These streets will make you feel brand new, big lights will inspire you!

by theycallmejack

First blog in a ridiculous amount of time!

So, I’ve been told to dedicate the next blog I write to Hannah, who is hilarious simply because of her impression of a horny first year from college who she saw! This impression is genuinely one of the funniest things I have ever seen, as it caused me to weep with laughter in McDonalds!

Anyway, onwards with the actual blog! I haven’t blogged in a while have I? Well in all fairness, I’ve been ridiculously busy and overworked… honestly, I probably shouldn’t be taking time out of my busy schedule to be writing this one, but hey! I’m too tired to do any proper work so a blog will do.

Where to begin… well, where did I leave off? I think I was just about to go and see You Me at Six live? Well, I did that. Unfortunately, two days before I contracted a nasty case of tonsilitis, which meant that I had to stand at the back in the concert and not sing along to anything… but it was still awesome! And my wonderful friend Sophie looked after her, so major gratitude to her for that!

Anyway, that week, from Monday to Thursday I was off college in bed, doing a combination of sleeping, watching TV on iPlayer and playing Pokemon on my DS. It was horrible, just horrible. I woke up every night, sometimes multiple times because as soon as the painkillers I took before bed wore off it’d start to hurt everytime I swallowed, which would wake me up, so then I’d have to take more painkillers, wait half an hour for them to kick in, then go back to sleep and wait for the cycle to begin again. It was very tedious indeed. But luckily, by Friday I was well enough to get back to college and catch up on some stuff that I really couldn’t afford to miss!

It was also lucky because that Sunday morning at 4am, I was roused from my sleep to get a taxi to go to Manchester Airport. Where was I headed? Well, in case you live under a rock, and haven’t ‘got’ the title of this blog yet, I was on the road (or y’know… sky) to New York City!

And how was it? Awesome. I can quite honestly say that I have never been to a better city. Maybe even a better place full stop. The things that the chorus of ‘Empire State of Mind’ promise are certainly delivered in full force! I’ve never been quite so inspired by a place to make my dreams come true. New York City summarises everything that I want out of life; its fast paced, its exciting, there’s always something going on, its classy, its bright, its colourful. I could describe it with a million words, I could show you all the pictures I took, but you still wouldn’t know what I mean. The city has this… energy, thats the only way I can describe it. Its like a buzz from all around that just makes you wanna sing and dance!

It’s like, sometimes when I’m wandering around my hometown, I kind of feel out of place, as though I got accidentally dumped here and I’m wandering around on an alien planet… don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love where I live, and my local town (technically a city but I always think of it as a town) but I still have that feeling. But in New York? Well, I still felt out of place, and yet, it kind of felt like I’d found my place at the same time. It was as though everyone in that whole city was out of place, and because they were all out of place together, they all kind of fit together… its weird and difficult to explain, but yeah, that’s the best effort my tired brain can make.

The Unova region from the Pokemon franchise is based on New York City, and the thematic motif of the region is being united despite peoples differences, which makes SO much more sense when you’ve actually been to New York. So if you’re a Pokemon fan, there’s the best Pokemon based explanation I can give.

I think the New York trip was definitely improved by all the amazing events and experiences which I was lucky enough to have while I was there, so just so I’ve got a note so I don’t forget, I’ll run through the major stuff we did:

  • Went to the top of the Empire State Building
  • Wandered around Time Square lots of times.
  • Took a ferry trip around Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty.
  • Ate at Ellen’s Stardust Diner.
  • Watched the off-Broadway performance of Rent.
  • Explored Central Park where I ate a corndog!
  • Shopped at the Nintendo World Store.
  • Saw various celebrities.
  • Walked up and down 5th Avenue lots of times.
  • Was ridiculously impressed by Spiderman the musical on Broadway.
  • Sang and danced to a Wicked number with instruction from the Broadway Wicked’s sexy dance captain.
  • Made loads of new friends and became closer to old ones!

And I think that’s all… the last one is probably the most important… so much love for Danny and Rob who I shared a room with, and who woke me up with their own rendition of ‘Good Morning New York’ every morning… absolute insanity! We planned a sitcom called ‘New York Calling’ which would be like a more camp version of Friends! The basic plot is that me, Danny, and Rob relocate from Preston to New York after getting jobs as a Broadway Star, a Good Morning New York Host, and a porn star respectively! We’ve actually planned about 30 episodes of it. We were all joking about it for the whole trip, but I was secretly wishing that my life was like our planned sitcom…

So yeah, my beautiful friends from New York, Danny, Rob, Natalie, Heather, Rachel, Asha, and Ducky need a shout out for just generally being amazing people! I’ll NEVER forget the amazing times we had! Hope I haven’t forgotten anyone off that list…

And then I came back from New York… and everything got a little bit more… drudgery-y… actually, thats a lie, because there was one huge bonus to returning from the city that never sleeps, and that was that I was back in the same country as my lovely Mat! Knowing that I had someone so wonderful to return to lessened the pain of coming home somewhat! Hopefully when we’re older, we can go back as a couple, maybe even buy an apartment and become stars! Mwahahahahaa!

So what else have I done? Half term was fairly enjoyable; a few of my friends and I went up to the Lake District because… well, I don’t really think there was much of a reason, it was just a bit of a jaunt! That was crazy and ended up being one huge bitching session up a mountain. High altitude just makes the bitching happen even more!

And then back to college. And yeah. Stress. In drama, we’re trying to devise an original piece of theatre based on the work of these practitioners and we can’t seem to find a single way of doing something that is both good and pleases all members of the group, so that’s stressing me out. Then in English I’m supposed to be writing an essay for coursework on a books and poems which have barely been taught since our teacher has been off cos of injury. Because of both tonsilitis and the New York trip I’ve missed a total of 9 hours worth of Ancient History lessons so I have all that to catch up on as well as keeping up with what we’re doing in class now.

Then I’ve just had an exam on Wednesday morning for Oxford University, who I’ve got to submit some work to by next Thursday as well. And Royal Holloway are asking for 4 pages of creative writing from me.

And I’m supposed to have finished the first draft of my script by now.

And I’m trying to organize my birthday party and what me and Mat are doing for our anniversary.

So yeah, stressful.

I know it isn’t just me either! I know that probably just about everyone my age is starting to feel a similar strain of balancing social life, education, work, family, and god knows what else! I wish people would just cut us a bit of slack to be honest…

But no, that’s not going to happen. Still, beggars can’t be choosers and sinners never sleep, so we’ll power through it and hopefully come out the other side with lots of happiness and a good life!

In positive news, I got my first offer from a university last night…

Jack out.