The 12 Days of Christmas 

By A Disgruntled Retail Worker.

12 People Queuing

11 Bells a' Ringing

10 Angry Customers

9 Screaming Children

8 Photo Jam's

7 Colleagues Crying

6 Parents Fighting

5 Thieves a' Stealing

4 Tills are Crashing

3 Offers Failing

2 Scolding Managers

And Me In A Corner Rocking.

Merry Christmas!

Like Me? Entry 7.

Day. 7.
Last login. 1 week clean.
Mood: Better.



Dear Diary,

After some much needed time off from work (at the boss's request) I am feeling a lot better. Its been a week since I last logged in. At this point in my experiment, I am not missing it. I do have more time on my hands. One thing I have noticed is (which I need to be careful of) is to not substitute one app for another. What would be the point of me giving up Facebook if I am only going to spend all my time on Tumblr? I have not slipped. There are 15 notifications now on the app now. I have also received an email from Facebook telling me someone had commented on my status, and yet I have managed to resist. It may sound silly, but I don't spend all my time staring down at my phone anymore, which means I am looking about and seeing things around me. I have captured some truly beautiful shots on my phone from my walk to work. 

Yes Facebook is great if you want to keep in contact with people. Its great to share things with each other. But on the downside, we probably do spend far too much time looking down. We need to learn to look around us once in a while. I may live in a dank little part of greater London, but there really are some beautiful things out there, you just need to look for them. 

I don't see myself going back to Facebook any time soon. Maybe in the distant future. But right now, I am more tempted to delete the app entirely.

Like Me? Enty 6.

Day: 3.
Last Login: 3 weeks, 2 days, 6 hours, 14 minutes and 32 seconds.
Mood: Alice In Wonderland.




Dear Diary,

Things have started to get weird. I think I have snapped. I have started imagining things. Things that cant possibly be true. Can my boss actually be a vampire? It all fits. Cold demonic eyes? Yes. Drinking blood? Yes. (Although when I questioned her, she said a strawberry smoothie) Sucks the life right out of you? Yes. Maybe that's just all management? Maybe I am creating my own memes in my head? Who knows the truth of it. Will keep you updated on the Vampire boss, if she doesn't get to me first. Wish me luck.

Like Me? Entry 5.

Day:2.
Last Login: ??
Mood: Lonely.



Dear Diary,

Dear anyone. Is anyone out there? I feel so alone. Where are you guys? Has anything happened recently? I mean yeah I could watch the news but there doesn't seem to be a cat segment? Or new memes? There is just like....News and stuff. Its so depressing. I miss the light hearted relief of Facebook news. I miss the annoying views of my annoying Facebook friends. I have been talking to the boyfriend more, still trying to figure out his mood. I find myself staring into space...my hands at my side. Just hanging there. They look so sad. I don't know whether the world has continued. I hope so. I hope so.

Like Me? Entry 4.

Day:1.
Last Login:  A lifetime ago.
Mood: Gollum



Dear Diary,

Today has been hell. What was happening on Facebook?? All I see when I look around me is people on their phones, staring down laughing at their crotch. I should put that as my status. No Alice! Resist! What was I missing? Was their a new cute dog GIF going around? Did that girl I knew 6 years ago have her baby? WHAT WAS HAPPENING??? The notifications have increased. There is two now. Maybe someone is in trouble and they need help? Yes Alice sure, their first port of call would be to send you a notification on Facebook.  Get a grip woman. I need someone to slap me. I have thought of so  many funny things today, but there was nobody to hear them. I felt like standing at the front of the bus and announcing one, I don t think people are ready for that yet. My cats didn't appear to be that interested either in what I had to say. I am an  interesting person aren't I? YOU like me don't you? DON'T YOU? I need help. My partner will be able to offer some support I'm sure. Before I even started talking about my day he tells me...”I've joined Facebook...why is your eye twitching? Alice?”  Why? Why is my eye twitching? If I cant have precious no one can. Is he effing serious? This is it, I cant, I need to know what was happening. I took out my phone, and pressed the app. Somehow, my thumb missed that familiar button. And again. I put the phone down on the table. Clearly a higher power was at work now, a power that needed me to stay off on Facebook. To do something more with my time. This is the moment I decided to take up smoking. No I jest... Well lets see how the rest of the week goes. Gollum needs his rest now.

Like Me? Entry 3.

Day: 1.
Last Login: 15 hours ago.
Mood: Scared.


