Alice Alarms

Hey Sunflowers,

So I haven't blogged in a while, I've been preoccupied emotionally and well it showed in my writing, and my blog is about being happy or kawaii, and well my life I guess. I didn't want to appear as a girl with a million minimal problems, because I realise that there are people out there with worse things to deal with, I'm fortunate enough not to have to worry about debts and loans, I don't cry myself to sleep. To most, my life is pretty easy, I live in a country that tries to be fair and just, I come from two very loving parents and I'm surrounded by people who do care about me.

I suppose that's my big problem, my friends. You see I care very much, if any of my friends are having problems, their problems become my problems. I've told you before, most people use me as a emotional bin, they put their problems onto me and then they feel better. You guys will know that I have no problem with this, if this is the best way I can help them, then that's what I'll do.

Here at Uni I am very close with one girl, for the sake of privacy I'll call her Grace, to most she is this beautiful, cheerful girl who is so lovely to everyone, but realistically she's still that beautiful girl with a warm heart, but she isn't happy. She's faced many issues, that I wont name, but needless to say no one knows just how bad it is. I would worry constantly, always afraid for her well being, she wouldn't really speak to anyone about her problems, it scared me. You might say that it wasn't my problem, that I should just let her get on with it, but I can't, I love her, seriously I adore this girl, she's one of my best friends, how can I leave her to endure all her problems alone.
 After losing Alice I particularly began to worry about any of my friends who showed any signs of depression, my Alice Alarms rang, I began to think it was my job to protect them, just as I tried to protect her. Grace started to appear more and more like Alice and my fears started to increase, enough that I would randomly start crying.
But she slowly started to get better, and I was happy, SHE was happy. Everything was great!
For about two days.
Then my best friend from home broke up with her boyfriend. Do you have any idea how painful it is to stay awake with your best friend, who used to live 15 minutes away from you, but now a whole 45 miles tears you apart, until 5am just listening to her sob, to hear the pain shroud her voice. I cried with her, she's quite vulnerable, she needs love and protection or she'll feel weak and alone. That doesn't mean she is weak, it means she just needs extra TLC. This is the same girl I told you about where she was previously in a toxic relationship that she refused to get out of for a year, even though she would call me every night crying over him. She told me that she started to self harm with a lighter, burning the flesh off her forearms, she was put on anti-depressants 3 weeks prior. Again, Alice alarms start ringing in my mind, This friend has always particularly scared me to be most like Alice. But I have to stay strong, for myself and for her. She's breaking apart and I can't even hug her. I have to entrust her upon people I don't even know, Heck, I don't even know if these people exist. Since she went to university, all I have heard about is her boyfriend. All I can do is call her every night and give her my netflix password.

Most people don't understand why I concern myself with problems that aren't my own. Most people commend me on being a good friend. But personally that's what I believe being a friend entails. To listen to their problems, to love and cherish them, so they know they are wanted, that they are loved.

Even in death Alice still manages to teach me life lessons, the feelings I used to get in my gut that warned me when something was wrong with her have stopped with her last breath, but her image will continue on. She is there helping my friends, through her memory. Our friendship will continue on, in her short existence, caring for her at her lowest states, has taught me what it is to be a good friend, to be a good person. She is completely the reason why I am who I am. Her Alice Alarms ring when I am needed.
I wrote a blog in the past about what Alice taught me about life specifically,you can read it here:  http://lisarayecollins.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/alice-lessons.html

It's The End Of An Era

Now there are many things I could dedicate this blog post to, the end of term, the end of the current me and what not.

But no Lisa decides to dedicate this post to..... GLEE!

Don't stop believing! I am actually writing a blog post on Glee, now this may be embarrassing to admit to, but I realised, I don't give a crap. I like Glee! I like Rachel, actually fuck that, I LOVE Rachel!
I have grown alongside Glee, from secondary school, where Alice and I would discuss the previous episode instead of doing Gym, to morning Cory Montheith's death in the episode "The Quarterback" which weirdly enough aired around the same time of Alice's passing. When the Gleek's left high school and moved into University/College, I shortly followed. Glee has always been supporting my life in a weird way.

I know its cheesy, and we all say that in real life, no one just breaks into song, but in my life we sort of actually do, like not everyday and just to start grooving, but like sometimes in the mac room, we'll all be stressed out and working and then Zoe will put on some tunes and we'll start singing like we're in Lima at Mckinley high! Or sometimes I'll look at Philip and we'll break into a bit of Iggy, or you know you sing how you feel instead of saying it.

