What Katy Did

well, i have a time limit on this post. i have to be off in exactly one hour, or my brother will have another hissy fit, and i really cant deal with that right now. you know, in spite of me being in the legendary 'Transition Year', i actually feel like i'm under more stress this year than i was doing my Junior Cert. i don't know. maybe i'm just misjudging it, forgetting already what it was like last June. who knows? either way, i know for a fact that i wasn't really stressed at all this time last year, whereas now.....
anyway. im sorry i had to wait so long to write. from the second i got back from Capannalea it's been 'spina bifida this' and 'book report that'. oh, and even more 'spina bifida'. but i've finally got all my assignments up to date (as far as possible), and i've found a few minutes to sit down and splurge some of my feelings. i wont be able to get all of them though. i have way too many issues for that...! but i'll get down as much as i can. it will take a lot of individual posts to bring everyone up to date, but that's probably a good thing. if i were to write everything in one post, not only would it take positively weeks, but it would be so long you'd fall asleep after the first 50 paragraphs or so... so anyway. here's today's batch of issues and so forth...
Capannalea was, in short, a good laugh. even though i didn't think i would enjoy it properly, as me and hillwalking really should not be on the same continent together (and i'm really not the kind of person who says things like that, so that just shows how much i despise it), but to be honest, i even managed to carry my own bag up the hill on the day of the overnight adventure - one of the only girls who did, thank you very much! even though the slope was almost verticle. and that is one thing i am not joking about. we practically crawled up the last 50 meters or so. but the guys in my group were really nice. the staff at the centre put us into groups, so we weren't neccessarily with our friends, and the guys i was with were ones i don't think i had ever had an actual conversation with (except for maybe one of them). one of them was a guy i used to fancy a few years ago. even though i really am completely over him, i still feel a little awkward around him. the way i feel about him is: yes, he's really good looking, really sensitive for a guy and actually a real gentleman, something i never thought i'd see in a 16-year-old in the 21st century; but honestly, i always knew i never even had half a chance with him. i respect him, though, and there will always be a little part of me that still has some sort of feelings for him.
that guy was one of our nominated group leaders - we had two, the only group ever to have two according to our 'adult' leader. it wasn't exactly a concious decision - "let's have 2 group leaders" - but everyone else just unanimously decided - "these two are perfect. it's stupid to try and pick one over the other. they're both good friends so they'll get on well. let's just have them both." our other leader was a real gentleman aswel - it's amazing what you find out, things that you never though even existed before. anyway, this second leader was a guy i really had never spoken to before. it's not that i didn't want to, it's just that the opportunity never arose. our groups of friends don't really mix, and really we're from different 'social classes' - his girlfriend is (still) one of the 'popular' people, and me and my friends just prefer to do our own thing, in our own way, and be ourselves. one day, i will write a post about social class, being yourself, and the very strange realtionship between me and the second leader's girlfriend (in short - we used to be best friends, we're not any more. but it goes ever so slightly deeper than that), but not now. i have other things on my mind right now. these two leaders, well, they were so nice. even though i've never really spoken to them before, and technically they would have gotten away with just letting me do my own thing with the few of my friends that were in that group with me, they made a real effort with everyone and, strange as it feels to be wording it this way, it really felt like they cared. which brings me to mention something else i must write a post about some time - how it really is so much easier to talk to boys than to girls.
another subject i know i touched on in my last proper post was that guy. for confidentiality's sake, and so that i don't have to keep saying "the guy, the guy, the guy", let's call him.... Andrew. i know how pathetic this must sound, because i've scorned about it before, and i realise this is probably the time to tell you some more things about me (which i promise to tell you soon enough... i just don't know when...), but i'm going to say this anyway. there was an odd number of my female friends going on the bus to Capennalea, and as i was the last of them to get on the bus, i was sitting in a seat on my own. Andrew was already sitting in front of me with one of his friends (who also, incidentally, sees himself as one of our friends... another long and complicated story which, like so many other topics, i really don't feel in the mood to be getting into right at this moment). when he noticed me sitting on my own, he ditched his other guy friend and sat beside me instead. i know what you're saying - "wow, big deal, woopdeedoo" - but for me this is a big deal. being the quiet and conservative person that i seem to be (though i don't like to say it), i don't sit beside guys on buses that often. added to this fact was that this was going to be quite a long bus journey, and Andrew had ditched his guy friend to sit next to me. this made me feel really happy - quite really happy (i don't care whether that phrasing makes sense or not, by the way - in my own writing, i am given to saying things in the exact format they pop into my head) - especially since we filled pretty much the whole bus journey with relaxed conversation (when i first started liking him, over a year ago (i will give you 'our' history in another post (whether you want to read it or not!) it felt like kind of awkward when we were on our own together, but for the last year it's been fine - so much better, in fact). strange, and rather pathetic as it may seem, this feeling kept me happy for pretty much the whole rest of the day - something i feel can often be quite rare with me...
two things that are honestly really quite random, and for the most part reasonably unconnected with the other points in this post, are as follows:
firstly, one the first night - we were all staying up fairly late, as lights out wasn't until 12:30pm, which no-one was exactly complaining about. we were watching the 'Tokyo Drift' DVD, another thing that is quite strange for me, as i famously have pretty much no interest in cars whatsoever (Tokyo Drift is about the only car movie i will watch!), and people started drifting off to put on their pyjamas... and then coming back down to the common room again! it really is a kind of... i don't know... wierd (?)... experience to be sitting there, in your pyjamas, in fornt of all the guys! it's not something i normally do!
secondly - and of course, typically me, i've completely forgotten what i was going to say... and i just know i'll remember it the second i publish this!!
oh well, time to go so i can divert a life threatening hissy fit.... (and i am not making a joke out of this. i really don't like doing this, it makes me feel so... alone in life... (please don't laugh at that. i was being serious)
ciao
xxx