Category: Thoughts

Recently, I was struggling with blog ideas so I agreed to take part in this questions tag which I am finally getting the chance to post.

I was tagged by GeekyGirlOnline so be sure to go & check out her blog! Tag origin: https://greenbeeorg.com/

 Now, onto the tag:

1. My favourite sound? Probably the opening credit theme song for the first Harry Potter movie.

2. An exotic country I have been to? The only countries I have been to outwith the UK where I live are France, Holland & Belgium but I wouldn’t really call them exotic.

3. I would like to travel to? Australia, Amsterdam & America (why all A’s?). I have wanted to visit many US states for the longest time but Australia has begun to own my heart. From what I know of Amsterdam, it’s a beautiful city to visit so I’d love to go there too.

4. If I could bring back a famous person who would it be and why? Alan Rickman because I love him as an actor & feel like he would be an interesting person to meet.

5. You will always see me wearing? Skinny jeans & merch hoodies.

6. One of my favourite break-time snacks in school was? brownies.

7. Sometimes I scream when? When someone creeps up on me & starts talking if I didn’t notice them.

8. A recurring dream I have is? I very rarely dream but in the past, I had one where I was sinking in quicksand & I’ve had recurring dreams about meeting my favourite celebrities.

9. The advice I wish I could give my younger self is? Lot’s of things: You are not your mistakes. You will be happier as soon as you stop trying to impress people & only keep around genuine friends. If someone means a lot to you, always fight for them. Never leave the things you want to say the most unsaid as you don’t know when you’ll last see that person.

10. An Actor or actress I wish I could meet is? Sarah Paulson, Leanne Lapp, Lana Parilla, Jennifer Morrison, Rebecca Mader, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Anniston, Mark Sheppard, Misha Collins, Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, Emma Watson. What can I say, there’s a lot of them.

11. A fragrance I love is? Cinnamon, Apples, Vanilla, Snow Fairy shower gel from Lush, Rub Rub Rub shower scrub from Lush.

12. The funniest thing I found in my pocket was? I don’t really use pockets, I just put everything in my bag. Sometimes I put my phone in my pocket, that’s about it.

13. Something I didn’t think existed is.. The band Kodaline. I answered a question in a pub quiz about music with that, but I thought I had made it up then realised it is, in fact, a real band.

14. My perfect pizza looks like tandoori chicken, Sweetcorn, Pepperoni, beef, jalapeños, bbq sauce, red onions, bacon.

15. I would never wear……expect for …….. High heels except for a prom/graduation.

16. I can’t stand it when… People refuse to give up their seat on the bus for someone with limited mobility, people who don’t let a wheelchair user get on public transport first.

17. If I could be any fictional character I’d be? Clary Fairchild from the mortal instruments/shadowhunters. I would love to be a demon hunter & am in love with Jace so I guess it would be the perfect character to play.

18. If I could be any day of the week I would be….because? Saturday because it’s the weekend & the day that you typically meet up with friends & make cool plans.

19. When I wake up I can’t stand….. People talking to me.

20. If I went on a safari the animal I would be most excited to see is… Tigers, Pandas.

21. In school, I always skipped? Right along the staff corridor at my leisure! (I did this in my last year.) However, on a series note (what the question actually means) I guess I always skipped religious education & French classes because from very early on, I was given permission to not go to those classes by a teacher. I never really skipped a class that I actually had to go to apart from the one day I pretended to be ill so I could stay off school. I only began the proper skipping in Uni.

22. 3 things I couldn’t live without? Music, the internet, concerts (it said things so I didn’t include friends & other people I care about here.)

23. If I could be famous for anything I would choose? If there’s ever a chance then being a radio presenter or a podcaster.

24. If I could chose fire or water I would chose… and why? Fire because I’m a firey person full of fire & because I have a fear of large bodies of water (anything bigger than a bath.)

25. A trend I really love is? What’s a trend? No, but I don’t really follow trends.

26. I would like to learn how to: Play an instrument, set up a home recording studio with soundproofing, learn a language.

27. If something breaks in the house I? Say “oh well” & move on but be a little bummed that it broke. If it’s the shower, scream like fuck & get out of there ASAP (I was once in a shower as it nearly blew up & sparks were coming out of it.)

28. I consider myself to be? A strong person, a creative, a lover of sarcasm, humor, Netflix & gigs. I also consider myself to be a procrastinator.

