Autumn Digest

This is coming instead of last month's monthly digest, not because I left it too late (I did), but because I thought it would be nice (that too).

As far as I'm concerned this time of year is just the build up to Christmas.

I love that it's cold, I love that I'm either too cold or sweating because I'm wearing so many layers inside. 

I love that all the shops have put their Christmas displays out and everyone's complaining about it. I love that when everyone stops complaining it's an appropriate time to get excited for Christmas. Most of all I love the way everyone looks at this time of year, 

I love layers, and I love the way everyone changes their make-up around now because finally it's cold enough for it not to melt off your face.

I even like that it's dark all the time. That's right, I like that. Not in itself because it means I just want to be in bed for 70% of the day, but because that's when you know that this time of year is coming and I enjoy everything that comes with it.

I don't just like autumn and winter, I like them so much more than I like summer. During the colder months everyone wants to be inside, and it's totally acceptable to plan every activity around the availability of inside space. During summer, even when it isn't hot, everyone wants to be outside all the time. It's like a horrible compulsion to be outdoors even when it isn't hot enough to sit still for an hour and I'd be much happier inside.

I really really like, but also don't understand, the fact that my parents turn the heating up far too high and basically turn the house into the world's best-furnished sauna. 

I really like being able to buy a million jumpers and long-sleeved shirts, and I love that a either a roll-neck or many layers of top and jeans will be my uniform for the next 5 months.

Lots of love

xx

On Being Frightened

About two weeks ago I started university, for the days leading up to my first day (and most of the first week) my inner-self felt like this: 

In other words, I was really, really scared.

Now I'm feeling a bit more like that scene in a movie where the main character hears a noise upstairs and goes to check it out only to find out it's just some creaky door. So not completely terrified, but definitely on edge, waiting for the actual scary thing to happen.

When you tell people you're going to university for the first time, or back to university, or starting a new job, or moving away, they always want to tell you how excited you must be.

Most of all they want to hear how excited you are.

For me, if it was someone I didn't know that well, I just lied and said I was 'soo excited' and I was sure it was going to be 'soo good'. If they knew me a little better then I was honest and admitted actually, that I was very very scared and starting to wonder what on earth I was doing taking such a massive risk.

As the time drew nearer I only became more scared, and more convinced I wasn't going to be able to cope and that I was going to spend the entire year with no friends and slowly drowning under the weight of my course and part-time job. These might seem like an over-exaggerated description of what everyone feels when they have to start over somewhere new, but for me it felt all too accurate. My final year at university was really tough friends-wise and although I left it with some of the best friends I could ever have wished for, I also left it thoroughly shaken and not nearly as sure as myself as I was at the start of it. I wasn't just worried that people wouldn't like me, or wouldn't find me worthy of friendship, I was really concerned that I just wouldn't put myself out there from fear of realising both of those things.

It was scary because for the first time in my life I wouldn't be thrown together with a group of people, either in my accommodation or work place who would just be my friends by default. Not only that, but I'd also made this decision all on my own. Going to university had seemed so obvious, like I'd never have done anything else, but going on to postgraduate study was just one of a million paths I could have followed after I finished my undergraduate degree. 

So if I had a terrible time, and crashed and burned both socially and academically, I'd only have myself to blame.

I feel incredibly lucky to feel that fear reducing as the weeks go on.

If being so frightened at the start has given me something, it's been that I feel grateful for even the smallest victories in my new situation. I changed my course from part-time to full-time with relative ease, I made friends who I see regularly, and I feel on top of and excited about my work.

Don't get me wrong I'd have loved to not have been frightened, I'd still love to be able to shine with confidence and not let everyone that let me down in the past make me think that everyone else is going to do the same in the future.

But it is okay to be frightened, and okay to let that subside in its own time.

Who knows, maybe if this year goes well I can start my next adventure with the relaxed confidence of someone who isn't internally screaming. Maybe.

À bientôt!

xx

Weekly Digest

This is cliché but I'm going to say it anyway; I have no idea where time has gone. How is it October (September Digest is coming soon), how is it the final of GBBO on Wednesday, and mostly, how am I ordering books for my Masters thesis already?

I don't know why I've been so bad at taking photos for these past two weeks, especially since I'm out of the house (and therefore have to be dressed) every day of the week. As with most things here, I'm going to try and improve that in the future.

