Breaking news: socially inept teen finally develops a social life

Hey,

So on the 24th of October, I broke up from school for Halloween. After being nominated for an award I never really got and being drained from general college I was excited for what my week of freedom would bring. Well, the week has been busy to say the least.

Monday

I hadn’t really seen my old high school friends since results day in August, so I was very eager to meet up with them again. On Monday, we met up at the local park (The Manor) and spent the day eating ice cream, running away from small children with giant sticks who were hell bent on trying to hit us with them and catching up.

The weather was great, I was with friends I hadn’t seen in a while.. it was a great day. The only issue that really arose was when He decided that he was bored and couldn’t be bothered to walk up to the top of this hill we were walking so we could chat in peace. This meant he became very grumpy and kept saying ‘I want to go home.’ over and over again. I literally had to drag him up this hill. It kind of spoilt the afternoon for me a bit.

Eventually I caved and we walked home – however, I left before one of my friends had turned up so we had to make arrangements to meet up again this week for a ‘girls day out’ to really catch up.

Tuesday

I also hadn’t seen my NCS friends a few months and I was determined to keep the promise to stay in touch that we’d all made before parting ways at the Graduation back in August. This led to me and one of my best friends i’d made while at NCS planning a sleep over at her house.

I left the house early on Tuesday morning to go get a train to Crawley. Everything went perfectly well until I asked the ticket person what train I needed to get on to get to Three Bridges. And he put me on the wrong train. In the wrong direction. I only actually found out I was on the wrong train when the person came round to check the tickets and discovered I was going in the wrong direction. Naturally someone I knew was sat on the train , who witnessed the whole ordeal. After a minor panic I got off the train and wound up on the right one after some deliberation about whether it really was the right train.

After an hour and ten minutes on the train, I finally ended up at the right station where my friend met me and proceeded to walk me back to her house. We sat on her bed and caught up for what felt like ten minutes but in reality we had been talking for an hour and a half! The people who we were meeting up with were merely minutes away! We gulped down our mugs of green tea and tidied up her room after trashing it with a mini dance party.

The first person to turn up arrived much after getting mildly lost. As he was a guy and guys weren’t allowed in her room (Strict parents) we decided to sit in the corridor and chat. As nobody was really talking, it felt a bit awkward sat there in the hall. Naturally my nervous mouth decided to run without really thinking about it, meaning I embarrassed myself on a number of occasions by being too enthusiastic about everything and saying things nobody really was interested in. It was really nice to see him though as we had really gotten to know each other after NCS via Facebook. However, when the second person turned up I was quite happy as it meant someone else could head the conversation and I had less opportunity to embarrass myself.

We had to go out and find the last few people, and by this point there were too many of us to fit in the hall, so we all crowded into this mini office room. It was a fun evening spent watching a weird video involving what was assumed to be mashed potato, catching up and general banter. Eventually people started to leave but my friend told the people who were left to come back after her parents had left to go out for the evening.

However when they did come back with their food, her parents knew instantly as they were actually sat in the bar across from her house, right next to the window. They called her up, told her she was grounded and that everyone besides me had to leave. It was a bit awkward when they came back later on and had to take her out of the room to talk to in private.

The rest of the evening was spent watching St Trinians, dancing to Marina and The Diamonds and general chatting.

In the morning I got on a train home and had a fairly peaceful journey home, minus the fact I stood on the wrong side of the platform for half an hour and must have missed about three trains I could have taken.

Wednesday

My Mum’s friend needed to have some time by herself, so we took her daughter in for the evening. She slept in my room on sofa cushions, pillows and blankets. We spent the evening talking while on our laptops, eating Chinese food and watching various ‘nerdy’ videos relating to fandoms we are in.

Thursday

This was the day of our girls day out after not being able to meet up altogether for several months. We decided to get a train to Worthing and spend the day together.

It was a really fun day spent eating fast food, shopping and me nearly somehow breaking a card machine to the point they had to reset the whole contraption.

