My first coffee

My boyfriend arrived on saturday, and we have been having a great time. That evening, we went out for drinks for my housemate's 21st (which is actually tomorrow). Before heading to the bar, my boyfriend and I ate a meal at ASK, which was YUMMY (especially the chocolate pudding we couldn't resist because of the description 'molten middle'..!) When we arrived at the bar, my friend ordered about 6 jugs of mojito, so everyone had a pretty good time!

This meant that I spent the whole of sunday feeling a little worse for wear. This was when we decided it might be a good idea for me to try a coffee. I've always liked the smell, but never the taste, however I've tried a few of his lattes recently and not minded them. We headed to cafe nero... ordered a skinny latte (all lattes at cafe nero come with 2 shots of expresso) and I actually loved it! With a bit of sugar, I thought it was delicious. It definitely gave me the pick me up I needed. In fact, probably because I've never really drunk any high-caffiene drinks before, I actually became pretty hyper. I couldn't stop moving for about 2 hours- it was quite funny.



Another way I decided to make myself feel better was by REORGANISING. (Does anyone else do this??) For a while I've wanted to store my flour and sugar and pasta, etc, in jars with pretty labels but haven't got round to doing this. So, we cycled to sainsburies, loaded my bike-bag up with jars (rather precariously), and then I spent the whole afternoon finding, printing and sticking pretty labels! Not quite revision, but it made me feel slightly better about my life.

I also made this card for my friend:

And I'm giving her these, as well as some peanut butter cookies she loves that I'm going to make tomorrow. (Last time we made them, we ate the whole batch in a day).  

I also got this for my boyfriend the other week. He's got a VW camper van which he's mainly done himself, and often lives in it for periods of time in the summer. Hopefully this summer we will go and do some camping somewhere, so I thought this would be a fun thing to get! 

(The mug is a present from his lovely mum :))

mmm yes please!



xox

Where is home?

This post was inspired by LCR's 'Get the Picture' challenge, which got me thinking about the idea of 'home'. She posts the definition
"home |hōm|noun
a place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originates."

My last post was called 'home for the weekend'. By this, I meant the house where my mum, dad, and sister live. My current conception of 'home', then, fits with the last definition; "from which it originates". I wasn't thinking when I used that expression, but I suppose that's the place I still call home. It will be interesting to see when that will change. 

The definition "is most typically found" definitely doesn't apply to me right now. I am most typically found in my university shared house of 8. Even though its made up of some close friends, it just isn't 'home'. Part of this will be the fact that the house is actually fairly disgusting, given the unfortunate fact that my housemates seem to be allergic to cleaning, or any suggestion of it. I've sort of grown used to it now so it doesn't get to me as much, and I'm not a clean freak myself, but honestly, this is a new level. Luckily my room is my sanctuary, complete with fridge, and I do quite a bit of food preparation in it to escape. I've just gone and taken some photos of the rest of the house, to show you I'm not just being melodramatic. If anyone reading this is eating, I'd advise them to stop doing so now. :/

My poor, neglected cleaning rota. I tried.

Actual disgusting mould :/

So you 'get the picture'. The final definition is, "where something flourishes". I was glad this was suggested, because it fits my other, and perhaps preferred definition of home. Cheesy I know, but a line from the song 'Home', by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes struck a chord with me; "Home is wherever I'm with you". I feel most comfortable, most content, and most happy when I'm with my boyfriend. I think, for me, that's what I really consider 'home' to be now. Because I moved house a few times when I was a child, I experienced the transition of "home" a few times. The point that I would always notice that the transition had fully formed was when I'd get back from a holiday, and realised that it truly felt as though I was home. I now get the same feeling every time I see my boyfriend (this is an obvious feeling for me, because we're in a long distance relationship).

Where do you consider to be home? Has this changed much throughout your life? Thanks to LCR for that food for thought.

