and Sam was 18, on exactly the same day! But I have a lot of fun, because I really genuinely enjoy giving people presents, and I love planning nice surprises ages in advance. I got little things for each of them, but here are a couple of my bigger planned surprises I did for them –

For Sam –
A glass jar of chocolate ladybirds – Sam, unlike me, was born at home. I was 2 years old at the time, and she was born in the night. But during the day of her birth it was really hot weather, so I was in and out of the garden all day, catching ladybirds and letting them off in our house! So as a present I ordered chocolate ladybirds and bought ladybird earrings, put them in the jar with a tag around it saying "The first thing I ever brought you was… Ladybirds."
A silver trinket box which I had specially engraved for her 18th.

For Tom –
'We Stitch These Wounds' and 'Wretched and Divine' on vinyl record – Tom loves his records. I got him a record player for xmas and he's always buying new ones. I knew when I saw these that he'd love to have BVB on proper vinyl. It was so hard to keep them a secret! When he opened them WSTW was on top, which he was so happy with, then I nudged the package and W+D slipped out from underneath. I think he almost cried.
A shot glass from Alchemy – it's got a pewter base with clock gears on, and gold gear inlaid in the base of the glass so that when you drink from it you see them glinting from the bottom of the drink.

And I made them each a CD of my own. I like making playlists as presents. For Sam I made a disk of loads of 90s songs that were around while we were growing up, Aqua's 'Barbie Girl' and Lolly's 'Viva La Radio', for example. For Tom I did a mix of some of our favourite recent rock songs, including an audio clip of Andy Biersack throwing a hissy fit at a hater

I also started volunteering at a manor house on the outskirts of Newport, which so far I love!

I'm not totally out of the woods as regards university work. I have one exam and then that really is IT. The end, forever.
Only thing is, it's tomorrow.
Guess what also happens to be tomorrow?


MY 21ST BIRTHDAY.




Yep. I'll be 21!
I'm not really looking forward to it. The exam being one reason. The other is that from 21 it all goes downhill, or so I've heard.

That being said, birthday messages will be appreciated. I will need all the happy stuff I can get!

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Well, I'm on the home-straight now. Then I'll have to remember to order my mortar board and gown! Me and my friends get to run around for a day pretending to be Harry Potter extras.

Promise to speak again soon!

You are my rebel love song!
xxx


P.S. I got tagged recently, but I don't have time to tag people and stuff right now, so I'll put it in my next journal instead!