Mine's yours.

Individuality.

I think there's nothing more unattractive than somebody who is fighting very hard to be somebody who they're not meant to be. It's completely ridiculous and the way I see it - you're fighting a losing battle. You are who you are at the end of the day it's probably who you've always been.

People love individuals. People who've been the best version of themselves and this is recognised because there is a quality in them, which is specific to them.

Today I was in work and I was having an awful day. I texted my best friend with a picture of a bun I'd made. He replied saying it was very cute. I replied saying that due to my awful day - I was taking that to be a 'Janine you're cute', rather than a 'Your bun is cute.' His reply was 'Your bun is cute, but you are beautiful.'

I don't know why that related to individuality, but I just wanted to brag that he's the nicest person in the world sometimes.

I love this.

Isaiah 60:5

Frank McCourt.

Frankie died a few days ago, and it really shook me.

Now nobody close to me has ever died, and although he wasn't a personal friend of mine - it kinda felt like he was. He was such an inspiration to me and his literature filled my eyes with both laughter and tears at once whilst he humoured having no money to speak of and having a father who when he wasn;t drinking the dole, was glueing bike tyres onto the bottom of his shoes.

I don't really like Harry Potter, or Twilight, or trashy romance novels, but I love what Frank McCourt contributed to this world of literature through having nothing and still valuing his family and his past even though he got so much success out of his book 'Angelas Ashes' which he published at his retirement age.

I will really miss him, and his books.

I am just so grateful I have his three books sitting in my house which I can read over and over again, and that's such a special thing.

I miss you, Frankie.

I've got a feeling,

That today is ''one of those days''.

But I'm putting on a smile and selling some uniforms.

Summer, and how it's fading.

I was so sad standing in Atlantic Court on the day we had to move out. All my friends were packing their stuff into their parents cars. We all assembled in front of a tree and got our picture taken with a Polaroid camera while we prepared to spend practically three months without each other.

I wanted to spend my summer with these people, in our white houses. I wanted to wake up everyday and be surrounded my my friends and spend every night talking about life, the world and what we all wanted to achieve, but of I knew that I had to leave as well.

Stupid regrets where going in my head, about the friends I should have made - but didn't, and the friends I shouldn't have made - but did. I didn't take enough pictures of the best times and I should have went out at every opportunity available to me.

All these things are basically nothing to worry about, as of course my year wasn't going to be absolutely perfect, but those things made it what it was and allowed me to have the best year of my life and meet the best people out there.

From the moment go, summer never really interested me - I didn't want time off. I wanted what I had for 9 months constantly. I knew I'd go home and it'd be me alone a lot of the time, and travelling a lot to spend time with only one person. It was a depressing thought.

I decided as soon as I got home that I did want to do something with my time. First on my list was a job. I was nineteen and I'd still never worked a day in my life which I got paid for, and I felt horribly inexperienced. I knew that when I was looking for a job they'd look at my youth work, they'd look at my grades and I'd look like a possible candidate until they looked at the big empty 'Previous Employment' section.

So when I got the job, I was really happy and felt satisfied that now I would begin making my own money, and start being very self-sufficient so that my parents money was for them, and I knew they deserved to have their own money. It also felt great to be capable of doing a job which helped people, and made a different even just to their day. It allowed me to work on my attitude, and if nothing else prepared me for working when I get a proper career job.

So I've been working there 3 full weeks, and I've earned 300pound in the first two. It may not seem much, but it's a big thing for me. In the next few weeks I'll be working up to 40 hours a week, creating a surplus in my bank account which I will spend hopefully on a little holiday with David at the start of September before we return to university life again.

Summer so far for me has been okay. Working away, and David coming up to stay for a while a good few times. I've also met up with everybody from university a few times and those times have reminded me of how much fun we have together and the bonds between us over the summer have only grown.

Summer used to be a lot more than it is now. Late nights, and playing in the streets until the milkmen came. Adventures everyday and family holidays to foreign countries. However, when times move on, so do we. We have to adapt. Now we have to travel, we have to create our own money, we have to make a lot of effort to be social and it's not handy or easy.

Sometimes we have to do what we don't want, to get what we do want. I'm enjoying summer, and working through it so I can fund the brilliant times ahead and maybe pay for something I want very desperately!

Hopefully I'll accomplish things! I'll let you know. :)

I hope you're all enjoying summer, and doing something constructive with your time!

Letters that will never be sent.

This is how it works; write some statements or 'letters' to some people that were, or still are in your life. You do not disclose who any of the statements are about. You use this as a way of expressing emotions to these people.

1. My goodness, some days you're so touchy and you actually go out looking to be offended just so you have something to complain about. Newsflash; not EVERYBODY is out to get you.
2. I remember those talks we had, about everything that we could ever talk about. You'd talk to everybody and anybody and you ran around with the biggest smile and nothing got in your way. You really inspired me in way I was always too embarrased to tell you about. I know you'll succeed in life, and you deserve it. You bring sunshine to everybody you know.
3. You're exactly the person I never ever want to be.
4. I am so lucky to have you in my life, and I never tire of your stories. :)
5. You're doing so great, and have given me a lot of opportunities because of your nature and friendship. Thank you, and I hope we'll be friends for a good while yet.
6. I honestly don't know if I could live without you. Kinda need you around for a million different reasons.
7. Although sometimes I complain about silly things that you do - you're one of the best people I know. You have an outstanding heart, even if you have problems expressing it to me sometimes.
8. Sometimes I get into situations where I know you'd know exactly what to say to me. It's makes me really sad that you'll never be around, and I know I'm the one to blame.
9. I'm glad you have confidence in me now, I know now I can succeed in what you're helping me with.
10. I'm really glad I never have to see you again, to be quite honest.
11. I wish I looked like you, I think you're absolutely gorgeous.

