Just letting all you lovely people know in a separate post that I now have a twitter account alongside my blog @laurenhollie_ which I recommend you follow instead of my main account (unless you are prepared to put up with all my craziness there) because the tweets will be much more toned down and blog related.
Meeting My Lee<3 |Dreams That Glitter
So today I met Leah, who I have considered to be one of my closest friends for like the past two years, we started talking on twitter over three years ago and regularly iMessage and Skype each other, so it felt like we already knew each other really… I travelled up to Derby by myself which was a little daunting because I’ve never been anywhere even on a bus totally on my own before, so practically halfway up the country was a bit of a jump, but I was fine and I got there and back without getting lost so it was fine and I’ll happily do it again sometime in the future. We had a lovely day shopping and then went back to Leah’s for tea before I had to get back at the station to come back home. The last thing we did was hug and pinky promise to see each other again soon :’)
Too many train tickets for one day, I got so confused with them all!
The Beauty Behind Books |Dreams That Glitter
I can’t be the only person who still loves to just pick up a good book and read. I don’t like the idea of kindles or reading online or on iPads or iPods etc, as handy as those can be for travelling.
Part of the greatness of reading is actually having the book in your hands, getting stuck right into it, the excitement of the turn of each page, being careful not to bend it back too far so you don’t crack the spine. The greatest feeling of all is when you finish that last page and close the book, being able to say you’ve read it cover to cover. Reading is a wonderful thing that a lot of people these days are loosing interest in and I think that’s really sad.
I nearly did myself. As a child I used to read all the time, I’d always be stuck into a book when I was at home, I used to have weekly trips to library and I’d spend ages, over an hour sometimes, picking the right books. When I got into social networking like twitter, facebook and tumblr, those things ate up what time I’d usually spend reading and I gradually fell out of the loop and stopped reading altogether for two, maybe even three years.
I started reading again earlier this year and realised how much I’d missed it. It’s an escape from the real world, from any kind of problems or stress, it takes your mind off everything except what’s happening in the book. You can get stuck into the fictional worlds and attached to the characters, and feel like you belong in the book or as if the characters are your friends. And then you can go to places like tumblr or twitter and find people who feel the same way as you about a particular book or series, and that’s also part of the fun (although sometimes you find a book with no fandom and it’s just you and your feelings).
What I’m saying is, if you don’t read, why don’t you? Even just a little bit a day would ta
ke your mind off everything else for a while, and books can affect people in different ways. Some are inspiring, some influence lifestyle changes, for example. There’s so many books out there, there is absolutely something for everyone so there is no excuse. Whether it be a biography, a fictional or factual book there’s got to be something you’ll enjoy, but for me a fictional book with a made up world is always the best.
If you are a reader, add me on Goodreads! http://www.goodreads.com/sk8tinggleek
Meeting Chris Colfer|Dreams That Glitter
Apologies for the lack of updating, thought I doubt anyone actually reads any of this rubbish I post so very rarely. I’ve been trying to keep a journal but it’s not really working out because I get bored half way through writing because it takes so long, or half the time I just sit and stare at it because I can’t be bothered to actually write… this however is much quicker.
Anyway, the 16th June 2013 was the best day of my life, that whole weekend was the best weekend of my life. To cut a story short, I met Chris Colfer and he’s such a flawless human I’m not even sure he is human. He’s an angel, for sure. Not even in the slightest bit exaggerating there. I met so many lovely people, I just had the best time. It’s hard to put into words exactly how I felt.
When I found out Chris was doing a singing in London I literally squealed, threw my phone and sprinted downstairs to tell mum (which involved getting highly exciting, screaming and maybe hitting her, oops). Me and Vicky and Ellena planned it right away and were so excited because it just seemed so unreal. Other than for the Glee Live Tour which we didn’t get to go to, Chris had never been to London or anywhere in this country even. We just couldn’t get our heads around what was happening.
On the Saturday the first person got in the queue to meet Chris at 9.10am, even though the signing wasn’t until 1pm Sunday. We left around 1:30 in the end, originally we were planning on leaving in the evening sort of time, but we saw Bluewater’s tweets and panicked. We got to Bluewater at around 3pm and were 22, 23 and 24 in the queue (I was 23) – this is highly impressive as by Sunday at around 12 (when the queue got cut off) there was around 700 people, each and every one of which got to meet Chris because he’s such a babe and didn’t want to leave anyone out. After 500 they were all reserved so there was a chance Chris could’ve left after that.