But Glee helped me to think of how others must be feeling, how scared and frustrated we can all feel. Sometimes we get so caught up in our own lives we don't realise others are struggling too, more so than we are. Glee taught me to think how hard it must be to come out to your family, to realise you're pregnant at 16, or to be handicapped. But at the same time, there's all sorts of characters, to represent all cliques, to show us it's not just the unpopular kids who struggle, that there's not just the sad crowd and happy group. We all hurt, we all have our own shit. Sometimes we need to unite and help one another like the kids on glee, remember how Sam had to be a stripper because his family lost all their money? The gleeks got together bought back his guitar and brought him back to school and found him a job! Okay so maybe you don't have a friend in a similar situation, but do you know someone who is in need? How can you make their day just a little bit better?

But most of all Glee taught me to fuck what others think! I am me, I love me, I'm not going to bring others down because they aren't me, yet I'm not going to be put down for being me. I thought of all the things I have said or thought about someone, why did I do those things? Society encourages us to, we have our cliques, if you don't fit in, you're an outcast, it's our duty to mock you and make you feel shit enough until you conform. NO. Glee shows us we can all be painstakingly annoying, but we all have our own unique good traits which makes us, us!

Glee was a harmless show that showed us how cruel society can be, but also how amazing it is at the same time, It perfectly showcases the harsh realities of the modern youth, yet how we overcome them as a united force.


I followed the story of Rachel religiously, saving up episodes just to watch them in bulk, I thought if she could overcome all this shit, I could deal with my own. I suppose I sympathised with her character especially after Finn's death, I felt she was portraying or voicing out the emotions I was so desperately trying to conceal. Watching her move on as I moved on made me feel much less guilty, yet when I still missed Al and had times where I just wanted to cry all over again, I felt relieved when I saw her character expressed that too.
But Glee also helped me to learn and acknowledge signs of weakness, so when I saw them in my friends I could help them before it was too late. Glee was very much a learning curb for me, it was as much of an education as those philosophy lessons we had in school.

I know people mock Glee, and call it cliche, and personally I can't watch the first season (cringes me out to see some of the old characters and their noob mistakes), but Glee was great, I mean it had 6 full seasons! But the original cast were the bomb, the 2nd cast were kinda cringy and boring, and the 3rd cast we didn't have long enough to get to know them, but I liked how we saw that all these people have their own stories, which we got to explore.
I will miss Glee, I'll miss Rachel, but I guess we've learnt all we can from Glee, we've seen the characters go through so much to get where they are, and it ended just perfectly. I seriously recommend watching the last season of Glee, you may not get it if you haven't watched the previous seasons (I think I missed season 4) but there are some serious topics in there that are worth thinking about, and some lighthearted stuff that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.
As much as I don't want to say goodbye to Glee, I have to, but it's not really goodbye, its more of a see you later, afterall..... I do have netflix ;P

Thank you for everything Glee, see you in 10 minutes as I watch the whole show from scratch again. 

No one loves Lisa more than Lisa

Hey Cutie Patooties!
So today I had such a great day! Basically it's exam period here, so all my friends have been studying non stop! But I had no exams to study for as my course is 70% coursework based, this left me alone for about 2 weeks now, looking back at it, it probably would have been wiser to go home and be with my parents for a while, rather than staying here and eating all my money. I mean my parents would have loved it, and well, I wouldn't be living off pasta and pot noodle as I am now.

But today was an especially good day for me, as my friends had one of their exams today, I know that isn't the usual reaction to an exam, but they decided that they would treat themselves by having the whole day off, which mean't LISA TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously though, before exams it was literally like "lets go out every night!" "every night is a mojito night!" Now I sit alone in my room with Netflix, watching all the marvel movies, either not microwaving the popcorn long enough so O have half a bowl of kernels or the other extreme, charcoal-ed ash like burnt flakes of what used to be buttery goodness.

But oh the joys of going out! I went shopping! Oh the splendors of shopping! First we ate in Nando's, now I don't know how strong your palette is, but I had only been into a Nando's once before, and that was for some birthday do. So I had no clue about this "spicy" thing in Nando's.

