Giving Blood

Hello everybody :).

Yesterday I gave blood yayyy so I can feel all proud of myself now. The thing that was stopping me the most was fear of the unexpected so I'll fill you in on all the details!

Me, my sister , B, (who was turning 17 yesterday so finally allowed to do it), my boyfriend Steven, and his friend, Frazer, all went down yesterday. There was a desk at the front of the entrance with an angry looking women who barked to come back later in an appointment time. So after gorging on cakes, sandwiches and drinking lots of fluids like they tell you (what an excuse!) we came back.

First of all we had to fill out our details to make sure our blood was safe and then go into a private room to check through the answers. My boyfriend went first and got rejected as he'd had a tattoo in the past six months and I must admit a secret part of me was hoping I'd fail the little pin prick test to check if your haemoglobin (...or something...) levels were OK. How bad is that?! Finally it was my turn where I got interrogated by four nurses because I'd had a recent blood test but finally I was allowed. The prick itself hurt a little in your finger but it wasn't bad.

Waiting in the Que I really wanted to run out the door - especially when half way through Frazer's giving blood he turned white and his eyes rolled back in his head. He'd fainted before enough blood had been given so he had to have his discarded so all that worry was for nothing too! It was so scary watching it; all the nurses rushed over and made a massive fuss like an episode of E.R or something so I was getting more and more nervous.

"Don't worry, I've given blood sixteen times without problems" the woman in the seat next to me said since I was clearly eyeing up the exit door suspiciously. She did go on to tell me how both her brother and boyfriend fainted too though so I was still nervous. My sister who was already on one of the beds was having problems too as they couldn't find a vein, so it took so long I ended up having mine done before hers.

I had a problem with veins too; apparently both mine and my sisters were so thin it was hard to find a vein that was wider than the needle. The needle only hurt a little, but you can get a general anaesthetic if you don't want to feel it, but I didn't really see the point as you need a needle to put the general anaesthetic in anyway. After that it was fine apart from my blood pressure was so low I set off the alarm tons of time along with my sister. In the end my needle kept on having to get twisted and my sisters needed to be pressed in. I did feel a tiny bit dizzy but not much and all the other nurses bar the first one was lovely, and after she got our blood she was nice too EVENTUALLY haha. We got made to have some juice and a biscuit to get our blood feeling OK again, and even though we were both so exhausted we went to bed at half 8 it felt really good to have given blood. I was on such a high! I would do it again because other than the major nervousness the actual giving blood wasn't even bad.

I feel fine now the day after so I really would recommend it. Even Frazer who fainted wanted to give it another go and he was totally fine after some juice. You have to wait 4 months before you can give it again so it's not for a while now anyway. I'll add some more photos at the bottom to give you an idea of what its like which my sister took. Let me know if I've helped/influenced anyone in making their choice! x

Below: I took this photo this morning... if you look carefully you can see the pink on my wrist even though I got it done last night!

Above: What it looked like after the plaster was taking off - only a tiny pin prick.Above: a delightful photo of the needle in the community centre. The flooring is done for! Hehe.

Baltic and Prostitution...

Hello everybody :).
Sorry that I haven't been online for a while updating, I feel a bit neglectful! But in between my recent working and playing hard I've failed in my attempt to win in the war of the computers with my family. How anyone can spend nine and a half hours on ebay and facebook is beyond me.

My studies have been ok (may as well start with the boring). My English teacher made me do a written timed assignment and I got the best mark in the class, surprisingly as I left 20mins early to go to the dentist. Ok, ok, it was to meet a friend at the train station but I dont think that would have gelled as easily. He said I had "natural talent" and was an "obvious 'A' candidate". I'm not going to lie; it made me feel all fuzzy and happy inside. Probably to the sickening noticeability of everybody else, but hey it rarely happens so I got a little secretly excited!

To equal this out however the rest of my day was very depressing. First of all, someone stood on a pidgeon which had no legs in the Town Centre. Some people think that they're just vermin, but I'm a softie for animals so it was very depressing. It had "please take me home, I'll try not to poo on your bed" eyes. I know my cat would be like NOM in 3 seconds - and it probably had STDs or something. But still. I tried to pick it up to the disgust of everyone else and it tried to bite me. The love was there somewhere though I'm sure.
To brighten the mood we went to the Baltic art gallery which had the most amazing Pop Art theme last time I went. I loved it, so I went along with my friend and of course the subject this time was 'Violence to women'. So this featured:
1) A screening of 'Rape'
2) Loads of videos featuring a womans' body part such as her feet etc. with flies over so it looked like she was dead. This included a zoom in on her "woman areas" for a BIG amount of time. I giggled just to break the silence and was escorted out.
3) A maze where I walked into the glass walls seven times.
4) A jelly woman cut into boxes.
It was horrible to be honest, I guess it presented something which should be highlighted in society, especially as 50% of people actually think it's ok to hit a woman. What is wrong with you people? Nobody should be hitting anyone, but er, ok.