Which brings me onto real food! I went for a run with my housemate today and, whilst I've lost loads of fitness (okay, been lazy) recently, it felt really good and we ran well together, as we spurred eachother on. There were so many times that I would have stopped if she hadn't been there! Anyway, it left me feeling healthy:



And finally, the dream drawing from the other day...





xox

Home for the weekend

I decided to come home this weekend, partly for just some home comforts, partly because there were a few things I left behind from Easter, and partly because I thought it might kickstart my revision (it didn't.) However, it has been fun! Yesterday I met up with my best friend, Jenny, and we decided to give our cameras some exercise! We drove around looking for interesting places, and enjoyed the break from work as well as some catching up. Here are some of the photos we got:

:)

It was good to have a play with some photos, as I haven't really done much photography for a while. I'm looking forward to my boyfriend visiting next weekend, because we're going to take some pictures of him longboarding!

I'm having a slight sugar-overload this weekend... I'm not used to having to control myself around so much chocolate/icecream, etc, as I just usually don't buy it at university, or buy it in small amounts!! Woops.

Also, more dream drawings to come soon. Had another really odd dream where I was going on holiday to some place where they still lived as savages. I had to go to watch a film (in screen 9..?) about what it was going to be like, and then I had to go on a plane to get there. The people were all a bit evil I think, and I remember there being a huge hill... and oddly some esculators at some point. I have no idea how my brain comes up with these things...

xox

Dream Drawings

I keep getting really weird/funny dreams at the moment. Last night really outdid all my previous ones. I don't think I've ever had a vaguely political dream before, they are usually very much connected to only people I know and experiences I've had, even if all jumbled together. However, last night, I dreamt.... that the Queen and David Cameron were getting married???!?!?!? I woke up very confused. I don't remember a huge amount else from my dream, apart from the fact that nearly everyone I knew was invited to the wedding, and my mum helped me and an old school friend find a dress from her bedroom. Everyone seemed worried about the prospect and what it might mean for the country, I remember that. Then at the end, I had some sort of dinner party with my boyfriend and two friends. It was honestly such a strange but oddly vivid dream. From now on I'm going to document my especially weird dreams in pictures, as I think they'll be fun to look back on. (Hey, maybe I'll get them analysed one day. God knows what this one means!)

After waking from this odd dream, I had my first ever bowl of overnight oats. I always see my favourite food blogger Peanut Butter Fingers eating this and wanted to give it a go- since I love oatmeal but haven't been feeling like having a hot breakfast for the last few weeks. Last night I mixed:

40g Scottish Oats

1/2 cup skimmed milk

1/4 cup muller light toffee yoghurt

1/2 small banana

1 tsp cocoa powder

and put it in the fridge. I sneaked a few spoonfulls before I went to sleep, which were amazing, but they were even better this morning!

They kept me going through the gym and a quick swim! I then met up with my friend to do some Metaphysics revision. It really made our brains ache after a while!! I love philosophy but it is SO hard to get your head round sometimes. I find myself reading a sentence over and over again, willing for it to actually program in my brain! Today we were looking at 'temporary intrinsics'. In English, that's examining the problem of how, even though we call a table 'the same table', it has different properties at different times. (One day it might have a drawing on it, or the corner might get knocked off). Philosophers seem to think this is a problem that they must write thousands of pages about... and argue about whether they believe in 'endurance' or 'perdurance'. People who believe in perdurance think that there are no tables, basically, and that instead there are billions of 'time-slices'; the sum of which makes up 'the table'. Whilst I see the problem, I'm not going to be denying the existence of my table any time soon..

Dinner was also yummy: wholewheat pasta, mushrooms, ham, and a few peas :D. Sorry if I bored you all with my philosophy talk.

xox

Today, I have been feeling odd.

I've been feeling a bit odd all day. I couldn't really tell you in what way, just generally a bit weird. Also, my laptop keeps making a noise that makes me think it's raining, which is a bit disconcerting, so I wish it would stop. My laptop has been having a few tantrums recently. Anyway, yes, people just seem to have been in bad moods, and I don't like that. And I went to the library to try and start revision but it just made me feel more weird and lonely being in a huge room with hundreds of people who weren't talking. Well actually sometimes they do talk, but when they do talk it annoys me. See: I have been feeling odd.

