You're just a lonely star.

There has been one news story dominating my Facebook and my Twitter today, and once again it is nothing potentially threatening to life as we know it; but a feature by a woman called Samantha Brick.

The feature entitled "There are downsides to looking this pretty: Why women hate me for being beautiful" had created endless amounts of complaints on both my newsfeeds so I decided that I would read it. When I did, I was genuinely surprised at how this woman seems to view herself. I am fully supportive of women who have confidence in themselves because let's face it, not many women are any more thanks to the recent media portrayal. But does no one else believe that this is stepping straight over the line of confidence and straight into arrogance?

The whole feature, is basically about how this woman receives gifts on a regular basis purely because of her "pleasing appearance and pretty smile".

After getting shamefully irate over how this woman seems to view herself; I decided to see if she had a twitter (because let's face it, who doesn't these days?) which only led me to become more frustrated. Not to say that Mrs Brick isn't a pretty woman for a 40 year old, but she just screams for attention with tweets such as "To all my new male followers: I'm flattered, but I'm not surprised." Despite the fact she concludes her story about how she wishes she weren't so beautiful so she could fit in.

Obviously I do understand that her whole article rambles on and on about how women are jealous of her for being beautiful, and as I am female I'm sure that she would say that this whole post is written out of pure jealousy. (Trust me, I'm a 20 year old woman; I am not particularly jealous seeing as I have yet to get any wrinkles). Even if I were jealous of Mrs Brick, I can assure you that it wouldn't be over her good looks but for her jobs in the media industry. That being said, at least we can rule out women being jealous of how modest she is.

Since today's post on The Mail Online, Samantha Bricks has become something of an "Online Celebrity", so I decided to look back at some of her previous articles and noticed that despite the fact in her recent post she assures as that she is not smug, and she is no flirt; there is a post from August 2011 under the title "I use my sex appeal to get ahead at work... and so does ANY woman with any sense."

Now I have to admit that this article hit me a little harder than the previous one, not only because once again she has spent the whole article talking about how pretty she is, (which is a common occurrence throughout her columns) but she clearly states that NO woman can become successful in her profession unless she flirts (or sleeps) her way there.

I find this more disgusting than anything, for I believe that women have fought to get to where they are today. Women have died. Yet this historical idea that women are not as good as men in their workplaces still exists, and apparently even women think so too. While I am not completely naive to what goes on when you want a job in the media industry, I refuse to believe that I will get to where I want in life by being the sex pet of my boss.

Yet if I go further back to an article written in 2010, I find a story called "How TV is run by sexist pigs who only want one thing (and it's not ratings): A shocking inside account from a former TV exec". This story basically tells the audience about how she has made her way up the career ladder through sheer hard work.

My point is, that once I'd worked out how much this arrogant woman contradicts herself, I got slightly less angry and felt more pity. Pity at the woman who seems to believe that women truly hate her because she is incredibly unlucky for being beautiful (when in fact she is nothing more than average looking). Pity for the woman who doesn't realise that the reason people probably don't really like her because they are disgusted by her obvious lack of morals, lack of consideration for other people and the fact that she still believes that the only way you will become successful is if you are pretty or give your bosses sexual favours.

Panic at the pumps.

In light of the recent news stories of the potential fuel strikes, the government has advised people with half a tank of petrol to make their way to a petrol station and fill up, in case of emergencies. This has apparently resulted in panic buying, and a large amount of news stories about how bad the traffic is because of this. Yet on my way out of a local Tesco’s earlier today (when if I’m honest, I didn’t really know the whole story), I saw nothing unusual. No extensive queues along the road, no one panicking about whether they’re not going to have enough petrol to last them.

Now, I know I come from Essex; a county which is frequently looked down upon due to its supposed lack of intelligence, but when I look at it from this angle it does appear that my small town is choosing not to worry about the warnings that the government has issued. In fact, I’ve seen many people on my Facebook feed making jokes about the situation, for example “If you say 'gullible' really slowly, it sounds like go fill your car up.” As well as a trending topic on Twitter: Ghetto ways to save gas”. This makes me wonder whether people are actually taking this “crisis” as seriously as the press is making out.

I know that I don’t drive, I don’t have a car, and I don’t have a license. So as a pedestrian it doesn’t really affect me, and drivers reading this could be thinking “she doesn’t even know what she’s talking about” but honestly, around my town I have seen no signs of panic whatsoever, in any of the petrol stations that I have gone past.

If any major companies were to announce a strike, they would have to announce it publicly around seven days before that date, meaning that since there has been no official date mentioned as yet, there is no current problem. As for the apparent mass panic around the whole of Britain, I think that it’s a myth; maybe there are the few odd stations that have slight hysteria, but all in all I believe that the government have made people panic over absolutely nothing.

All that you are is broken inside, but they'll never know.

Recently, I have noticed that a lot of people are finding it easier to publish their feelings on the internet instead of actually speaking to their friends. I confess that I am one of those people. I get overly defensive if someone that I know has read something that I have written on a blog that I thought that no one knew about, or if they ask me if they can look at my blog.

I don’t understand it, but I constantly wonder why people write down their feelings on a service where plenty of strangers can easily find it. What makes “talking” to people you don’t know about your deepest darkest secrets so much easier than actually telling someone that you may have known for years?

I know I am one of those people, and that I get only a little bit agitated (Ok, really agitated) when someone confronts me about a blog post that I may have written about what I was feeling at the time, or a tweet that I had written whilst I was in a bad mood with a friend. So why do I find it ok when complete randomers reply to me? Is it that it gives me comfort when someone I don’t know replies to me and tells me that they know what I am going through? Because if that’s the case, shouldn’t I be able to tell my friends anyway; the people that have got me through so many situations and should be my shoulder to cry on?