The one I did manage to take a picture of was this one, we did a late night student event at work and we were also featured on the official Instagram: 

(The boots are from Marks and Spencer, I'm still deciding so any votes on whether I should buy them would be greatly appreciated)

It was also my other half's birthday this week so we went out for a lovely meal on Thursday night. I don't know where I'm looking but this is the only photo where we're both smiling:

And last night I made dinner: 

Definitely a week of finding my feet as it's the first time in months I've had a job and uni work to do. I don't feel like it's going too badly so far, so let's hope this week is a sign of things to come! 

Lots of love 

xx

Weekly Digest

STARTING UNI...AGAIN

This week was probably the strangest of my life. I never ever expected to feel so overwhelmed and frightened and nervous in the city that's been my home for 22 years; but that's how I felt on Tuesday finding my way through Leeds University campus.

Luckily I had nothing to worry about, I've so far managed to find everything okay, I feel ready to work, and I even made friends (I hope) and that fear has now partially transformed into excitement for the coming year.

In honour of my being about to embark upon 12 months of very hard work I celebrated today by not getting out of bed until 11am, only leaving the house to buy food and the comfiest pair of sweatpants in the known world, and then taking a 4-hour nap.

Sweatpants - F&F at Tesco

Real-time update: I'm still in bed watching the X Factor right now.

Only partially, I'm obviously still absolutely terrified - more on that in a post next week.

Also this is what I wore on my first day: 

Scarf - H&M

Blazer - ASOS

Top - American Apparel

Lips - Kate Moss for Rimmel

RECOMMENDATIONS

Over the past week some really exciting and interesting posts have come out of the blogging community. Here are some I'd really recommend you take a look at:

Tales of an 'ugly' beauty blogger by Zoe London: http://www.zoelondon.me/2014/09/tales-of-ugly-beauty-blogger.html

Zoe tackled something here that I don't think anyone talks about enough in the beauty community, the problem of looking different in an industry which appears obsessed with 'classic' beauty. This is well worth a read for anyone who has ever felt they just don't look the 'right' way to fit in, wherever that may be.

5 things I'm not allowed to say by Scarphelia: http://www.scarphelia.com/2014/09/5-things-im-not-allowed-to-say-30-days-7.html

This article is so on point I'm not even going to try and summarise it; I was just nodding the entire way through.

Things to keep in mind by Milk Bubble Tea: http://milkbubbletea.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/things-to-keep-in-mind.html

A really nice, uplifting Sunday evening read which made me feel a lot better after an exhausting week. 

Lots of love, see you soon! 

xx

History 101: The French Revolution, The Best Bits

Dr Guillotin was actually the guy who located and accessed the tennis court for the third estate to meet and agree the monumental Tennis Court Oath, but that's not what he's most famous for. Honestly, invent one device that's used to chop 40,000 people's heads off and that's all anyone bangs on about.

Everyone was really ugly, apparently. Jean Paul Marat is described as having 'burning, haggard eyes' amd a 'toadlike mouth', Robespierre's features were 'repulsive' and was even described by his revolutionary counterpart Danton as having 'the face of a cat who tasted vinegar'. Camille Desmoulins on the other hand was at least 'ugly with an energetic ugliness', so at least he was putting some effort into it.

During the French Revolution, slavery was officially abolished in 1794, following a revolt and defeat of the French army on the island of San Domingo. It was then reinstated by Napoleon in the French colonies in 1802; but at least they tried.

The grave diggers on duty when Marie Antoinette was beheaded were so slow to bury her that a woman had time to sculpt a model of her head out of wax. That woman was Madame Marie Tussaud.

The Marquis de Sade was there, and his experience was a mixed bag to say the least. He was arrested twice and everything he wrote during his first internment was lost during the storming of the Bastille. The second time he was interred, he was marked as 'absent' on the day he was due to be executed and the next day the Jacobin government was overthrown. He was then put into an asylum, but his room had a four poster bed and he was allowed to build a theatre within the asylum to put on plays and operas.

During the time following the Storming of the Bastille people were so afraid that of the backlash of the Ancien Regime that sometimes panic erupted when villages in the countryside mistook the sunset for another burning village in the distance.