Taylor Swift
Lady Gaga
Nicholas Sparks
A Rocket To The Moon
Owl City/Sky Sailing/Adam Young
Iby Knill
Jodi Picoult
Billy Joel
Tracy Chapman

My seven greatest heroes who I love endlessly ♥

A little weird
A little strange
But 100% ME!!!

Danny Tanglewood - 04/02/2010

Taylor Rockburn - 17/09/2010

Hi, I'm Rachel. I've been alive for 18 years now and I have my very own car (a Ford KA rather aptly named Lady CarCar - a sort of tribute to my love for Lady Gaga). I get rather excited about going driving and I get excited about anything that falls into the 'cute', 'pink' or 'random' categories. I've always (always, always, always) have read books. That's probably down to my dad who read stories to me at night when I was a little girl. I specifically remember enjoying the Animal Ark series by Lucy Daniels - this was the era when my heart was set on saving animals. I've always been fascinated by stories - the words, the rhythm, the structure. I've always liked to attempt to write my own but it only truly became something I was serious about when I was about 14 years old. My life wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be, so I a created one that was what I wanted. It's kind of funny. I started writing to escape my life, then I found that I had some sort of a talent and it BECAME my life. So hopefully I'll be able to write for a living someday.

I learned to play guitar when I was 16 years old and my acoustic guitar (Danny Tanglewood) is probably my most favourite possession. I began playing because of the love Taylor has for hers. It sounds crazy, even to me, but despite how I want to be a writer, I suck with words when I'm in a real life conversation. Sure, I can make characters argue and break down and make a conversation flow. But, in real life, I suck with words. Weird, right? But that's okay. Because when I'm angry or upset or frustrated, I grab my six string and everything makes sense to me. It's how I say things I wanna say. Playing guitar gives me freedom.

My town is small. Ridiculously small. And my village is even smaller. But, apparently, it's really popular with the tourists. This means I avoid the town centre AT ALL COSTS during the summer season. But that's okay because it's all mine for the other nine or ten months. Despite how the majority of people can't wait to leave, I don't. I love my town. There's not much as far as shops are concerned but it has HMV, Waterstones, a music store where I constantly press my face against the windows, wondering why I can't afford a new guitar, and and cheap bookstores where I buy books all the time. But the town's so pretty. With its castle and the ocean. I like watching and listening to the waves. But despite how I have an ever-growing list of places I wanna go (America, Japan, China, Australia, Italy...), I'm going to do that when I'm ready. Hopefully when I have a bit more money to do so. I actually plan to write about my journeys. Maybe someone somewhere will want to read about my travels.

I'm a Gemini. I'm not sure what this means. I've never really been a fan of astrology. But, according to the quick search I did on google, it means that I like talking, the novelty and unusual, variety in life, multiple projects at one time, and reading. Considering the length of this, how I juggled A Levels, writing, guitar, girlguiding and reading, and how much I love to read, I guess that's all true. On a similar note, I may not be interested in astrology but I'm fascinated by astronomy. I love the stars. It makes me realise that no matter what I'm going through, it's really not that important when you think of the bigger picture. It's like my fascination with aliens. I may not believe that they've visited (the proof given always looks a little iffy) but I honestly believe that they're out there. I mean, if we're the only intelligent life forms in the entire universe, humanity has a pretty lonely existence. I always remember hearing something on an episode of 'Doctor Who' once: maybe aliens haven't visited because they're scared. If they've seen the way we act, the wars we've had, it's pretty unlikely that they'd want to visit, isn't it?

