hello, kitty.

it lies not in our power to love or hate, for will in us is over-rul’d by fate.

kittyhowie — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:10:31 +0000

it’s been nearly a year since i posted on here, but i’m back again. an unbelievable amount has changed in my life. i’ve done my a levels, and subsequently moved to exeter. i’ve experienced the death of a loved one. i’ve loved and lost, twice. i’ve driven across america. in spite of this, i’m sure there’s a cliche that says that no matter how much people, places and situations change, certain aspects of our lives have the uncanny ability to stay the same… i still have agb, the best and most beautiful best friend i could ask for. i still have a fantastic relationship with my mum. i still love my school. i still eat biscuits by the packet. i still have an unqualified hatred of capital letters.

exeter is fantastic. the course is challenging and already pushing me to want to do better. i knew that i wasn’t going to be the best anymore… hopefully in the second term i’ll undergo metamorphosis and change from a tiny, infantile and seemingly insignificant tadpole to a larger, slightly more mature metamorphose with a large presence in the pond of academia. i cannot stress how humbled i feel most days to be surrounded by people who are so clever, and have such a passion for the subject.

six days to go until christmas. this time last year i was in new york with mum, remember my anger at our delayed flight out there and our cancelled flight home because of the snow?! the snow seems to ruin everything. luckily there hasn’t been too much in croydon, and none in exeter. sixteen minutes until alex gets home form work – we’re going to go to winter wonderland this afternoon which i’m very excited about.

until the next time, which i promise will be sooner than the last time.

fact # 148

distance makes the heart grow fonder. luckily that distance is only around 55 miles.

i give you an onion. it is a moon wrapped in brown paper. it promises light like the careful undressing of love.

kittyhowie — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:57:56 +0000

i had to repost this for the simple reason that i do exactly the same thing!

‘”i understand that scissors can beat paper, and I get how rock can beat scissors, but there’s no fucking way paper can beat rock. paper is supposed to magically wrap around rock leaving it immobile? why the hell can’t paper do this to scissors? screw scissors, why can’t paper do this to people? why aren’t sheets of college-ruled notebook paper constantly suffocating students as they attempt to take notes in class? i’ll tell you why, because paper can’t beat anybody, a rock would tear that paper up in 2 seconds. when i play rock/ paper/ scissors i always choose rock. then when somebody claims to have beaten me with their paper i can punch them in the face with my already clenched fist and say “oh shit , i’m sorry, i thought paper would protect you, asshole.”

fact # 147

this year, i enjoyed valentines day for the very first time.

coming to an area near you

kittyhowie — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 17:44:22 +0000

today i passed my driving test.

fact # 145

the mood and type of person your driving examiner is greatly affects your nerves. thank you very much mr jay for being so lovely – i salute you!

shakespar

kittyhowie — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 12:39:12 +0000

at the moment i’m reading ‘blueeyedboy’ by joanne harris for my book club. it’s interesting because it’s written through a series of entries on the ficticious blogging site ‘badguysrock’. obsessed with music and his ipod, highly disturbed blueeyedboy always mentions what he is listening to at the time of writing his blog entries. worryingly his music taste is very similar to mine! one hopes i’m not about to turn into him any time soon. following the whitgift house music competition last night, i’m currently listening to ‘i giorni’ by einaudi which i enjoyed very much. congratulations to brodie’s, smith’s and cross’s for their first, second and third places respectfully, although all houses had moments of brilliance- especially andrew’s, with idiotic facial expressions and the four chord song, and dodd’s with their rappers delight which was a wonderful way to end the evening.

last weekend was tom, will and stuart’s final performances in romeo and juliet at fairfield halls in croydon. after the friday night performance most of us went back to stuart’s where we watched a dvd that doesn’t actually exist amongst other ‘funn’ activities. kudos must go to dan and i who managed to lose stuart’s birthday balloon as well as get on the wrong bus home. doh. saturday meant storming out the rest of the first draft of my english commentary which compares my two pieces of coursework to my core texts and style models whilst managing to demonstrate a sound knowledge of the literary and linguistic terminology that my course requires.

