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Showing posts from 2014

Countdown to Christmas

A very festive hello to you my dear readers, I don't know about you all but for us students it feels extremely wonderful to escape university lectures and regroup with family as this term has gone quickly yet managed to drag its feet as well.  I am a great admirer of Christmas and the cheer that has accompanied it has been a welcome change from the doom and gloom of assessments etc. I'm trying to focus on this aspect rather than the approaching end of yearness that it feels I'm being rushed towards.  However putting all this aside lets take a look at all the fun festive things I have been up to that made the end of term busy but very very lovely! A true test of how many Christmas meals you can fit into 2 weeks. The answer 5! 1. Pizza, Cocktails, and Friends   Two weeks ago I had returned from Northern Ireland after finding it very hard to leave family it was nice to return to Sheffield with lots of fun things to do. Unfortunately my decision to reward myself for s

A Grounded Home

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Hello there my dear readers, I hope you are bundled up warm on this winter night and maybe sipping a nice cosy drink as you sit down to read this next instalment of my blog centred on the concept of home. (Apologies for the belated reply as I have had this ready to post for the past week but as my next blog post will explain the last week has been a busy one and hopefully these editions will be worth the wait!) There are many different sayings that us humans have created to try and pin down what 'home' actually means and none of them really seem to be adequate for me.  For instance the saying "home is where you lay your head" means that it is confined to a single present place and a basic need for sleep. It also does not really take into account those of us that have live away from home such as students and call both our university accommodation and where our parents/guardians reside  "Home". Furthermore "Home is where you heart is&q

The Encrypted Escape of Excerise

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Good evening my lovely readers, I hope this blog post finds you well and warm on this cold December night. I'm going to talk to you about an escape of mine this week but first some happy highlights. This is one of my inspirations when it feels like nothing else is working to make me feel better. It's nice to have options. Last weekend was really lovely as I went to the theatre on Friday evening with my friend Jess (who also has a blog, check her out here http://jesslouisekeen.blogspot.co.uk  ) to see Cinderella the ballet. It was a really different evenings entertainment and something I'd never experienced before so it reminded me how wonderful trying new things can be. Also we had booked this back in August so showed how lovely it can be to make plans and have something to look forward to, which is something I really enjoy in life. Me and Jess in the Lyceum theatre waiting for the ballet to start.  On Sunday I went to a Christmas Market with some of my

Two Little Words

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Hello there my dear readers, Happy belated thanksgiving to you all! I'm not an American and have never lived there but this is one of those holidays that I feel the UK could adopt as the spirit of the occasion (minus the dodgy colonial aspect) is one that is pretty wonderful. The time for community and thankfulness as well as tasty food can get romantacised but the sentiment is one I am very much in the mood for at the moment. Hence today I would like to share some things with you that, in spite of sleep deprivation and headaches as well as a far too long a week, I am thankful for. 1. Friends : I love my friends and it is true that they are the family we choose for ourselves. Their love makes even the baddest of bad days better and I feel so thankful to be surrounded by such wonderful people in my life on all sides of the water. (Wasn't enough room for photos of you all but I loves you all :)) Nicola having some Cider at the Christmas Light Switch on Me and Nic w

Looking Another Way (Lyrical Sustenance)

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Early Morning Greetings to you my dear readers, It has been a whirlwind week since I last posted here and despite all that has been going on I have some how managed to hand in both of my essays and on Thursday reached some degree of freedom. However this has meant that my mind has had far too much time to be distracted by melancholy and dwell on recent devastating events which is a lack of mental freedom. Yet in some ways I am endeavouring to seek the happier parts of life and allow myself moments of distraction from myself. This endeavour has been particularly assisted by a friend of mine who this week has reminded me that who I am does not disappear because of what life requires me to go through and whilst it changes me I remain someone with good qualities. I'm going to try and see myself through those eyes a bit more. Also I know my blog has been full of a lot of negativity these few weeks (life reflects art eh?) but I would like to share with you some happy thoughts too