We spent several hours sat in Costa (them drinking various coffees, me sticking with my green tea) talking, taking selfies, catching up and in general messing around and having fun. They even managed to convince me to let them put lipstick on ,me. It was a really fun afternoon and it really reminded me how much I have missed these people. I really don’t want us all to drift apart from each other. However with college, various jobs and other social lives with new made friends it is hard to meet up. We all agreed we should meet up more often though!

Friday

So Friday was Halloween. This was also the day I had a boy sleep over in my room for the first time… ever. I was nervous to say the least. I was also kind of excited. He was meant to sleep in my brothers room but when my brother fell pretty ill with the flu, coupled with the fact my Mum wanted to trust him and I and let us prove we could be left alone together all night and not do anything, he was allowed to sleep in my room.On a separate kind-of-bed made up of pillows and sofa cushions.

When he arrived, we decided we’d watch Alien. And what movie is complete without popcorn? This is why we grabbed the smoky bacon popcorn he brought over and microwave it. Everything was going really well until… the popcorn caught fire in the microwave. We had to open the door really quickly, put out the fire, tidy up the now black counter and make sure the new burn mark in the microwave wasn’t dangerous. It was certainly the most adventurous start to a sleep over i’d had.

The rest of the day was spent eating an extortionate amount of Halloween-themed junk food, watching the second Alien film, having a tickle fight and just enjoying each other’s company. It was great fun.

After dinner ,the trick-or-treaters started to arrive. My little sister was all dressed up and He and I were due to take her out around the neighbourhood. My brother was meant to be the person to answer the door but as he was still feeling really ill and was bedridden, it was decided that He and my Mum go out and I stay home to answer the door. I didn’t really mind, it meant I could sit on the stairs, drink tea and catch up on social media.

When they came back, He and I spent the evening cuddling up on my bed, watched the end of the second Alien movie and then moved onto The Walking Dead. We eventually decided we were tired, got changed into our pjs and cuddled up on my bed until we wanted to sleep. As we had to sleep in separate beds but still wanted to be able to chat if it turned out neither of us could sleep, we moved his ‘bed’ closer to mine. Turned out we both had difficulty sleeping and mutually decided it’d have been easier to sleep if we had shared a bed. Oh well. We didn’t really mind – it was just such an abnormal thing to happen, plus we still had a lot of sugar in our systems. I’m glad he was allowed to sleep over, even if it was just so we could relax in the evening with a bunch of movies.

Saturday

Saturday morning, He went home and Mum, my brother, my sister and I all hopped into the car and drove to Tulley’s farm for the day time ‘Pumpkin Patch & Spook Time’. As my sister is only three and we didn’t want to scare her too much, we arrived before all the actors could arrive.

The first thing we went on a ride called ‘The Horrid Hayride’ through the ‘Forbidden Forest’ that required us to scream at appropriate points and was actually pretty creepy. Some of the things we saw on this hay ride included car wrecks, a giant spider and the heads of stuffed animals on sticks with fake blood on it.

The second ride we went on a spooky trail that involved us walking around a very muddy corn maze trying to find these various names we had written down on a list and their corresponding number. It was actually pretty fun and there was even a ‘cheat circle’ of people who were giving out all the numbers.

My sister was very excited by this trampoline she was strapped into and got to bounce on for two minutes. However, I think she had more fun trying to bounce off the trampoline and into Mum’s arms than actually bouncing on the trampoline. She also went on a free pumpkin shaped bouncy castle and refused to come out for a while.

Another Ride we went on was the ‘Boo Barn’ where we had to ‘explore the world of pumpkins, witches and spooky monsters galore’. It was another fun event that involved exploring this really lit up house.

The best part of the trip however was probably the haunted house. Even without any actors in it, it did a pretty good job of being completely terrifying with flashing lights that made it appear like bugs are crawling along the walls, creepy children singing and a skeleton taking a bath. It was much better than other haunted houses i’d been in. I even had to hold my usually fearless little sisters hand throughout the haunted house.

After we came out of the haunted house, we bought some souvenirs and tried to find some balloons for my sister. For whatever reason, she really wanted a balloon sword but we couldn’t find the people handing them out until right at the end of the day. I think the highlight of her day may have actually been getting the balloon. On the way home she spent more time sleeping than playing with it, though.

