2 years on...

Yesterday marked the two year anniversary of my gran's death.

She died on Friday the 13th 2009.

I was hoping to go home for the weekend but due to lack of funds and timetable clashes I had to stay at university. Even now it's hard to prcess the fact that she is actually gone. Her decline in health and death was long and drawn out. She had been battling with alzheimer's and various related illnesses for years. In fact I had not seen or spoken to her for at least three years before her death. I still feel incredibly guilty about this. But at the time, I didn't have the courage to visit her in hospital or in the care home and see the strong, funny and unfailingly kind grandmother I had grown up with change into a frail old woman who could barely remember her children and partner let alone her grandchildren.

I love to hear stories of what she was like before I was born, before I knew her. My dad talks of her being a force to be reckoned with and the delight my papa took in tormenting her just for the sake of a giggle.

My memories are somewhat more sedate but I remember hot chicken soup, mini kitkats and bourbon creams from the biscuit tin (which was always made available during your visit) to the toffee hammer and tray which sat next to the fire place, whose lack of toffee always struck me as odd.

I remember the laughs we had about my dad's graduation photo which hung proudly on the wall of her living room no matter what house she moved to. And the china figures. I remember dad buying a new one each christmas or birthday and seeing it dust free sitting on her shelves the next time we visited. Many of those figures now sit in our home, protected in memory.

I remember her neat writing in the chrsitmas cards every year. I remember the furry rug that sat in front of the fireplace, inviting me to sit and play. I remember going to Vogrie Country Park for long walks with her, my parents and uncle.

I look at what my life is now...where I am: 22 years old, a couple of months away from graduation and in almost all respects a grown up. And I wonder if she would be proud of me; would my graduation photo have hung in her livingroom too? A friend of mine remarked recently that he wished he had spent more time talking and listening to his grandparents when they were alive. That's a truth which I now accept, if I had the chance again I would ask her everything and anything. I would have gone to the hospital and the care home, would have swallowed my stupid fear and said goodbye properly.

I am glad that in the end she was surrounded by people who loved her, in a familiar place. I'm glad my uncle performed the funeral service and showed courage and love in the way he spoke of her. I'm glad I got the chance to know her.

My first week of lectures in my last semester of university.

It is kind of anti-climactic since I only have classes on a Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. By 11am on a Thursday I'm done with scheduled learning. This is not counting my dissertation however, which I have tentatively begun but I'm sort of puttering around the starting line.

In my attempt to not get stressed by anything/very little this year I am trying to ignore the niggling voice in my head that keeps pointing out that most of my friends have now had their first supervisor meetings about dissertations whereas I have made contact with my supervisor only to be told I'm moving too fast and he'll get back to me.

But enuogh stress or attempts at avoiding it. I haven't updated here in a couple of weeks because...no real reason really. I was getting things organised for starting classes again, trying to find books for my diss and generally just lazing about. I've been learning to play pool.( being taught by my housemates) and have since made my first social outing to the student union bar albiet on a friday afternoon when it was very quiet but I like to think of it as baby steps. We spend this afternoon at the arcade on the pier then played a few games of pool in another bar (again it was empty but it still counts). I guess I'm trying to be as sociable as possible right now as pretty soon I'll be bogged down in a ton of work, my housemate will be back at rehersals and I'll not see the other two who will also be locked in their rooms writing their own dissertations.

I don't want to look back on the entire experiance of university and think I wasted opportunities to try new things and attempt in part to overcome my social anxiety issues even in small ways.

In other good news, I booked my tickets to Canada so I'm definately going in October for a whole month. I am so freaking excited by this prospect. I have a print-out of my tickets pinned on my noticeboard above my desk to remind me of the good things to come when I get so depressed over my upcoming essays that I just want to curl up in a ball and cry. I may not have a definate plan of where I want to go career wise just yet but at least I'm making plans. :)

My tasks for the next couple of days include:
- Trying to finale my group for documentary production.
-  Watching Battleship Potemkin and making notes for my diss (also possibly watching Strike and Kino-eye)
- Swimming again.
- arranging a time to meet up to give my friend her 21st birthday present.

This should be managable. :)