Onwards!

So, as most people will have seen by now, my Series of Escalating Dares endeavour has sadly been cancelled. My dad is having surgery in the middle of that very week, and I both want and need to be at home with him and Ma. I'm disappointed of course, but there will be plenty of other opportunities to raise money in the future, and in the meantime, potential sponsorship can be directed elsewhere! My housemate Ross is running the BUPA 10k for UNICEF, and you can sponsor him here, and my (very brave!) friend Tom is doing both the London Marathon and the Three Peaks Challenge in aid of the Bobby Moore Fund, which donates to colon cancer research, and can be sponsored here. Brilliant guys, amazing causes.

Elsewhere in my life, I am hurling myself headlong into other projects, and am thus hijacking my own blog to pimp out my newest project. Myself and Dr Chris Montgomery at the University of Sheffield will be presenting a paper at the i-Mean Language and Identity conference in April (eee!), looking at accent and identity in the Potteries/Stoke-on-Trent accent.

That's where you (might) come in! We need as many Stoke folk to take this accent survey as possible - it only last about five minutes, and is completely anonymous. If you're a local, please do give it a go, and if you could share it with friends and family too, that would be amazing.

Thanking you kindly!

End of year 2012 -- feelings and joy

So, 2012, in many ways, has been an absolute shitter. Like, the worst. 2012 can basically go and fuck itself, all told. HOWEVER, I really don't want the crappy parts of the year to be the things that stay with me, as there was a huge amount of joy too, and I'm still incredibly lucky. I learned a lot, had some brilliant adventures, and generally enthused about a lot of stuff. And so, to finish the year in the only way I know how: a sentimental blog post about the things that were great about 2012.

My family
For obvious reasons, it's been a really tough year for the Leaches. But it's important to take good things from bad situations, and if there's anything I've learnt from all this shite, it's how to properly appreciate my incredible family. I know they say you can't choose your family, but even if I could, I would absolutely pick mine again and again. They strong and smart and fun, supportive and sweet and ridiculous, and the most wonderful stone cold pack of weirdos I could ever hope to ever share my DNA with. It shouldn't take family disasters to make you realise how much your parents and siblings mean to you, but I'll take it.

Pop music
I don't have a particularly 'cool' taste in music and never have, but 2012 was the year I finally, properly said 'balls to that' and decided that I don't give a shit any more. There's a longer, more ridiculous blog post in the offing on this topic, but in short, I could not care less that I love pop music. McFly are one of my favourite bands. Call Me Maybe is one of the best songs of the year*. One Direction's album is pretty damn excellent. Stuff it all - I'm a teenie bopper for life and I care naught for judgement. (Ohhh, you just wait for my soundtrack of the year. Consider yourselves warned.)

One thing pop music is good for is remembering that somewhere inside us is the potential for unvanquishable joy." — John Darnielle

The Olympic and Paralympic Games
I didn't really have anything above normal Olympics-based excitement before it all kicked off, but as soon as I watched that magnificent, barmy showstopper of an opening ceremony I was hooked, and swept away on a tidal wave of sexy patriotism and crying over medal ceremonies. The celebration of working class Britain, the of endless dedication to a cause, of sportspeople not swathed in scandal and corruption. Wiggo's sideburns, Rutherford's fingers, Farah's Mobot and a veritable army of fierce, fantastic ladies doing themselves, their families, and the nation proud. It was a summer of staggering world achievement, Britain in the spotlight and a kind of enthusiasm and community spirit that's been in decline lately.

image source

I'm going to attempt a brief top-five Olympics highlights, but it's really just five brilliant Olympics moments off the top of my head and there are probably a million I've forgotten. But anyway:

1. PAPA LE CLOS
2. Tom Daley's medal celebration
3. Epke Zonderland's bonkers-incredible high bar routine
4. Mo Farah doing the lightning bolt, and Usain Bolt doing the Mobot
5. Obama and McKayla Maroney doing the 'not impressed' face

Also, the Olympics brought us the joys of Ryan Lochte's twitter and general existence, which I will never not find entirely hilarious. WAKE UP AND SMELL THE GARDENS.

Stoke-based epiphanies
Better explained in this waffly business here, it's been wonderful to find a kind of purpose for my academic future. I want to analyse the shit out of Stokie speakers, their accents, how their speech is entwined with their cultural history, and I want to do it forever and ever amen.

Thinking about things
As has been evidenced in a fair few ranty blog posts, this year has been one for me having feelings about things and issues and serious business stuff. Well, I always have feelings about things, but 2012 has been a year for paying attention to what people are saying and writing, learning from them and trying to take it on board, as well as trying to speak up when I feel the need. The Internet is full of informed, sensible, tolerant and smart people, and I can't even begin to list the articles which have made a difference to my opinons about a wide range of topics. I hope 2013 continues the trend of reading everything, evaluating my beliefs and opinions, and trying not to be a dick.

