Tips and Tricks for Surviving 1st Year at Uni

So, you've just sat you're A2 exams, you're anxiously waiting for your marks to come back, and the whole summer is stretched out before you... University feel a long  way off, something to look forward to (hopefully), something to be afraid of (maybe), something to prepare for (definitely). But how can you prepare? Here's my little guide to get ready for University living! (Bare in mind, this will be tailored to arts/literature courses, but there's a lot of stuff which is general good practice)

a) Money, money, money 

1. Check out how much money you're going to be getting from student finance, then check out the cost of your accommodation. Sometimes, the amount of money you'll be getting in won't quite cover the cost of the rent. 
2. Equally, check when you have to pay rent, and the date your student finance gets into your account.  Don't get caught out by not having the money in your bank account on the day the rent needs paying! Most uni's will have the option of either paying monthly rent, or termly. With the monthly rent, you'll have more money in your bank account for more of the term. However, some monthly rents will start before you get student finance in. If you pick termly, you're bank account is going to get hit pretty hard  each time the money goes in. However, you'll have a better idea about how much money you realistically have to spend (or save) over the course of the term.
3. Either way, it's a good idea to do a mock budget. I sat down with a calculator and worked out that if I set aside a certain amount of money for rent, food, clothes and books, I'd be left with £18 per week for other 'fun' things. Realistically this might not be exact - you might spend a lot more or less on some of the necessary things, leaving you with more or less money for extras - but it can give you a good starting point.
4. Get a job. You ARE going to need more money. I know people whose parents paid for their accommodation, but still ran into debt. Get a job over summer, earn some extra pocket money, and SAVE IT. You'll have plenty of free time to spend with people who might be going away, you can spare the odd evening to earn more cash. You won't regret it.
5. Put as much money as you can in a savings account - but make sure its one that you can still access. Every month, I put the majority of my earnings in a savings account, leaving myself less to play with in my daily account. This means I feel poorer than I am, so save more money by spending less.

b) Do the work!

1. Preparing for seminars is really important. Remember, you're paying up to £9,000 per year, and even if the first year 'doesn't count you don't want to just throw that money away. Attend as many lectures and seminars as possible, you'll finds yourself a lot better prepared for the second year, when it really starts to matter.
2. Practise over summer. This might sound ridiculous, but if you're on a lit course, you're going to have to do a lot of reading. Reading is a skill that you can train yourself to do, so read for half an hour every day. You'll soon find yourself getting quicker and better at it. Equally, you're going to have a read more than one book at a time, so practise swapping between texts. A lot of uni's will have reading lists available, so if you know you're slow, get ahead.
3. For non-reading based courses, keep up with revision. Its amazing how much knowledge can melt away on long summers days. I'm not saying spend every second with your nose in a text book, but set aside an hour or two every week to keep your brain ticking over.

c) Remember your friends

1. Spend time with your nearest and dearest over the summer, and make the most of it.
2. Set up Skype or another messaging service of your choice, and start chatting to each other in a routine. Or, if you're staying close to home for uni, arrange a day a week when all your friends are likely to be free. The biggest mistake I made was loosing contact with some of my closest friends in the first term of Uni. Keeping in touch is so important, especially if they are stuck in a boring gap year job whilst you're off having fun with bright and shiny new friends.

d) Have fun!

1. You're paying for the experience of Uni just as much as your paying for the education. When you get there make the most of what they have to offer - go to plays, poetry nights, gigs, the gym, the library. A lot of things with be cut price for students - I went to a play for £6 and poetry nights for £3, and the gym/pool is only £1.60 a go. My biggest regret if not using these facilities to their full extent.
2. Don't spend all your money on booze. You want to remember your year. A couple of mates of mine went a little freedom crazy, and now they're seriously paying for it (both in the liver, the mind and the wallet).
3. You'll have a lot of free time at Uni, and no one will tell you what to do with it. Use it.
4. Join at least one society. I have made all my closest friends through society, and I'm living with people in my society. Some of the best hours of uni have been spent in society. Most are cheap to join if not free (mine was £3) and they are so worth your money.

e) Ask

1. The biggest skill Uni teaches is to ask questions. Whether this is in a seminar, for an essay, or for help (scholarly or emotionally), the University is there for you. You are paying for a service, and that service includes the lecturers or the finance officers or the dean of students giving you a hand. They will appreciate being asked, rather than you struggling through and not doing the best you can.

I know some of this is perhaps more dedicated to what to do when you get to uni, rather than what to do before Uni, but its all stuff to think about. Oh, and if you've got a shared kitchen there's no need to bring toasters, microwaves, kettles etc. Most Uni's will provide the basics, and if not, you can work it out between your flatmates what to buy. You don't want to end up with 12 toasters but no kettles!

Best Wishes!

xx

Read-a-thon: Round-up

So, if any of you have been checking out my tumblr (akintoarayofsunshine.tumblr.com) then you'll have seen my steady progress throughout the week, but here's my final round-up. I'll put the book title, the author, my original goal, and what I ended up actually reading.

She by Henry Ryder Haggard [finish] I achieved my goal and finished this book pretty early on in the read-a-thon (I think on the Wednesday). I enjoyed this book but didn't love it, and I gave it 3 stars on goodreads. Not sure if I'll do a review yet or not.

The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal [finish] I achieved my goal with this too! To be honest, I thought it was going to be a lot harder to finish this than it was, it was definitely slow going at the start, but boy did it kick in! I raced through this and finished it on the Tuesday (I think). I gave it 4/5 on goodreads, and there'll be a review up pretty soon.

The Casual Vacancy  by JK Rowling [halfway] I completely surpassed my expectations and finished this book on Friday! Not sure how I feel about this yet, and I think Rowling should probably stick to fantasy, but it was a very easy read. 3/5, will review soon.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton [made progress] I totally achieved my goal for this, and am now on page 148/229. Very happy with this. Really enjoying this book, can't wait to finish it - hopefully today.

I'm very happy with the progress I made, especially as I had plans all week. Yay! I didn't get round to starting any of the books-to-take-my-mind-of-things books (other than VOGUE), but they're the kinds of things you can just pick up any time, so I'm ok with that. Really enjoyed getting back into sitting and reading for pleasure, but it was nice to have a goal too. Plus, now I'm 3 books ahead in my goodreads schedule, yay! Did any of you attempt the read-a-thon? How'd it go?

I'm going to try and get back to blogging more frequently (as she always says), but I'm not going to attempt a set timetable yet. In the meantime, follow me on tumblr to keep up with my little musings, and I'll speak soon.

Best Wishes!

xx

Read-a-thon!

Hullo team! So my life has been crazy busy over the past few weeks! I've had my last uni exams, been saying goodbye to friends, taking over secretarial responsibilities in Creative Writing Society, performing prose and poetry in front of Tim Clare. I feel exhausted.

With all this going on, I've been doing a pretty poor job of reading, so this week I am going to be taking part in an internet wide 'Read-a-thon'. I can't quite remember who started it up, but I heard about it from Jesse (YouTube, Tumblr and probably Twitter's 'jessethereader') and Katrina (littlebookowl). Basically, the idea is that you dedicate as much time as possible with the aim of finishing as many books as you can! Here's my reading list for the week:

She by Henry Ryder Haggard - I started reading this book, Goodreads informs me, on the 21st of March. This was right in the middle of my semester at uni, and so far I've got about 50% of the way through it. I'm really enjoying it, just need to remember to pick up my Kindle again and start reading! I want to have finished this book by the end of the week.

The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal - My papa gave me this book not too long ago and said I'd probably enjoy it. We have very similar reading tastes, and so far he's bang on. Started this book in the middle of April, just starting to get into it now. I'm on about chapter 10, so about 90 pages into the 350 or so. It's a biography of an object (specifically a netsuke) which has been inherited by the author, and he's tracing it's journey through his family. Really interesting so far, so I'm hoping to have finished this book.

The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling - I know, I know. I've owned this book for ages, I think my grandparents bought it me for Christmas, and I still haven't finished it yet! It's a mammoth book, and I'm about 100 or so pages in, although I haven't picked it up in so long I might have to skim read the whole start of it again, just to get my bearings! By the end of the week I want to have got at least halfway through.

The Age of Innocence by  Edith Wharton - I got this book as a present for my 18th and I still haven't read it yet. However, hopefully I'm studying Wharton next semester so I thought I'd get a head up and read some of her work early! This is only a short book, but I've given myself a lot, but I want to have made progress with this.