The first thing we did after writing our numbers on our hands in sharpie, was go and buy the books from Waterstones – The Land of Stories and Struck By Lightning. Vicky told the cashier lady she was gonna pee herself and got told that was TMI… served the lady right for asking how she was. We were all practically bouncing off the walls with excitement so…
We immediately made friends with the people in front of us in the queue, and eventually made friends with more people further down as well. The whole weekend was like that though, you could potentially walk up to anyone and start talking and you’d be friends. We exchanged twitter names and it was strange because a couple of girls we were already following each other so it felt like we already knew each other in a sense…
At around 7ish me and Ellena went on a hunt for KFC because by that point we were starving, it took us about an hour to get back to Vicky with food, we got a bit lost after I read the map wrong, oops… Before that though I’d been sent to get coffee from Starbucks (which was directly opposite us) even though I don’t actually like it myself, and I said my name was Blaine so that it’d get written on the cups because reasons, I got a few weird looks but never mind. And the woman spelt it like ‘BLANE’ so we had to mark in the ‘i’. I later accidentally threw those cups away, oops again.
At around 9pm we spotted Willa and Chloe arrive and went down to go see them and say hi after we’d decided it was stupid not to. I don’t know why we were so shy about it at first, but we got on so well from the start and we ended up spending the entire night with them, so it was a very good decision to make. At about 11 I think, Lucy arrived and we all witnessed the Willy hug, which was beautiful. They ran at each other and like collided into this massive hug, and neither of them let go for ages and it was really cute. We all serenaded them with Somewhere Only We Know because Klaine.
None of us slept for more than a couple of hours (I got about an hour’s sleep in ten minute intervals) we spent a lot of the night talking. At 4am me and Vicky were the only ones in our little group still awake and this random guy came over with a pack of playing cards and started showing us magic tricks which are even more mind blowing at 4am when you’re sleep deprived and not really sure what’s going on (random guy, if you’re reading this, which I don’t think you will be, please make yourself known because I still haven’t found you in the land of tweets).
I woke up around 5:30am thinking it was about 8am, and then got very disappointed… I didn’t really get back to sleep after that. The morning dragged by until about 11, then it went so quickly it’s all a blur. We had to go back to our space in the queue, and the entire shopping centre belted out an acapella rendition of Don’t Stop Believing followed by Teenage Dream, that was amazing. (I’ll try and track down some videos and post them here at some point).
We were in the first group of people to go in and meet Chris, and we all piled into the bookshop, there was a lot of pushing and shoving and being the short little hobbit that I am, I was like the last person there to see Chris himself, but as soon as he appeared everyone broke into cheers. The whole thing was so surreal.
When I saw him properly, that was it I burst into tears. I don’t really know why, I’m not a crying kind of person, I don’t cry at anything really. But apparently if you put Chris Colfer in front of me I bawl like a baby. I couldn’t stop, I tried to compose myself a bit before I had to stand in front of him, but it didn’t really work. It nearly did, but when Vicky went up first and handed him the scrapbook we made him of 70 reasons why we love him, he summoned us over (he directly looked me and Ellena in the eyes, and waved at us to come over) so we all stood there together and me and Vicky had to apologise for crying, Ellena was suprisingly calm.
I managed to actually get words out when it was my turn though, which is incredibly surprising considering the state I was in – I can’t believe I met him looking like that, that is the impression he’s going to have of me forever now. He may or may have said ‘Hi sweetie’ or something like that, but I don’t really know, it’s all a blur like I said. Anyway, he asked me what my favourite part of the book was, if I had a favourite part, and I said yes of course, I love the ending with the twist about their dad… (talking about TLOS) I then pointed to it as if he didn’t know what I was talking about which obviously he did like… and his face lit up and he was like ‘oh, yeah!’ and then he said ‘You’ll love the next book then, it has an even bigger twist!’ and HE WINKED AT ME. It was glorious. Then we all kind of ran out of the shop and hugged each other and were just sobbing hysterically.
As soon as we got out there was a photographer wanting a group shot, so we kind of composed ourselves a bit, and the photo is brilliant, we all look so happy with our signed books and ah… all the camping, the 22 hours of waiting, had all been worth it just for that 60 seconds with Chris Colfer. I can’t even explain.
I just had the time of my life, with two of my best friends, I met so many lovely people who I hope to meet again, and I met Chris Colfer. It was the best. ❤
Dreams That Glitter xo 