It pains me to admit to such a thing but Twilight introduced me to the world of fanfic and since that moment I’ve never looked back. I’ve enjoyed plotting stories and writing them. It’s a rewarding experience to see people reading and complimenting your work.

I’ve seen many trends in Twilight fanfic since I began reading. Some works can be genre changing such as Wide Awake which turned Edward into a cursing, swearing, moody bad boy who fell in love with the quiet girl who baked cookies. Whatever, the story or characterisation, I’ve always imagined Edward as Robert Pattinson. My mind just pastes his face into whatever scenario is being read about. It always works and I never ‘lose’ my idea of Edward as being the handsome face one would imagine. It’s the one trait that translates from Meyer’s work to all fanfic.

However, I discovered a new fanfic which has forced me to conjure up a different face to match the character of Edward. Times New Roman is a quirky fic which bravely dares to write about Edward as a forlorn, hopeless English professor with a paunch and fetish for hosiery. He’s a total schlub. His life is filled with embarrassment and despair as he falls for a student.

The writing is brilliant. It’s so dryly witty. Writing humorously is fiendishly difficult and yet the author manages it and pushes the awkward encounters beyond the pale to wring out the pathos and humour. It speaks of a maturity and capability that is so rare to find. The only other comparable Twi-fanfic writer I can think of is a published author.

I wrote the author a glowing review and she replied which was lovely considering she’s had 1000+ reviews and probably can’t reply to all. I honestly thought she was a professional writer, writing fanfic to blow off some steam. Turns out she's not but she did have aspirations at a point in her life. If I could buy her works, I would. I was lying in bed reading ‘Masquerade’ by Melissa de la Cruz, thinking about how much better Times New Roman was. And this fanfic was for free!

I think it’s perfectly possible that the author could change the names and submit her work to a publisher or agent. It’s that good.

So yeah, this is my confession. And my Times New Roman Edward looks more like Nite Owl II from Watchmen. He may be a schlub but darn it, I want him to have a happy ending!

God, I’ve had such a boring Wednesday. Normally I keep my Wednesdays free in case I want to meet up with friends or just do non-college related stuff. I cleaned my room and hoovered. Then I pretty much did nothing. I quite enjoy doing nothing but today was uninspired and just dull.

I did watch Coraline which brightened up my dull afternoon. For a kids movie it was incredibly dark and disturbing – much darker and full of menace than I expected. I can't even begin to imagine watching that film in 3D when it came out in cinemas. If I was a small child watching all those scary button-eyed people looming out at me in the darkness I would have shit a brick.

This twisted Hans and Gretel movie reminded me of the films I watched as a child which frightened me. Namely, Snow White. Now that was a scary animated film for kids. The old woman’s transformation in particular was just terrifying. Actually, thinking back on it, I never watched it but we had an audio tape of the story with a booklet. The tape had lots of sound effects and I remember hearing the lightning crack and the old woman cackling loudly as she recited the spell. It would have me running out the room until it was over.

But I still enjoyed being scared and I loved the story, dark as it was. Maybe Coraline can be this generation’s Snow White?

Okay so I finally saw new Moon today with my brother. I wanted to see it when I didn’t have a pile of assignments and college stresses on my mind and this was my only free weekend so I grabbed my chance.

Oh my, it was worth the wait! First off, going with my brother was great. We jumped the queue (unknowingly) but no one yelled at us. Probably because it was just a bunch of tweens behind us and my brother towered over pretty much everyone. Not that I condone queue jumping but in this case I was glad because the queue was huuuuuuuge.

Now, my brother doesn’t know a thing about Twilight and I wasn’t about to fill him in on the details otherwise he would never have come. I really enjoy hearing the points of view of people who are new to the Twilight films because they don’t come with all the fandom baggage and you get more an ‘everyman’ view rather than the fan bleating of ‘not enough Edward!’ and ‘Jacob sucks!’

We both started laughing when the first Edward slo-mo came on. The film seemed to drag a little in places, slo-mo’s not included, and the beginning just seemed kinda dull.

I think I’m switching teams to Jacob or at least Team Switzerland because Taylor was great. I admit I couldn’t stop ogling his body. That boy is ripped.