29. A dream trip of mine is? The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida, to see Hamilton & Harry Potter & the cursed child in London.

30. Dream job? Radio presenter, podcaster, events management, behind the scenes in film & TV.

I tag anyone who wants to complete this tag, bloggers & vloggers alike.

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When I started this blog, I wanted to blog regularly, it was an outlet for me to make sense of my feelings and what’s going on in my life. However, there was a spell when I spent so much time arranging blogging opportunities with other people that it became more about the deadlines rather than a hobby.

I’m not going to sugar coat it, I lost the meaning of my blog over the last year, my mental health plummeted and I didn’t even know who I was anymore nevermind trying to keep up a presence online focussed on the things I loved.

How can I have a blog about the things I love as a hobby if I don’t even know who I am or what I love? I began to keep track of how long it was between blog posts with a constant worry that I wasn’t blogging and that I was giving up on another thing, yet again when I should have just taken a break.

I’ve been speaking a lot recently about thing’s I’ve learned in 2017. Another thing I learned in 2017 is that it’s okay not to be okay and to take a break from things, in fact, things can improve if you take a break from time to time.

When you work in the media, study in media and put yourself in the media, there can be a pressure to keep going. The media industry feels at times like it has to be go-go-go all day long, all week long, all year long.

I’ve watched the people I admire in the public eye get criticised when there’s no video, music, project, whatever it may be from them. I’ve watched people I admire in the media feel pressured to be perfect online or pressured into continuing to create content all year around no matter what.

If you are reading this and are feeling that pressure: It’s okay to take a break from certain things or even everything that you are working on. It’s okay to rethink things, it’s okay to change your end goal.

It was only when I took a break for the most part from this blog in the second half of 2017, I began to breathe properly again without constantly worrying about the next piece of content.

When your passion or hobby becomes a chore that you dread, that’s when it’s time to take a break. It’s better to put your sanity first.

In 2018, I’m not going to chase after every little sponsorship, collab and free products in exchange for a blog post. I was chasing after these things so much that I lost interest in simply blogging about what I was interested in and as a result, I feel my content got significantly worse.

This isn’t a dig at anyone I worked with in 2017 for my blog, not at all. It’s a dig at my past self, yes I enjoyed these opportunities but I put more time into gaining them and less thought into what interested me. 2018 will be a very different year in terms of content.

I’m focussing on myself and what I want and that’s not just blogging-wise. I’m focussing on those career goals I’ve been too scared to pursue and I hope that by the end of 2018 I can actually say I’ve gone after some of my dreams.

I hope to be back to regular blogging in 2018 but one thing the last two years has taught me is that you never know what’s to come, things can change so easily and I think I’m becoming better at adapting to change than I used to be.

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Trigger Warning: Difficult family/death

Just writing the blog title makes me cringe. I feel the pressure that because Christmas is meant to be a happy and joyful time of year for many, that I have no right to voice my opinion about my dislike for Christmas.

With that being said, I remember one of the rules I had when I started this blog: I didn’t want to lie on my own blog. I know the word ‘lies’ is in my blog’s name but it totally wasn’t intended for lying here. It was intended to express the lies I tell myself or more often than not these days: the lies my anxiety tells me. It wasn’t put there to lie to my audience.

A post like this is probably always going to be a bit risky at a time of year which most people love and celebrate so this is why I chose to upload this after Christmas.

I must have stopped enjoying Christmas when I was about 15 years old. I also wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same year when I stopped wanting to celebrate my birthday.

Now, about Christmas: I have never once tried to make others, not like Christmas, I just don’t.

This year is the first year since moving to Scotland that I won’t be going to my grans for Christmas dinner. My gran just isn’t well enough to cook food for four people.

I suppose the first stab in the heart that led to me not enjoying Christmas dates back to 2009. Let’s set the scene: A few days before Christmas, myself and my Dad are excited to see my uncle on our trip to London.

Roll on the 27th December, we are on a train to London, my Dad seems upset but not willing to talk, I know something is wrong.

Once I arrive in London, I get told that my uncle died exactly one day before. You see, my uncle had cancer, he died the day before we were going to visit him. We never even got to say goodbye to someone who was so important to us.

Now, that’s not the only reason I dislike Christmas. Over the years, I have become better at learning the triggers to my mental health. One such trigger is the winter weather. Until Christmas, I can keep myself occupied and I have people to talk to but then on Christmas, everyone I know is having a family day with their family.

