So it's 10 days until Xmas

and I am surrounded by snow! It's so cool! like going outside and be surrounded by white!! I've only gotten up the mountain to ski once since I got here 2 weeks ago, and that was like the most expensive day out ever!! But it was worth it! I'll be getting my skis and pass for my resort soon so I will get up there again soon enough!

I'm places in a little place in Austria called Ellmau and it's beautiful! You can see the mountains out of my room, and the view out of my chalet is amazing!! The people I am working with are ace!! soooooo nice and friendly! The other chalet host I work with is awesome! We get along really well, so work is really fun! At the moment we are just setting up the chalet, but that's alot of work in it's self, lots of sorting, cleaning, paperwork, counting.....but we're getting there slowly but surely!

I hope that every one is doing well!! It's dead strange not being able to keep up with everyone like I used to, but now I am settled into a resort I can access the net a bit more often so I wanna know how you guys are all doing!!

Tara for now!!

It's only boring people that get bored.

I saw that (^^^) posted on a website today and it got me thinking.

It's so true, and lately I have been really bored, but pretty much just because I have been pretty boring. I lost motivation for going out after my friends left Swansea because although I do enjoy my own company I sometimes need a bit of motivation to go out so having friends who say 'Hey, what you doing tomorrow? nothing? cool, let's go for coffee!' and such like was sometimes just what I needed to encourage me out of the house. It used to be that when I was at home though I'd always be doing stuff, making things, doing jobs that needed doing, reading, drawing, painting, chatting to people, and various other things, but then all of a sudden about a month ago I just stopped doing stuff....like everything, apart from the chatting to people and to a certain extent the reading (it didn't help that I just cannot seem to finish Breaking Dawn no matter how hard I try, so throw lack of motivation into the mix and I wasn't ever gonna get very far with it).

Then today, I saw that quote (the title) and I don't even know what happened, but I suddenly got motivated again. Ok, so it's not Monday anymore (it was when I started writing this but I'll continue with the 'today' theme) but today I wrote a letter to a friend, I baked a cake, I started reading Paper Towns (let's face it, I'm not finishing Breaking Dawn any time soon), I've chatted to friends (I am chatting to friends, like right now), I made plans to go out tomorrow, I discovered that my cousin is in a band (and plays Ukulele) and so I looked up her music and listened to that for a while whilst I had a little think about stuff (you should check her stuff out http://www.myspace.com/hellobigworld cos it's awesome!) and ye, I watched Licence to Wed and I just seemed to do alot more stuff today that I have done in one day for absolutely ages! It feels pretty good to have actually accomplished some stuff today though so I think I'm gonna try my hardest to keep motivated because I really do feel much today than I have for a while, and I'd rather put more effort in and feel more positive then do nothing and feel totally 'meh'.

So uh.....ye, I kinda feel like I've hit a bit of a wall, and now I can come back from it in a more positive frame of mind. As they say, you have to reach rock bottom before things can get better. So I feel like I've hit rock bottom (in this instance anyway) and now I can just improve on the situation.

Why do people feel the need to lie

As if it's gonna make life easier?!

And I don't even mean average people, like if an individual lies it doesn't usually make a difference to me. Most people will lie about having rich relatives, or a fancy computer, or a nice holiday. TBH I don't care if your cousin is a millionaire, your computer is worth £2K AND you went all the way around the world on your last holiday.....that's nice for you, but it's not gonna impress me whether it's the truth or lies.

What I don't wanna hear though is lies from companies. I rang the company that I start with in November to find out when I leave....I rang them Tuesday 28th October, (remember that!) and the nice yet slightly annoyed sounding lady on the other end of the line said 'The details haven't been finalised yet' Now I dealt with that, there are something rediculous like 1500 people being transported within the space of 2 weeks, it's alot to sort out I think anyone could accept that.

So I log on to the staff room for the same company this morning, and ya know what it said?! 'Everything is now finalised, we are going to send the details out in batches, the first batch was sent TUESDAY 28th OCTOBER'

WAIT!! WHAT?!

Well, I think it's pretty clear that I am not impressed. If she'd said 'We've finalised them and started sending them out' and then I had read that they had already started sending them then that would be fine because the two statement support each other. But seriously just why lie about it?! it doesn't even make any sense, it's not like it makes me feel any better. It certainly doesn't make their life any easier. Just what is the point?!

Argh....and I still don't know when I leave...I want to know dammit!!

Dear street cyclist....

I know you think you look all cool winding through the roads on your little bicycle, and you think you are clever because you can cycle past all the cars however the highway code does still apply to you, ok?

When I cross the road I do not expect you to almost hit me because you think you can go through red lights with no consequenses.

When I am cycling the right way down a one way road I do not expect to almost collide with you because you think you can cycle the wrong way down it. You are not special, one way roads go one way.

And when I am following the law and you are not I do not expect you to get road rage at me 'because I was in your way'. If I am in your way because you shouldn't have been there in the first place then that clearly isn't my problem.

Change

So I was at my old school today, I was weirdly at ease being there considering how badly I left, but that's not the point. Me and a couple of friends went up to the school to visit a teacher who's mother just died because we knew she would be having a bad time of it.