Now, because these are all quite heavy going, I'm going to give myself a couple of lighter-hearted things to read in between so I don't hit a reading slump mid week!

VOGUE and Miss VOGUE June 2013 ed - So I've bought VOGUE as I sporadically do, and I think it'll be really good to keep me focused on the heavier stuff. I don't really mind if I don't get too far through it, as I enjoy flicking through over and over again as the months go by.

Creative Writing Society Anthology 2012-2013 - I really want to give this a proper read to see what all my friends have contributed. I'll be reading a couple of poems or short stories whenever I feel I can't go on with my other novels. I really want to have finished this by the time the week is out, as it'll coincide nicely with our last workshops!

Pub Stuntman by Tim Clare - As I said at the top of this post, I had the pleasure of performing with Tim at the tail end of last week. He is an amazing poet and a stand up gent, and possibly had the best put down for a heckler ever. I bought his book there and then, really looking forward to sinking my teeth into some of his work. I want to have made progress by the end of the week.


So there you have it! I'll probably be doing updates on Tumblr as the week goes on, so you can follow my progress on akintoarayofsunshine.tumblr.com

Happy Reading

xx

Oh Captain My Captian!

So, I just finished watching The Dead Poets Society and it's one of those films that you just want to watch again and again and it just makes you want to live your life and stand up for what you believe in and don't let anyone get you down ever again. And it also makes you want to tell everyone to go and watch it, even if they've seen it before to watch it again.

Ahhhh it's so good!

Seize the day!

xx

ps. I also have a tumblr now. You can follow me on akintoarayofsunshine.tumblr.com

Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

People have been recommending Mohsin Hamid's work from all sides, so when I saw this in the library I thought I'd pick it up*. Let's just say the recommendations were wholly deserved - I really enjoyed this book.

* As an aside I have very conflicting views on libraries so hopefully I'll do a discussion post on that in the near future (along with all the other posts I've promised, sorry!).


1) It's premise really intrigued me - being addressed directly and so specifically was really interesting. This was particularly fascinating as I found I really did not like the person who was being addressed - and the uncomfortable situation this puts the reader is in just <emotivearmmovements> good. Really good.

2) The narrator is very eloquent yet very bare at the same time, which created just stunning reading. The book is written as a very one-sided conversation, and it really felt like you were sitting down listening to someone tell you about their life. This could be boring, but when the narrator has lived such a rich life it's very interesting.
3) It's surprisingly tension filled - the moment at the end (which I shall not reveal) may not be entirely shocking (due to the hints laid down in the novel) but is very very well executed.
4) I read it in two chunks (the first 3/4 in one sitting, and the last 1/4 this morning) but because of the style of the book I'd really recommend trying to read it in one sitting. It's only 200 pages long, so it really doesn't take that long to get though if you can set aside a couple of hours.

5) It picked up some very interesting points about how we (or specifically how Americans - although it applied to most Western nations) judge people based on appearance. And how (again Americans, but us Brits do it too) completely misinterpret situations when the issue of terrorism is brought up.

6) The love story in this raised some very interesting questions about what rape is and what an abusive relationship is. If you don't mind a spoiler I'm going to put a little discussion at the very end of the post, so don't scroll down if you don't want to know.

Yeah. So, I think that pretty much sums my feelings on this book up. Highly recommend it. I gave it four sunbeams.

Happy Reading!

xx

---------------------------- SPOILER ZONE ----------------------

There is a moment in this book where the narrator has sex with the girl he is in love with. She appears to have feeling for him too, but is definitely not an active participant in the intercourse. When the narrator realises that she isn't getting involved, he, albeit begrudgingly, stops. I found this very uncomfortable to read, as to me, this was clearly a rape. She did not want to have sex with him. However, as you see everything through the narrator's eyes, it became very muddled in my mind. There is a second sex scene, which to my mind is also rape, although the girl is an active participant. The narrator abuses her mental fragility in order to get what he wants. Which, as I've said, constitutes rape, or at the very least an abusive relationship. Once again, because we see everything through the narrator's eyes, we can see that he wants to make her happy. However, we can also see how much he is manipulating his own thoughts. His rationale may be her happiness, but his motive is very much his own fulfilment.

I just found this interesting. If you want to contribute to this discussion (particularly if you’ve read the book) please leave a comment!

Personal Issues with 'yourfaveisproblematic'

Yesterday, I was alerted to the prescience www.yourfaveisproblematic.tumblr.com. Now, on the face of this this website is nothing to worry about, and in fact should probably be encouraged. It's premise is to look at people in the public eye and point out 'problematic' things they have said/done and make 'reciepts' of them. As I said, on the face of it this should be encouraged - it's good to look critically on the people we admire to make sure what we like about them isn't clouding our judgement. However, after posting libelous things about John Green, I think we need to review some of the more 'problematic' aspects of this website. I would like to stress that this is by no means a comprehensive list, and if you find anything false about it I will more than happily put my hands up and say I got it wrong - I only looked at the website for about half an hour last night.

1) Frequently de-contextualises comments. This includes comments that were obviously made in jest and by no means represent the speakers values, comments that have been taken out of their historical time frame, and comments that have been taken out of their chronology. I'll go into more detail with specifics later.

2) Calls out people on what does/does not constitute cultural appropriation (ie. when celebrities wear a bindi/Native American headdress etc) yet refuses to acknowledge that this makes it a source of information on what is/is not cultural appropriation. If you are stating that 'this is and this isn't', then be prepared to answer for what you're saying and attempt to explain to those who have queries (ie, why aren't corn-rows/ dreadlocks cultural appropriation yet the wearing of the bindi (what wikipedia - and I know it's not the most reliable source - states as worn as fashion for many women, even though the traditional bindi is preserved as a religious symbol) is?). It's not good enough for you to say 'I can't answer that as we are not an authority' when you repeatedly make judgements on other people.

3) Attributes what fictional characters say/do to their authors/the actors who portray them. This appears to only apply to those characters who say/do something considered racially or culturally offensive, not those characters who commit moral crimes/ things that are sexually offensive. The people who run the website can't seem to understand that things that characters say and do are more often than not the complete polar opposite of an authors opinions. This links into point (1), particularly about chronology and historical context. The examples I saw of this on the website: a) John Green wrote a Muslim character into one of his novels (this character was the second most important in the novel) who says a Muslim word which is offensive, but flips it so it is almost a term of endearment. It is a word that Green wouldn't/doesn't say in his life, and a word that is completely appropriate with context. b) A character in 'Mad Men' (I believe) did 'blackface' (where a white person wears black face paint to portray a different ethnicity). Whilst this is completely unacceptable in modern times, this show is set in the 1950s, where this sort of actively was a lot more common place and not frowned on to such a degree. Equally, just because a character did something relevant to its historical context, does not mean to actor who portrayed it agrees with it. As I said, they have not called out people like Tom Cruise, Matt Damon or Bruce Willis for advocating murder simply because they kill people in their films. Equally, they do not call out Jane Austen for portraying patriarchal views in her novels. This is a ridiculous double standard. This website needs to recognise that authors and actors do not represent the views of the characters they create.

4) (This one I am not 100% certain about, but it was my impression after last nights searching) They want their blog to be an open discussion, then close off the 'ask' box feature when they receive a high volume of criticism for the libelous comments made against John Green and get angry at those who find other ways to interact with them. Whilst I understand that the people on this blog were also receiving threats (including death threats) they still have a responsibility to engage with the polite discussion. Threatening people is never acceptable, but when a site is making these claims on people who they do not know then they have to allow themselves to be held accountable for their words - particularly when these words could seriously damage a persons career. Again I am not saying that things celebrities do/say shouldn't be called out on if it is offensive/distasteful, because it's great to look at things we admire critically, HOWEVER these need to be verified before being posted on the internet. It's a dangerous place.

5) Linking to (2) makes political statements yet refuses to acknowledge themselves as a source of information.

6) Linking to above and (2), asks their audience to accept what they are saying as fact, not always revealing the source of their information (although they are mostly good as showing the source) and removes the ability for their audience to directly question me further.


Now, as I've said, I have not comprehensively reviewed this tumblr. Some of what I have said is potentially incorrect, and if anyone who either follows the tumblr or those who run the tumblr would like to speak to me about this then please do so, either in the comments or by my email. I would prefer that any comments were made directly to me as there is a high possibility that I won't see them otherwise, and I would like to address any concerns people may have.

I would also like to stress that I support the premise of the site. But the people who run it need to be aware of the responsibilities that come with running a site like this. If this site gets any more publicity, I would be very surprised if celebrities don't start to sue over some of the claims made on the site. Equally, clearly I am very angry about point (3) as it is ridiculous if you believe that the things characters do/say are they things their creators believe.


