New Year, Same Me, Different Attitude

I'm in a large bus, listening to Paramore on repeat as we wind along the road past a clear blue lake, and a backdrop of incredible mountains.I can't help but feel so lucky that I am able to see this landscape. That the sun beating down keeps the plants alive, which keep us alive.In this moment, I couldn't hate or fear anything.But I am on this bus to go and do the scariest thing I've ever done in my life.Bungy jump.

2014 was a year filled with experiences. Swimming with dolphins, whale watching, a skydive, white water rafting, black water rafting. But this? I'm setting my year up to be full of exciting and scary experiences by doing this.I want this year to be full of fear. Full of fear that I will face head on and push through and only eliminate it by feeling it.I have defined my life for so long by things I like and dislike. A lot of it is dislike - I am a known grouch, a killjoy. I don't like the commercialisation of birthdays, or Christmas, I really dislike Valentines Day. I don't like meat, fish, egg, milk, cheese, mushrooms, Brussel sprouts and oranges. I can't stand snow, and I'm not a fan of winter, rain or wind. Or if it's too hot. I don't really like sand, and I don't like getting in the sea all that much because it's generally cold and wet, and I do not like being cold or wet. I especially don't like being cold AND wet.
And I really dislike being scared, and I have a fair few fears. Dying, losing my loved ones, being lonely, being rejected, being broke, being hungry.But these dislikes and fears, if I and when I experience them, I know I can handle it. I was wet for 3 days on Fraser Island. It sometimes snows in Britain - I do not break out in hives and fall apart, I just wrap up warm if I have to go outAnd if I am rejected...well then that job/man wasn't meant to be. I can handle it.

**For all the thing that you're alive to feel,Just let the pain remind you that hearts can heal.**

I'm on the bus back from the bungy jump.I'm seeing the same scenery, listening to the same tune on repeat.And tears roll down my cheeks.I am happy.I stared fear in the face and it blinked.And I feel like I can do absolutely anything with this life I've been blessed with.

A New Daily

Today was my first experience of the new daily newspaper 'i', brought to us by The Independent. It's basically a condensed version of he Independent, sort of like the Metro, which rips articles from the previous day's papers and puts them in one paper for commuters to read for free. At least, that's the impression it gave to me.
It was an easy read, I browsed and I find more than one article particularly interesting. In today's edition was an article critiquing the new film The Social Network, or more to the point, critiquing the society Mark Zuckerberg has created: 'They are forging a culture in which words are things you vomit out onto a keyboard - because without the keyboard, and the screen at the other end of it, the words are nothing - and one in which an experience isn't real until it's been ratified by a photo, or a tweet, or an "update" that your "friends" can gasp at.' (Christina Patterson, My View, 27/10/10)

She has a point. Why do we sit at our computer's, updating and tweeting, almost as if we have nothing else in our lives? It is so unheard of for someone NOT to have Facebook, and even people who don't see the point in Twitter are still signing up because their friends are encouraging them to do so. There are millions of blogs just like this one, that document the writer's life because they are so desperate to write it all down and make the experience real. Whatever happened to writing in a journal or diary? Was it just a predated version of the blog? They were more private, but now we feel free to write our hopes, our fears, our tears of sadness and joy on the internet for all to access. Is that evolution?

The Social Network was well-written, well-directed, well-acted and well-edited. I doubt it will win an Oscar, but it will be nominated for awards because it tackles something that everyone is involved more and more in, and people like films that tackle "real issues" (although the issue here is probably whether or not Facebook was a stolen idea and how the man behind it is an "asshole", rather than how our culture and society has developed and moulded around the Internet and its endless possibilities).

I will be seeing Paranormal Activity 2 tomorrow. I was extremely scared by the first one. And it's taken some persuasion to go and see the sequel. But I am currently reading Feel the Fear... and Do It Anyway, so I'm doing it anyway.