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Posts concerning my transition will be friends only, if you want to read them just comment below. Say where your from and I will add you. Or if I add you first feel free to add me back.

( The Person behind the Username )

Me and smoking have an odd relationship. I think it is disgusting and nasty and it is also the only thing my dad would really hate me for. I understand why, his father died from lung cancer when my dad was only 11 so I can understand why he dislikes it so much. I am also allergic to the smoke it makes my asthma terrible and the smell of stale smoke is foul (however fresh smoke is not as bad). However despite this I also think it is really cool looking and I am severely tempted to try it. Although I have a very addictive personality and the last thing I want is another addiction to deal with and worry about relapsing on. Many of the people I know and hang out with smoke so I'm around second hand smoke a lot, although I try to avoid it because I don't like my clothes to smell of stale smoke later. I have several friends who smoke yet hate smoking and smokers which I always think is interesting and intriguing.

As for rights well in this country we have the smoking ban. Which I love, I no longer have to take my inhaler with me when I go out to eat a meal or when I go to a gig. Previously the smoke would have meant that I could have needed it (I never seemed to need it though, except when I forgot it). Although I will miss watching those skilled people roll their cigarettes in a mosh-pit with out dropping any tobacco. I don't miss the smoking in restaurants or the occasional burn I got from those rolled cigarettes. Of course the downside is, when I go outside almost anywhere to get some "fresh" air, it is know filled with smoke. Some people argue that rights have been infringed on but I'm not sure, I guess in some ways they have, but I'm happy with how things are (but then I'm a non-smoker so I'm biased to that side). People have the right to smoke but I also think I have the right not to have to breathe in said smoke, if I choose to hang around with smokers that is a very different thing. I would never tell them to put their cigarette out just because I was there after all I don't have to stand outside in the freezing cold (it's winter right now) with them.

I went into town today because I needed new toothbrush heads and I hoped I could find them cheaper in town then in the supermarket nearby. While I was in town the Reading Scottish Pipe Band were performing, they were collecting sponsorship for the World Piping Championships. I love the sound of bagpipes so I stood and listened and felt strangely patriotic to a country that I hold no closeness to and my family hasn't for several generations. Still I feel close to the very vague amount of Scottish related heritage I have. Made me want to learn the bagpipes again, which is strangely convenient because the university has a club for just that. I just didn't join because this year I am in halls and the last thing I think people want to hear is me attempting to play the bagpipes at odd times of the day. That and I don't know if I could find a kilt that wasn't made of wool, a wool allergy is very inconvenient. So that's on my to-do list for second year, I thought it might be good to write down some of these slightly bizarre goals that have accumulated in the past couple of weeks.

• Learn to fence
  
• Learn to play the bagpipes
  
• Learn to play the saxaphone
  

I also have the other goals that can be found on my fitness blog, one of my friends has decided to join me in my quest to run the entire distance across Canada in two years, which means that four times a week we have to run around the edge of campus three times. It is going to be hilarious to do that.

I finished my NaNo novel yesterday, I typed out the last 7000 odd words in a couple of hours, much to my annoyance the story finished a little short of the goal so I was going back and adding in sentences here and there. I won't look at it again for a while and I doubt I'll edit it but I feel happy knowing I accomplished NaNo for another year.

Yesterday was two things, Transgender Day of Remembrance and the Homophobia is Gay bar crawl. As I suspected the LGBT society here made no mention of TDoR at all and nobody had even heard of it and Reading is filled with homophobes. Also turns out that a committee member of the LGBT society has been saying things about me. Of course nobody is actually telling me what he is saying apart from the fact that it is bigoted crap, so of course I want to know. If he needs educating about trans issues then I would be more than happy to talk to him about it, instead of him saying whatever the hell he is saying. It turns out he doesn't really know much about LGBT issues or diversity, which makes me wonder how he got on the committee in the first place, I would have thought that knowledge would have been required or at least given. I keep hearing the phrase diversity training for this person, so who knows what the hell he is saying.

At the bar crawl people were complaining how hard it was to be gay in this town, normally I agree, but yesterday I was very pissed off and was tempted to shout "how about being trans and gay?", but seeing as I'm too cowardly to be out about being trans I kept my mouth shut. At one of the bars a girl asked for my number, I don't know if she thought I was a really butch lesbian or what, but I don't like girls so I had to turn her down. I still feel bad for that, ah well I'm glad that people think I'm attractive.

Apart from that I'm coming down with some throat/cold infection thing and that means my legs and feet keep cramping, it always seems to happen when I'm sick. It happened twice last night making it nearly impossible for me to walk or move without being in a lot of pain. Nobody noticed which is pretty normal and also I was the only first year. This seems to be regular occurrence, I keep meeting only first year PhD students and then second and third year students at all the clubs I go to, I don't mind but I feel like I am being awkward as everyone else seems to know each other.

