I went to Ometepe in search of a view, but found something closer to a memory.
The island floats inside Lake Nicaragua, its twin volcanoes rising like ancient lungs out...
Haggis is hardly something to get excited about - when you hear dinner’s going to be offal stuffed into a sheep’s stomach, your mouth doesn’t exactly start watering. But as soon as you dare take your first bite, the divisive delicacy wins you over.
Are my 10 lectures, 6 hours of labs and 24 hours of imposter syndrome worth it for a fancy gown that’s only going to make those friends think ‘god they’re a prick’?
“Here’s the thing about being an older woman…the roles are more interesting. People get more complex as they get older. And you have more life experience to bring to the role.”
If you want to take up stamp collecting, or pet more dogs, or stop listening to the same six songs you’ve had in your playlist since you were 14, why wait until January 1st to do it?
My pandemic summer was spent staring at a computer, but these were a startlingly productive and educational few months and, as with most exciting things in my unexciting life, it starts with a blank page.
Back in my childhood bedroom, I am stuck in an unpleasant time-warp, sixteen again and agonizing over awful boys, listening to utterly miserable Smiths songs. It’s the deja-vu experience no one wants.
I’ll miss the little things, most of all: the warm chaotic hubbub of too many people in one bungalow, fighting over who gets the sofa seat with the footrest, and maybe most of all, the smell of cooking wafting from the kitchen.
Surely having that moment to celebrate and realise that “yes, I made it to f*cking Oxford during a worldwide crisis” seems quite affirming and in line with the Government’s message of being able to have a ‘proper University experience™’, whatever that means.
"'Horror movies and porn movies are structured in exactly the same way,' he begins, 'the narrative is structured as a pretext for a number of these explosive climaxes. One victim at a time, one sex scene at a time.'"
Dessert has the opportunity to hold such creativity and glee, and yet the dry, misshapen lumps turned out year after year hold nothing but an unbelievable amount of fruit. They also hold a considerable serving of history.