Later on that evening, I got a lift to my very first party. It was hosted by my friend Megan and was very Alice-in-Wonderland themed. Lots of the food had this theme, the Tim Burton film was playing on the TV and she was even dressed up as the white queen.

It was a really fun evening, even with all the couples making out on the sofa the entire evening. I’m really glad I went.

It’s been a very busy week filled with lots of firsts – first time having a boy sleep over, first meet up with my NCS friends, first time at a party…. but it’s been a fun week. I’m almost dreading going back to school and having to let this all end. My national insurance number even turned up after contacting them over two months ago!

Next week i’ve also got Wicked! I’m so excited.

Until next time,

-Megan Stapleton

Fourth Times’ The Charm

Hey, 

So  lot has happened lately.

Last weekend I explored Arundel Castle with my Dad and younger brother. While we were not allowed to take pictures inside, my favourite part of the castle was easily the two story library! It was very wooden and beautiful. The books inside appeared to all be very dull (encyclopedia’s and whatnot) but the place certainly had charm. We then had a picnic and watched a joust between two people dressed up in clothes appropriate for the sixteenth era. They then went over the history of various weapon that were used in England. Overall, it was a very fun afternoon and i’d probably go again –  even if my ears were ringing after the amount of canons I heard go off.

I’ve been going to a lot of revision sessions. I have two Maths exams, two Film studies exams, and English exam and a History Of Surgery. The revision sessions themselves have been really helpful, and i’m glad I went. The teachers essentially went over certain parts of the course a lot of people struggled with, and we revised them. It wasn’t as bad as i’d been expecting. 

I went prom dress shopping today, and even got the dress! I won’t give away any details, other than the fact that it is red and is being personalised slightly. 

We actually attempted to go into town at eleven o’clock. We originally wanted to go to a shop in Portsmouth but found that it was too far to drive – even if they did have pretty dresses. However when we were nearly in town, the car started leaking water and overheating massively, so we had to go home. This was my third attempt at prom dress shopping so I was really disappointed. 

We went home and had some lunch while Mum called a mechanic. The price for the repair was too expensive so she just sighed and said we’ll save up for it. Meanwhile, we couldn’t go shopping. 

However, Mum’s boyfriend volunteered to drive us into town and drop us off. He’d also pick us up when we were done. After lots of thank you’s we set off. 

After we set off into town, we went to what we thought would be the most useless shop, just to get it out of the way but to still have a look. It was a bridal shop and despite the pretty bridesmaids dresses in the window, it didn’t have any prom dresses. 

We set off to our second shop of choice that was down one of the lanes. Immediately I was overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of dresses. There were dresses of all sizes, colours and types. Mum picked out a Cinderella type blue ball gown and I picked out a plain red dress to try on. Both needed a few alterations with pins to fit but once on they both felt so comfortable and pretty that I almost couldn’t bare to take either off. The blue dress definitely had the ‘wow’ factor, but the red dress, with some changes had promise.

We decided to venture into the other two shops on our list, have me try on some different ones, take pictures of me in each one and then pick over tea. 

The next shop we went into was a lot smaller but still had a lot of selection… just not really in my size. The dresses I tried of ranged from dark blue to red to pink. A lot of the dresses were very pretty but they either didn’t fit well (even with pins), the material felt uncomfortable or I just disliked the dress in general. The staff inside was very lovely and the dresses very cheap… but the dresses weren’t me. 

We decided to venture to the last shop but actually couldn’t find it. After walking around the seafront and exploring some of the lanes, we gave up and got a cup of tea and a cookie each. We looked at each of the pictures and decided on THE one. 

On our walk back to the shop, we discovered it was very busy and decided to come back in half an hour. While we waited we did some  grocery shopping. When we walked into the shop again, we tried on the red dress one more time, got the alterations needed recorded and then paid in full. Even with the cost of the dress and the alterations that need to be done, I still have enough money for shoes! I’m very excited.

