Homework, The NoSleep Podcast and Writing.

So it's been a little over half a year since I last wrote something here. Life kind of got in the way... I was supposed to blog about the summer but I kept putting it off and before I knew it I was back in school and starting on the path of GCSEs and they had us drowning in assessments and homeworks which was so much fun. In the first week I had a difficult time adjusting to my new classes and schedules, but that never lasts long and the fact that there were numerous more assessments in this first month than we had last year is making me feel as though I've been in school longer than I actually have. It feels like it should be January. It's horrible, I hate that feeling. It's like waking up and thinking it's Friday, only to feel crushing disappointment when you check your phone. Not good.

I also feel like there's no breathing space between homeworks now. Last year there were usually one or two days a week when you wouldn't have any homework to do, or you could at least afford to put a few homeworks off until the next day, but now if you don't do a homework the day you get it they very quickly pile up as they just keep coming every day. Eventually you'll be crushed if you don't know how to manage your time well. There's never a day when I don't have to write at least two things down that I have to do for the next day, and then just when you get tick a whole bunch of completed stuff off your list you get another whole bunch of stuff to add to that list. It's a never ending cycle of stress and tears, it's just beautiful.

No matter how much homework I have to do, I always find time for the NoSleep podcast. This is my new obsession. I had become almost completely absorbed by stories on Reddit NoSleep shortly before I discovered the podcast, but it becomes very difficult to focus on reading stories online when you spend most of your day surrounded by other people. I would start reading a story on the train on my way to school, and would then spend the rest of the day itching to finish it. But I didn't want to walk around with my face glued to my phone, and ignoring people at lunch time just to finish reading a story definitely wasn't an option either. So the podcast is perfect. They basically take all the greatest stories from NoSleep and get awesome narrators to read them with great sound effects and really great background music by Brandon Boone (definitely check his stuff out on bandcamp, it's great to study to).

Listening to stories on a podcast is so much easier than reading them from your phone. I listen to it when I have any time alone or I have to walk somewhere. It's a nice break from listening to the same Blue Oyster Cult albums on a constant loop. Also the narrators have amazing voices. They are all such talented voice actors, but it wasn't long before I had pegged three of the narrators as my favourites; Jesse Cornett and Jeff Clement (who both do a lot of amazing work on Chilling Tales for Dark Nights, which is also awesome) and also Peter Lewis. They each have such different voices but there's something about each of them that makes me want to listen to them talk all day long. I sometimes download episodes I've already listened to just to have one of their voices in the background if I don't feel like listening to music. So, yeah. I think it's safe to say I might be slightly obsessed with this podcast... And yes, I do realise I sound like an advertisement. But no, that's not what this is.

Another major thing in my life right now is my writing. A while back I found a story I wrote when I was about five years old and it was, uh... interesting to say the least. But it made me think about how much my writing style has changed and developed in 10 years. I want to do something to, I don't know... mark the milestone, I guess, of  a decade of creative development. So I'm working on a story at the moment, and providing it goes well and I finish it before Christmas I was considering recording a reading of it and my old story and putting them on my youtube channel as a sort of "Then vs Now". I want to do something different with them other than just posting about them, and I think recording a reading of them would be cool. I don't know... That may not even happen, but it's a nice idea to me. We'll see how that goes.

I was going to end this by talking about Halloween, but you know what I changed my mind. I think we all know that I could write three ten page long essays on various aspects of Halloween and how much I love them, so I'm just going to say that so far my only plans for Halloween involve going to see a horror movie and I'm pretty excited. Let's leave it at that before I go off on one about everything spooky...

Here's hoping my next update won't take six months for me to write.