Lost for Words

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Hello my dear patient readers, I bet you wonder why I am even bothering to attempt to write a blog when I can't seem to keep up with a schedule of posting (or as it seems assessment writing at this late hour) but as a girl who loves writing, has a seemingly increasingly complex and beautiful life, and wants to share with you my observations its hard not to try. I know you all understand how busy life gets so lets assume you forgive me my time lapse.  This week's blog post is a hard one to write as I want to attempt to share with you my observations about loss . This is a phenomenon which has dictated my life for the past month or so (and if I want to be totally honest, my whole life as I feel constantly at risk of losing who I am) but was brought home to me in shocking-in-your-face-unavoidable-reality when my Grampie died of a heart attack nearly two weeks ago. I do not share this with you for pity, for views or something to say but as a forum to try and process what lo

Looking for Silver linings in a Emotionally Clouded Life-sky

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Hello dear readers, My deepest apologies for the extensive gap between my last blog post on Friday the 10 th October and the one I post today, I know it could have seemed worrying after the content of my last blog but I am still here*.   Continuing on in that vein of honesty however, I have found it exceptionally difficult to write and share parts of my life with you all when I have been having some personal issues (which I won’t be speaking about here as some aspects of my life are not really for the public critique as I hope you’ll all understand and even appreciate) that affected my mood and ability to really do anything. Plus I didn't want to misrepresent things to you dear reader that my life is all sunshine and rainbows and on the other side that it isn't all a dark well of despair (although I will admit I have been leaning to this side over the past several weeks). As often as I tend to operate in the extremes in my personality my life, as much as it can appear t

A Bit of Backstory

Hello there dear readers, I hope your respective Friday evenings are full of the relaxation or celebration you need after a long week. For me it has felt a busy yet lovely one but I am slowly losing a sense of what day of the week it is as they are all blurring into one, so the weekend is a welcome break. However in contrast to my light hearted blog posted this morning I'd like to take this chance to write about something serious and personal if you'll bare with me. As today is World Mental Health day I'd like to share with you my experience with mental health issues. Since I started writing  a blog I have debated using it as a method of 'confession' and I feel like today I am doing so for the right reasons and not for gratuitous publicity. Please feel free to tell me if anything does sound preachy! I'm not a hundred percent sure how to begin and I don't feel like sugar coating things is the way to voice this aspect of my life so I'll just state

Some Familial Interactions

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Hello there dear readers, I hope this blog post finds you well and your respective weeks have been suitably exciting. My own week has been rather wonderful and this is largely due to the visit my grandparents made up to Sheffield for a few days. It was very special to have this company as living a reasonable (a body of water separating) distance from my immediate family I can't go home for a weekend when I feel like it and as exciting as university is there are several moments when this extra distance is felt keenly.  My lovely family when we were on holiday in Amsterdam, eating a curry as per usual.  I miss them lots. The presence of lovely flatmates and wonderful friends are already a blessing but having family around was a real treat. The grandparents- or Grammie and Grampie as I like to call them- had planned to visit me in my first year of living in Sheffield but we all ended up being so busy that it just didn't happen until this year. They arrived on Tuesday

Chapter The Second (Part Three) : An Inspirational Encounter

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Hello there dear readers, A very warm welcome on this cold Sunday evening to the third and final instalment of this bumper edition of Observations of a Fictional Girl. I'd like to take this opportunity to devote a blog post to one of my inspirations in life whom I was lucky enough to meet last week in Sheffield City Hall. I am referring, with great reverence to the wonderful man that is Stephen Fry. It was way back in May that I booked tickets, at my boyfriend Leo's suggestion, to go see Mr Fry live and I have been excited ever since then not really believing that it would ever actually happen. Then last week it did and it was glorious. Stephen Fry, as most of the well informed Harry Potter fans among you will know, provided the voice for the Harry Potter series when they were turned into audio books and as such his voice has always been one I was familiar with, and had a presumed companionship with, from an early age. This link was what started my awareness of