I can go try it on a final time and pick it up in two-three weeks. I’n so excited!

My final exams are drawing closer… the only exams i’m truly worried about are maths as I need a C. But with a bit of luck, I should pass. Here’s hoping! 

Until next time!

-Megan

Well, that ‘Apocalypse’ was disappointing

Hey,

I’ve been ill recently, which is fairly sucky. I was puking everywhere… not nice. Luckily, i’m okay now. I might of accidentally infected Him though!

I made Him some chocolate truffles as a peace offering, as we have been arguing a lot lately. He was very grateful and said they were delicious, which I admit made my day… :3

Christmas is soon! I’m kind of excited, but at the same time, I’m not. There’s so much uncertainty surrounding the day, and I’m just dreading it now, even though it’s my favourite day of the year.

Yesterday was the last day of school, and the apparent ‘apocalypse’. Here is what happened for me:

I sent a message to Him saying something along the lines of ‘if the world ends tomorrow, I love you,’ because I thought it was cute. As a reply, I got ‘Oh you Muppet! You glorious, glorious Muppet! You didn’t really think it was gonna end, did you? 🙂 Hmm… So am I. I just looked outside, and the world seems to be there. And if it it ends at 11:11, then we’ll be together. Forever. I love you too! My glorious goddess!” I was just sat there awwing for what must have been five minutes.

I woke up around 7am to my awfully bright lamp being turned on, and being prodded in the back by my mother several times, telling me to get up. I mumbled something about getting up in a second, and she left me to my devises. I read the text from him, then trundled downstairs and into the living room, munching on a cereal bar I took from the kitchen on my way past it. Same boring stuff on the news, same sleepy family cuddled up in dressing gowns trying to stay warm.

An hour later, i’m dressed and ready for school. I’m just lying on my bed thinking about… well… everything. School, exams, My mum’s boyfriend’s mum who has cancer and how she’s coping, Him, music, the day ahead, and so on.

Eventually we get to school and my usual friend is stood there, tapping her foot and telling me to hurry up and ‘get over here, I wanna go to the canteen’. I nodded and then said I would be a moment. I placed a bag full of assorted treats on the reception desk for the Help The Heroes charity where we had to bring in some food for war veterans and whatnot, then hurried on my way.

The canteen was covered in tinsel. And it was heaving. We grabbed our food, paid for it and then went upstairs to wait for English, but bumped into a group of friends and chatted with them until lessons started.

Once the bell went, I saw Him. Smiling, I hugged him and we walked into our lesson. Because it was the only lesson of the day, we watched an amazing film called My Name is Khan, that nearly had me, and several of my friends in tears. Our teacher, and another girl actually did cry. Naturally, I sat next to him.

After the lesson, our teacher gave us a small chocolate each, and said she hoped we had a nice Christmas.

-skips the boring bits-

After waiting for my friends who were obviously not going to turn up, He and I went to the canteen to see what all the fuss was about.

The canteen was covered in glitter. Literally. Somebody had chucked loads of it round, and everyone was covered. It was nuts in there, people were walking around with mistletoe above their heads, and actually getting kissed. People were throwing glitter, giving presents, laughing and chatting, and He and I kissed lots. It was awesome. The bell eventually went, and we had to go to our tutor bases. After a final kiss, He promised He’d walk home with me afterwards.

Tutor was kind of dull. Our teacher made us do half of a quiz we never finished, he sung a bit and looked like a right moron, and I got given a really pretty lavender-scented pillow decoration to hang around the room. Then our chapter (Nightingale) got called out on the PA system and we had to go line up outside the sports hall.

Assembly was actually pretty boring too. The school orchestra did an amazing song, but then the teachers prattled on about Christmas spirit, and the story of Jesus. There was a short drama production, some more lectures about being safe, then we were allowed to go home.

I had to walk home with my younger brother, as well as Him, which is kind of annoying as it means my brother is gonna spend the entire time talking about Minecraft while Him and I try and chat among ourselves. We also can’t spend much time at our usual corner to kiss, which is quite annoying really, considering I wont see him until Boxing Day.