Sorry about the long break and about the rant, but this really wound me up.

Best Wishes,

xx

Review: Snow White and The Huntsman (SPOILERS, sort of)

SPOILERS although not really as it basically is the fairytale. BUT YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Based on the traditional fairytale, this tells the story of a Princess named Snow White, whose evil stepmother attempts to cut out her heart in order to preserve her own beauty. This is a little different from the original, and although it features dwarves, it also features 'The Huntsman' played by Chris Hemsworth. This addition adds a different dimension to the original story (which I haven't read yet, but intend to, so correct me if I'm wrong on any level here).

Things I liked about the film:

1) The acting. I don't care what anyone else says, I ADORE Kristen Stewart and she does a stellar job in this movie. She doesn't have that many lines (despite being the leading lady), but the ones she does she performs in a surprisingly good (although not faultless) British accent. Most of her work is done through her trademark lip twitches, which I think are possibly the most emotive lip twitches in all of Hollywood. People do not give her enough credit. The rest of the cast are fabulous too, particularly Charlize Theron.

2) The portrayal of the love story. In many re-tellings of the story, Snow White is produced as a love story. Which is all well and good, but it also kind of misses the point - which is don't obsess over your looks, its much better to be beautiful on the inside (remember, Snow White, whilst physically attractive, is only a threat to the Queen because of her purity and innocence of mind). This film did this so well, and only used the love story when necessary. In the end it's all about Snow White's triumph, and whilst the love interest does get a look in it it only brief. There is no Disney-esque wedding.

3) The special effects. Wowza. That department were incredible. The transitions between young and old, the bit with the crows and the mud (if you've seen the film you'll know the bit I mean). Just outstanding. And the Troll!! Amazing! Ooooh and the hallucinations - really crazy good (also, the acting at this point is stunning).

Things I didn't like:

1) The Dwarves. Whilst I think the film should have them, I didn't really see why they had to digitally shrink taller actors. There are plenty of amazing short actors out there (Warwick Davis, to name but one) which weren't used. Whilst I love Toby Jones, Eddie Mason and Nick Frost, I think they could have used other actors to the same effect.

And that's pretty much it... Recommend this for sure.

I give this film 3.5 sunbeams. (By the way, this rating is out of five. Don't know if I've explained this before.)

Best Wishes,

xx

Excuses for the Haitus

Ok, so my life has legitimately been a crazy blur of photoshoots, saying goodbye to my friends who are leaving for uni, extra shifts at work, going to the theatre and spending time with the people I love. And I know it's almost been a week since I last posted. But I need this break at the moment, because I'm doing things I don't want to miss out on. So, sorry for not keeping up this BEDA lark, but things got crazy hectic (as in I'd leave my house at 11 am and not get home till 11 pm - bearing in mind I've been ill, and don't normally sleep in but I've been catching up on snoozes and what not).

So, I'll write properly soon, pinky promise!

Best Wishes,

xx

You Know What They Say About Little Things...

So, almost every room in the house I share with my mum, dad and sister has the same light switch. It's one of those press-in ones with a dimmer switch. So every time I walk into my room (or any room) I just sort of hit my hand against it and the lights go on.

But that's not the case in my sisters room. Her room has a regular flick it on flick it off switch (albeit one that is very flush to the wall). But I forget about that. So every time I walk into her room, I just kind of smack the wall where the switch is. And the light never comes on. And every time I stand there looking confused.

And it just tickled me this morning for some reason...

(in case you don't know what they say about little things, it's that they please little minds)

Best Wishes

xx

Long Live The King!

For my Birthday this year, the fella got me tickets to see one of my favourite artists of all time: King Charles. If you don't know who he is or if you haven't heard any of his music, I urge you to Google him or YouTube him because he just produces the most brilliant, upbeat, love songs ever! He was my soundtrack last summer when me and my friends went on holiday to France, and I'm sure it'll be much the same this year. If you're wondering which song to start with, I highly recommend Lady Percy, although they're all damn good. He's basically a more upbeat Mumford and Sons (and indeed he duets with them on one of his songs, 'Brightest Lights').

So, a couple of days ago we went to the gig and WOW. The first support act (as with many first support acts) wasn't really that great, so I won't go into that, but from the second act onwards I literally didn't stop dancing! 

We Were Evergreen are possibly the cutest band in the world. They play adorable French pop music (they sing in English) and they are just amazing. I saw them live once before when they supported Charlie Simpson on his tour, and they blew me that time, as well as this. My favourite song of there is Vintage Car, and I'm just waiting for them to release a full album so I can buy it and support their music! They got dancing around and made everyone very happy.

Then the King came on. With his huge hair and swagger he was just INCREDIBLE. As I said I didn't stop dancing, and I wore my already knackered throat out singing along to every song I knew. His new material was also pretty good and very catchy (I usually am not too fond of artists playing new music at gigs because you don't get the same atmosphere - which at the end of the day is what I go to a gig for. You can always stick the album on or even head to YouTube if you're desperate to hear a 'raw' performance, but you don't get the buzz of the unity of people loving a song that you do at a gig).

At the end of the gig, I went to buy a sweet poster, and when I tried to leave the door was blocked with a mob of people as King Charles had just wandered over to say hi! Not many artists will do that, even at the smaller gig venue that I was at. I was very impressed.

Not only this, but he played a 15 minute long encore, including his version of Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start The Fire'' which he has updated for 2012/13. It's amazing, and I highly recommend it!

I had a great night, an amazing Birthday present!

Have you seen any gigs recently? Let me know the best gig you've been at!

Best Wishes!

xx

Review: Up The Junction by Nell Dunn

Ok, guys. I'll put my hands up. I didn't post yesterday. I had the time to, but I just didn't! I've been a bit under the weather and couldn't face looking at my computer screen. SORRY!

Back to business!

For my course we had to buy and read Up The Junction I by Nell Dunn. This book is currently out of print, but if you really want to get your hands on it then I believe abebooks (abebooks.com/abebooks.co.uk) have it on their system. I had to pay £9.99 for it as it got re-printed for our course, but it's only 133 pages long so I did not think it was physically worth the amount of money I had to pay (especially considering that we pretty much had to buy it from campus, and I ended up spending a lot of money on course books this term).

The book is a series of vignettes on life living in the east end of London in the mid sixties. This book is littered with cultural references from the time which distinctly plant in within it's location (which is great), so we get random songs lyrics, references to the 'H-Bomb' and WW2 (austerity was only just ending in Britain in the late 50's), as well as a casual attitude to sex, rape, racism, homosexuality that just SCREAMS sixties. The main body of the vignettes is dialogue, and it is rare that the reader is aware of which character is speaking, however this dialougue is punctated with brillliant description. All of the vignettes are loosely narrated by the same character, and unamed Chelsea heiress who is living with these cockney girls (it is never explained quite how this situation came about). Her status as an outisder is made very much aware of, particularly in the first two stories, and for me that helped me as a reader identify more with the somewhat alien world of the book.

This is my second reading of the book, and I believe it an a better informed, more critical review than if I had written one straight off (which I did on my goodreads, and it is a lot more negative). I enjoyed this book a lot more the second time, perhaps because I could see the point in reading it a bit more. I had to re-read this for revision, but I'm very glad I did.

Although this book is meat ot be read in its individual sections (I belive it was originally published as a collumn in a newspaper), I found it much more enjoyable to read it in long bursts as I got into the flow of the narrative better and I connected more with the voice of the text. Equally I think the last two thirds of the vignettes are better than the first, although that could be for the reason stated above (I needed the time to get into it). I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book, but if it comes up on your course syllabus or you spot it for a couple of quid then its worth a read.

I gave it 3 sunbeams.

Hopefully I'll write tomorrow, but I'm exhausted now so lord knows what I'll be like after work!

Best Wishes!

xx

PS. If you have an books you'd like me to review, please leave a comment, or if there's anything you'd like me to write about then drop me a line!

Juggling

Hey gang! (I've been doing the 8 minute abs training thing... it's impossible to start any conversation with words other than 'hey gang' now).

So, I'm sure I've spoken about this before, but it is something that dominates in my life - and that is the art of juggling.

