Thoughts and reflections on my use of social media

What would happen if suddenly social media stopped working, do those three minutes here and there throughout a day actually amount to a significantly missed amount of time?

The one where I do a job I absolutely hate

I was watching friends the other day, as I so often do, and 'The One Where Rachel Quits' was on. If you have seen this episode before you will be familiar with the rant she breaks into when Gunther asks her to take more training, and this really spoke to me.

RACHEL: 
"I am a terrible waitress, do you know why I’m a terrible waitress? Because, I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care which pot is regular and which pot is decaf, I don’t care where the tray spot is, I just don’t care, this is not what I want to do."

(Photo Credit)
I think this speech is one of the most relateable speeches to people in 2015 (even though the original airdate was 1996.) Underemployment is a massive problem with this generation who have graduated and find there are simply no jobs out there, (I know that is not Rachel's problem but I fear the days of walking out of a coffee house to a fashion house are long gone) although this is not entirely the problem I am faced with.

I recently graduated, which you can read about here, and have started a Masters degree to support myself whilst doing this I work in a pub. Over summer I worked full time, then went down to a few days a week at the beginning of September and now I work every Sunday. So technically I am a full-time student, but, if I thought I would be able to have a proper job in September I would never have started my Masters degree, because what would have been the point?

Now this is just coming off bitter but thats not what I am intending to say, I really do enjoy studying and love my course (I just wish I didn't have to work alongside it), and I certainly don't think I'm above working as a waitress, I just don't care about my part time job.

I know what you're thinking, fine whatever you don't have to care about your part time job because in a year you will be doing something else, but when you don't care about a job you have no energy to even do it. I don't care about being a waitress, I don't care what food people have ordered, and I don't care about giving good customer service (but I do anyway don't worry).

As I said before I think there is many people here who are in a similar position to me, but hopefully one day all those hours spent in a job you hate will be replaced with a job you love. Or as every one and their mother tells you think of the money sigh.

(Sorry for all the shameless Friends quotes, well I'm not that sorry)



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A reintroduction...

I was looking through my blog and (finally) changing and updating all the parts that have been bugging me for a while when I realise how out of date my 'About Me' page was. It then dawned on me just how much has changed in under one year when I started writing that page when I was on the fence about even creating a blog.

I do feel the reason I have not posted half as much as I wanted over the past few months simply because I was trying to 'force' posts which I wasn't really feeling, but now that is a thing of the past and therefore I have decided to reintroduce myself and start anew.

The natural first place to begin is with my age and occupation (boring). I am the ripe old age of twenty-one (although I feel as though my body thinks I am about sixty most of the time especially with my clicky bones) and am a full-time postgraduate student about to begin my Masters in International Relations at Kings College London. I work part-time as a waitress in what often feels like the worlds busiest pub in order to fund my Masters. Before this I completed my batchelors in Modern and International History at Staffordshire University to a First Class.

(Left: Selfie. Right: At Graduation)

In my spare time (what I have of it anyway) I like to do all the normal stuff a twenty-one year old likes to do like read books, read blogs, walk my adorable dog 'Bella' and spend time with my friends and boyfriend. However I am not a massive fan of going out and getting drunk so when I am not working evenings in the pub I am probably in bed, Party Animal right here!

I live just outside of London and fairly close to Cambridge which luckily are my two favorite places in the United Kingdom. But my heart belongs to New York which I have been lucky enough to visit twice in my life.

(Left: Me and Stephen in Bruges. Right: Me outside Tiffanys in NY)

Thats all I can think of right now but if there is anything else you want to know just leave it below.

I'm excited to keep this blog more 'me' and write posts which I am extremely proud of.

Speak soon,

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London from the sky

I absolutely love London, it is one of my all time favorite cities and I have the absolute privilidge of living a mere 22 minutes from the center. For my brothers birthday my dad treated us (plus our S.O.'s) to go 'Up the O2' and we decided why not also try out the Emirates Air Line (cable car over the thames, not an actual flight as the name may suggest haha).

The Emirates Air Line 'crosses the River Thames between Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks, just five minutes from the O2 by North Greenwich Tube station'. It close proximity to the O2 made it ideal for us to try out. However, as we live North of London we did have a mammoth journey to get there in the first place on the DLR (or rollercoaster as my brother calls it). A single (if you already have a travelcard or oyster card) is only £3.40 which really isn't that bad. Whilst we were in the cable car itself the weather was beautiful, so warm in fact that we opened the very small windows to try to call it down a bit. This did however mean that the car swayed a bit. The views are very spectacular with the O2 and the 'Up the O2' experience itself being the focal point. As someone who enjoys heights this was something I was always bound to enjoy.

The actual 'Up the O2' experience was amazing. Before you are able to do anything you have to fill out a form with some basic information then watch a (overacted) safety video. But after all the formalities have finished and you have collected either the full body suit (for cold weather) or vest, trainers and harness it is actually time to climb.

The first bit of the climb is exceptionally steep and it feels like it goes on forever. The material you climb on is not the actual canvasing from the O2 but a blue walkway which is made from a similar material. This means it is a little bouncy and takes a while to get used to walking on. As you climb higher each 'section' becomes more leveled off and alot easier to climb. It isn't until you get to the top that your harness is unattached and you can freely walk around a small area and take as many photos as you want, with the guide also offering to take any group photos you may want.