This update makes uni seem like a depressing place, I guess I'm just feeling a little down because it was TDoR yesterday and I'm shocked at how many people had died this past year, that and all my binders no longer bind as well so I need to buy new ones as my chest is looking more obvious again.

Tonight I went to a vigil in Trafalgar Square in memory of all those people who have died of hate crimes. It was wonderful, although anyone could turn up it was mostly people from the LGBT spectrum (as those were the specific hate crimes). I also went to a Youth@Pride meeting, I've never been involved in any gay group type thing before. But I want to try it, I'm used to people knowing what my sexuality was because I had a boyfriend for such a long time. But now I'm read as straight. I am aware that I don't portray many of the stereotypical gay male stereotypes so tonight as I stood at the vigil I felt invisible. I don't seem gay enough and I occasionally feel like an imposter in gay spaces, even though I know I'm gay. It's an odd thing but I'm not going to act camp because I'm not. Many of my role models in life are straight men, almost all my friends are straight. I've picked up those social cues and therefore I seem straight. I don't mind because I am still very afraid about being out. We live in a fairly good country but in the last few weeks people have died or been seriously injured at the hands of teenagers. That scares me, I don't handle conflict well so I tend to avoid it. Conflict is a trigger for my panic attacks and that is the last thing I want to worry about. I'm proud of my sexuality, I'm thankful that I can be open about it. I enjoy things that are seen as "straight" and I only hope that it doesn't prevent me from finding another partner some day.

Now to the vigil, it was lovely, touching, sad and so many other things. I never realised so many politicians were openly gay. The speeches that people said were passionate and heartfelt, people were shedding tears. I saw young and old people, people who would have fought back in the 70s to be able to hold their partners hand in public. People like me who can forget how much easier it is for us. I also gay men like me, the kind who seem straight, who aren't camp. Jokes were told, songs were sung, so many candles were light. They arranged them to spell out "No To Hate", someone had even carved a pumpkin with the word "Proud". Although my feet hurt from standing up for a few hours I'm glad I went. I also wished that I had, had someone to share it with, someone who I could have held hands with, someone who I could have hugged. When the some names of those who had been killed were read out two names stood out. They had the surname and the first name of my old boyfriend. We were never very open about our sexuality, we didn't hold hands (the height difference didn't help), in some ways I regret that but I also felt that he would be safer from the possibility of hate crime now. I also wish I had a boyfriend because tomorrow is a Saturday, and Saturday means is a day when we make our relationship visible. I have no one to hold hands with tomorrow, the message at the end of that speech was "Live you love".

November is approaching and that means I attempt NaNo again, we'll see how I do. It also means I'm likely to disappear off most of the month. So it will be pretty quiet on here.

I have become addicted to this song.



Also on an unrelated note if you want to see a stupid video with my old bandmates in which you can hear my crazy British accent go here.

Life gets a whole lot easier some day... right?

Okay there are several bands who are on my to see list but these are the main ones. Unfortunately they never play in England or so it seems. These bands are Breaking Benjamin (who apparently will never go out of the US), Three Days Grace (who seem to skip the UK) and Poets of the Fall (who also skip the UK when they tour in Europe).

I am very tempted to go and see Poets of the Fall in Germany, we shall see. I am also tempted if I could ever afford it to go and see both Breaking Benjamin & Three Days Grace in America. Their tour with Seether last year(?) was a dream tour for me, I love all three of those bands. Of course I couldn't afford to get there.

One band that are always on my must see list are Rise Against and I have seen them three times now, in fact my first ever gig was a Rise Against one. Seeing as they come to England a lot I'm not tempted to go to far to see them. I would also go and see Runrig again as they were amazing.

Hmmm, a tricky question. I have friends that I barely speak to that I have known since I was six. Our parents talk more often then we do. However the last time we met (3 years ago I think) we had an awkward moment in which I remembered that his voice had dropped and was a lot lower then I recalled and then we were talking like we'd never left. Christopher is still someone who I would consider my best friend even if we don't talk often. We share a lot of things in common like both being very good at reading, playing Dungeons and Dragons and hating uncooked tomato in anything. However moving away does change friends, you make new ones and quite often you do end up not talking as much with the old ones.

So out of my new friends the one I have known the longest is Meera, she is a good friend. But I'd say my best friends are Oliver and James. Dating Oliver for three years and over four months means he is a very good friend of mine. In fact we have even more in common then Christopher and myself had. At the same time that I started dating Oliver, James dated Anna so we ended up with a rivalry over who would "win" in staying together. People considered that if both couples were to break up then then end of the world would occur and there would be no hope for anyone. So it's all down to James and Anna for the salvation of the world. But back on track, Oliver and James are insane, they have been best friends for eleven years now so by meeting one I met the other. I love their insanity and the fact that I fit so well with them. James goes to the same university as me. I would like to hope that I can keep in contact with these guys as they are my closest friends and I'd like it to stay that way.