Now, I'm not saying that I am secretly ace at throwing multiple objects into the air and catching them again. Although I wish I was. What I mean is the art of juggling various aspects of my life - something that is slowly getting easier but I don't think will ever go away. Living at home has proven a lot harder in the juggling aspect than I ever thought it would. I assumed it would be easy to mix uni work with uni fun with uni friends with home friends and home fun and home life and work work. Man did I have it wrong! Over most of the last two terms, all I've really wanted to do is get the most out of uni, even if that means missing out on some of my homey things. I've wanted to experience things and really connect with the people who I'm going to be spending a majority of my time with over the next two years. And if i was living away from home, that really wouldn't have been an issue. However, because I was embroiled in this daily commute, it's meant that I haven't been able to meet up for spontaneous things, or just go out in the evenings when other people go out. It's also meant that my friends at home have been a lot more demanding of me than they would have been had I moved out. They expect me to have the same amount of time for me as I used to - which i just don't. I would never have expected them to come and visit me at uni had I moved there, but because I live at home they expect me to be able to go to them and for them to come to me and for me to meet up places when I already spend so much of my times on buses or trains or driving. And I hate that (not seeing them, the amount of time I spend on the road). Thankfully, we're starting to work things out now - we've arranged one day every week when we will meet up. However, even this leaves me with the short straw. One of my friends wants us to meet up in her lunch break, which I get, but it means I loose an hour out of my day just travelling to and from the meet up place. She sees it that as we only get to spend an hour of her time with her we should sacrifice that too. But she doesn't realise how busy my days can be - even the days when i only have a couple of hours of scheduled lecture or seminar time.

It's the same with my uni friends. Although they are usually more understanding about those sorts of things, when they want to go out for a night out, they don't get that I can't always come. They don't understand how expensive it is for me to get a taxi home, because they don't really understand how far away I live. Which isn't their fault, I know, but still. It just makes things complicated.

I love all my friends to bits, and I'm so willing to make time for them - I just wish they would understand that sometimes I have to be selfish because I'm paying nine grand a year for this experience.

Maintaining friendships is hard at uni. You'll see that sometimes things fall by the wayside. But if you love each other, they'll pick up. And when we do meet up, things slot back into place, its as if we still see each other everyday at high school or college.

I hope you're all well, and let me know in the comments if you've had similar experiences at uni, or if you're worried about these sorts of things.

Best Wishes!

xx

Review: The Rime of The Modern Mariner by Nick Hayes

This is officially the first ever graphic novel I've read (I know, I know, I'm a bad person). And because of it, I'm probably going to try to read some more. 

In summary, this is a modern adaption of Coleridge's famous poem 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' (which I haven't read). A fisherman sits down on a park bench in a city centre next to a divorcee and begins to tell him his story. This story is incredibly poignant- the story of pollution and all the horrible things we are doing to the world.

However, not only is this a wonderful message, but it's also beautifully written and presented. You get one or two lines of poetry per page at most and huge drawings in tones of blue and grey, which are beautiful. This meant it was really easy for me to follow, as if I read kit incorrectly the rhyme and rhythm wouldn't work, so I knew I was reading it in the right order (an  issue I've had with graphic novels before). It also allowed me to read the text and look closely at the pictures without getting too caught up in either (another problem I've had when I've tried to read graphic novels in the past). It was a really quick read, partially because there were so few words per page but also because it was very well done. 

I'd really recommend this for a first time graphic novel reader. 4 sunbeams.

Sorry this was super short, but I'm feeling a little under the weather today and think my brain has shut off completely!

Best Wishes!

xx

BEDA: NaPoWriMo

Hullo gang!

So, this month, as I mentioned in my last post, I've decided to take part in two acronym based frivolities this month. How very exciting! The first is BEDA, or Blog Every Day in April. The premise of this is pretty self-explanatory, so expect to see a lot more content from me this month. I'll do a couple more beauty posts, lots of book/film reviews (because I've really been enjoying these), some university advice, that house post I've been promising you for EVER and maybe some other bits and pieces too. We'll see how the mood takes me.

The second is perhaps less well known, but its also pretty self-explanatory. NaPoWriMo is National Poetry Writing Month, where you write a poem every day for the whole of April. This is very similar to NaNoWriMo, but as far as I'm aware it isn't run by the same people as I believe The Office of Letters and Light run Scrip Frenzy in April instead. So a couple of my posts this month just may be my awful attempts at completing NaPo... You've been warned!

Anyway, the sun is shining today, so I'm going to go and make the most of it - I don't know about anyone else, but Springs been a little sleepy in my part of the world!

Best Wishes!

xx

Beauty: Skin Care Routine (Face)

Hullo, so I thought I might try something a bit different and do a beauty style blog post - just to see how it goes. I'm a huge fan of beauty vloggers and stuff like this really interests me, so I hope you find it interesting too!

I thought I'd start off with a basic skin care routine - or in other word the daily stuff I put on my face. My routine is pretty much the same morning and night, so this shouldn't be too long.

Firstly, I'll just tell you a little bit about my skin type. I tend to err on the oily side of the skin spectrum and my skin isn't particularly sensitive - so I can do a lot to it. I also have a condition which causes the skin cells on my cheeks (as well as my upper arms and occasionally thighs) to be over reproductive, leaving my with lots of tiny goose pimple bumps on my skin. When I was little, the doctors told me to be extra gentle with my skin and moisturise it lots, but when I turned 10 they changed their minds and told me to scrub it a lot to wear off the skin. Since I've started doing that it's a lot better on my face, but is still pretty bad on my arms. It also makes my skin redder than normal (again this has subsided). Its a pretty common condition (I know a couple of people who have it) and it doesn't really effect me anymore, but when I was little I used to hate it. I'll try to find out the name of it, but you'll know if you have it.

Anyway...

As soon as I get up in the morning I go and get a drink. Now, I know this doesn't really sound like a 'skin care' thing, but I find that when I am hydrated and drinking lots of fluids my skin is generally in a lot better condition - it's got a nicer glow to it, is less greasy and not as prone to spots. Next up, I wash my hands thoroughly - if I'm about to be touching my face I want to make sure I'm not putting loads of germs etc on it that may have accrued on my hands overnight. After that I dampen my face then exfoliate using Clean and Clear's Exfoliating Daily Wash. This comes in 150ml tubes for around £3 (but I tend to buy it on offer - usually 2 for the price of 1 or something similar) and I've seen it in pretty much ever health/beauty store and all the major supermarkets. It's a pretty standard product. I personally really like it because it's got very fine micro-beads in it, so its gentle enough for everyday use but still gets right into the pores to help clear them out.  I probably wouldn't recommend doing this everyday if you have dry or sensitive skin, as although it is gentle it does dry out my skin quite a lot (which is what I want from it, but you may not). If you want an exfoliant which doesn't dry out your skin I'd recommend Olay's Smoothing Face Scrub - I use it when I run out of my other products and I never have to apply moisturiser afterwards.

Once I've rinsed that off, I apply a small amount of Clean and Clear's Blackhead Clearing Cleanser to a cotton pad and rub that in all over my face - focusing on my forehead, nose and chin (aka the 'T-zone'). When I was little I never used to wash my face as I didn't really suffer from acne, however, this has left me with a few black heads on my nose (and I'm very wary of them forming in other places too). Blackheads are a lot harder to get rid of than spots, and this treatment is the only thing which appears to make them less visible. It comes in 200ml bottles and is around £3.50 (but again I buy it when it's on offer). Both these products last a really long time, so I never have to buy them that often. I use this every day, and I rub very vigorously, which leave my skin feeling tights and tingly. I like this sensation, however it can also burn a bit when you apply it. I don't mind this, but if you've got dry or sensitive skin (again) I'd avoid this. 

Both of these products dry out my skin, which is good, however, dry skin causes the skin to think kit needs to produce more oil, which is not what I want at all. To combat this I use Olay Complete Care Daily Fluid for normal/oily skin from their Essentials range. I love this moisturiser. It is so light and soaks into your skin really quickly and easily, so it doesn't leave you with a claggy or greasy feeling at all. Not only that, but it also is SPF 15, so I never bother putting sun cream on my face. I'm naturally quite tan anyway, so this just helps from the harmful UV rays. As it says, its technically a fluid not a moisturiser, which I think is why it is a lot smother and lighter to apply than other products I've used. This is more expensive, around £6 for a 200ml bottle, but as you only need a penny sized amount everyday use it lasts for ever!

On my lips, I use Palmer's Coco Butter Formula Moisturizing Lip Balm. This also has SPF 15 in it, as well as Vitamin E, and it leaves my lips feeling really good - which I need when spring is as rotten as it has been this year! My lips tend to dry out very easily, so I always carry this around with me to re-apply during the day. It doesn't soak in that quickly, but I love rubbing my lips together with it on! It also smells really good, and is totally tasteless. (Its around £2 a tube).

