'Tis the season

It is very nearly my second favourite time of year. Closely following Halloween, Christmas is a time of year that makes me happier than any other. With beautiful decorations, colder air and an abundance of food, December 25th (or more accurately, the entire month) is one of those occasions that I am grateful for. Unfortunately, my Christmas cheer has been delayed until now due to exams and important assesments for Uni. But now that my last essay has been submitted and the exam is just a faint memory I am ready to fully engulf myself in the holiday season.

My holiday preparations started with a bang on Saturday. My Mum and I decorated our Christmas tree with blue and white lights before hanging some very old and some very strange ornaments which included my personal favourite... Badass Santa on a motorbike. It's always nice to decorate your tree with ornaments that have special attachments to family members and for the Moorhouse family nearly all of our decorations have sentimental value. Whether it reminds us of a particular place or time or whether it simply reminds us of Christmas as children, decorating our tree is a happy occasion.

After spending an hour or so decorating our tree and eventually the entire house, we sat down and watched some television. One of the more familiar memories I have of Christmases past, is spending more time with my family so it was nice to talk to my Mum for longer than the 10-15 minutes that it takes for me to ask her for money or for a lift.

But my day was far from over. Nathan and his flatmates Jordan and Anna, were hosting a Christmas dinner and movie and invited me to come along. Despite the hurdles I faced (a cat refusing to move from underneath my car) I made it to the flat in one piece. They had decorated their flat beautifully! Candles, Christmas decorations and a very cute table complete with place settings. To my delight Helen, Becky, Jordon and Nathan busied themselves cooking a proper Christmas Roast accompanied by Nathan's newly discovered Bread Sauce. Me and Anna took on the role of the typical men folk and stayed in the living room having a chat. It wasn't long before we were all sat at the table enjoying a glass or two of Champagne and our well prepared feast! Conversation flowed as usual and we swapped stories about Christmas and traditions. Afterwards we all sat down to watch The Grinch and Nathan and I were the only ones still awake by the end of it. Food comas all round clearly. The Grinch is my all time favourite Christmas movie and is very high on my list of regular movies too. I could quote it all day if I thought it was at all socially acceptable.

 

Needless to say I had a very festive day and I look forward to the big day on the 25th and all the joy it brings. But for now, I need to collect some presents for my parents and make them presentable in my own particularly disordered form wrapping.

Bye bye brother

Last Thursday my family woke at 6 am to say goodbye to my older brother Sam. He's a qualified ski and snowboarding instructor and got himself a job in Sun Peaks, Canada. I am very proud and delighted for him and I'm glad that he get's to return to the place where he studied for his qualifications. Honestly, Sam has always been the restless type but he has finally found a way to do what he loves and it makes him truly happy. He'll be away for just over 6 months, which is three months longer than the last time he was there.



Unfortunately his first day didn't bring much in the way of comforting news. In an email to my Mum, he explained that his accommodation is appalling (even by his standards) and he's considering trying to find somewhere new. And to unsettle my parents further, he posted on Facebook in the early morning hours 'I miss home'. I have to say, my heart broke a little. I made no attempt to hide my excitement about his leaving. Our car would be solely mine and I wouldn't have anyone to argue with. But in light of his situation, I feel bad. I want him to have a great time and I don't like the idea that he is sad and alone on the other side of the world. Of course, give it a week and he will be as happy as can be, but for now, I worry.



I'm worried because, personally, I wouldn't be able to do what he is doing. Travelling is something that I desperately want to do after university but because I am such an anxious freak, if I were to arrive somewhere all by myself and something wasn't right I think I would panic. I know I would panic. I would likely call my mum in tears and beg her to 'fix it'. Hopefully my travels will kick out that overly dependent side of me. Still, the excitement to spend sometime on my own is overwhelming and so petrifying that I can't explain it. But like I said, Sam will be fine. He's always fine.

Dinnertime

The other night, I went to dinner with some of my friends from University. We had been meaning to do this sort of thing for a while and it felt really nice to finally get around to it. We went to The Black Bird in Toll Cross which is a modernised Pub with awful and frankly rude staff. As students, we were not picky or demanding and in fact we didn't expect excellent fine dining but what we got was outrageous. And not in a good way. But in spite of 'Kelly' and her interesting take on customer service, Helen, Becky, Nathan and I managed to have a really nice night where we could finally relax and laugh about everything and anything.

Ever since I was a little girl, I always pictured myself as a student going out for dinners, reading intellectually challenging books and living a cultured lifestyle. It's almost a little hard to acknowledge that this is what my life has become. Of course, being a grown up in real life is very different to what you imagine when you are younger. Things don't come as easily and success is not accomplished over night. In the last two years I have learnt so much about how to approach life in a positive and productive way. It's already paying off! I'm achieving decent grades at University and I've met like minded people who I am comfortable being myself around. There is such a difference between the conversations that I have now to the ones that I used to have in the playground. It is because of this that we were able to look past the waitress's disrespectful attitude and enjoy the fairly pleasant food. I'll never know how I managed to have a starter, main and a dessert! Each of us had hefty food babies!

We finished up for the Christmas holidays this week and we will be going our separate ways. We will all be working longer hours and spending more time with our families and on top of that Becky is preparing to study abroad next term. I love the holidays, especially Christmas, but I have really enjoyed getting to know everyone a little bit better this year and I will miss that interaction over the break. But hopefully this will be one of many meals out together as sophisticated adults in the near future!