About a month back now (or even earlier I could be wrong) Stephen Fry wrote a blog in which he described the process of writing for him - his involved getting up earlier and earlier until the task was done. A wonderful thing in the summer as the light is there. I began to think do I do anything particular as a writer? Took me a while to work out but yes I do and it varies upon what I am writing. I feel like sharing and also so that if I am still writing in the future I can see if my method ever changes.

I'll start with poems, I rarely write them and I never feel they are very good as I can't get them to rhyme. I am of course aware that rhyme isn't everything but every time I've entered a competition for poetry all the winning entries have rhymed and so I have stopped. It almost seems like if it doesn't rhyme it isn't good. I write poems differently to prose, I normally get one or two lines stuck in my head and go from there. Occasionally I go online to use magnetic fridge poetry (I'd love a set in real life but it is very expensive) to get those ideas. "Eternity, deep down" is an example of magnetic fridge poetry starting it off. To date it is one of my favourite poems and one that I actually think is a decent piece of work. I also like to write haikus and spend time making them up. In fact for a month I wrote a haiku a day saying things that happened. When writing a poem I rarely listen to any music, instead I work in silence like a man possessed with an idea that is exploding out. Occasionally I will come back and add to a poem, especially if I am stuck with a verse or few lines.

Prose is a whole other idea. I come up with lots of characters and I can't draw to save my life so quite often a quick character will have a rather detailed story and back history. I can't help it I create characters more often then I should and they become important and need to be explained. Various characters (often the main ones of certain stories) have certain music to go with them. For example Alaban (main character of "The Dawn of Kin") has music like Allele, A Perfect Circle, Tool and Staind to inspire me when I write about him. Other times whole stories have music. "Real Revolution" has Rise Against and The Flobots. On a few occasions some stories just have one song, "The Forests of Asinka" is an example that story was written listening entirely to "You Know My Name" the Poets of the Fall cover. So when writing prose music is important, sometimes lyrics become distracting so I have a whole load of instrumental music to write to as well.

The other thing when writing stories I tend to start early and depending on how inspired I am I keep going late into the night, this repeats until I either finish or I run out of inspiration. It can take a long time for a relatively short story to be written or occasionally no time at all.

The last thing that happens is I end up staring out my window as I type and I make only a few mistakes with my typing. I also type very quickly and tend to backspace whole sentences or word to correct a small mistake.

So tomorrow will make it my first week at university and so I bring you this post of interesting things. Split into sections under cuts because I feel like it.

( Accommodation )

( Food )

( Social )

( Academics )

I am also passing well, granted as a 16 year old but that is a vast improvement on the previous 12 or 14 I used to get. Now it is the weekend and I have nothing to do, so I might head into town later and explore the Oracle because we moved before it was finished being built. But before I do that I took this quiz and got this result:

So tomorrow morning at nine-thirty I am heading off to university, in all honesty I'm scared more scared then I have been about anything. It seems surreal I still feel like I should be heading off to sixth form. I also know I should be looking forwards to university and in some aspects I am. I'm looking forwards to just being Ethan, but that also scares me... I've never just been Ethan and I have no idea if I'll find people who'll like him. Also being single again means that I get the joy of trying to find someone who would want to date me. My mum ruined my confidence - without meaning to by telling me that only lesbians will be attracted to me. I understand where she is coming from, she still can't see me as her son but still, luckily I pass well. The biggest thing I'm looking forwards to is being vegan. I can finally be vegan, I will tell mum but a few weeks in. I'm already trying to work out what to do for Christmas lunch, never done it vegan before. The other thing is the kayaking club at Reading and going on a hunt to find where I used to live and show it to my friends.

So my journal will either go deathly silent for the next few days/weeks or be very active depending on if I get time to myself (I hope so, I need a lot of private time to myself to keep myself from having panic attacks).

I hope I don't have a panic attack in the first week, although knowing me I might.

So far my most inspiring teacher has been my biology teacher who I had for four years. Not only was he a great teacher he really helped me out, outside of the classroom with all manner of issues I had regarding my transition and school life.

He also has been the most amusing teacher, he is the only teacher who has attacked me with a skull to show the rest of the class how the animal hunted or he used me as examples of how to work out the mass of my body minus the water.

