yikes hey world, it's me again. It's been long enough really. Honestly, the era of my #life when I used to write daily seems like some kind of misremembered dream, the sort that lingers after you wake up, bleary eyed and shrinking back into the safety of the duvet to escape the chill. I know I've done several of these 'oh wow i used to write things??? wild.' posts, but the mild amazement I experience every time I log back on never seems to fade. Past Bethan had serious commitment to this and apparently she wasn't afraid to be cringey as hell. In a way, it does feel more like second hand embarrassment to read through some of the stuff I've written, as if I didn't experience it directly the first time. I guess that's what time will do. It does scare me a bit that the same thing will happen to the memories I'm making right now; how much of 2018 Bethan will remain in the next five years? How much of myself will twist and contort into new forms and how much of it will pass by the wayside and be forgotten? Or will I just stay the same? I definitely feel more like a fully formed human than I did at 12,(I mean, I hope I'm slightly more self aware at least) but there's still so much left to do. Like a tetris board that just keeps getting bigger- I keep adding little blocks, and sometimes a row will vanish, but the screen just zooms out more, there's always more room to fit extra bricks. How long the zooming lasts is the main question- and if it does, will I have to start removing blocks to keep building? Or will that wall remain standing and unchanged, my personality fixed in time? Forced metaphors aside, I guess how much of current me will be left in a few years time depends on what I class as 'me'. I am in no way qualified to make any judgement on this matter really- if all the philosophers and scientists haven't come up with anything by now, then it's unlikely we'll ever get anywhere conclusive with that question. The nice thing about your own sense of self though, is that it's really up to you to define it. The space inside my own head is definitely shaped and squeezed by the world around me, but I think it must, at least on some basic level, stay fundamentally the same. I'm an incredibly introspective person. I tend to live inside my own head a lot, so I'd like to think I know myself pretty well, and that there's something intrinsic in there that makes me knowable. But then I'll read diary entries from years ago, #poems and stories penned by a young girl looking for answers and she seems like an entirely different person to the woman currently typing this. Maybe I just added more layers, or maybe stuff had to be swept aside for new traits and mannerisms. Honestly, I'm not sure. And really, I don't think that I mind that much. If current me isn't fully here in a few years then that's okay; there's definitely a lot about me now that I'd love to change and work on, and I don't think I can do if I keep thinking of myself as an unchanging entity. I'll still be me, just (fingers crossed) better. I just hope that future Bethan isn't cringing too hard at all this pseudo-deep crap. In other news, I've just started my second year of uni and am currently avoiding all the new responsibilities by reading old #poems and thinking too hard about things. It's nice to be back, to settle back into this weird Adult-#life lite TM, where my major issues are lab reports and talking to cute girls as opposed to the sense of meaningless that summer can sometimes bring. It's too cold here, but my laptop on my legs is a welcome warmth, and a not so welcome distraction- I really need to start cooking tea soon! Sometimes it's just nice to still down and shout into the void for a bit, and save a tiny bit of your current self for later reference. So thanks, void, and maybe I'll see you around sometime soon, Bethan

thoughts in the quiet You can tell it's the weekend on campus. There's that slow, creeping quiet that forms a muffling blanket over the flats, a comfortable contrast to the frantic energy of the week. #life slowed to a crawl as students drowsy from hangovers, or late nights spent studying, emerge blinking from their blocks only when necessary. It's strange to live in a place with so many people, and yet only see one or two others when you go out for a walk. It's nice though. I enjoy this quiet, broken only by the distant rush of traffic, the calls of water birds. Something about the crisp autumn air lends itself particularly well to creating this kind of atmosphere- it does, in a way, feel like putting on a warm jumper against the chill, a cosy silence to wrap you up. I do tend to get more introspective around this time of year, a product of the peace I guess. The glassy surface of the lake reflecting not only the growing sunset, but also myself, the worries and concerns that I find fade a little after a while outside. The quiet outside is met by several indoor silences, the excited buzz of freshers replaced with a comfortable ease, or a sharper lack of words, as flatmates leave washing up on the side, and passive-aggressive notes on the fridge. I'm lucky that I get along with my flatmates, though we don't see each other often; the busy schedule of a physics degree not leaving a lot of time to hang around the flat. It's not the close-knit community that it was at the start of the year, but I wasn't expecting that to last anyway. The connections I've made with people on my course, or in societies, based on shared interests rather than a situational necessity will last longer and grow stronger as time goes on. I'm excited about that- excited to share more comfortable silences with people close to me.