I apply any make-up on top of this. I'll usually wear eyeshadow, liquid eyeliner, mascara and lipstick.

At night, my routine is almost identical. However, before I begin my routine I'll remove my make up first. When I wear foundation this is a little different, but for my daily make up removal I use Simple's Kind to Eyes Nourishing Eye Make-up Remover Cream. This is essentially a gentle moisturiser which I apply to a cotton pad and rub gently on my eyes. It works so much better than all the other make-up removers I've tried, and it never stings or causes my eyes to water. It's also really good for removing waterproof makeup. I'd highly recommend this if you've got sensitive skin, its very gentle and moisturising. It costs around £4 for 100ml, but Sainsbury's normally do really good deals on it (I got 2 for 1 on it). Plus it lasts. I also use this to fix any make-up errors I make, it's got a really fine dispenser, so I just apply a blob to a cotton bud (or Q-tip, which ever you prefer to call it) and wipe of the mistake. Simple! (Pro-tip: If you run out of eye make up remover, you can always use regular moisturiser, but be very careful not to get it in your eye - very stingy!)

So there you go, my daily skin care routine! Let me know if you enjoyed reading this, want more information on any of the products (i.e, links about where to buy them etc), pictures of the products etc! as I said, I really enjoy reading these and writing it was super fun, so I think I'll do a few more of these. If you really don't want to read anymore of these then let me know, and if enough of you object, I might make a separate beauty blog. 

Best Wishes! 

xx

ps. I'm gonna attempt BEDA this month, as well as NaPoWriMo (more of them later), so expect to see an extra lot of me this month!

Review: 'Now is Good' by Jenny Downham

I bought this book for my friend for Christmas after my mum and sister saw the film and came back waxing lyrical about how amazing it was. My friend read it and said it left her with such an awestruck feeling that I had to read it, so she lent it to me. I begun this book on the 26th of March, and I finished it by the next morning (I pretty much read it in two sittings, the first third of the book in one day, and the final two thirds the next morning), if that gives you any idea of how fantastic it was.

This book was originally titled 'Before I Die', so I think that might give you some indication into the overall feel of this novel. It is a sad book, and there is no escaping that fact. If I was to compare it to another book, I'd describe it as a darker, and perhaps more serious (certainly less funny), version of John Green's 'The Fault in our Stars'. 

The novel is from the point of view of Tessa, a 16 year old girl who is in the latter stages of terminal leukemia when she decides to compile and complete a bucket list of 10 things she wants to do before she dies. We follow her as she attempts to fulfil all the things on her list, with the help of her best friend Zoey.

At first, I really did not like any of the characters at all - expect maybe her father who appeared to be trying his hardest to make Tessa feel as happy and as comfortable as he could. However, as the novel progressed I felt a huge fondness for Tessa (I did shed a tear at the end) and even began to like her friend Zoey (whom I hated at the start). The turn around character in this book is Adam, and there is literally no point in the novel when I wasn't on his side. Like I said, all of the characters warm on you so if you do pick this up and are reading it thinking that you hate them all - do stick with it. You will be rewarded for it by the end.

The stand out aspect of this novel was the language. Nothing Tessa said appeared contrived, which is extremely difficult to do in a cancer book. the descriptive sentences were plentiful and stunning - my favourite is when Tessa is watching the sunlight hit her body, and she describes it as congealing at her feet. I think that is simply sublime use of language.

Equally, Downham's ability to drop in and out of scenes is perfect - you get just the right sense of how much time has past and the events that fill in the gaps. This is especially well done in the final couple of chapters of the novel. 

I highly recommend this book.

Hopefully I'll get round to doing a book to film review, as I really want to see the film - now more than ever.

I give 'Now is Good' 4 sunbeams (too self indulgent as a rating system?)

Best Wishes!

xx

Left Wing Comedy and the BBC

The other night I was listening to BBC Radio 4's comedy Podcast Friday Night Comedy, specifically The Now Show (because I am a middle aged man, apparently). For those of you who don't know Friday Night Comedy is a weekly podcast which alternates between series' of The Now Show (hosted primarily by Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt but frequently featuring Jon Holmes (whom I will be addressing in a moment), Mitch Benn, and a whole host of other comics),  and The News Quiz (hosted by Sandi Toksvig and frequently featuring Susan Calman, Jeremy Hardy (again, more on him later), Andy Hamiliton etc etc the list goes on). Both shows are satires of the weeks news, one in the form of a quiz, the other in a series of segments (stand up, song, sketches etc).

Last week, in Jon Holmes' section, he addressed complaint which many people have with the BBC - it is too left wing. Now, this is problematic for the BBC who are meant to be a non-biased broadcasting institution. Having an partisan take on social, political and economic news stories is very much not in their job description. However, in my opinion for the most part I believe that the BBC does this very well, and in its serious news style programmes (ie, BBC Breakfast, various news programmes, and The One Show) it walks the line between entertainment and reporting very carefully. The Friday Night Comedy shows are not serious news broadcasting shows. Their sole objective is to entertain through mockery and satire. Firstly, I think many of these complaints have arisen because there is a Conservative (right wing) political party in government at the moment, so therefore there is a lot of anti-conservative jokes appearing on these shows. However, when Labour (traditionally left wing) were in government, an equal number of anti-Labour jokes were made. Therefore, I believe it is less about the BBC's political stance, and more about the requirements needed for the show.

However, I think it goes even deeper than this. In the criticism, it was especially picked up that Jeremy Hardy is a very regularly featured comic. He is also rather left wing (as Jon Holmes put it he tends to wear his heart on his sleeve, in particular his left sleeve) and isn't afraid to voice his (very funny in my opinion) views. When I actually sat down to think about it I couldn't really think of any out and out right wing comics who I found funny. This got me asking a question: are the BBC putting on left wing comics because their perpetuating a political stance, or because they are trying to provide the best entertainment? Personally I think it's the later.

Comedy works at its best when you are mocking the system that we live in, when you are picking out something from society and saying 'look, this is wrong, it's funny, but we should also probably change it'. Right wing comics never portray that message. In right wing comedy all you tend to get is mockery of left wing 'utopian' ideas: unattainable dreams that can never be realised. What are these 'unattainable dreams'? Well, they tend to be the desire for equality in society, not only in a monetary sense between rich and poor, but also between men and women, black and white, lgbtq, the list goes on. Left wing comedy mocks the people in power, right wing comedy mocks the victim. I don't know about you, but I don't think that mocking the people who are worse off in society is a very funny thing to do.

Let me know if you know any right wing comics who don't do this, if there are even any right wing comics at all (I'm seriously struggling to think of any, other than Jeremy Clarkson). Tell me if you agree with me, or if you have the same issues in your country.

Oh, and give Friday Night Comedy a listen. It's really rather good. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/fricomedy

Best Wishes!

xx

They See Me Haulin', They Hatin'...

Why hello there!

So it was my bonny old birthday yesterday, so I thought I'd share with you what I got!

1)


 

Dictionary of Literary Terms
 and Literary Theory (Penguin, 4th ed.)
ISBN: 9780140513639
Andrew Heywood, Political Ideologies:
An Introduction (Palgrave Macmillan, 5th ed.)
ISBN:9780230367258

Both of these books look like they're going to be really useful for my course. Right from the beginning every single lecturer I've had has told me to get my hands on a good literary dictionary, so I asked for one for my birthday. For those of you who don't know what a literary dictionary is, it is basically a cross between and dictionary and a reference book, which allows it to give really in depth definitions of literary ideas (for example, the definition for novel is 40 pages long - going into its etymology and its history), so it should be very helpful for my course. I used the 4th edition of Andy Heywood's political ideologies in the second year of A level politics, and from what I can tell, the only difference between this edition and the 4th is this version has colour (well, blue rather than grey) and occasionally pictures of particularly influential people. (If you are interested in getting a copy, I recommend either the 4th or 5th edition, the 3rd doesn't have word definition boxes, which are incredibly helpful). My course has involved a lot of politics - or rather the need for a broad view of political moments in history, which this book covers within it's overview of ideology. It's very well written, clear and easy to understand.

2)

Zara Ethnic Print Shirt (Medium)

Sorry the picture is on the side, I uploaded it vertically, but it doesn't appear to have worked... Anyway, the shirt is very light weight, almost to the point of being see through. It's in a soft cotton, and has a long torso (it covers my butt). I had to get the medium because I find Zara clothing fits tight on my shoulders and the sleeves tend to be half an inch too short. Really looking forward to some warmer weather so I can frolic in it, as it would look cute tucked into jeans or loose over shorts. Bring on summer!!