When my brother and I got home, it was about 1pm. My mother returned home from house sitting for her boyfriend 4-5ish, didn’t really say anything to us except saying why she took so long to get home (Parcel took a while to arrive, her boyfriend’s mum fell over and they couldn’t get her up, then they had to drive her to the hospital for her first chemo session, then she decorated her boyfriends house, and so on. I feel really sad for my mum’s boyfriend and his mum, and I feel really useless.) Mum basically told us we were going to our nans to have dinner and were sleeping there overnight, without much explanation. Naturally, we got lost on the drive over to my nans house. It wasn’t so bad there, we got given an early Christmas present (I got a zombie apocalypse guide, and my brother got some Yu-Gi-Oh books) and were able to read those. By the time we got there, it was around 6pm.

I had a shower, ate pizza for dinner with ice-cream for desert, read some more, went on my nans laptop for about an hour, fiddled with my phone and then went to bed. Fun.

Mum picked us up at 9am, and after a night of being kicked in the head by my brother, whom I had to share a bed with, I was in a bad mood. However, a call to my aunt soon cheered me up as she told me about her recent mouse problem, and about how they were glad it hadn’t happened on Christmas! She told me to ‘cheer up hun, there is always a silver lining!’, which made me smile. When Mum picked us up, she drove to ASDA without saying much to us, looked round there for some Christmas bits and casually told us we might be spending Christmas at her boyfriends house, or at nans depending on how her boyfriend’s mum was doing.

We’ve always spent Christmas at our house, so it was an odd thought to think we might not be there, but we understood.

Well, that’s my life until now.

-Megan

Only 24 days.

Hey there,

so it’s the first of December, and suddenly the world has remembered it’s the time of year where decorations go up, everyone seems happy, and everyone hopes for snow… Christmas! I’ve basically finished my shopping, I want to put up the decorations up with my brother and sister tomorrow!

My dad, brother and I went into MacDonald for lunch, then we went for a walk around Chichester for some presents for people we hadn’t gotten stuff for yet. I kept getting distracted by book shops, so I only managed to buy my mum’s stuff. I still have my brother, sister, the rest of her presents and a few friends left. But, that’s pretty good for me, I usually suck at thinking of presents for people. I usually just get them something sugary, or some smellies. We then went to Tesco, picked up some ingredients to make dinner later, and some extra decorations, and went home.

Oh yeah, I made a Cornish Pasty – and it actually tasted nice. I was quite proud, I always assumed I suck at cooking since I never really have tried it, but they were really nice!

I’ve been in a pretty good mood lately, and He and I are back to normal now… well, mostly. I met his Grandad the other day, too. He seemed pretty friendly and chatty. Apparently he thought I had nice, clean shoes.. that’s about it. Yaaay, i’m loved.

Parents evening is coming up again, oh joy. Luckily, I don’t think it’s gonna be too bad this time. I have some pretty good teachers who hopefully are gonna give me a good report. The one i’m least looking forward to is math. We’re gonna do a mock next week, and our grades are going to be announced on parents evening… oh joy. I can’t do math, I completely suck at it.Well, clearly i’m going to get an amazing grade.

-Megan

I love the summer

Hey everyone,

Two days ago, I came back from my 5 day holiday to Cornwall – and I loved it! It didn’t rain, very out-of-character for Cornwall. We stayed in Maisie Motorhome (the OFFICIAL name of dad’s Motorhome) outside my Uncle Paul and My Auntie Jenny’s house. At first, I felt really awkward there, like I didn’t belong, but after a few days it felt like a second home!

On the way there we picked up my cousin Chris, who brought bags full of sweets and other sugary things to munch on for the five hour journey.  When we got there, my 19-y/o cousin Nicola was sprawled out on the sofa, Uncle Paul was outside feeding the chickens (he doesn’t live on a farm, he just owns chickens) and auntie Jenny was in the kitchen cooking Pizza.

We watched movies for the rest of the night and went to bed.