The day itself was a tale of mixed weather, as it so often is in London but fortunately we never had to experience that dreaded word, rain. It was however exceptionally windy as I'm sure you can tell from the images. It was not however cold, it was actually fairly warm but no so hot that you were sweaty from the climb. Also advise for those of you with long hair bring a hair tie, they will provide you with elastic bands but come on we all know what that is like for your hair!

After you have been up the top for probably about 20 minutes you have to climb down. This is no where near as physically demanding as going up (as I'm sure you can imagine) and gradually gets steeper the closer you get to the ground (as you are doing what you have already done backwards). The feeling of getting back on the ground is bittersweet. Sweet because you are out of the insane winds and the tourture of the climb up, bitter because thats the experience done.

I would highly recommend the 'Up the O2' experience and the cable cars to anyone who likes heights like me or just wants to see London from a different angle, after all it does seem as though in London you are always underground, at ground level or simply too busy to appreciate the beauty that London does present.

Next stop for me, the shard!
 Have you ever been 'Up the O2' or on the cable car? Are you interested in anything like this?

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Life Update: Why I have been absent from this blog

I guess I should explain my absence from this blog for the past two weeks (three weeks of not writing) but I just didn’t feel like writing anything. Do you ever experience that feeling, like whatever you write and the pictures you take will never be good enough so what is the point in trying. This has been my sad state of my for the past week (the week prior to that I was to jetlagged to even keep my eyes open let alone tend to this blog) but sometimes I think its good to catch my breath and start fresh.

I guess the ‘lost’ feeling I had consuming my every though last week was only natural as I am experiencing many changes in my life, i.e. finishing my undergraduate degree, moving home, then moving with my parents out of my childhood home later this summer, finding a job. All these changes and I still have yet to decide exactly what I want to do with my life.

However, it would have been all too easy to wallow in my sorry state and never try to drag myself out (like I have done previously) but I decided to do my absolute best, come Monday, to wake up and attempt to attain my much better attitude that I was developing throughout the previous week, and I can happily report so far so good.

I guess finding your inner happiness and peace with life is a working progress and (unfortunately) is not a case of waking up one morning and you are where you want to be.

So, all that aside, what exactly have I done in the past three weeks apart from sit around and think (apparently) well I went to New York, drove to Stoke to pick up my last few bits at university, then to Wolverhampton to see my boyfriend (I drove 300 miles that weekend, not bad ey?), started doing yoga and got back on my bike after three years.

I feel as though my passion for blogging has been reborn and I have got so many ideas for new and exciting posts, including my trip to New York of course, so watch this space!

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Reflecting on my three years at university

 

 Picture by me, from a dog walk the other day

Do you ever just sit down and allow yourself to think about everything you have achieved? Well as I have mere days left before my final university deadline I have been doing exactly that. When I look in the mirror now I see a mature twenty one year old who has left a lot of her insecurities behind. Don't get me wrong, if someone handed me a baby or a house to run tomorrow I wouldn't have a clue what to do.
I suppose it is only natural, I have just finished three years of a university degree and am now twenty one, but even so I feel very proud of what I have achieved emotionally.

When my parents dropped me off at Staffordshire University three years ago I told my mum I don't know how she could leave me here she must be a horrible mother. At that time I was scared, terrified in fact. The University accomodation team had messed up my application and the two people I had met that I was to live with didn't speak very good English. But I am so glad my mum didn't get my dad to turn the car around when they got to the roundabout because, although never easy, my three years at university have been worth it.

Looking back I do think I was not mature enough to go to university. I may have been academically ready, but emotionally and in terms of my knowledge of the world, I was very naive and immature.
First year was okay for me, I lived with amazing people but most of them were third years who graduated that summer (booo).

Second year was hell, I hated who I lived with, I learned to hate my degree and became very disillusioned with even getting a university degree which was reflected in my grades. The only good thing about second year was I met my amazing boyfriend whose blog is thefostereffect (follow him he is a much better writer than me) who pushed me to get through second year and constantly made me laugh.

Summer between second and third year was just as bad, my hormones were messed up, I quit my job and basically had no interest in finishing my degree and just wanted to run away with my dog and eat all the chocolate in the world (don't go on the pill people, it ruins peoples lives).

I wasn't until about October/November of third year where I thought 'fudge' this, I may have had a terrible university experience but I have to make it count. Then my appendix burst ... oh cruel world. After being on anti-biotics until new years eve which zapped me of all life, I feel I matured the most. I learned to monitor my health because if it wasn't for my boyfriend who dragged me to hospital I could have died, I decided to play catch up with my dissertation and really challenge myself, I started feeling confident about myself, I realized that not every one is nice, and, most importantly, you have to fight for what you want.

Now I sit here in my childhood bedroom on the verge of so much change, but I am not the scared eighteen year old my parents left in Stoke three years ago. I am excited for all that is to come. My parents want to move out of this town, I want to work all summer and see my boyfriend as much as I can and then hopefully go on to do my masters.

For me the biggest and most welcome change in my life is my confidence, I had none growing up. I was bullied (I will make a post about this very soon) and I let the bullies win. But now, if someone doesn't like me, their loss I'm awesome.

I guess the meaning of this post was for me to say no matter what life throws you, as long as you come out stronger the other side and recognize that, you may find you will be better for it.

Sorry for the super personal post today, I have had thinking time for the first time in ages and it was refreshing for me to see that I actually have alot of confidence haha!

Hope all of you 107 followers are having an awesome day! Have you ever sat there and go a little too deep in your thoughts? Would you like a post about bullying? (I am more than willing to do one).


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