3)

My friends got me this 'Cake Pop' tray and recipe book! It looks adorable and I can't wait to get baking!

4)

They also got me this tea-bag tin filled with tea! All the tea is herbal (i think) but they haven't told me what's what. It smells divine though! A gorgeous mix of ginger and peppermint and yum yum yum! It almost smells like Yogi Yogi Chai (a tea I had in a cute little tea shop called Chai Ovna in Glasgow's West End), which was the most delicious tea ever, and once I've finished working my way through these, I think I'll probably invest in some and put tat in there instead!

5)

I'm very much looking forward to wearing these banging earrings! As you can see they were from New Look. I'd write more, but I really moustache... Hahahaha... must dash, moustache, geddit?!?

6)

Love the animal prints on these hair clips! Hopefully they'll look really sweet with my Pocahontas style summer dress!

7)


Rimmel Vinyl Gloss in Crystal Clear, Avon Super Shock Mascara in Black,
 Avon  SpotLight Moitsure Shimmer Gel, Avon Nailwear Pro in  Golden Dream
 and Avon Super Shock Eyeshadow Crayon in Icicle and Surf.

Can you tell one of my mates in an Avon rep? I can never afford to buy Avon make up, so I'm super chuffed she thought to get me some! I love it! I can't wait to try out the Rimmel gloss either, I'll be so shimmery if I wear all these together! Hopefully I'll review them once I've given them all a whirl!

8)

FCUK Little Indulgent Box containing body spray, body wash,
body polish and body cream, as well as a body polisher,
 all scented with their 'signature' scent.

My Mum's best friend never forgets my birthday and always gets me lovely gifts - this year was no exception! I am super excited to try out all this stuff - especial the body polish! I'm wearing the body spray at the moment (I think I'll wear it as a perfume rather than a spray) and it smells so floral and fresh - it's lovely. Again, I'll hopefully have a review up in the near future...

9)

Last but not least, EBO! My wonderful sister got me this card game and I cannot wait to play it! The premise of the game is that you are a Time Nanny and you got and kidnap babies who turn out to be evil when they grow up (ie, Hitler), but because they're evil babies, its not quiet as simple as you might think. There's a play through on Team Hypercube's YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/teamhypercube) that should be very helpful, so I'm going to give that a watch in a bit.


That's all folks! I had a wonderful Birthday, and hope your days were just as merry and love filled as mine!

xx

The Come Back Blog... Maybe....

Hello Munchkins! Sorry I haven't been around a lot  at all recently, but I've had a crazy amount of reading, essaying, module-choosing and general life stuff going on. So this will either be a very long post filling y'all in or a very short post that says ahhh so busy!

1) Reading. I've started doing a lot more reading outside my course, which is something I've been missing over the past 6 months or so. Every single book I picked up that wasn't on my course I'd end up feeling really guilty about and never completing, and although I enjoy most of my course books you get a totally different feeling when you read a book you want to read, rather than something you have to read. This left me in a bit of a reading rut, if you will, where I wasn't really enjoying reading at all because it felt like a task. I've never felt that way about reading before, and it made me a bit worried to say the least, especially considering my choice of degree. However, when the year started I set myself a goal on goodreads.com, so I'm trying to read 40 books this year. So far I'm on 10, including books for my course and (most importantly) a couple of other books I've picked up along the way, which I will be posting a review of shortly.

2) Essays. So I've had a couple of essays in since I last wrote, and have also got a mark back for one of them. I got a First!! I'm so ridiculously happy it's a little bit unreal. The only problem now is that now I know I can do it, I'm going to get really hard on myself if I don't carry on getting firsts. Which is a bit silly, as a 2.1 in your first year is frickin' good! But yay! Party time!!

3) Module Choosing. This was STRESSFUL. The actual selecting of the modules was easy enough, but the reserve choices freaked me out a bit. I really want my first choices, so I'm a tad nervous if I don't get them. Ah well, I'm sure I can sort things out at a later date if things don't turn out how I'd like them to be...
For my first choice I've picked: 18th Century, Poetry Writing, Prose Writing, Shakespeare, Three Women Writers, and Contemporary fiction. So this should be good!!

4) General Life Stuff. So, my grandmas haven't been all that well recently, and although its probably nothing to worry about, it's been stressing my folks out a bit, which in turn stresses me out. I guess that's actually the bulk of the life stuff, but it feels like a lot more. Oh, and I'm trying to book a holiday to France and nobody is communicating with me and that's unnecessarily stressful too.
In good news, I'm the new Secretary of the Creative Writing Society! Yay! i am very honoured to have be awarded the role... despite the fact it was only me in the running!

Anyway, so, new plan. I really need to write more, and here is an outlet I really should sue more often. So, here's what I'm thinking: new post, 3 times a week. Either on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday or Monday, Wednesday, Friday - we'll see how it goes, eh? Also, posts on a variety of things. Sometimes beauty, sometimes book, sometimes general life and sometimes a piece of creative writing. Sound like a plan? Goodo. It's in writing now...

Best Wishes!

xx

Ch-ch-changes and spreading some love

So, since its Valentines, I've been thinking a lot about how much has changed in my life over the past year.

This time last year I woke up, hungover, next to a rebound guy on my best mates sofa.
This time last year I was heartbroken.
This time last year I was the most stressed I have ever been.

Suffice to say this year has been a hell of an improvement.

I woke up to my phone buzzing at the ripe hour of 7.20am (it was a text from my boss) and spent the day writing an essay. Ok, maybe not a huge improvement then. But I'm not stressed and I'm getting taken out by the fella tonight. So things are looking very much on the up.

It's hard at times like this not to reflect on the past, what the year has brought. Which is what makes it so hard if you're someone who is affected by being single on Valentines. My past V-day's ain't been that good. As I said last year I was hungover and alone, the year before that I was avoiding the guy i was with and broke up with him the next day. Before that I didn't have boyfriends. So, this is a first for me.

I just wanted to spread the love a little. Wherever you are, I hope you have a wonderful day, and whether or not you celebrate St. Valentine, I hope it's filled with love.

If you're missing out on some lovin, I recommend you watch this video, it always causes my heart to burst a little http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QVQSZA9zSk

Love You Bye

xx

On Opinions (the good, the bad and the ugly)

Opinions. Everybody's got 'em. And, in this internet age it's easier than ever to express them (anonymously or otherwise) without 'suffering the consequences'. However, whilst this can be a really good thing, it is also dangerous and damaging. I don't have a particularly strong internet presence, but I'm sure I'm not the only one to have noticed the 'opinion wars' that occur in the comments section of YouTube videos, on blog or Facebook posts, or on Twitter. I've got nothing against a healthy discussion, and I'm very opposed to the 'you're opinion is wrong' tactic (unless you don't think Jennifer Lawrence/Owen Farrell are attractive. In which case, your opinion IS wrong), however, there are ways of noticing when you're typing a 'bad' opinion (note, 'bad' not 'wrong').

For example:

Recently (not that recently I know, but it did cause a bit of a stir) Miley Cyrus cut her hair. DUN dun dun DUN, right? She received a lot of stick for this, however, not all the opinions were the best directed. (Before I type anymore I'm just going to clear up my opinion on this hard hitting matter: I preferred her ballerina bun style, however she's a beautiful woman and can pull anything off. I do think it'd look better in her natural colour, or dyed darker though.)

Here's an example of a 'good' opinion: I don't like Miley's new hair style. I miss her old hair :(

A 'bad' opinion: Ugh, Miley's new hair cut is so not feminine enough. Makes her look like a boy. No guy is ever going to like that.

And a 'just-plain-ugly' opinion: OMFG She looks like a slut/bitch/whore (etc. You get the point).

Whilst it's easy to distinguish the ugly opinion from the others, it's not so easy to tell the difference between the good and bad ones. This is because they are both articulately expressed opinions. However, there is a key difference between the two. The first is commenting on her hair at a purely aesthetic level: It only talks about her hair. The second, however, is making a comment on society. This in itself is not bad thing, however, this particular comment is reinforcing a patriarchal opinion on femininity and what a girl should be or should look like in order to get what every girl wants: 'a guy'. These kind of comments that put value on a women's femininity are such a bad thing for society. They make young women see themselves as 'ugly' for not conforming to a narrow minded standard. As such, this is a 'bad' opinion.