Colours!
It's an odd one, but those of you who know me will know I have the fashion sense of a colourblind clown, aka. ALL THE COLOURS ALL THE TIME. This has...escalated this year, and my cornea-burning fashion sense has gotten more and more ridiculous. And I love it. I honestly don't feel myself when I'm not wearing some kind of obscene colour combination. It's actually gotten to the point where excellent friends will tweet/text me when they're wearing a particularly colourful outfit and it's marvellous.

Enthusiasm
Seriously, the only thing that has got me through this monstrous year is being able to be enthusiastic about little things - a new episode of Doctor Who, a trip to the beach, a pub quiz. I'm so grateful for the fun stuff I get to do, for the opportunities I'm given, for the people I get to spend my time with. I'm a lucky bastard, all told. Thanking everyone individually would be time-consuming/self-serving/boring, so I will just go for a blanket THANK YOU to every single person in my life. I love you all. Yes, even you. And especially you.

Here's to 2013, all!

*This justification of why Call Me Maybe is the song of 2012 is absolutely brilliant. "This is what pop is for, right? A Canadian Idol refugee nobody ever heard of conquers the planet with a diabolically brilliant blast of teen lust"

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Having handed in the last of my mid-term assignments on Friday (following the aforeblogged nervous breakdown one of them induced), I thought I might get a few days of respite before the workload kicked in and I was once more flitting in and out of my house so often my housemates started to wonder whether I was merely an apparition.

I suppose, technically, I did have a break - my parents came to visit over the weekend, celebrating their anniversary up Yorkshire like and stopping in to see me on the way. Aside from being crushed in the Christmas Markets on Saturday (York town centre + weekend x Christmas = NO), we had a thoroughly enjoyable weekend watching the football, catching up on family gossip and imbibing every kind of mulled cider my delightful town centre had to offer*.

I'd kind of forgotten how good it is to spend time with them. I think being at home last year ruined me a little - I was frustrated and caged and a little bit angsty, and they felt rejected and unable to help, which made for an occasionally prickly year for all. (Don't get me wrong, I wasn't Houseguest From Hell, but they were often aggravated by my choice to spend most evenings holed up in my room, laptop on knee, trying to pour myself into the screen in order to forget that I was living in Stoke for a few hours.)

Living away from home makes things approximately a billion times easier for us all – we had a proper, family weekend, and it reminded me what tip-top people they really are.

However, as soon as the week proper kicked in, I realised that – in reality – I had more to do than ever. Presentations to plan, birthdays to celebrate, directed readings to, um, read. Sometimes it feels a little like being tied to a skateboard, if you'll forgive the ghastly analogy; it's preposterously exciting to be zooming from place to place without stopping, always on the move, but occasionally – just occasionally – I get a little scared, and want to stop, just for a moment.

The people that seem to be suffering the most are my longer-term friends, which crushes me. I spent my last, rather lonely year forging the most incredible relationships with some of the best girls I've ever known, and not being able to speak to them on as regular a basis makes me want to gnaw at the furniture – I get withdrawls! I'm hoping that my discovery of Google Calendar and its ensuing organisational effect on my life will enable to me to schedule people in a little better. Not that I want to have to 'schedule' my friends into my ~social/academic butterfly~ existence**, but I do want to make sure I get enough of these excellent humans in my life. You know who you are.

However, I am exceptionally lucky to have met some utterly marvellous people up here in York, people with whom I have bonded at a speed and intensity I've never before experienced! I've never known such a sweet, smart and thoroughly lovely bunch of people, and the fact that we're all postgrads gives us all a much-needed support network, wherein we can cry on each other's shoulders over our workload (as I did last week), and celebrate each other's successes (such as the lovely Becky kicking intellectual arse and winning a place - as captain, no less - on the University Challenge team!). At risk of it going all wanky and tragic, having so many wonderful people around is a rather new feeling for me, and I'm absolutely cherishing it.

Another lovely evening was had last night, in which my poor put-upon housemates finally found a few hours where I wasn't holed up in the Berrick Saul building and could spend the night Christmasifying our humble abode. Too Much Fun was had by all, and while mine and Steph's haphazardness might have infuriated the perfectionists Cath and Emma, the result was a living room of festive wonders.

Yup, that's The Muppet Christmas Carol on in the background.

And to celebrate? A Christmas dance party, of course.

GOD we're cool.

*SO MUCH MULLED CIDER. Finally, the non-wine drinkers among us are vindicated with this warm, treacle-y deliciousness! Personal snaps for the Rekorderlig mulled cider with vanilla and cinnamon – I could quite happily drink myself into oblivion on that shit.
**ahahahahaha, whatever.