Okay, I'll give you some background, I'm half Thai, which means I was practically raised on chili's, I mean, I can handle heat! Well actually, I didn't actually know any different until I came to University.
 But my friends insisted "oh no I stick to the lemon and herb, anything above that kills me", and I mean that got me totally freaked out. So I was like, lets just stick with Medium. It claims to "hit the spot", but I have no idea what spot it hit, I mean it was mild! No heat at all. But hey, it was still good chicken. I mean, it's more like, thank fuck I actually missed meat. The two friends I mainly eat with are Philip and Zoe, I mean I more snack with Zoe on chocolate and popcorn, but I have a lot of my main meals with Phil, but they are both veggies, which means I don't eat as much meat as I used too. To me this is a good thing, before I came to university I was trying to cut down on the meat, I don't know why, but I was. I wanted to eat it about maybe once or twice a week? But my Father loves a steak and all that, so it was difficult. Now I would say none of my main meals contain any meat at all! If I'm in a restaurant then I'll have a nice steak but now when I'm cooking, or more like attempting to cook, I have to consider everyone else too (also I don't really fancy giving myself food poisoning).

But yes! Such a good day with my friends and now I feel all nurtured and LOVEDDDD!
I bought some items for my birthday outfit so I'm super excited now! I invaded my neighbours room just to float around in my dress! We share the same birthday so I was like "how do I look" again asking for love and praise hahahah! I'm so clingy!
JUST 4 MORE DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 FOR THE CELEBRATIONS!!!!!!!!
It's good to be here with my friends, nope actually, they're family, and the whole family is invited to celebrate MEEEEE!

Alice Lessons

Hey Kittens,

If there's one thing I learnt in secondary school, is that you should always live in the moment.

Tomorrow may never come, and you've wasted your life staring at a text book, when you could have been living the things you should have been learning. 

I'm not saying to not study, I mean I studied a lot, but I knew I couldn't live my life stuck in a world trapped between pages of a math book. I would rather go out in to the world, see people living, commuting to work, falling in love or feeling pain. 

I had a best friend of 12 years, and believe it or not, but I loved her more than I loved myself. I still believe she is my soul sister and that we were meant to be there for one another. 

She died a year ago, she killed herself. But this isn't going to be a sad post about depression, as although it broke me to lose her, I remember all the good things about her, for example the things that last year of her life taught me.

Her name was Alice, she was a beautiful girl with the height of 5'9, something she was very proud of. She excelled in school, in fact she spent about 5 years of her life studying non stop! It was a hassle for me to drag her out to shop with me! Aha, we used to have study dates and I'd end up convincing her bake sugary goods instead! 

But after she came top of our school for GCSE, she had nothing to study for, she realised most of that knowledge was now of no use to her... She didn't know who she was, what she wanted out of life and how to get there.

All that time she spent studying, she could have been living. Meeting people, falling inlove and appreciating the beauty around us. She told me once that she felt as if she didn't deserve happiness, that she thought she was put on this earth to be miserable, that she was the opposite of me. That some people were born to be happy and others were not. I told her, that I didn't believe that, that someone with such a beautiful smile and soul, deserved to be happy. I vowed to protect her. I knew I would do anything for her. 

From that moment on, she spent the whole last two whole years of her life well...living, atleast, she was living it by her own choice.  

Sure some would argue that she lost her way, but at least she found a way to be happy, to find out who she was and what she wanted! She no longer bore the burden of expectation and finally found that your own happiness needed to come first. Of course that didn't last, but atleast I know that she was happy at some point, that she didn't waste her life.

A week after I got the call about Alice, I started to actually think. 

I was so happy, that I was able to spend such a huge chunk of my life with her, that she was with me. That she chose me to be best friends with, she actually chose to stay and befriend the over enthusiastic weirdo that is me. That the time we did spend together actually meant so much to me, I was glad to feel the pain, because that showed how much I loved her. I was living life, I lived with her. I wasn't some drone with no emotion, I connected. 

I can't live in yesterday or that would be the end of me, what I could have done, what I should have said. I can't live in the future or I'll neglect the present, and potentially miss a chance to experience something wonderful. 

If you live and appreciate the day you live in, when you finally get to the other side , I think you'll go in peace, you weren't muling over yesterday, and you didn't miss life in hopes of tomorrow. 

Alice may not be here in present, but she's in my heart. If I lived for the moment, I can experience the world. I make a difference. I can live for her, and when I do make my grand exit in like 10000 years time, I can greet her and say  "hey, look at everything we've accomplished. We did that, together." And I can go, knowing I had a fucking great life. A life where I knew who I was, where I did something with the time I had. That I went with no regrets.