The following day, nat, dad and I went to Gwithian Beach. Nathan sat there, attempting to crab. me attempting to get a tan and dad taking pictures. Afterwards we went to go get an ice cream and into town to get a birthday card and a present for my Gran – the actual reason we were in cornwall – afterwards, we went and bought a Cornish Pasty and nibbled at those on the drive back to our uncle and aunt’s.

The following evening, it was my Grans birthday. Dad set off the motorhome alarm as we were getting in and it didn’t stop for a full twenty minutes. Me and Nathan were in stitches. Eventually, it stopped and we were on our way.

We’re all eating at a Chinese buffet-like place with 20 odd people at our table – all of them relatives! It was a really nice evening chatting, eating and laughing with family I haven’t seen in what felt like forever. The only three people missing were my auntie Leanne and cousins Ethan and Dylan – who sadly couldn’t make it due to some ‘circumstances’ nobody would tell me.  We all then went home and while my brother was on the Xbox, and the older family members were getting drunk as hell, my cousin Nicola, and I, were talking for hours about… anything , really. We chatted about, Jobs, university, her friends, music, concerts, my friends, books, movies, animals, anime, family, the evening and what we were doing tomorrow.

The following day, all the boys had decided that they were gonna go fishing, while my cousins Nicola and I went into Truro shopping. I had no problems with this, I had 30 quid in my bag left of birthday money, and the 15 pound dad gave me. The day went like this: My uncle Paul gave us a lift into Truro, and then went back. We checked bus times so we knew what time to be back by, and then went into the nearest little market-y place. There were tons of stalls but the only thing we actually bought was a surprisingly cheap pic-and-mix. After that, we went into Waterstones, where I bought two books. There was a really chatty and friendly cashier who was sporting a Mockingjay (the hunger games) pin, and numerous over badges. Nicola bought three books – one of them a baby book for her niece (and my second cousin) Robyn. Then into WHSmith (yes lots of book shops) which was actually pretty crap. Everyone at there seemed to be staring at us and it was really weird. Still, we both bought two more books then were on our way. Next stop was boots (I bought eyeliner. Me. EYELINER. I was surprised that I wanted it, and Nicola said she’d show me how to put it on.) and a bottle of perfume. Then we went into a shop called LUSH where a really weird lady (she obviously worked there) said ‘would you like to try our glittery soap? it’s free!” ”Uh… sure?” ”Good!” she grabbed my arm and lathered it in a really gross feeling concution that she then rubbed in to my skin, covering it in golden glitter. I’ll admit, it smelt nice. She did it with both arms, and my cousin got roped into having it done too.

We then stopped and had lunch at Subway (never eaten there, so THAT confused me.) Where a 40-odd woman with a seven year old daughter was yelling about how the drinks machine wasn’t fizzy, even though her daughter was insisting it was. It was quite amusing to watch. We sat down, ate and chatted some more. Then we went into Next (oohing and ahhing at the Thorntons not too far away with a chocolate fountain in the window!) where Nicola bought some more stuff for Robyn, and we took the mickey out of the ‘fashionable’ clothes. Again, a really friendly cashier. Every place we’d been in (other than WHSmith’s) had really friendly staff, we were joking about how the bus driver was bound to be a moody old cow as we strolled over to a bus stop and waited for the bus to arrive. And we were proven wrong! The bus driver was a friendly young man with curly brown hair and green eyes. On the way back we talked about her uni course to do with animals while munching on the Pic-and-mix sweets we bought. When we got back, (nearly missing our stop) we watched Moulin Rouge, and as it finished, the boys all strolled past, grumbling about how they didn’t catch anything (although Nathan nearly whacked dad with his fishing rod!)

The following evening, My cousin Becki, her husband Terri and their daughter Robyn came down to visit, followed by a huge barbeque. It was a really nice evening all in all.

The next day, we had to go home.  It was really sad. I’d miss Cornwall. I always do!

When I came home, I arrived to tons of lovey-dovey messages from him. A message from one of my friends to ‘Hurry up and get home’ and another one telling me about how they had dyed their hair brown in my absence.

and that was my time away!

Farewell for now,

-Megan

me and Nathan at the beach