in the evening dan, joe, middy, hugo, his dad and i all went to see romeo and juliet having been briefed that it was highly likely to be the worst adaptation of shakespeare that we had, and ever would see in our lives. for the most part, this was correct. the play was set in modern times and began with a powerpoint of knife crime appropriate for croydon. it then proceeded to include body popping, beyonce, blood capsules, chase scenes (through the audience…. so that when it came to tybalt die he couldn’t stop breathing heavily….), broken knives, sex scenes with no sex, broken flowers, break dancing, waiters being abused, homo, saggy and vigorously wobbling boobs and last but by all means not least ‘to horse!!!!’ my legs became mutilated on the walk from fairfield halls to east croydon where i simultaneously hilariously and horrifically tripped over joe. i like to think i provided the comedy for the group. needless to say my knees become bloodied and bruised, and thanks to the streets of croydon and alex not having any savlon spray, they’re now infected and generally highly attractive. his beautiful dogs more than made up for it though.

fact # 144

never underestimate the terror an empty bottle of alcohol on public transport can inflict in will and joe or the fun you can have playing ‘the witch’ and dressing up with a limited selection of outfits.

ellie

kittyhowie — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 21:38:29 +0000

is a total babe. we are destined to be together because she will let me roll around covered in nothing but glue and glitter before taking me to kidspace.

fact # 143

and also because she’s excellent at sticking on fake fishy eyelashes. but that’s not the main reason.

one fire burns out another’s burning, one pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish.

kittyhowie — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 14:48:19 +0000

yesterday was a really good day. my initial plan was to go into croydon, sit in nero for hours on end with coffee and a book before seeing tom, stuart and maybe will half way through their shakespeare rehearsals at farifield halls so i could pick up my tickets for next weekend. then i remembered that my god mother sally was over for the weekend as it was max’s eighteenth during the week. it was so lovely to see her. other than yesterday i think i’ve seen her once since she moved to the isle of wight… which was over a year ago. my caffeine, ken kesey and friend filled hours suddenly turned into coffee to go from starbucks, five freezing minutes outside fairfield grabbing tickets followed by ten minutes of reading on the bus on the way home.

but it was worth it. mum, sally and i all went to watch soph play netball up at warlingham rugby club which was brilliant before going to have lunch at the horseshoe. it was only after lifting up my top to show them by beautiful new bra that i realised my headmistress was sitting on the table next to us… the next prefect meeting with her at school is definitely going to be an experience!

fact # 142

last night alex came round and we watched the road.

‘that is my child, he said. i wash a dead man’s brains out of his hair. that is my job.’

par. lomopar. you’re on a roll.

kittyhowie — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:22:44 +0000

since christmas, dinner time in the howie household has been a flurry of jamie oliver ’30 minute meals’ inspired frenzy. every recipe we tried was delicious – who would have thought of liquidising half an avocado as a base for a salad dressing?! our normally averagely laid dinner table was suddenly home to chopping boards, pots, pans and garnishes that seemed obscene but somehow worked extremely well with what we were eating. but then we tried the thai green chicken.

i didn’t think it was possible to annihilate one of my all time favourite foods. i was proved wrong on friday night. since this miserable experience, unsurprisingly the recipe book has found its way back to the bookshelf in the kitchen opposed to the kitchen sideboard where we would excitedly flick through, deciding what to eat. the post it notes that were stuck in erratically on pages of delicious sounding food now wave like forlorn flags. a surrender. offering peace. perhaps i’ll retrieve the recipe book and see if we can patch up our romance.

saturday brought london and dan’s house. as anticipated, once my camera was in the company of this certain bunch of rowdy whitgiftians, the film that was shot produced some very excellent shots… and some very terrible ones. (mainly of when will and alex attempted to confirm their ‘marriage’ in a bedroom and i got eleven shots of out of focus light shades, light bulbs and feet poking out of the covers…. but let’s not go into that….)

