anecdote

Five Things I Learnt About Being An ‘Adult’

Posted on by pankeu

1. A 12-month gym membership is not going to make you want to go. No matter how expensive it is. You’ll slowly see the monthly amount drain out of your account and you’ll slowly resent yourself for not using every second of it. You would think that knowing that you’re paying for it would make you want to use it, but nah.

2. Your family replaces your friends. The moment I left Sixth Form (and there was that awkward in-between period where I was displaced and had no idea what to do with myself until I started university), my friends were suddenly sick of me. I was being stood up, cursed out and isolated. People have yet to tell me what their problem is.

So I did them a favour and removed them from the picture. I had a two-strike rule; if I could prove that you were being a scumbag friend, e.g. standing me up for drinks and posting a picture of you out with ANOTHER friend at the movies (the picture of the ticket, with the exact time and date also helped me identify how much of a rat you were), constitutes as two.

I’ve quickly found that my mother and best friend of almost two decades have become closer to me the past two years. I graduate next year and I can’t wait to officially start in the ‘real world’. I’ve found that whenever I needed support, I could rely on my mother, my cousins, my best friend and her family, who are technically my second family. I could never rely on a friend. They would almost always let me down and then selfishly turn around and ask for my help when it got sticky. I’ve become quite practiced in turning away from these fair-weather people.

3. Marriage is not a ‘happily-ever-after’. The week after Valentine’s Day, I heard stories of teenagers getting proposed to…When I say ‘teenagers’, I literally mean 18-year-olds who clearly think marriage is a fairy-tale ending rather than a serious commitment and a compromise on both parties. Marriage usually dictates a desire to start a family; a first-year University student who has just gotten on board with a commitment to a three-four year course with almost £60k in debt who is intending to drop said course commitment in order for another commitment…that’s like being the mistress, expecting the cheating husband to drop his wife for you and suddenly become faithful.

The hypocrisy is unbelievable.

4. It’s possible to be an adult and enjoy games and animated films. They always made it seem like once you hit your 20s, you have to quit playing the games I enjoy so dearly. Pop culture and Disney animated films are out of the question. What I realised quickly was that adults always make excuses to go do these things under the guise that it’s for someone much younger than them; example being my almost 50-year-old father insisting on taking my 11-year-old sister to see Frozen at the cinema. He pretends it’s for my pre-teen sister, but I know he not-so-secretly likes them too.

So the next time someone shames you for watching ‘The Lion King’ or singing along to ‘Mulan’, you remember this anecdote.

5. Being an adult means dealing with the choices you made. I know people who are wasting their lives away; some with drug abuse issues, some who can’t get themselves back into education simply because they waited too long, some who are stuck in a dead-end relationship with a kid that is growing up in the midst of an unstable relationship. I don’t think I’m better than these people, I just acknowledge that we all made different choices and some turned out better than others.

That’s what it all comes down to; choice.

The Student That Loathes Student Life

Posted on by pankeu

Thank God. I can go home every two weeks.

I live in London, one of the greatest metropolitan cities of the world, in my opinion, and I am a second year at the University of Bedfordshire. If there wasn’t an option to disappear for a weekend every fortnight, I think I’d have a mental breakdown.

Student life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be; the glamorous wake up calls at 4am when everyone is returning from the club and you, the responsible adult who has a 9am lecture and a 5pm finish, is kept awake by the revellers. I suppose I did bring it upon myself; choosing student accommodation, I did know what I was signing up for.

We’re heading into the middle of week four of the academic year and I’ve showed up to my Tuesday morning lecture exhausted – yet again. I have to thank every faceless deity there is that I have a sympathetic lecturer who listens patiently to my end-of-adolescence whining. I am sensible; I go to bed at a sensible time Monday night and decline invites to go out.

Let me make this clear; my flatmates are not the problem. We live on the top floor of a block in Lea Halls and my flatmates are possibly the kindest, cleanest, most respectful individuals I’ve ever lived with. No one plays their music out loud at ridiculous times at night, everyone minds their own mess (we do get the occasional dish in the sink, but nobody’s perfect!) and we all get on well.

The problem is that because we live on the top floor; we have one fire door, whereas everyone else has two. It does more for soundproofing than it does for security and it means that when the clock strikes four, the drunkard Cinderella’s and Prince Charmings come stumbling home, noisily climbing stairs to get to their flat.