I follow plenty of people on Tumblr who are able to admit their weaknesses with cutting themselves and depression and their sexual experiences, but why would they post this where I can see it? I follow people that I have never met before in my life yet I know quite a lot of their deepest, darkest secrets, purely because they’re able to post it on a social networking site? Yet from personal experience, I know that they probably haven’t told their friends; and would feel offended if their friend merely asked to read their blog.

Call me crazy, but when we pick our friends, don’t we pick them based on how much we trust them, how well they listen to you, how much they care for you and the advice that they give you? Yet with the internet, this bond between friends is being shattered by the fact that we’d all rather tell complete strangers in the hope that someone knows how we’re feeling; that they might have a little bit of advice because they know what they’re going through.

But what happens when you actually have a friend on this social networking site, the site that you’re posting these suicidal thoughts on? I know for a fact that since people that I know personally have started following me on Twitter, I’ve started slowly posting less things of any relevance, and purely mentioning the fact that I had a sandwich that afternoon. No one cares about anything like that, but it gets me out of mentioning the fact that I might have felt a little bit miserable.

I’ll tell you one other thing that is just as hard as posting something really deep about your feelings on a social networking site, and that is seeing your friends post it. On one hand, it definitely gives you a heads up to know that this person is in a bad mood so you can ask them what is wrong; but then you start to question why they didn’t tell you in the first place. The excuse “I didn’t want you to think any less of me” is getting pretty old now. So if you didn’t want your friends to think any less of you, why would you post it on a site that they, as well as nearly every single person on the internet has access to?

It’s pretty hard to delete your footprint from the internet once it is posted; I think I heard once that even if you delete it, it’s still there.

It turns out that the internet is now everyone’s personal diary, as well as their shoulder to cry on when they’re feeling a little bit vulnerable.

Society Killed The Teenager.

We are society. Society didn’t kill the teenager. We did.

We are a generation of teenagers with access to almost anything in the world. We have everything ahead of us, and basically everything handed to us on a silver platter. We are able to find almost any piece of information on the internet, and with Web 2.0 we are able to interact with it with comments, sharing and an opinion.

These comments and opinions are the new society.
People have problems, and these are sometimes triggered by the fact that people find it acceptable to intrude in their lives; leaving comments of malice and general hatred.

People say that “Society killed the teenager”, but they don’t do anything to stop it. They call people fat and throw hateful words around as though they are fashionable and don’t have consequences, and when the consequences arise they deny it. They pass it as the demons of society, when in fact we are the demons. We are the people who hate; we are the people who fight, and we are the people feel that it is ok to go on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and judge someone for the way that they express themselves.

We wonder why people feel the need to self-harm, we criticise those who have serious issues such as eating disorders; and yet we are doing nothing to help them. We are not telling these people that it is ok to feel a little down every now and then, we are not telling people that we are here for them and that there is always someone to talk to. Someone cares; whether it is your family, your friends, your colleagues or your teachers.

Much like serious issues as those mentioned above, our society is becoming a problem, and the first step of recovery is to admit this. Stop hiding behind words that are making excuses for what is happening to our world. The fighting, the hatred and the problems aren’t ever going to go away.
We are society. And we are killing ourselves.

Pain is only relevant if it still hurts,

One of the main problems of friends having boyfriends or girlfriends is the jealousy that they feel when they're spending a lot of time with someone else.
For instance, in August I've invited one of my friends to go to Reading festival. We've been best friends since secondary school, now we work together and have been talking about going for years.

Since she's bought her ticket, her boyfriend has done nothing but complain, about the fact that she's bought a ticket and the fact that we're going to be going with a few boys.

Now I know that a lot of boys might get paranoid about this, but the line "It's not that I don't trust you, I just don't trust everyone else" is getting pretty old.

I'm not one of those people who are likely to let my friends disappear off with other boys. I know how much cheating ruins relationships and trust, and I know the long term effects it has. Since these two have been dating, and arguing, for around three years I'd have thought that they would trust each other a little more than people who have been together for two months.

My problem is partners that won't even let their boyfriend, or girlfriend spend time with their friends. When you want to go out with your friends but their partner won’t let them because there are going to be members of the opposite sex there.

Where is the trust in a relationship if you can’t even let your partner go out with their friends? If that is the case, than surely shouldn’t you consider ending the relationship now?

If your partner did the same to, than you would put your foot down, complaining that they’re trapping you in the relationship.

Here’s an idea, how about you trust the people you’re going to settle down with. And if you seriously feel that you can’t, end the relationship now. People are only going to end up hurt and you’re never going to be happy unless there is unlimited amount of love and trust between you both.

You be careless and I'll be the reckless one.

Have you ever noticed, that all we seem to do nowadays is complain about what we're not? Who we wish we were instead, or features, talents of someone that we wish we had ourselves.
Wishing that someone would call us perfect, even if we won't believe them?

I woke up with the taste of you tattooed on my lips.

Today has been incredibly boring, I haven't really done anything. One of the perks of uni life, there is literally nothing to do if you don't have a job or any work to do. I did have a phone call from Emma at around 2 though, while I was lying in bed, telling me that she was coming over. So I got ready and tidied my room a little.
Other than that I've pretty much spent the day browsing the internet, teaching Emma how to use a blog, and tidying my room for Emma and the viewing that we had at 5pm.
With this, I found out that the people have already put a deposit down on this house, so once again I have actually ended up in the same position as last year in the way of not having anywhere to live next year. Oh.
I am going to the Isle of Wight tomorrow with Emma and possibly Steph, so that should be a much more entertaining day, generally browsing and teaching Emma how to use a camera so she has a head start when we go into our photography session next week.