He was happy and sweet like I expected Jacob to be and he took his shirt off at every available opportunity. But The motorbike crash and blood mopping with his shirt was so laughable.

The audience went ‘aaaaaww’ when he tried to hold Bella’s hand. I even heard my brother go ‘aaw’ lolz.

There wasn’t enough action for me. The fight between the wolves and Laurent should have been longer. I wanted tearing and ripping and crunching. We got nothing. Throw me a fricking bone here! Or at least a limb.

The ‘months go by’ effect was lame-o too. I was getting motion sickness from the camera spinning.

The Volturi scene kicked ass. My brother and I are Michael Sheen fans and he was so good in it. Very campy and sinister. There wasn’t enough Dakota as Jane.

Oh god, the ending. My brother groaned loudly because it was so utterly rubbish. I had to nudge him with my elbow and be all ‘SHUTTUP FANGIRLS WILL KILL YOU!’

Final verdict

Brother: he didn’t like Kristen Stewart and thought she had a man voice. He didn’t like Bella because she was a ‘bitch’ who strung along Jacob. He thought her depression was her superpower, lolz. Edward pouted and brooded and did nothing else compelling. Jacob was a decent guy who got screwed over.

Me: I loved it. Robert Pattinson seemed to mumble A LOT in the movie. If I didn’t already know the dialogue I would have been majorly confused. Also he looked like crap. Taylor Lautner was much better than I had anticipated. I thought there was a lot of chemistry between him and Kristen. Sometimes, Kristen looked blank but she had a lot of emotion in her eyes when Jacob flees at the end. Bella and Edward just seem so dull together in comparison. I liked the wolves, Victoria and the cliff diving scene which was gorgeous. I’ll definitely be waiting for the DVD and for Eclipse to come out. Also, the Volturi kicked ass.

Yes, I needed to say that twice.

Thought I’d check in with some real life goings-on. I had my microteach yesterday. It was a 30 minute teaching session that I had to deliver to my fellow teaching students. I had been stressing over it for the longest time and spent the last week trying to get my act together. I got into class expecting to go first as was scheduled only to find that another student had got her prep ready to go first instead. That really pissed me off because I wanted to go first and get it out the way. Instead, I had to glumly sit through her session before mine started.

It was nerve-wracking and I spent the longest time just standing at the front pretending to sort out my paper work. I got completely flustered and nervous straight away. It was a very shaky and nervous start. God, I’m crying just writing this. What a fool am I? Lol.

Anyway, my subject was on visual perception which is just about the hardest thing to teach to people completely new to the subject of psychology. My timing was completely shot but my activities went well and everyone really tried to understand what I was talking about even if they didn’t get it completely.

I suppose I was upset with the way it went. I had started to calm down after a class activity but then I looked at the PowerPoint display I was using and had a moment of ‘oh shit’ just thinking about the fact that I needed to talk my way through three more slides. There was never a moment when I felt relaxed and comfortable. It was pure terror all the way through. I didn’t expect to feel like that.

I’ve had times in my life when I’ve had to speak in front of people and I’ve been so scared my voice disappeared (which thankfully came back after a deep breath) and the sense of elation afterwards was amazing, like flying. But there was no sense of elation or feeling settled into my role, just disappointment.

Everyone afterwards was really positive but I think they were humouring me. Or at least it felt that way to me. I was already thinking of alternative careers and wondering what the hell I’m gonna do with a teaching qualification when I don’t want to teach when I received my feedback from my tutor.

I sat down with her and burst into a flood of tears. It probably wasn’t the reaction she was expecting! She was sympathetic though and knew I had been worried for a long time. She told me not to beat myself up about it and that I had come across calm even if I didn’t feel like that inside.

I don’t know how I feel about things right now. Am I really cut out to be a teacher? Should I follow this path even though it doesn’t come naturally to me? I don’t know what the answers are… I just wish I knew where my place in life was. I know I’m not dumb. I’m the only one in class passing all the assignments first time. But I don’t know how to channel it somewhere I will excel. Urgh. Too much stuff to ponder.

And to top it off, I had been waiting till today to watch New Moon but my plans fell through. So now, I have to wait till Saturday to see it. Boo! Now, that’s a real downer.