Oh no, the party doesn’t stop there though. Then comes the sound that serenades me in my sleep; the musical slamming of doors. This amazing orchestral tune goes on until the early hours of the morning. It finally stops around 7-8am. By this time, I have gotten little to no sleep and have to down two-three cups of Nescafe just to stay awake.

Whenever I talk about it with people, they just seem to shrug their shoulders and the phrase I’ve come to dread has become a justifiable excuse for raucous behaviour amongst these nearly-adults; ‘Student Life’. Ughh.

Posted.

Posted on by pankeu

Unless you live in the woods like a lumberjack or don’t have a fixed address, you get post, right? Do you ever get the feeling you might’ve pissed off your postman?

We’ve been living at this same house for 17 years. We’ve probably had this same postman for just as long. When you become domesticated, you have to learn to be civil and polite to everyday people you encounter; the lady behind the cashier at the supermarket, the contractor who comes to fix your boiler, the IT guy that comes to install your broadband.

The social norm dictates that you invite them in, offer them tea or coffee, make meaningless small chat and then shrivel away into the background and let them do their job.

Taken from ‘Google Images’.

In the UK, we don’t have mailboxes, so on a daily basis (except Sundays! No post on Sundays!), we hear the mailbox flap open and close loudly. Our postman, however, seems to have a slight attitude issue. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out a reason why he slams his fist against our door obnoxiously, at the ungodly hour of 8AM to deliver a package. The doorbell works fine. So does knocking like a human being.

I’ve begun to dread hearing “There’s a package going to be delivered at,” so-and-so date and time because it means keeping an eye out for these rude awakenings.

I wonder who HIS postman is?

Flaky Friends.

Posted on by pankeu

Getting stood up sucks, right? But do you know what’s even worse? Getting stood up by a friend who has known you for a decade. Getting stood up by a friend who has know you for a decade and hasn’t apologised. For a month.

I wish I could say I was being immature and that I was overreacting to my friend’s first offence, but this friend is a repeat offender. Time after time, I have been disappointed by this friend, who has run out of excuses to cancel and now is resorting to simply avoiding me.

This friend, we’ll call them ‘X’, called me up a month ago and said:

“Hey Naomi, let’s go meet at ‘Z’ in 20 minutes?” (It would take me 15 to get there and I was already dressed. So sure.)

I get there and I’m waiting at the train station. I call ‘X’ over and over again and the phone just seems to ring on and on without anyone having any intention of picking up. I sigh. It’s happened again. They stood me up. I called X before I left and they told me they were already there. I heard another’s voice on this phone call and I knew that X wasn’t alone.

So what did I do? I walked around the area, went into a few shops, occasionally checking my phone to see if X answered or even sent a custom “I’m sorry!” text, but to no avail. I was window shopping for about an hour or so when I decided to go to McDonalds. I was hungry and alone, so I thought “Fuck it.”

It seems the stench of being stood up followed me all the way up the front entrance, to the cashiers and to my table because it seemed that I was having a pity party of families watching the sad, lonely girl eat by herself.

The worst part?
‘X’ either doesn’t realise or doesn’t care that I’m upset; I got another text, probably trying to pave their way into making plans to break plans.

Sorry, X. This time, I’m turning off my phone.

Daddy’s Cure.

Posted on by pankeu

It’s strange; when I’m in my moods (which is, to my annoyance, becoming more and more frequent), I tend to frustrate my parents. They can’t shake me out of my surly attitude and they get annoyed and lash out at me. This time was different.

My dad is the only one here at the moment (SEE; Missing Mama) and he did something remarkably out of character; he cheered me up. It was something as simple as dancing and singing along to my Bob Marley playlist, while handing me a big plate of chopped up chouriço assado.

My dad and I have a strange, rarely-strained relationship that, over the years, has grown slowly so we hardly ever clash any more. At least, not to the extent like it used to be.

The Results of Nostalgia.

Posted on by pankeu

TL;DR: I was bullied by two teachers from GCSE-A Level that jumpstarted my anxiety attacks. School sucks and university is not that great.

WORDS: 1,502.

Ahh, A Level Results Day. You can almost smell the panic in the air as students are grappling with each other to get a place at university. It takes me back to August 18th, 2012 when it was my turn to panic. I stayed up the whole night before online, feverishly sharing my anxiety with fellow students on The Student Room, a forum for students.