My Christmas normally results in my gran getting very drunk and then shouting verbal abuse at me while I am expected to take it and my grandad tells me I have to take it because my gran gives me money for my birthday’s and Christmases.

My gran hasn’t always been the most supportive member of my family, but it comes out the most at Christmas. You can feel free to judge me for being happy I don’t need to spend my Christmas with her if you want but for me, everything in my life hurts the most at Christmas.

There are a lot of other reasons why I don’t like Christmas but then this blog post would become too long to read.

What I’m saying is, if you take one thing from this blog post: please don’t expect that everyone adores Christmas. Some people have lost loved ones, or others have to spend the day miserable. There could be loads of other reasons they just don’t feel comfortable telling you.

Don’t assume it’s because they are a Scrooge that doesn’t like to have fun. Over the years, I’ve tried so hard to love Christmas like everyone else seems to do but that’s not me and that’s not the type of person I feel I can be and please don’t judge me for that.

If you love Christmas, I hope you had an amazing Christmas filled with happy memories and special time with your family. I’m glad that this is a time of year which you enjoy and are happy at but please never try to force others into loving Christmas if they don’t.

Creative, that’s what I am, Creative that’s always my plan. From as long as I can remember, I have been very creative. I have been full of a vivid imagination that would often get me in trouble as a child when I am caught looking out the window & looking as though I am not paying attention. My teacher would then ask me to tell her what she just said & I would recite it perfectly clearly showing I was listening but daydreaming at the same time.

I’ve always loved drawing, from when I was a young child I would sit in appointments drawing fireworks. I was a quiet child & for some reason, drawing fireworks at every single appointment comforted me. My psychologist then linked this to my feelings & said that it signified the way I was feeling which I guess was probably true.

I remember in the second year of high school, we were given a drawing task where we had to fill up a picture using small dots. Most the students made massive dots & didn’t really care. However, I spent hours on this till it was just perfect & even got praised for my effort when I handed in my homework!

Roll on to either third or fourth year of high school & this sees me joining a regular art group of which I have now been attending ever since! I enjoy getting to make all sorts of art from prints to canvas bags to clay work.

It doesn’t just stop there. Throughout school, I got involved in the radio station based right outside my school. From there, I discovered a love & passion for creating content on radio. I have never been comfortable trying to put myself in front of a camera, but I can most certainly put myself behind a microphone!

This has followed to me then going to college followed by the University. I have since organised a journalism competition which allowed me to work with companies such as The Daily Record, The Scottish Sun & the National Union of Journalists. Through this, I was able to put my creative skills to the test when designing promotional material & other resources for the competition!

I run a regular radio show, I write this blog & have applied my creative skills to all aspects of my life. I am also an event steward for a security company now. I am a creative person through & through & couldn’t just settle for a boring administration job where I didn’t get to use my skills!

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Credit: Picture was taken by Project Ability (my art group) of a piece of work I made which featured in an exhibition.

Create

Now, this is probably going to be a once in a lifetime blog post. I don’t tend to ever post about politics & I don’t even have an interest in politics. I only know the bare minimum about politics, enough to know that it will affect me in some way. The way I voted is reflective of the only party I believe in, SNP: Scottish National Party.

Now, this isn’t a blog post to argue about the right & wrong of each party. This blog post is also not intending to cause argument, simply just state my opinion.

We live in a harsh world, but I was hoping that I would wake up to the positive news: that the Conservatives hadn’t won. I got fed up watching the election, so went to my bed early to wake up to the devastating news. Not only that, I suddenly realised the lengths the Conservatives would go to stay in power.

Now, I honestly think Conservatives were the wrong choice: there seems to be something for everyone from every walks of life which this party are doing against the people of the UK. Yet, there were still people who voted for them.

DUP – a party those not in Ireland will know little about, but here’s just a few eye-openers on the situation. The way I look at this situation: this is a party which are discriminatory against people with disabilities as well as gay rights, a party in which Theresa May is happy to get into bed with just to keep her position in power. There are a lot of things they just don’t tell us as they know we wouldn’t like them & that’s the sad truth.

This honestly makes me question: what type of government are we supporting if we allowed this to continue? It’s like some people in the UK want to make themselves suffer.