school this week has been great. my english teacher somehow found a blog i’d written online about my as set exam text last year and is using it to teach her as class this year, which i find incredible. i am indirectly teaching english to the year below me. last night i went to the cinema with pete who i haven’t seen properly since new years eve which was also really good. despite beginning to drag in some places, ‘the king’s speech’ definitely had the uncanny ability to suddenly pick up the pace again without anyone really noticing. perhaps helena bonham carter’s exquisite lips seduced us all into a dream like trance.

today, for the first time ever, school hosted all day meetings and a lunch for the board of governors and trustees. this was definitely a big deal! as a senior prefect i, like the rest of the team, was lucky enough to have the privilege to have lunch with them in the quiet room which had been speedily converted into a conference / dining room. i happily chatted away to various ladies and men, particularly one lovely lady for around twenty minutes. the time came for her to leave. she thanked me, walked over to my head of sixth, mentioned something and then continued on her way. my head of sixth then proceeded to walk over to me, only to tell me that i had just successfully held my own in conversation with someone who holds on of the most powerful positions in the whole of the gdst, and that she was incredibly impressed. awesome.

fact # 141

one of the most obviously sad parts of ‘the king’s speech’ is the part in which king george dies. whilst this was happening, i was revelling in the sheer joy that i had just been offered a place to study english at exeter.

somehow… i couldn’t quite match my mood or concentrate on the rest of the film as i eagerly anticipated rushing home to tell my parents that i’d got into the university of my choice.

interchanging mind control, come let the revolution take it’s toll.

kittyhowie — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 16:04:00 +0000

i’m currently in the mood to stop doing my english coursework, lie down on the rug in front of the fire and lie very still for a long time.

fact # 140

i hate it when you suddenly regress from recovering from a hangover to feeling almost as bad as you did when you first opened your eyes.

actionsample me

kittyhowie — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 22:35:38 +0000

as promised in my post dedicated solely to geography revision (… i really was that bored) i said i would let you know how the exam would go. without going into much detail about each and everything that was good and bad about that paper – in my opinion, this paper was a lot easier than the summer exam. of course there were bits where i read the question and groaned, but there were also numerous occasions where i looked forward to answering particular questions because i knew i could do them well. a particular favourite was one on sand dunes- so the fact on the geography post definitely helped! despite the paper being easier though, my timing was pretty off. i was left with roughly twenty minutes to write two fifteen mark mini essays which wasn’t the best thing in the world to go through. i finished, having produced two very rushed essays on pharmaceutical tnc’s and the impact of rural / urban population change. but at least i finished.

saturday brought a disastrous attempt at driving to eastbourne along the a roads. i got as far as east grinstead when the heavens opened and mum lost the last bit of confidence in my driving skill, so i turned back disappointed and with my tail between my legs. to cheer both ourselves up we went to london in the afternoon where i bought another new camera, this time an actionsampler which is brilliant. i still love my lca+ though. by the way people were acting that evening at hugo’s birthday party, other people love my camera too! analogue is definitely the future, proven by the fact that more and more of my friends are investing in film cameras. tomorrow i’m going up to london with joe and a couple of others so he can buy his very own film camera. it’s like i’m a proud mother.

fact # 139

when i first dropped my slide film off at snappy’s to be cross processed i was told it was going to cost £30. i swallowed bitterly and promised to pay when i picked the slides up. today i got a phone call- they hadn’t realised before that i wanted it to be cross processed which they do much cheaper. £21 cheaper. result.

“A Very Small Degree of Hope is Sufficient to Cause the Birth of Love.”

kittyhowie — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 18:38:04 +0000

Recently I’ve started feeling as though I should start publishing more of my work online. Below is my entry for my schools Sixth Form English Scholarship. The title is a famous Stendhal quote I felt appropriate to the plot line.

UPDATE

The first draft of this entry contained the afore mentioned work, but thanks to the wonderful Dan Goldsmith bringing my eyes to the attention of the Bridport Prize I’ve taken it down in case I’m inclined to add some more to it!

Fact # 138

I remember thinking, as I wrote this, that big changes were on the horizon for me. I was correct.