Dear Diary,

I am at lunch now. Work has kept me pretty distracted so far so that has been good. I am on break now though. Break-times for me would usually consist of me sitting on my phone, reading for the latest status's that I may have missed. But I'm not allowed today. No Alice must stay away from Facebook. So what options does that leave me with? I was going to have to...talk to real people. People that were mere feet away. They could touch me if they wanted to. I decided to try and brave it in the canteen. I gently opened the door and it gave out a loud creak. Faces greeted me. Some had welcoming smiles. In those smiles, was the remnants of their lunch. Their green leafy lunch smiling at me. I stood at the door, unsure how to greet these people. They stared at me. I stared back. My first reaction came. It was a smile. Good. Good reaction Alice. Try and mimic their emotions. Their eyes screamed “ Join us” as their smiles started to dwindle. With great trepidation I clutched my lunch to my chest as I walked to take a seat opposite one of them. They carried on with their lunch, so I started unpacking my sandwich and crisps. This wasn't too bad. They didn't seem to be interacting with each other. Good. This is good. I relaxed and started eating my lunch when suddenly one of them started talking to the others about a particular article they were scrolling, sorry reading through in one of the magazines. “What do you think, Alice?” Shit. What do I say? “ERM...I like this” is all I could manage. It seemed to be an okay answer. Good. Well done Alice, you interacted with someone. Talking to people was difficult. They didn't wear their life on a necklace round their neck.  I had no idea how they were feeling or what was going on in their head. How on earth did we manage this without Facebook? I'm scared.

Like me? Entry 2.

Day:1.
Last login: 11 hours.
Mood: Groggy.

Dear diary,

This is going to be tougher than I thought. I've just woken up and the first thing I thought of doing was checking Facebook. Before I even pee'd. One eye wasn't even open properly. There I was lying horizontally on my bed, still drooling onto my pillow, with my thumb hovering over my phone with no place to go. I wonder what that notification is for? Did someone like my last status? It was pretty funny, I deserve likes. Oh God, its started already.

 I managed to resist. I must stay strong.

Like Me? Entry 1.

Day: 0.
Last login: 4 minutes ago.
Mood: Pretty positive.

Dear diary,

It's Sunday, 20:21.

I've decided to give up Facebook. I recently read somewhere that the key to happiness in life is apparently not being a member of Facebook. Who knew? So  I am going to give it a go and see if the key to happiness isn't through inner peace, but is actually through not being a member of the Facebook massive. If only someone had told Buddha? The plan is to see if I can give it up for a week, maybe longer?  Just wish I hadn't left such a good status, I can already see a notification! It can't be that tough surely? I'm far too addicted to that little "f" app on my phone, probably will find myself with loads of time on my hands now! Well I'll keep you updated.

A world Without Facebook.

Two weeks ago today, I gave up something that took up a lot of my time. Something I was very fond of. I would spend a huge chunk of my day browsing through everything it had to offer. Why would I give something like this up you ask? Well...because it DID take up too  much of my time! I lost hours of my day by going on...Facebook. We have all been there, first off we start by looking at our profiles, then to a friends, then to one of their friends and before we knew it we have delved so deeply into that friends past that we could tell them their own family history. Its not just that though. Something funny pops up on our feed, we click the photo, oh look there's more photos to scroll through! Yet again, before we know it, its been three days since that first cat photo.


I have been an avid Facebook user since 2006, and with each new and updated phone I got, my obsession grew, and yes it was an obsession. I would wake up and the first thing I would do would be to check Facebook, before even saying good morning to my boyfriend. Sometimes I didn't even realise I was doing it, it was like my hands had a mind of their own, I would reach for my phone in the middle of watching a film or eating dinner, or talking to  people. The thing that made it worse though was that 99% of the time absolutely nothing had happened since the last time I checked it. My boyfriend would always moan about me on my phone and at the time I didn't see the problem with it. I was still spending time with him wasn't I? No, of course I wasn't. I was in my own little bubble laughing at the latest meme or watching someone have an argument with their next door neighbours best friends dog.


So it has been two weeks now. The longest I have ever been away from Facebook. What have I noticed so far? My boyfriend seems to be an interesting guy...should get to know him more. I joke, although I do feel like we do spend more time together, we talk more, and I share more with him, where as before anything that would have happened to me I would put all over Facebook, sometimes before I had even told him what I had done that day. Will I go back to it? At this point, I'm not sure. I am over that initial OMG what the hell is happening on Facebook stage, and to be honest I don't really feel like I miss it at all. Sure I don't know all the little details about someone's break up, or what that guy had for lunch... but I'm still going, the world is still turning.


I have written a series of diary type entries that I will be posting over the coming days. This is where I have documented how I have been feeling over that first and second week, there may be a SLIGHT exaggeration in my entries, I'm not entirely crazy.

A tribute to New York.

She was alive. At least  in my eyes she was. Her attractive skyline; curvaceous and alluring, an intoxicating sight for the most sluggish of travellers. She was iconic. One of a kind. At night she lights up for all to see. The “Big Apple” had always had a starring role in my dreams, my leading lady, and now after years of torturous waiting, I was finally here.

Her heat hit me hard in the face like a wayward brick at a builders yard. My face tingling, my eyes stinging trying to adjust to my new and exciting surroundings. I was encased. Engulfed. Surrounded. My eyes gradually looking up at the towering buildings, trying my hardest to absorb it all. Was it always this loud? It was such an assault to the ears. I felt as if I was stuck between two marching bands. Symbols crashing and drums thumping.