My sister reckons I suffer from OCD. I joke back and say that I have CDO - it's the same but in alphabetical order, like it should be. But I don't. At least I don't think I do. My CD collection is in alphabetical order and when we went to our favourite restaurant once, I refused to move seats because otherwise, I'd be facing the 'wrong' wall. Is that too weird? I own an unreal amount of books. The amount of books I own that I want to read is always longer than the list of books I have read. I also own a rather large amount of body sprays. I like to smell pretty (and when I return to my room, it smells pretty, too). I also collect guitar picks. I have a total of 81. I put them in a money box shaped like a cake. My sister also says I don't understand the purpose of objects. For example, instead of using my small collection (only four or five this time) of mugs for drinks, I put pens or jewellery in them. It makes sense to me. I also collect rubber ducks (no joke!) but I've lost count of those. My walls are so covered in posters and pictures that you can't see the wallpaper. I have picture vinyls hanging on my walls, too. I have fourteen, I believe. My favourite, by far, is my vinyl of 'Speak Now' by Taylor (Swift). I really do love vinyls :) When I was a little girl, I collected old, foreign coins and shells. I guess I've always been a collector. Maybe it’s a Gemini thing.

I don't know if you've noticed but I like to name things. There's my guitars: Danny, Harry and Taylor. My ukulele: Lily. My goldfish: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Taylor (I love the woman so much I named two things after her!) My car: Lady CarCar. I'm not sure why. I just do. I also have a tendency to call celebrities by their first names and assume people know who I'm talking about. These are the recurring ones: Taylor (Swift), (Lady) Gaga, Zac (Efron), (My boys) McFly. I also have a freaky urge for Taylor and Zac to get together. I have a ton of folders containing magazine articles about my favourite celebrities. When I flick through them, reading them, I feel like a stalker.

Now that I'm 18, I've realised that I'm now expected to grow up which is something that apparently everybody goes through at some point or another. You know, get a degree, get a job, move out. At first, that thought kind of scared me. But then I realised that it's okay. Because I don't have to stop loving things that I loved as a little girl, but I get to find more stuff to love. For example, I still enjoy playing board games with my family, 'The Lion King' is still my favourite movie, I still get excited over cake and ice cream, I still like glittery, sparkly and shiny things, I still love snow and Christmas decorations and Christmas presents, and I still buy a chocolate bar when I go grocery shopping with my mum and dad. But, now, I've also fallen in love with musical instruments. Mostly string instruments. I want to learn the banjo and mandolin, too. I also love walking with my family, sitting in the sun with a book, and another film I'm completely in love with is 'Sucker Punch' - not my usual kind of film but I was completely mind blown after I'd watched it. I sometimes wish to be a little girl again. Sometimes, I could do without lies, obsessing with boys, feeling unbeautiful and backstabbing friends. But then I realise that I wouldn't be who I am today. Although I haven't changed in a lot of ways, I also have changed in a lot of different ways. I've never changed but I've never stayed the same.

When I'm writing, whether it's music, poetry, lyrics or the stories that I want to be famous for, I write about love. I'm inexperienced , I don't know how it feels, it's confusing and frustrating and I've spent half of my life wanting to give up on it. I grew up loving fairy tales and I still love them, as old as I am. And just when I'm ready to give up, and say that Happily Ever Afters don't exist, I find a reason to believe in it. I realise that despite every reason I have to give up on love, it's wonderful and beautiful and magical.

Oh yeah. I tend to be really cheesy sometimes, too.

My sister calls me 'chicken'. I don't know why. My Nan, in Plymouth, calls me 'Matilda'. Again, I don't know why. I love the names that people end up calling me. Most people aren't that creative and stick with the usual 'Rach' (or other variations). I think nicknames tell you a lot about the people who gave them to you. Similarly, I hate people who assume I spell my name Rachael. It bugs me. I'm also fascinated by the meaning of names. However, I was a little annoyed when I discovered my name means 'ewe' in Hebrew and my sister gets 'Victory'. I don't think that's very fair. :P

Anyway, I'm pretty happy that you read all of this. This was probably way longer than a facebook profile should've been and it was probably longer than you expected. You probably had way more important things to do in the last five minutes than read all of this. So I commend you! Thank you for reading this. I hope I didn't scare you too much and I hope I intrigued you, too.

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