I love camping, it is pretty much my favourite way to spend a holiday (minus a self-catered cabin in a forest near a lake), so a weekend camping sounds great. Especially if the weather is going to be nice and I go and camp somewhere nice with great hiking spots or a good place to kayak or even just an interesting forest to explore. Camping also means I can cook my favourite foods rather then trying to deal with set menus and set eating times. Breakfast time is the one thing I hate about hotels, I always get up about an hour before my family and I have to wait for them getting very hungry before we can finally go and eat breakfast.

However I do like staying in hotels, especially if there is a pool. If I could stay in the hotel I stayed in, in Vancouver I would be very happy. It had a pool and the room came with a kitchen so I could eat something before breakfast. I also swum before breakfast and in the afternoon. I do love swimming and I missed out on the first part of the holiday. Also it was a on a wonderful street with lots of shops selling wonderful food so if you didn't want to eat at the hotel I could go and get almost anything I wanted and eat on the beach.

Hmm so do I prefer tent or hotel? I'm not sure, in spring, summer and early autumn I would choose a tent. In the winter I'd probably pick a hotel only because my tent has seen better days and really needs pleasant weather to stay upright and not get everything inside it wet.

Depends on how bad it is, it takes a really bad cold to make my actually consider resting. I'm very foolish when it comes to illness normally because a lot of important things need doing when I get sick. However despite not resting I do try and drink plenty of water and eat even more fruit. Mint tea or smoothies help when I have a really stuffy nose as well as mint smelling tissues. My friends tell me I should whine more and lay in bed but a cold isn't really that bad, even when I had strep throat I didn't rest until two weeks in and I could barely move - in my defence I didn't know I had strep throat I just thought I had got a cold from starting a new school year. It was only when my joints basically seized and I had a puffy rash that sort of itched I went to the doctor. If I'd left it much longer my kidney's would have started to become damaged. So I have tried to learn from that experience and listen to my body more when I get sick. Still a cold doesn't really warrant laying around and resting for me - unless it's the weekend.

I got round to uploading and editing my photos from my camping trip, the colours came out really dark so I had to make them look sunnier - because most are from the day I got really bad sunburn. I thought I had but sun cream on those parts of my face and neck but I was wrong, even the places that I know I put sun cream on still got a little burnt. My pale skin isn't used to the strong sun of the south of England.

The holiday was great, I hunted for fossils, went to an air show, tried to skim stones and camped in the rain for the first time. I have been extremely lucky concerning the weather whenever I have been camping before.

Anyway the photos can be found here let me know if they can't be seen then I'll link to somewhere else.


In other news which most people consider unhappy I am single again. I broke up with my boyfriend of over three years, the relationship to me felt more like we were best friends and I'm happy to remain as good friends with him.

I'm off camping tomorrow and am hoping for good weather. Looks promising so far, cloudy but warm and sunny until Tuesday when it looks like rain. I'll be back on Wednesday.

I have very generous family who have been helping me find things that I need for university, my grandma searched her cupboards for old towels, plates, cutlery and other bits and pieces for me. My aunt works at Argos and at the staff sale she picked up more things that I might need, including a really deep purple coloured bowl and plate set. Some of my things look a little girly because some of them belonged to my mum, we were looking through some of the towels and my mum recognised the ones she used when she was 10. I don't mind, I can't afford to buy that many new things. My granddad gave me £1000 to spend on whatever I need and he will give me £1000 each year I am at university. My dad is giving me the clothes airer he took when he left and will probably have to take me down to the university as my mum will probably have to work. Despite the massive help from my family I still haven't got everything I need so I'm making a little list so I don't forget to get these things.

( Under Here )

I woke up bright and early this morning and then promptly fell back asleep and didn't get up again until around half nine. I then went onto the internet to check to see which university I am heading to. I'm off to Reading to study zoology. With this I guessed what grades I had to have got - 1 B, at least a C in biology and a passing grade in chemistry. So I head down to school after congratulations were passed around facebook. Get my envelope pull out the paper that tells me my grades and what I got in each exam. I did get my B and I did just pass chemistry, however I got a D in biology (off a C by three whole marks). I laugh at this because I managed to prove that apparently grades mean nothing to them. I got the 300 points I needed (consisting of 2 B's, 1 D and an E) but I needed a C which was lowered for me. I wrote a good personal statement and that meant they wanted me despite my low grades. Still I didn't think they would take me on a D no matter how close I was. The average student will be on my course with an ABB, I'm there with a BBDE. Still I don't care, I passed all the A levels I sat, I did three undergraduate degree level course things with the OU and passed all of them so I think I'll do fine despite the massive difference in grades.

Figured I'd show off some of the design ideas I had for future tattoos. The two armbands won't be happening for a while and if I could work out where I wanted the other one I'd get that a lot sooner.

( Right Armband )

( Left Armband )

( Imperfect Cadence )

There is the possibility of more designs to come, I'm not sure yet as I have an idea that needs a lot of work to even make possible.