Her heavily congested veins of traffic adding to the monumental chaos around me. People shouting and screaming, cars swaying and screeching, rushing people to their next adventure. The Brooklyn Bridge, the most famous of all her limbs, always moving and swaying to the flow of traffic.

Lady Liberty standing tall and proud, carrying a bright beacon of hope, guiding travellers into her welcoming arms. Its hard to imagine what a sight the Statue of Liberty would have been for people seeking a better future in America.

Boom boom, boom boom, boom boom. Times Square is pumping. Shops more like nightclubs, street performers singing their hearts out as if they were centre stage of their own Broadway hit. Even the tackiest fast food restaurant had a queue of ravers outside waiting to get in. Neon lights, jarring to the eye. Screaming look at me! Over here! Like a small child jumping up and down obsessed with attention.

She is fantastic at hiding her flaws. Although every now and then, you get a glimpse at her imperfections; the stains on society. “Don't look at that man sitting on that bench; dirty, cold and hungry. Look at the flashing lights, look at the shops, look at anything else! Don't stare too deeply into my eyes, that is the one part of my body that I cannot hide.”

The tranquil, serene greenery of Central Park, vastly different from any other aspect of the city. A man made haven, surrounded by chaos. A place to breathe, to relax, to stop (if only for a minute) before putting on your war paint and heading back in to the pandemonium.

Yet sometimes, there is an eerie silence as you walk her streets. She is still in repair, still healing. Her two front teeth have been knocked out and each time she smiles, you are reminded of her former heartache. She wasn't the same after that day, a day etched in her memory till the end of time.

She has been knocked down and beaten up, yet she still stands. When she rests, she is still working, still going, never sleeping. She is a drug to all that see her. You will never forget the first time you meet.

End of the world...AGAIN??

Is it the end of the world again?

According to self proclaimed prophet  Rev Efrain Rodriguez, the world is going to end in the next week or so. I know right, I have so much planned.

Mr Rodriguez, who has written to NASA warning them, (so that's good news for us) saw a “vision” of an asteroid hitting Puerto Rico with devastating results for this world.

This prophecy has gained such a following online that NASA was forced to release a statement saying that the chances of an impact around that time or within the next few hundred years were next to zero.

Paul Chodas of NASA's Near Earth Object Office said “ There is no scientific basis, not one shred of evidence, that an asteroid or any other celestial object will impact the earth on those dates”. Sounds pretty sure for a guy that didn't have a vision!

So with the (not) end of the world approaching, let me ask you this. If life was to cease to exist, there was no tomorrow, would you be happy with the life choices you have made? Have you made your life count? Do you have any regrets? I know there are things I would regret, not seeing more of the world would probably be my number one. I guess we really should lead each day as if it is our last, because you never know, it could be.


Read the full article here!

                                                 Here is a photo of a cat to cheer you up!

 

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Too young for a midlife crisis?

So you may be asking yourself why should you start reading this brand new blog? Have a little read below and see what you think.

I can't decide whether I am having a small midlife crisis or my "adult chip" has finally activated in my brain, either way I recently started to panic. Where is my life going? I should be happy. I am in a great relationship, I have a roof over my head and food on my plate. So what is bringing me down ? At the moment I am working in retail and I hate it! This is not what I want to do for the rest of my life! THIS is getting me down. The thought of walking through the corridor of doom at work just fills me with complete dread. So recently I started thinking, what do I enjoy doing? What would make me happy? Sadly I couldn't answer my own question. I went from being a child and having different hopes and dreams every other week to being a robot, doing the same mundane things every single day. Maybe this is part of being an adult? Who knows. I just know something needs to change within me and fast.

So I thought back to when I was a child and asked myself what did  I enjoy doing? What did I want to be when I was a "grown up?" My results always came back to the same idea. I enjoyed reading. I enjoyed learning new things. I enjoyed writing. I still very much enjoy all of those hobbies. So over the last couple of weeks I have been thinking about the direction I want my life to take, where do I want to be in a years time? Or two years?
I've decided to try and become a writer, and before you say it, i know it won't be easy to do, but what is? Why shouldn't I  be one of those people that love their job? So I'm going for it! I want to write articles, I want to write stories, I want to write about anything and everything!

So now, on my 26th birthday I have decided to write this blog. I feel like I am on the verge of a very exciting year, big things are coming and this will be a great way for me to document it.

In around two weeks I am starting an English course at my local adult education centre, which I am very excited about. I have also started to write my very own short story. It's still very much in the early stages, but I hope to put up my first extract in the next couple of weeks. It would be utterly amazing to get some feedback on it! I will also be writing articles on current news stories from my home in the U.K to news from all over the world. Also any stories that happen to catch my eye.

So to sum up my original question, why should you start reading this? Because this blog is going to be my journey over the next year, cliché and cheesy I know. It won't be pretty, and I am still very new at writing so there will be mistakes. But maybe you have stumbled upon this blog, its late at night, you can't sleep, maybe you are asking yourselves the same questions? Let's make the next year count and grab life by the balls!

So thank you for reading my ramblings and I hope you enjoy my blog.

Stick with me, I might surprise you.