Finally to top of the fun of the day my friend, Kemi, got a phone call from her other friend saying her friends Mum had just died. She'd had a tumour on the brain for years, but obviously she must have been devastated. I trailed back so depressed I ate an entire block of cheese.

Yesterday was alot better; I went drinking with my boyfriend, Steven, his friend Sean and his girlfriend Natalie. The thing I don't get about them is that if you look at them they look so in love. They're really affectionate all the time; he helps her out the car, he buys her drinks and whispers things in her ear. But all the time he's cheating on her with the occasional prositute and she's none the wiser. It's so strange to see how things can be perceived and the reality behind it. Apparently it's ok to cheat if you dont get sex in your own relationship rather than just work out the problems first. But hey ho. I guess you can never take for granted that just because someones in a relationship they're off the market. It was a nice drink but we had to leave early as we got I'D and Natalie had forgot to bring hers. You might be wondering, don't you feel like telling her? I would make Steven lose all his friends if I did as he wasn't supposed to tell me, and to be honest I don't want to get trapped in all the drama. I don't know, I think if anyone should tell her it should be him anyway, and me and Natalie aren't exactly close so I'm not even sure she would believe me.
Hope you are all doing well :), I'll update soon x x x

<3

Hiya,
Todays blog is going to be about Valentines day so if you're on the verge of pushing the next happy couple you see down the stairs I suggest you stop reading!

I had a lovely Valentines day with my boyfriend, Steven, although I never expected to as I've been fighting alot with my parents lately and it was really getting me down. I was curling my hair, trying really hard not to cry and he just totally turned my mood around. He'd bought candles to make it seem romantic, ordered out a film, wrote some lovely things in my card, made me a prawn salad and lovely roast meal and we had strawberries to dip into chocolate afterwoulds. Everything was perfect and even though Valentines is so horribly commercialised it made me appreciate how lovely he really is. We also made his Dad a meal too as he's alone this Valentines (sadly his wife died of cancer a few years ago) and I'm really glad we did as it must be so shit for those who have broken hearts. It's so easy to get carried away in your own happiness to appreciate what others are going through.

My biggest worry at the moment is deciding what University to apply for. How miniscule is that in comparison? It's still stressing me out though. I got offers for every course and Uni that I applied to although I didn't think I would. I can't decide between the two; one I felt totally comfortable at, it's a good university and I liked the course (English and History Dual). The other Uni is by far more respectable, I'd be more likely to get a job but I'd have to do a summer course, take on an extra subject as they do their combined subjects in threes (English, History and Politics) and it didn't feel as comfortable. I'm fighting between sense and heart, I know I should give myself the best education, but I did that before with Sixth Form and I hated it. What to do? I'm hoping time will be on my side and make it a more clear decision.

My boyfriend has also decided to apply for University on a Building Surveying course as he was recently made redundant and it's proving literally impossible. He was one year shy of the full qualification of third year, but hopefully the second year will be enough to let him on. He has one university choice, one course, and I can't help but feel jealous of his clear cut decision. I wish I had a time machine to see in the future if I took one route to another, sort of sliding doors style. I've been so stressed I bought a beautiful purple dress (it was in a sale for £12! Yayy) to make me happy and I've been eating so much I've went from being underweight to the brink of overweight. I'm literally two pounds off! How on earth did this happen? I'm going to blame the implant I recently had (ok ok, maybe my cake eating) but I want to get it taken out anyway as it's giving me bad skin and I'm on my periods constantly which is proving difficult in relationship-wise. I'll let you know how that goes.

Oh yes, I got my first follower recently! Thanks so much I feel very happy and honoured, like I've won a good award it means so much to me, it really made my day.. I was thinking that I didn't want to scare them off, but had no idea of knowing what they liked didn't like. I was on somebodys blog and they actually had this ticky-box thing after every blog which said 'More of this' or 'Less of this'. How fab! Could anyone tell me where to find such a tool on blogging? x

:( The shame...

I'm going to share with you one of my most painfully cringeworthy moments to date... So be nice!

I'm currently spending the weekend at my boyfriends house as I'm not getting on so well with my parents at the moment. Everything was going well, I've been quiet enough not take over the house, I made his Dad a cup of tea, chatted to his brother. I was feeling pretty good...
UNTIL....
Well, I was wearing my nice comfy pink checked pj's and as I was taking them off to change into my jeans I spotted it. Not that it was hard to spot if you had any view of my backside whatsoever. I would use the word hole but that would be a complete understatement - it was the biggest massive right-across-my-ass-crack rip.
What happened?? Did I bend over and my ass got exciteable with my recent weight gain and tried a bid for escape.. but got stuck in the seams? The horrible, horrible shame.
I have clearly been showing my ass to everybody in the household in the most obvious clear way ever. My boyfriend found it hilarious when I had a freak out, but I'm sure a little part of me has died.
I think I'm going to wear fiver layers of pants from now - surely they can't all rip?