Conservatives you ask? The conservatives who paid Microsoft money to continue to run patches for Windows XP just so their computers didn’t need to be upgraded? In reality, it would have been cheaper in the long run. The conservatives who want to take away free school meals for our countries children? The conservatives who while under Margaret Thatcher took away free milk for the UK’s children?

The conservatives who changed junior doctor contracts to impose longer working hours on them? The same party who introduced Snooper’s Charter which allowed them to hack your iPhone, laptop and other personal technological equipment without your knowledge?

Not forgetting, the plans to get rid of maintenance grants for university students, therefore holding back many students & even forcing them into not going to university. They also significantly cut disability benefits which would take 200,000 people off the disability registers. In 2015, the conservatives committed electoral fraud by unlawfully breaching election spending.

Under a Tory government, British workers have received an increasing amount of fall in wage value. Since 2010, the Tories have been constantly taking money out of the NHS budget, therefore, causing many hospitals & hospital services to close. Then NHS recruitment process is also declining under the conservatives as well as disabled people suffering massively under the Tories.

Since 2010, child poverty has risen by 400,000 children which are set to increase with even more child welfare cuts under a Tory government. If Tory plans continue, the poorer you are, the harsher the cuts will be. Those with children will be hit even harder than this.

Not to mention, housing will become more unaffordable, more expensive rail services, schools will become even more underfunded & lifetimes of unpayable debt for students when they graduate. Fire services are also seeing massive cuts, therefore putting us at risk of even more house fire deaths. Having known people who survived house fires, this disgusts me. Nearly forgetting the policing cuts putting us in even more danger of crime.

Our government could also say bye bye to our basic human rights if this drama continues. Are you forgetting that bedroom tax that families can’t even afford? Are you forgetting they are getting rid of housing benefit for 18-21-year-olds? School funding cuts? The benefit cuts for the sick who are unable to work?

Another one that makes me beyond angry: Rape victims now have to PROVE their ordeal? Yes, you heard me right. Really? This is the party some of us voted for OUR government time & time again! They are being forced to provide an 8-page form with references & evidence otherwise they are being told they are lying about the rape? This makes me beyond outraged!

Apparently, £450,000 thousand pound homes are affordable for us all, you heard me right. They have also got rid of inheritance tax for the rich & plan laws which make hospitals check for passports then charge up-front if not eligible for free NHS.

They have also drastically reduced the number of mental health beds available in a crisis. I know for a fact that if I hadn’t been admitted to hospital & got the help I desperately needed that I most likely would not be alive today. Therefore, this is putting people’s lives at risk.

After all this, I am completely shocked that people would still want to vote for this party. I didn’t know all this information before this blog post, but it wasn’t difficult to find.

Before you vote in the next election, PLEASE do your research. Do you research about all the party’s before you make a decision as what you are being told directly by the parties isn’t always the honest truth & in recent years they have certainly gone back to a lot of things which were promised!

This blog post was never intended to start an argument, the aim was to hopefully enlighten some people’s opinions on politics & the conservative party & to make people think more about who & what they are voting in favour of.

Any negative comments will be removed & not allowed on my blog.

I did plan to have today’s blog post up at the start of the week but due to having no internet at home I’ve only just uploaded it. Therefore, as a special treat I am now uploading a second blog post for today! The daily prompt is Lifestyle so today I will be revealing an insight into my student lifestyle most days.

Morning: 

What morning? Students don’t get up till at least 12pm and even that’s pushing it. Unless I have something important I need to be rushing to, I will most likely wake up between 1pm-4pm. This is the reason why I ended up either late to a lot of university classes or not turning up. If it got to 15 minutes past the hour the class was supposed to start then I most likely wouldn’t turn up. I am often seen making most of my appointments/etc for the afternoon so I can have a lie in.

Afternoon:

When I finally make it out of my bed I am more often that not watching Netflix, playing online games or some other fun activity. I often leave all those uni assignments until last minute. I tend to waste away most the day doing nothing. Oh to be a student.

Evening:

If I have an assignment due the following day this is when I start it, or in other words finish it. I stay up the whole night in order to finish the assignment then submit it right before the due time.

If I don’t have an assignment, I get my dinner and then end up yet again watching Netflix, or blogging or doing something fun while leaving those emails I need to reply to until last minute like everything else. Perhaps this isn’t healthy.

This was meant just as a fun “I do nothing” piece. I suppose I am slightly more productive in reality. Depends on the day really. Like last Tuesday night I had an important meeting for three hours. Just depends on the day.

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