Obviously, this argument works with lots of other situations in which a particular sect of society are told they can't look like/think/do certain things. Which is just bad.

I realise this perhaps wasn't the most eloquently expressed post, but I've got about 10 minutes to go catch a bus!

Best wishes!

xx

Bet Down, Shine Bright

Yesterday at CWS we studied OULIPO poetry (a French movement in which you write with constraints). So, we were each given a phrase and were challenged to write a poem using only letters found in said phrase. Mine was 'Bet Down, Shine Bright' (which I quite like as a little phrase and might to some more work surrounding it). I was quite proud with mine, so I thought I'd share.

Bet Down, Shine Bright

Hit the thing with the ring so it sings;
Now hide.
Tie the tie in a bow then sigh.
Show the bone to the dog,
Show the hog how to sing.
Ding.
The dog shit,
Hit a nit with a net and neigh.
The dog downs egg-nog
Then snogs the hog.
They sit on the bed with high tog.
Now sing!

It is night and the end is nigh.

Write your own! Pick a random phrase of a website and see what you can do with it! It's a lot of fun!

I promise I'll write about finding a house soon, got three essays due in at the moment and another couple of hundered pages of reading to do by Monday, so I'm going to get on that first!

Best Wishes!

xx

On Meeting Idols (OMGJohnGreenAHHH)

Hullo all,

Sorry I've been a bit rubbish about posting (I would say 'recently' but consider I started this in September (I think?) it technically still is a 'recent' thing so I'm basically saying 'sorry for being rubbish about posting'. So, sorry.) Turns out that this university lark is a lot more work than they say it is... so much for going out and getting trashed/wasted every night!

I have so much to catch you up on, stuff that is actually quite important considering I started this blog to map how I cope being a fresher whilst still living at home (the main thing being I actually have a house for next year now!), but today is not the day when you get to learn about that. Sorry.

Today is the day, however, that I get to eeep and squeal and bounce up and down clapping my hands about the fact that yesterday I met my idol.

We (when I put 'we' here it will mean myself, my sister and (for a majority of the time) two (or sometimes three) of her friends (an occasionally a couple of northerners)) woke up at the bright an breezy hour of 5 am in order to leave our house at 6am in order to get on a bus to London at 6.45am. So that was fun. The bus journey, as most travel experiences are at the hour of the morning, was a couple of hours of mixed excitement, exhaustion, worry and planning. I felt sorry for the other passengers on the bus, who clearly were not as stoked as us, but not sorry enough to turn down the dial on my glowing mood.

We arrived in London 25 minutes ahead of schedule, which was nice and relaxing. However, it also meant we had to spend an extra 25 minutes in the bitter London wind, which wasn't fun. I don't know if a lot of non-Londoners know this - I didn't until we went to London for Les Mis in January - but London doesn't really start until 10am on a regular day. I had assumed it would start up between 8 and 9 like all the other cities in this country, but nope. 10am. Can anybody explain why?? Anyway, so as London starts at 10am on a regular day, we didn't realise that shops wouldn't open till 12am on a Sunday... Our gig/show started at 12am. This meant that there was literally NOTHING TO DO other than wander round in the bitter weather or sit huddled in a cafe. We chose the latter. I'm ashamed to say we huddled in a chain shop rather than a nice local cafe. This was partly because the chain shop was actually open, and partly because we were in Chelsea (specifically Kensington) which is notorious for being a bit expensive (for further reference/to be blown away by appalling acting/to be dumbstruck by wealth and/or beauty/for mind numbing effects: watch Made In Chelsea). At about 11 we decided to seek out the venue, which took us all of ten minutes and if we had any doubts about whether or not it was the right place, the queue quickly settled those. We joined it, got interviewed by a guy with a camera, and entered the venue.

Cadogan Hall is beautiful. Everything looks so clean and so old and its just gorgeous. We walked in and received a signed (and Hanklerfished) copy of  John Green's The Fault In Our Stars, then queued again (because no Brit can resist a good queue) and I bought a poster. Everyone at the venue was lovely. I've never been in an environment when everyone is so excited and happy and wants to meet you and make friends. A group of girls came up to us and offered us home-made and TFioS iced buns!

Then it was time for the show. John came on and said some things about writing TFioS and about writing in general and gave advice and read a bit and was generally beautiful. Here's some of what I remember he said.

He spoke about how long it had taken him to write TFioS, and I don't just mean the many drafts that became TFioS I mean the entire writing process, from wanting to write a book that featured children who were suffering and from wanting to tell the story of them and their family. This began in 2000, when he was working as a chaplain in a children's hospice. The early drafts of TFioS featured a guy who was sort of like John, but (as he said) 'Adverb. Handsome'. Following this he said (for me) his most important piece of writing advice: none of those drafts worked because they were self indulgent. Not only was he writing about himself, but he was also writing for himself. It was only when he began to write for other people, so that other people would enjoy his work, that he became a writer. Writing doesn't work when you write for yourself, or if you write to be popular or if you write to sell. As John said, he never expected TFioS to sell - so clearly he shouldn't be trusted with things like that.

Amongst all this profundity and life advice - do things for other people not just for yourself - he also said a lot of funny things. There is a line in the first few pages of TFioS where it says that everything is a side effect of dying, including cancer. Which I know doesn't sound all that funny, but it was his defence of this line (which many people disagree with) that was funny. He said that cancer is form from the death of cells, which then have to reform, as cells that don't go through this process don't get cancer. We know this because Zombies don't get cancer. John Green, everybody.

He also spoke a lot about a certain nerdfighter called Esther Earl. You can find her in the links at the bottom of this page (you can also find where to donate to This Star Won't Go Out - the charity founded in her memory). He, through Esther, was taught that however short life is it deserves to be lived. This comes across in TFioS. It is also very poignant that the story is set from the point of view of a sick person, and about their life. All too often, stories are about helathy people. They seem to suggest that the sick person is put on the planet to help them learn something. But of course one person is not alive to help another. They are there for themselves too, and if they help you along the way then that's a bonus.

After all of this, Hank came on and played some songs, they both answered questions put to them by special guest Maureen Johnson, Hank got slapped, he played some more songs and they closed with the Proclaimers 500 miles. We waited two hours in a signing queue, got our stuff signed, had a brief chat and left, very happy people.

I'm not going to go into detail about what I said to John or what I said to Hank or what they said to me, because it wasn't that groundbreaking and it's special to me. I left them both letters, which said everything I knew I wouldn't be able to say (because of time and general flusteryness). I also left a letter for Rosianna (Halse Rojas, missxrojas on the tubes) because I knew she was going to the show later, but then I saw her down stairs, said hi and thank you a lot. We left, went to another chain shop, got food, got a bus, slept a lot, got home.

It was one of those days I won't ever forget. I met the man who inspired me to read differently, to write with purpose, to be the best person I can be. And I met his equally amazing brother. And I met the beautiful Rosianna.
I think a lot of people freak out when they meet their idols. I didn't meet my idol that day, I met a man. A brilliant man, but a man none the less. He was tired, his arm was probably about to fall off and when it was over, he had to do it all again two hours later. He wasn't this amazing being, but he was human. And that was what made the day so special. I got to meet the human who did so much for me. I got to say thank you to him. I got to give him my letter. I got to tell him,

Best Wishes
xx
Esther:
www.youtube.com/user/cookie4monster4
http://tswgo.org/esthers-story.html

John and Hank:
www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers
www.fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com
www.edwardspoonhands.tumblr.com

Rosianna
www.youtube.com/missxrojas
www.hermionejg.tumblr.com

Why do we study?

As a student in her second semester of uni, I've been thinking about this quite a lot. Why am I here, what worth does this have, all that kind of stuff. The scary questions, if you will. The days when a university degree meant you'd get a well paid job are long gone. Even the days when you'd be more likely to get a job graduating with a first from a reputable uni are fading fast. So, that kind of the begs the question: in a world obsessed with the acquisition of wealth, why am I paying in excess of £9,000 for my university degree.

Maybe it's because I want to postpone reality for a little bit longer? It's easy to be a student - not in the sense that the work load is easy, by any means, but in the sense that I get given money from the government to live on. I'm not expected to pay my way just yet, or to have a full time job. I don't have to worry about money problems - or at least not to the extent that "grown-ups" (and I use the term to mean adults who are not in full-time education) do. I live a relatively comfortable life - nothing is expected of me. This is very plausible.