Reflection About five years ago, I stumbled upon an app on my iPod- Opuss. Little did I know at that stage that it would consume so much of my #life, and become so important to me. It's strange how things that were once so central in your #life slowly slip out into the peripheral, eventually drifting out of view entirely until they're left to collect dust in the corner of your mind. This is what happened with Opuss- or rather, #life happened and Opuss was left on the wayside. Honestly, I had almost completely forgotten about the site younger me had obsessed over, the drafts of unfinished stories saved in various files on my laptop the only reminder that that part of #life had ever happened. That is until last week, when clearing through my spam emails, I came across one from something called Opusia. It sparked something in my brain, and suddenly everything came back to me. It took me a few minutes to reset my password and log back in, because come on, who remembers a password from 2012, and younger me was entirely not responsible to write that stuff down, and then I was in. Rereading everything I'd done, the #poems and the stories, the competitions and the projects, I was shocked. Not in a bad way, I was just surprised at how confident I was on this platform. posting openly and honestly about myself, participating in the writing competitions and even trying to set my own up! Having become someone who tends to shy away from making a show of myself on social media, the presence I had back then was surprising! Looking back on it, the freedom of being able to write anything I wanted, to explore the pretentious teen angst and the developing crushes in an environment with the supportive anonymity of Opuss probably had quite a large influence on me growing up. I've definitely grown as a person since then (time tends to work that way!) but even reading the things I published in the few years I was active on Opuss, I can see the progression, and see how events in my #life had in turn influenced my writing. It's strange to be able to see a whole era of your #life played out in fiction before your eyes, and I'm thankful I have that chance. Opuss was incredibly important to me, and I guess in a way it still is, this rediscovery opening up a window to the past I didn't have previously. I am a nostalgic person. I like looking back, I like seeing how much I've grown, seeing how events that seemed like the end of the world eventually fade into the background. The past offers me clarity in that sense, and perspective, but it's also oh so easy to get stuck there. A lot can change in five years- I'm now studying Physics at university, something I never thought could be possible, living by myself for the first time and exploring who I am and the things that are important to me. The things I was stressed about in 2012 seem inconsequential now, and I guess in five more years time, the events now will seem the same. This is simultaneously comforting, and also terrifying, so I guess it's appropriate for Halloween! Talking of which, I have a party to go to (still don't have a costume yet, but we'll work something out!), and I really should stop procrastinating getting ready! I don't think I'll write in the way I did, or even know if I'll write at all (university is incredibly busy!!) but it's nice to know that Opuss is there, in a new guise, but there nonetheless, just like it's been there throughout my #life. It's been nice to rediscover this, and I just want to say thankyou to everyone who wrote supportive comments, and liked my posts. I don't know if you're still active on Opuss, or if I'm just talking into the void at this point, but just know you helped a young girl who was shy and nervous find her feet, and set her off onto the path she's always wanted to follow. She's still not quite there yet, but she's so much closer because of your support. Thankyou, and maybe I'll see you around, Bethan.

Today, I spotted something that irritated me. Okay, not irritated, but confused me. In fact, I've seen it so many times, and it’s irritated (confused) me every single time, that I decided to write about it. That, and the fact that I have nothing else to do. Why does every single bottle of shampoo/soap-related-stuff have ‘If product gets in eyes, rinse with water’ written on it? Why? If you do get something in your eye, you’ll be too busy stumbling around the bathroom trying to find the tap to go and read the safety advice on the shampoo bottle. When I’m frantically trying to save my eyesight, I don’t even so much as think to thoroughly comb the product bottle for information on how to correctly wash my eyeballs. It’s part of the unwritten laws of the universe. If you get something in your eye that shouldn’t be in your eye, you wash it out, unless it’s alive, but in that case, what the hell were you even doing anyway?! The panicked eye-rinsing and then shouting down the phone at your doctor if something weird, like your eyes falling out, happens, is general practice. Now, I understand why products which require you to do more than this if your eyeballs come into contact with them (e.g. bleach) would want to write safety information on the bottles, but otherwise? I don’t really understand. Is it meant for aliens not experienced in using soap? In which case, the majority of aliens wouldn’t be able to understand Earth languages anyway, so it’s a bit pointless. Okay, so some people might get soap in their eyes and immediately think to check the bottle to see what to do, but the thing is, the majority of us wouldn’t. You’re not going to stand around in the shower, eyes burning, foraging for the exact shampoo you used so you can check the instructions, are you? That’s a tad like standing in a burning building, searching for the instructions on how to escape (which have probably already burnt), and not leaving because you’re scared you might escape the wrong way... Okay, it's not a lot like that at all really. But, you don’t have to follow people’s advice- you wouldn’t jump in front of a bus just because someone tells you to (unless you’re a complete and utter idiot/John Watson, but then John Watson doesn’t need to follow the general rules of humanity because he’s a fictional character/too awesome for words), You act on instinct. Now, I understand that jumping I front of buses has absolutely nothing to do with getting shampoo in your eye, but still. Why companies bother with spending money printing safety messages on their bottles which, A. no one actually reads (apart from me...) and B. are pretty much pointless, because people do what it’s telling you to do anyway, completely confuses me. As does why I have just spent about forty-ish minutes complaining about shampoo safety messages. Sigh.

Boredom is driving me insane... S eries three is overdue, H ow long 'till shown? E h, not a clue. R eichenfeels... L ove the show, O verly so, C ounting down the days to go. K angaroo.