My Backwards Walk

i'm working on drawing a straight line
and i'll draw until i get one right
it's bold and dark girl, can't you see
i'm done drawn a line between you and me

i'm working on erasing you
i just don't have the proper tools
i get hammered, forget that you exist
there's no way i'm forgetting this

i'm working hard on walking out
my shoes keep sticking to the ground
my clothes won't let me close the door
these trousers seem to love your floor

i've been working on my backwards walk
there's nowhere else for me to go
except back to you just one last time
say yes before i change my mind

HA.

Don't hold on if you should be letting go.

Relationships end, and relationships begin. Sometimes we forget that.

Sometimes the friendships we're in seem like they're always going to be there, however we treat the other person. We think we can give a friendship a backseat and it'll be a strong as it ever was. But that means we've grown up in the time we've spent without the friend and we may be growing apart from them.

I'm very conscious about not letting go of people, and I tend to attach myself emotionally to the positon of the person I have a relationship with. I believe you should not let go of a friendship unless it's completely unavoidable, or if you're the only one making all the effort. But sometimes it's vital to let go, and not hold on 'til the point it's causing you a lot of pain desparately trying to hold on.

A friend of mine broke up with her boyfriend recently. It was a mutual decision and quite appropiately made, but for some reason it had really shocked me. Both parties were lovely people, both were going places, and seemed completely into each other and had claimed they loved each other in thier short relationship.

I think the problem with me, is that love for me is the end of relationships. Love for me is that I've found the one person that I can love and that will forever love me back. It's not a case of a guy who I love, break up with, and find a new guy to fall in love with in the next few months.

Of course I understand that relationships have problems and may end up being broken by many different things, and that even if there is love, love does not automatically solve all the broken pieces in the relationship - but it must help a great deal.

I just hope that the decisions people made to end relationships are well thought out and meditated. They'd need to be as it's too precious to let anybody fall out of your hands. I guess it's even more important to know that you will be forced to let go when you don't want to but you really do need to.

Remember that life is temporary.

Beauty is judged by the size of your heart, not the size of your jeans.

Don't ever let anybody ever stump your creativity.

I've met a lot of people in my life who tried to make me make decisions which I wasn't prepared to take. I've met even more people who have really tried to bring me down on decisions I'd already made.

I've been ridiculed for picking English as the subject which I would like to create a career from. I was told by a lot of people that I should do Occupational Therapy or Podiatry. That way I'd be guaranteed a job and I wouldn't have a 'Mickey Mouse' degree that didn't really point me anywhere.

I'll take this example and lead it forward as it's the best example I can come up with.

I guess my decision was based on my immense passion and flair for the subject, and even though I wasn't top of the class, and it seemed unclear to others why I was picking English, it was apparent to me, that I think I'd only be happy working in a career filled with reading and possibly one day writing literature.

However it's not even as simple as that. Often people try to take your achievements, your passion or even your calling and belittle them into mediocre things that not even aren't a big deal, but are actually minus marks against you. How ludicrous!

Be proud of who you are no matter what the cost, do what you want even though some people will always try to see the bad points. In the end, it is only with yourself and what satisfaction you get from your career, or your achievements you've worked hard to achieve. Don't ever let anybody get you down or make you doubt yourself, or the decisions you've made.

Your creativity, your thoughts and your achievements are the things that make you unique and the things that will end up helping you make important decision that couldn't be made by outsiders opinions. Your own creativity is something that nobody else (despite mimicking your flair or stealing your ideas) can ever take away from you.

Don't ever let anybody ever stump your creativity; It's the only thing you truely own.

I feel like I should've written this.

Confidence boosts.

Confidence boosts comes in different sizes and different levels of intensities.

Sometimes a good day gets a confidence boost, where as a bad day has the opposite effect. You can get a massive confidence boost by a stranger telling you that you're lovely or by meeting a new person who compliments you straight away.

Confidence makes us feel like we're the best version of ourselves and we're capable of doing things and accomplishing what we've set out to do.

I recently started a new job, and I was applying left right and center and I was very unconfident about whether I was going to get anything. I got an interview for a job and went in there as the person I was, I didn't put on an act, and I spoke (perhaps nervously but) confidently and I left and felt good about how I answered the questions. However I was aware that I had no retail experience at all, and most of the people applying would have the experience - so really all I had going for me what who I was as a person.

I was told I'd get a call on Monday or Tuesday. So there I was barely leaving the house in case they rung. Monday passed, Tuesday passed, and Wednesday passed. I realised that I hadn't got the job, and it was completely understandable as I was a nineteen year old that hadn't had a job at all and had little to no experience needed for the position.

So I was running about getting myself in gear for a volunteer work filled summer. Organising working in a lovely little bookshop I've grown to love for the few 7 years. i had done just two shifts in the book shop when I got a phone call from the company who gave me that interview.

The phone call was to say that I had in fact got the job! I was doing 30 hours the next week and I was really delighted and surprised! So on Tuesday there, my first day I was speaking to my now co-worker who informed me that out of over 20 interviews I was the only one to be employed. I was absolutely gobsmacked!

Further into the conversation she was able to tell me that she'd took my number and gave it to the manager saying that I seemed like 'a lovely wee girl' and somebody who sounded like I'd be very nice to work with. My number was passed on and in interview I apparently showcased the same qualities that were picked out earlier on. It was such a confidence boost!

The lesson to me was that I should never lose confidence in myself and think that I'm not good enough for something. I really think that we all should trust in what we can do, and that our qualities outshine our lack of experience. We should never allow ourselves to feel inferior, when all we have to do is be the best version of ourselves and it's enough for others to see what we can achieve and how we can achieve it.

Oh and, it always helps to be lovely. :)

Just don't ever call me 'Mrs Cullen'

HA.