I love my job

Unlike many people I know, I can truthfully say that I love my job. Working for the Gilded Balloon has been crazy, stressful and some of the happiest days of my life. The 2012 Fringe season marked my second year working for the company that has introduced some of the worlds favourite comedians into the circuit! David O'Doherty, Peter Kay, Tim Minchin and many others all found their way in the halls of the Balloon and that is something I am very proud of. I may not have been around when such legends roamed the building but since my freshman year as an eager press office assistant I have taken in the history of the company and have become an ambassador for promoting all that is great about the Gilded Balloon.

This year, I started working on the Fringe in early May. I was over the moon to be asked back and to be of use for more than just the month of August! The run up was hectic and unlike anything I have experienced. My role within the company changed a month in, which gave me more responsibility and duties. 'Administration Officer' had a much nicer ring to it than 'Press Office Assistant'. My only worry was that I wouldn't be working with the girls that I had grown so close with the previous year. But as we all reconnected in the last few weeks before the Fringe, any worries I had disappeared. As the Edinburgh Festival began and I left the security of the Press team for a new office and new faces, everything fell perfectly into place.

I quickly adopted the nickname 'little one' because of my young age. Nicknames have always found there way of sticking to me. In primary school I was know as 'Teeny' and even some of my teachers began referring to me as such. As the first few days passed I started to interact with such interesting and crazy people, that I would never have otherwise met. I was engaging with our visiting companies on a more frequent basis and I would now consider many of them my friends. 2012 was a whole new level of fun. Of course this may be directly linked to my spending more time out at night making friends and really enjoying the environment that I am lucky enough to work in. The month long festival feels like it lasts for longer when you are in such good company. Even when I found myself stressed over production runs or an ever growing 'to do' list, all I had to do was remind myself of where I work and who I get to work with. Whenever anyone asks me what it is like to work in the Fringe I always tell them: the long hours and sleepless nights are totally worth it because of the people you meet. The people are what makes my job easy.
 

As afore mentioned, I got the opportunity to reconnect with the girls that I worked with last year. With the friendship foundation already in place, I felt totally at ease with them and was able to really be myself. Rowan, Hannah 'sissy', Chrissie and Katie are amazing woman who have achieved so much and I was so happy to have them back as mentors, as a guiding conscious and as friends. Individually they look out for me and have my best interest at heart. It's like partying with your best friends but having your mum there to take care of you if something goes wrong. The GB family is very real and very strong. I even found an honorary sister in the lovely Hannah. And the icing on the cake was meeting even more people who make coming into work that little bit easier. Lindsay and Kitty in the box office were my go to for pointless conversations or distractions whenever I didn't want to work. Granted, if Lindsay was busy I would normally be told to go back to my desk and do something productive. Jen and Jess were the new additions to the press office and I'm very glad they were. I'll never know how my boss manages to gather some of the smartest and nicest girls from all over the world (let's be honest, most of them are Aussies!) and bring them to Edinburgh.

There have already been several applications for our comedy competition So You Think You're Funny for the 2013 season. This makes me very excited for my third year to commence. I'm sure my older and wiser self will make a few smarter decisions and will continue to appreciate the opportunity that she has. I love my job. I really, really love my job.

Have you ever had a blog?

Neil Gaiman said it best: "Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up." But in this case, change 'been in love' to 'had a blog'.

Whenever someone publishes a blog, they open themselves up to be scrutinised and analysed by the perfectionists and self proclaimed 'trolls' of the internet. Everyone has tendencies to judge and sometimes it's very easy to forget that we are doing so. Personally I think that in moderation this can be healthy and can lead to bigger and better things. I'm not justifying bullying or school girl bitching but I don't see anything wrong with a well informed rant. Criticism is a useful tool that can help us improve ourselves, if we are able to take it constructively that is. Really, this is my way of explaining that I don't want to censor what I say or what I think out of fear that someone may read my blog and criticise it. First of all: let's assume that someone somewhere reads my blog. That in and of itself is pretty fucking spectacular! Secondly: if that one, spectacular person chooses to voice their opinion regarding my blog, then who am I to take that comment as a personal attack? Assuming the comment wasn't 'you are stooopid' (deliberately spelt wrong for dramatic effect), then surely I can use that comment to rethink the way I broadcast myself on the internet. Or alternatively, I can look at it and see it for exactly what it is, a comment. If I so desire, I can shrug it off and carry on. Don't read too much into your 'haters' and don't give them the power to ruin what is good in your life. One of my favourite quotes comes from the bombshell that was Marilyn Monroe! "Keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.” Long story short, if you can take the criticism then you may discover that you develop into a better person because of it. And if you can't, then step back from the computer and remember that this is your life and no one should be able to ruin that for you.

So, maybe I should explain why I have started this blog. Truthfully, some of my friends have started blogs and it sounded like a great way to express myself and hopefully improve my reflective writing. I also think that this would be a nice way to document the remainder of my time at University and then my subsequent travels and adventures. I was once told that the world is an oyster ripe for my taking. I have since extended that metaphor. If the world is an oyster, I want to stick a knife in it and pry it open to see if there’s a jewel inside or just a misshapen, slimy creature, hiding. I smell opportunity. Here I go. I think. Maybe not yet, but soon. Yes, soon. After University, I’ll take the plunge. I’ll leap with utter abandon. I’ll throw myself into the air and wait for fate to take its course. I’ll land, I think. And I'll have this blog to look back on and remember what I did, where I went and who I met.