We got to the school and all I could think was 'Goodness what is the new head master doing to this place?!' EVERYTHING has changed and very little is in a good way, just trying to visit a teacher that we wanted to comfort involved an entire song and dance, no where near as easy as it used to be. When I left the school though I was always haunted by one thing that this particular teacher had said, 'You'll regret it.' I hated her for that statement. I know I left really badly. I went about it so wrongly. However, I could never imagine it happening any differently because if I had gone about everything properly I would probably now be in my third year of sixth form. Now THAT I would probably be regretting.

I don't regret any decision I have made in the last 8 months, from leaving school, to applying for Crystal, to getting the job and accepting it. I am so happy right now. I could not imagine being like everyone else now, carting all my belongings off to a different city so I can continue in education. I am so excited about being able to spend my winter in the mountains, for me that is so much better. I can study later, but now I have the ability to do so much more, experience more. That is not how this teacher sees it though, and even today she just had to ask, 'Do you regret it yet?' The first time she asked me that it angered me so much, I couldn't stand that she even felt the need to ask me that, it's not her life after all, why should she even care if I regret it?! but this time I just sat, smile beaming across my face and said 'No' because it couldn't be more true, and not only do I not regret it 'yet' I won't regret it ever, because what is the use in regretting what you did in the past, you can't change it now. It started me thinking about how peoples attitudes can effect you, because I didn't always think like that, I did wonder if I would regret what I had chosen, whether one day I would suddenly regret everything I have done, but then I realised that what's happened has happened, you can't change it so there is no point in hoping that you could because you could spend your energy on other, more productive things. However if it weren't for some peoples negetivity I don't think I would be saying that now, so maybe having a couple of pessemists in your life is a good thing!

What with every thing changing so much it's given me the chance (as well as more time) to think about how it effects us. How people move in and out of your life, and how they touch your life, or how they don't. I've thought so much about the people I miss loads, the people who haven't left yet who I am going to miss loads, the people who left ages ago and I didn't even notive because I never really cared about them, and the people who I haven't talked to in ages who suddenly feel the need to catch up with me, even though I'd be quite happy if they didn't because it would save me a very awkward conversation.

I'm not really sure where I meant to go with this....but I kinda wanted to write it down.

And to the ones I miss, you know who you are!! I miss you guys soooo much!!

Locked in a train station at 2.30 am. True Story.

So I was in France for a week, it was awesome, the people who did the course with me were well cool, and I ate more food last week than I usually eat in a month. No complaints really, it was pretty much all good except for the odd cooking disaster, but they were pretty few.

On the way back however was when it got interesting, I was in a mini bus between La Plagne and Geneva for 3 hours, we were at the airport for 3 hours because our flight was delayed, we then had an hour and a half flight and I had a 4 and a half hour journey back from Gatwick to Swansea with an hour rest at Paddington between trains. Travelling makes me pretty tired and I don't usually fall asleep on transportation, but I couldn't keep my eyes open, and I knew that Swansea was the last stop on my train so when I started to fall asleep I just let myself, thinking 'yeah, they'll empty the train of people when it stops at Swansea' I was so wrong. The train stopped at 1.45 am when it was supposed to, and everyone got off......apart from me. At 2.30am I woke up, on an empty train, pitch black outside because the majority of the lights in the station had been turned off. I've never caught the last train back to Swansea before so I didn't really know what to expect when I got back, so I figured it being pretty empty was normal. I got off the train and walked towards the exit of the station as usual, only to find that NO-ONE was in the station and the shutters were down. I walked back into the station and the porters kindly showed me where I could go to get out of the station, and then after being laughed out by a couple of conducters I was finally set free. It has taught me about falling asleep on trains though, I don't think I'll be repeating that experience anytime soon, at least not if I can help it.

So, Gatwick airport....nice place innit?!

So, I am currently in Gatwick airport. I was there, all ready to find out what gate I had to board at, when what do they do?! They delay my flight by an hour an a quarter. I don't hold out much hope that it'll leave then either mind, cos the 2 easyjet flights after mine are also delayed, as is the one before mine, so I'm kinda settled to stay here for a while.

I would be alot happier though had I not already arrived early for check in and exhausted everything the airport has to offer me, I've eaten, I've browsed all the shops that I have any interest in, I've sat and had a coffee, I sent some mail to a couple of people and I even entered a prize draw to win a very fancy sports car that I wouldn't be able to drive because I don't have a license (Garbz, you can have it if I win ;-) )

Yesturday was fun though, I got to hang out with my cousin, which I never ever get to do. I was a bit iffy about it on the way to London, but pretty much as soon as we met up everything was fine! It's pretty hard not to get on with some one you have so much in common with (like an entire half of your family for instance). We went to the best vegetarian indian restaurant EVER! I'm gonna be pretty gutted when I get back to Swansea and remember that there is no where that is even nearly as good there....oh well, just another reason to visit London more often I guess!! (Ye, like I can afford to do that on a regular basis!!)

So at some point today I will be boarding a plane that will take me to Geneva, and then I will travel on a coach from Geneva to La Plagne, where I will do a course on cooking in the alps, and then I will come hope and tell you guys ALL about it!!

Have fun while I'm away!