This is what I wore on my day that I felt odd:

My day was improved when I found 'Oh Comely' magazine in my local WHSmiths. I found the magazine in a little shop in Edinburgh but didn't get it because my mum was hurrying me along, but immediately regretted not getting it. If you've not seen it before you should read about it here . It's about "people and their quirks and their creativity, rather than money and what it can buy." I knew it was love after finding an article debating the question of whether one should squeeze a teabag or not, a flow-chart deciding which unusual kitchen utensil you need, and a feature on a girl who draws birds in hats.

Also, this evening I watched Simon Amstell's comedy DVD with my housemate. (We both fell in love with 'Grandma's House'.. the funniest sitcom I have ever seen. I was laughing so much that I nearly had to use my inhaler. (honestly I was actually wheezing..) My favourite bit was where he talked about how he was once wondering why there wasn't anywhere you could just go and meet up with people, without all the pretence of 'going for dinner'; an indoor area where people could just catch up. And then, he says, he thought people might get a bit hungry after being in said place for half an hour... and he invented the restaurant. I think I probably massively killed that joke by writing it down but, honestly, he's hilarious.

One last thing, do you like my omlette? I was proud to make something that resembled one; my last few probably didn't warrant the name.

xox

More revision avoidance

Last summer, my best friend and I went on holiday to Jersey. Over the course of the week we became steadily more and more obsessed with making friendship bracelets, as you can see above. The large majority of mine have now fallen off, sadly, and this morning I thought that making a few more would definitely be more productive than revision (kant=bluergh at any time, let alone a sunday morning). So, I rummaged through my bracelet supplies and decided to make one that matched yesteday's headband. (When I first wore jewlery I would ALWAYS wear matching bracelets and necklaces... I'm not sure I've ever fully shaken off that habit.. even if it is a bit of a dubious fashion idea at age 19).

Anyhoo- here is what I came up with: I twisted around the flowers that I got (from The works for a pound if you live in England(!)) and added some of the beads I still had left over from the summer.

Other methods of procrastination today have included looking around interior design websites for ideas. I love decorating rooms- and cannot WAIT until I move into a house that I'll be living in for a good amount of time. I'm renting a pretty icky house this year but I managed to make my room live-able with lots of fairy lights, cushions and photos/drawings. I also made a den in the corner where the ceiling is too low to stand- again returning to my childhood love of dens. I'll be pretty sad when I have to take everything down in July.

And now some dreams for the future.......

xox

Brighton and a hairband obsession.

Last weekend I visited my boyfriend in Brighton. He lives in Jersey when he's not at university in Brighton, and one of his friends from home was over in England to see his girlfriend. We all went out on the saturday, and went to an Asian Dub Foundation gig at the Brighton Dome. It was such an amazing day; we started it out with ciders and beer on the beach at about 3 o' clock and were all pretty.. 'happy' by the time we left to go out. Asian Dub Foundation were really good and we all did lots of dancing :D. It was fun to get out as I haven't for a while with the dreaded essays.

I also did lots of shopping over the weekend.

I bought this headband from Primark for 1 or 2 pounds, after seeing some almost identical ones in topshop for about £8! I also bought these trousers:

and a plain white primark tshirt that I drew a bike on (my boyfriend got me some t-shirt felt pens!) ... another copy of a topshop one for £18! All in all a hugely successful weekend. LDR's are hard (it takes me about 3/4 hours on the train to get to him, but SO worth it for the beautiful times we have when we visit each other.

I've been back a while now and have handed in 50% of my year's worth of essays... which was scary. Today I've done a big clear out of my room because I don't feel like I can revise when my room is messy. I've also made ANOTHER flowery headband, from some £1 flowers I bought from 'the works', just tied onto a piece of string. . . anything to avoid revision!

xox