Maybe it's because it's what I think I'm meant to do. All my life I've been told to go to uni and get a degree. That surely must have had an effect on me! But, I don't think this is the case with me. I am the first person in my family to go to uni (well, my dad got a degree with open university, but it's not exactly the same thing). I think in my parents eyes, this means I am still a child. They went straight into the world of work - they had far more responsibility at my age than I do now. But maybe they didn't - maybe it's just a different kind of responsibility?

The most likely answer I think, is a love of learning. I really enjoyed school. I know, it's strange, but I did. And I think to succeed at uni you need to enjoy learning - even if you didn't enjoy all of school, then you need to have enjoyed whatever it is you're studying. Me? I loved literature. I love sitting down and reading and for that to be an ok, worthwhile and encouraged thing. I love that I can sit and type this, and that this can be considered helpful for my degree. I enjoy lugging books around with me, seeing their beautiful spines lined up on my bookshelf, ready to be broken.

Ultimately, there's no real answer to this question. it's probably a bit of everything. But it's interesting to think about.

Best Wishes,

xx

'I'll type more posts,' she said...

Right, so, yeah. I know I said I'd try for a couple of posts a week, but these first two weeks back at uni have been hectic. I've been house hunting and have a shed load of reading to do (so much more than last term). I started this post with all the intentions of finishing it last Thursday - suffice to say that didn't happen. So pretend it's last Thursday for the time being, I'll let you know when you can escape the past again!!

*

Loving being back at uni, and it's only been a couple of days. My timetables not as good as it was last term though: I have a 9 'o' clock start now! That's almost like proper work!!

So far, I really like the sound of my seminar leaders, which is the most important thing at the end of the day. On my course, a majority of the contact time we get is in seminars, so if you didn't get on with the leader it could hold your whole grade back.

Most of my seminar leaders seem to be pretty young, no older than their mid thirties, which is quite nice. My Literature in History leader is slightly easier to understand than my last one (who was lovely, but her phrasing choices were sometimes a bit over my head). My Reading Texts tutor is really nice. She was half an hour late for our first seminar because she is new and got lost, but she filled us with confidence about her teaching credentials. She's given us a door-stop of a book to read though - she's suggesting we try to read for four hours per day! I used to think it was pretty good if I read for two! Guess I'll have to buck up my act a bit this term. On top of that book, in LiH is giving us pretty much a book a week to read, which should be interesting to say the least. The only seminar I haven't attended yet is my Writing Texts seminar. I have attended the lecture though, and it was alright, but I don't really like the lecturers style very much - although I know she's a lovely person, and our lectures change week on week so it's not a huge deal.

* Back to present *

I still feel pretty much the same about my seminar leader and my lectures as I've just said. I've been to my Writing Texts seminar now. It was alright - but the leader is a PhD student. This isn't a problem per say, but she just lacks the confidence of a regular tutor. I'm going to give her a couple of weeks, but if I don't get on with her I might ask to move groups. She seems like a lovely person, but at the end of the day I'm the one paying a ridiculous amount of money for this, so I want the best I can get out of it, y'know?

Recently my whole world has been consumed with housing, housing and more housing. We have a back up property, but we want to make sure we get a nice place that suits us all - so far proving to be a little tricky not only because we've maybe left it a little late, but also the weather is so not on our side. It's pretty much snowed constantly for the past 5 days, which means I've been stuck at home unable to get onto uni campus. So I've had to miss a couple of viewings, which sucks. I trust the judgement of my fellow house mates though! So hopefully things will turn out ok.

Some words on the snow then. I love the snow, don't get me wrong. But I am kind of ready for it either to GO AWAY or, more importantly, GET OFF THE ROADS. I almost got stranded in Norwich the first night it snowed, so now I understand why grown-ups always moaned about it so much when I was little.

Speaking of getting stuck in Norwich and housing - my housemate had a bonding session for us and cooked us a roast! How lovely is that!!

Right, I'm typing this in the uni library, so I should probably do some work now...

Best Wishes!

xx

The Art of Fielding Review (SPOILERS)

 Basically this book will make you feel all of the things. As John Green once wrote “Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” That's how I feel about this book.



SPOILERS FROM HERE

This book was beautiful. From the first five pages I had fallen in love with all of the characters. Henry is a well rounded character, carefuly crafted so the reader likes him despite the fact he's good at something and despite his mistakes he makes (mainly having a realtionship with his best friends girlfriend - I WARNED YOU ABOUT THE SPOILERS IT'S YOUR OWN DAMN FAULT). Equally Mike is the kind of guy you'd love to be mates with, he sticks up for what he belives him - even if it's at the expense of himself. The realtionship between Owen and Affenlight is believable - despite the fact that these are the two most two dimensional of the main characters (Owen is 'only gay' and Affenlight is 'only the handsome older professor' - although they do have other characteristics too). The reader pities Pella, once again despite her flaws and mistakes (the realationship with Henry).

I don't have much to say about the plot. I enjoyed it, it was interesting throughout the whole of the 500 or so pages, but I don't think it had a specific message. More like multiple messages, depending on which character you most identified with. Ultimately this was a book driven by its characters and characterisation, which is no bad thing.

I particularly liked the characterisation of Pella. She was a female character who had issues other than her physical appearance. She had qualities other than that of a sex object - when she had sex it was for her not for a guy. She is rebellious and independant and fiesty. I liked that.

So, yeah. Good book.

Rating: 5 stars

TTFN xx

Reflection and Resolution

Ok, so it's the New Year. A time for reflection and a time of resolutions. So I guess this is what this post will be about.

Catch-up-time: The last time I posted I was a bit down - not just with a hideous illness that wouldn't clear itself for weeks, but also with life. I felt a bit alone and very lost. However, a couple days after that post things began to look up. Firstly, one of my uni friends suggested we live together, so it's looking like I might actually have the makings of a plan for next year. Which can only be a good thing. As much as I love my family, their constant jibes about how I'm an adult so I should be doing things more independently (every time I ask for their advice) are more than getting on my nerves. Secondly, Christmas happened. I love Christmas, the food, the company, the present giving - all of it. There is something inherently lovely about a time of year when people cuddle up by the fire and give each other things to let each other know they love them. I just like that a lot. When I was little I used to just get excited about the gifts, and whilst unwrapping a present will never lose it's tiny thrill, the act of giving the perfect gift is even better.

All of this hasn't been without it's complications. My 'home-friends' have all been missing the love a little. We didn't really meet up at all through November, which made us all feel unwanted, left out and alone, and all of us were completely oblivious to the fact each other felt like that. It's started to look up again now. I think we've began to realise that the nature of our friendship is changing - its growing into something more mature and we need to be more mature about it. It's so easy to hang out with the home crew because everything just slides back into normal. It's just nice. And I think we're appreciating the good times a bit more now.

Things are looking up now. I'm an optimistic person. That's not always a good thing - it leaves me open to disappointment and heart ache. But I always argue that if I do get hurt I'll mend easier because I look forwards, not backwards. New Years is a time for looking forwards. Here are my resolutions - or rather my goals - for the next 12 months:

1) Stop texting whilst I'm in conversation - I do it far too often and it's just rude, particularly if I'm with people who i don't get to see so often.

2) Update this blog more regularly. I have all these ideas for posts and I never get around to writing them. That needs to change. I'm not promising once or twice a week, but at least every fortnight would be good for me.

3) Compile a portfolio - all this last semester I got given a lot of starting material and was told to write this up to create a portfolio. Needless to say, I haven't done this yet. This is more of a short term goal, but I really need to achieve this.

4) Read more - not just course stuff but I need to make time for reading. If I have some down time, I need to get off the Internet or turn off the telly, put on the kettle and curl up with a book. Recently I read a book that re-kindled my love of good literature (I'll review it soon) and I just spent half of yesterday reading with the fella (I didn't have much choice - he borrowed 'Catching Fire' and powered through it. I fell asleep whilst he read till 1.20am. He took 'Mockingjay' with him.) so hopefully that'll encourage me.

5) Be proactive. I have a habit of doing the easy thing - especially when that easy thing is sit and do nothing. I need to, to borrow a phrase from Hank Green, grab life by the testicles. This is the most important of all my resolution, and it kind of encompasses them all. It's only by being proactive that I'll be able to achieve my goals. It's gone past the time in my life when I can breeze through - I need to work hard. And that's not a bad thing.

And finally, 6) Say no. Over the past term I've found myself getting more and more exhausted. that's why I was so ill - I was too tired. The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind and I can feel myself slowly getting more and more shattered again. I've got to learn i can say no, and I can focus on myself for every so often.

Be strong, be true, be good and spread love.

TTFN xx