Issues of Gender and Identity.

Not for me, I'm 100% on both - well, gender, at least.

Instead, the case of 18 year old Caster Semenya, the female runner being tested on suspicion of being a male.

For a woman, especially a woman of 18, identity is something which is still being determined. As a successful sporting personality, Semenya has been subject to media attention and pressure which most would find it difficult to deal with, and to now have to face, due to a breach of confidentiality, millions of people who ask if she is really a woman would be demoralising and upsetting.

However, in the public eye, Semenya has proved to be strong and unwavering in her identity (not as difficult when you know you are indeed female), in a way which surely proves that her gender is not to be questioned. Recent tests found her testosterone levels to be around three times the 'normal' amount for a woman; and yet testosterone levels are one of the least conclusive tests for gender as they can vary so widely.

What is perhaps the worst aspect of this story is that she was told to be tested because she ran a race at an extraordinarily fast pace. To consider that this must mean that she is a man is frankly offensive, and something which shows the extent to which women are still considered weaker and inferior to men, and which proves that gender equality is something which is still far from being achieved.

Sq.

"And what we had wasn't really what we'd come to expect"

The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip.

When I said I'd be gutted if I 'had' to go to my 2nd choice uni, I was forgetting that how you imagine things is hardly ever how they turn out.

At 7.45am (Nobody woke me up) I checked my results; while they didn't meet my first uni offer, they are damn good, and fine to get me into my 2nd choice. Imagine my surprise when it seemed,according to UCAS, that my first choice uni had accepted me regardless of my lower grading? While I'm sure that anyone reading this will have heard my tale of woe a few too many times, basically I was mistakenly told I had a place when I didn't. When I found out, my heart skipped a beat, or two, or maybe three, I ran around like a crazy person, and then picked up the phone. The next two days were spent tirelessly trying to sort everything out.

The best thing to come out of it? Probably that I'm now not going to an incompetent university. My insurance choice has been extremely helpful, have handled the situation well and have made me so impatient to get there that I have almost forgotten the ridiculous trauma of those three days of panic. I say almost; I don't think this is the end of it.

Anyway, what an anti-climax. What do I do now? I just do not know. Maybe I'll just type a blog, listen to some music and start making a list of things to take to uni... Yeah. That sounds good.

Sq.

The comforting ache/Of the summer holidays (doesn't exist)

(Maximo Park - The Kids are Sick Again)

They said I'd miss it. They being mum or someone, maybe even me. I guess I knew I'd miss it, because at the end of the day, the summer holidays are bullshit after 3 weeks.

You think 'YES! This is the rest and relaxation I get for all my hard work, I can finally do everything I've ever wanted to and life will be perfect!'. However, deep down, you know that the longer it goes on, the harder you're going to have to work to keep yourself from falling off the edge of late nights and late mornings, days in pyjamas watching DVDs and listening to music, occasionally reading books and planning when you're next going drinking.

Today, I think I faced up to the fact that the summer holidays, whether it's because it's not very summery, or because I live in one of the least exciting places in Britain, or a combination of these and other factors, are in fact like a disgusting Pergatory. Especially this one, where I am waiting for results which will change my life completely. I just began typing an essay, maybe to prove I could, maybe to bring back the feelings.

I have stoped part-way through to tell you this; I am sat in my kitchen, in the same place I wrote most of my coursework, with an empty mug (previously containing my coursework-encouraging fruit tea), music on in the backgroud and facebook open in a different window. Suddenly, I'm not so worried about Thursday (results) - maybe because my brain has tricked itself into thinking it can still change the outcome, thinking that this will be an award winning essay that will get me 100%, or perhaps because I know that I still love doing this, and that no matter what results come out, I'll go somewhere and get to do it for 3 years.

This is not to say that tomorrow, I won't stay in bed until 2pm again and not get dressed until half 3; this is not to say that I won't be terrified at 6am next Thursday morning, and that I won't be gutted if I have to go to my second choice uni. But it is comforting. And that's something.

Sq.

Square sounds inspiring Square words.

Hello.

I had a brainwave. I don't know if you've noticed, but I title a lot of my blogs with lyrics and song titles. I also often reference certain songs.

So, I thought why not convert my blog into a playlist? I searched all the songs mentioned since the start of my blog, and the ones I could find (which is most of them) are now available to you with this link:

http://open.spotify.com/user/frenzyy/playlist/5gRVCAo6rL36AU1cQFk3zX

If you don't have Spotify, then you really should get it, it's free and will let you listen to all those albums and songs you always wanted to but couldn't afford to.

Enjoy the sound of my inspiration!

Sq.

And it looks like we might have made it...

Nothing can stop me loving Blur, and Graham Coxon. With every listen, Happiness In Magazines and Love Travels at Illegal Speeds (Coxon solo albums) get better. With every listen to Parklife, I am drawn back to my earlier years, way before I had any idea of how good the music was.

I started at Parklife, in the back of the car on a rainy Sunday, no doubt being dragged to some place of interest to my parents. I made my way, through the charade of Steps, through somewhere I can't really remember, to Franz Ferdinand, Maximo Park, a brief dalliance with The Ramones and The Clash, over to Klaxons, CSS, Shitdisco and Hot Chip. I stayed around there for a while, gathering Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, The Velvet Underground and Lou Reed with me, to emerge, and haul myself back to Parklife, by way of Bon Iver and Bloc Party, The Horrors, and a load of other stuff. Enough syndetic listing. (Or is it asyndetic? Who cares anymore...)

This summer I seem to have drawn myself into a personal experiment; now, with most past-times and hobbies, I am fervently interested for a few months, maybe years, and then slowly give it up. The only exceptions have been writing, and music.

Due to the availability of pretty much all the significant music ever made, I have been listening to as much music as I have free time in the past month or so. It has tested my love for sound; I have sometimes felt that there was literally nothing I could happily listen to. I have felt that music I have long loved is too superficial to withstand the over-listening; but, over all, I have become even more addicted to 'listening'.

Time doesn't seem well spent any more unless there was a good noise in the background.

This is a good thing.

Sq.

Switch

Douse the air with laughs and breath, beer and drinks and this and that, we'll play a game and I'll make my eyes tell you everything, in my language that I always hoped you understood.

Back in the place where it began, with the warm inside and mirrored walls. Light bounces off the glass and the eyes, the speckled interior with stars and pictures.

This is the spell to turn back time.

Sq.

Plans.

I started writing this blog a long time ago. It used to be humourous, poetic, creative; it then morphed into a diary, or self indulgence and ponderings. It's often cryptic, often personal, and often not worth reading unless you have a cipher to decode the words with.

And that's not right. A public blog, which I encourage people to read, needs stories, opinions, something more than just me rambling on like I do all the time.

I watched what I wanted from this blog disappear from view.

Here's to watching it come back around again!

Sq.