I spent hours checking out every possible avenue until I had a game plan for each possible outcome. It was hard to maintain a positive attitude when adrenaline was being pumped through your veins.

I was running on fumes (which seems to be about the only consistent thing about me) and a few litres of energy drinks. I arrived at my sixth form at 7am, wearing a peach and black fitted dress, a cream cardigan  and beige boots. I remember spending hours picking out what I was going to wear to say ‘Sayonara, suckers!’ to everyone at my school.

Yeah, needless to say, I really hated ‘W’ School towards the end.

When I first started AS Levels, I was highly optimistic and couldn’t wait to FINALLY be treated like an equal by my teachers. I had chosen Media Studies, Film Studies and English literature and language (which was two courses combined into one). My teachers for Media and Film were okay.

I loved Mr E. He was highly passionate about Film and it showed. He talked 100 words a second and I always brought a notebook with me. His word was God to me. We quickly established a witty rapport; he would greet me with “Oh no, here comes trouble!” when I walked into the classroom. Our class was intimate and small – a full house usually meant about 15 people and by the end of Christmas break, it got to about 10 of us. By June, there was 5 of us.

All three classes were taught by two sets of teachers. Film was taught by Mr E and Miss D. I already had a bad relationship with Miss D from year 10 (age 15?) until I finished her class in year 11. She had some vendetta against me and even though I got an A in her class, she still had it in for me.
Granted, my work ethic wasn’t exactly the best, but I was passionate and willing to learn and listen. It seemed that all she wanted to do was embarrass me and humiliate me in class. I dreaded going and as a result, the anxiety attacks started.

I remember the first full-blown one I had; I was sleeping on the top bunk in my room and I sat in my bed, bolt-upright and looked at the ceiling and thought I saw a rat running across it, circling the lampshade. I screamed for help and my mum came running into my room, tried to calm me down but I couldn’t stop screaming and screaming. It was the night before my media exam and Miss D had instilled full-blown panic in me. Luckily, the panic wore off, at least for a year or so.

Miss D calmed down around the second, and last year, of A Level.
We later found out why; she was engaged to be married and was leaving us…in the middle of our exams. The exams that determined whether or not we would have a future.
You know, no big.

This act of selfishness didn’t surprise me. She had a long history of being malicious for self-purpose. One day, while Mr E was teaching, we were told a woman would be coming in to talk to us and we would have to be on our best behaviour.

A small nervous blonde woman timidly walked in and gave us a talk about our exams, asked us questions and delivered a lesson with a PowerPoint presentation. The head of our year, Mr W sat in on the lesson, which I think only made the poor woman more nervous. She later became our substitute teacher. She was the most down-to-earth, sweetest woman I ever met.
She was everything a teacher should be; inspiring, encouraging and open to ideas.

Miss D was a horrible teacher, but she was by far only the second-worst teacher I ever had to deal with during my A Levels.

Miss P was a short, angry woman. She played up to the ‘feminazi’ role as much as she could. She was our English teacher and also second in command of the English department. The first time she met me, in year 10, (what is wrong with teachers and 15-year-old me?!), and I was sitting in the back of my homeroom, in the reading area my tutor set up, with a book, quietly reading. She pointed me out to my tutor and said

“That one looks like a trouble-maker.”

I looked up, raised my eyebrow at my tutor and she shrugged. She had no idea either. I don’t know what happened, but Miss P warmed up to me from year 11 onwards. She had a bad habit of having favourites and everyone knew it.
Miss P was also wildly racist – to Turks. She had a weird fetish for black students. I heard stories of her openly flirting with male black students, and of course, they played up to it; who doesn’t love an ‘A’?

Anyway, the favourites. If you were her favourite, you would get a front-row seat in her class; she organised it so there was a ‘special’ table and if you were sat there, you knew you were special and the other kids hated you for it. She would give me books (she must’ve realised I was bookworm and promptly made me her favourite after reviewing my coursework) and pull me aside for ‘private’ talks about my future career in English.

I don’t know if it was me choosing media/journalism that disappointed her and made her drop me as a favourite (I won’t lie; it was nice not to be her target for a while) or if it was the fact that I didn’t play up to her like the others did.

The mood dramatically shifted. She began striking terror into me. The anxiety flooded back.

One day, an essay was due. This was the fifth one she had asked us to do in two weeks. I was already exhausted; for media, we had to write, plan, film and edit a soap opera trailer, along with writing up over 50 blog posts on the project, for film, we had to sit and analyse three different films.

All were due around the same time. So needless to say, my priorities were a little shifted. I wasn’t going to complete an essay that wasn’t going to be graded and let my other work fall behind because of the ego of this woman. I realised that she didn’t even look at the essays. She just looked at whether or not we blindly obeyed her.

So, that day, I realised that out of a class of 20, only 4 had actually completed the essay. She locked her laser sights on me and told me to get out of her classroom. I went quiet for a moment. I looked at her and asked why only me? I wasn’t loud, I didn’t say a word to anyone when I walked into the classroom, I pulled out a folder, books and a pencilcase, but she only picked on me.

She repeated “Get out. Go to the stockroom and do that essay.”

I quietly packed up my stuff. The classroom was silent and bristling with tension. I was steaming inside. All of them had made the same mistake I had, but I was the only one being punished? As I got up to leave, I saw my long-time friend of 14 years, James pack up his stuff and push his chair back to leave with me.

“Sit down, James.”
“I didn’t do the essay either, shouldn’t I leave too?”
“No. Sit down.”

He sat down fuming. He stared daggers at her. She pretended not to notice and gestured to the door at me. I walked out and I didn’t go to the stockroom. I went right to the Sixth Form office and made a formal complaint. This was bullying. I was being bullied by a teacher.

She didn’t even offer a reason as to why he was special. Why the whole class was special and exempt from punishment.

Needless to say, the school stood behind her, despite there being records of complaints dating back for years. Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Really Care About Us” comes to mind.

So that’s my story. It didn’t really lead anywhere, except for the fact that I am now at university and dealing with a lecturer who gives me anxiety attacks. Another story? Perhaps. But we’ll see how that progresses.

Missing Mama.

Posted on by pankeu

My mother is a proud half Angolan, half Portuguese woman. She was born in the capital city, Luanda and emigrated to Portugal and then to London in the late ’80s-early ’90s. She works feverishly hard at the Angolan embassy based in Central London as a visa co-ordinator. Needless to say, she gives out the “Angola is a beautiful country” speech at every opportunity she can get.

This year, she took my eleven-year-old sister with her back to the Motherland for a month. My sister is part of this new generation that can’t survive without WiFi, her iPhone (I wish I was joking, she honest to God has an iPhone with a contract. Around the time she got her iPhone, I was dealing with a shitty Nokia Smartphone wannabe) and her DS. God only knows why she took all her electronics with her; it’s not like there’s tons to do in a foreign country she’s never been to before. I worry about her sometimes.

Back here in the UK, my brother and my dad, who has, over the years, become less of a father and more of an older brother figure (you’ll understand why) are my roomies. I am the only woman in this house. You know what that means? Man stink and leaving the toilet seat up. Yup.

My brother is eighteen and finds out tomorrow morning (7am sharp!) if he got the grades required to go to university. I Tweeted ‘My mum is not in the country so I will be taking her place in beating my brother with a wooden spoon should he fail tomorrow’ as a joke…Yes. A joke.

So despite their questionable hygiene and my brother drinking ALL my juice (clearly ignoring my passive-aggressive post-it notes), it’s kind of nice just living with men. The house is quieter. My mum has a habit of waking up super early and shrieking from the top of her lungs. I honestly don’t know where this woman finds the energy, but she manages to be loud, morning ’till night.

The silence was a little unnerving at first; it felt a lot like this house was haunted (and I’m still not quite past trying to convince my dad to let a priest come check it out), but I grew to embrace it and enjoy my alone time.

My mum comes home on the 31st, and I leave for Portugal on the 5th of September, returning on the 17th, and then immediately after, moving back to University. I moved back home in May and the past four months have been a rollercoaster, and it’s come to the bittersweet “I’ll miss you, but I need to have my space” goodbye that I’m so not looking forward to.

There is a word in Portuguese which has no direct translation in English and there is no other word equivalent. This word is ‘saudade’, not to be confused with ‘saúde’, which means ‘health’.

Wikipedia describes it best;

“It describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic or deeply melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves.”

Tenho saudades de ti, mãe.
I miss you Mum.