Thursday 28/07/16

I am now in Greece! Well, I arrived yesterday but I couldn’t find anywhere with good enough WiFi that would allow me to make a post. 

Even though it’s really hot, it’s a comfortable kind of hot- unlike in England where you feel like you’re standing inside a hot steamy bathroom. The air feels more fresh here… probably because the resort I’m staying in isn’t very industrialised. The traditional Greek culture hasn’t been washed away by tourism either.  

Today has been a lazy day at the beach and I have spent most of it sunbathing, reading and listening to music. For lunch, we went to a traditional Greek taverna and I had a cheese salad whilst my family shared a fish platter. Now we are just sitting in bars by the sea and I have just finished a banana smoothie. Banana’s taste so much better over here. 

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Tuesday 26/07/16

This is going to be a quick post because I only have half an hour to write this post and do my daily Welsh exercise on DuoLingo plus I have to wake up at 4:30 because I am going on holiday to Greece tomorrow! I cannot wait to be in a different country and travel somewhere new with my family. These two weeks will be my last two weeks of pure relaxation before I need to start thinking about adult stuff such as applying for part-time jobs, applying for volunteering, personal statements, catching up with A-level work, results day(!!!) etc etc. But for now, none of that matters!

 

Monday 25/07/16 – Agoraphobia :(

This morning, I went to the hairdressers to get some (lots) of blonde highlights put into my hair. Naturally since birth, I have had blonde hair but it has a tendency to gradually get darker. By the age of 12, I was practically a brunette so I decided to have some blonde highlights put into my hair. Ever since then, it has been a summer tradition to have highlights put in every summer! I was going to take a before and after photo of my hair but I forgot.

When I got home, I discovered that my prospectus for The Royal Holloway University had arrived so I sat reading through it on my bed. Suddenly, a spider dropped out of my lamp shade onto the floor! I was brave enough to get rid of it myself but the rest of the day has been spent panicking about spiders. Is there one in the back of my wardrobe somewhere? Is there one inside my suitcase? Will one crawl into my pile of clothes during the night? ARRGGGHHHH!!!! This whole thought process was made worse about an hour ago when I saw yet ANOTHER spider scuttle from under my bed over to a corner of my room. At this point, I was too trembly to do anything so I called my dad upstairs and he was very cross and probably thinks I’m pathetic for not being able to remove a small spider from my room. In a way, I do feel pathetic; I know that I am being completely irrational. However, knowing that my phobia is irrational does not reduce the intense fear I feel whenever I see an eight-legged beast intruding in my house, or anywhere for that matter. I wish my parents would understand that. “God help you when you’re living alone at university!”, they cry. Wrong- at university, there will be 5 + other students living in my flat and it is highly unlikely that all of us will be agoraphobics.

This minor situation has got me thinking about how mental health issues in general and not just phobias are completely misunderstood by a lot of people, such as my parents. From the outside, it is easy to think that the easy way out is to “just get over it”. Perhaps if they knew about the physiological symptoms that come along with phobias (or any other mental disorder) rather than just the behavioural symptoms, they would  understand that this is not something you can just “get over”. After all, sweating, trembling, hot flushes/chills, choking sensations, difficulty breathing, feeling faint and rapid heartbeat are all pretty difficult things to “just get over” by the click of your fingers if you ask me!

Sunday 24/07/16

I’ve pretty much spent most of today on my laptop and eating chocolate because I’ve had really bad cramps (Thanks uterus!). I won’t go into details because I’m sure you all know plenty about periods.

Due to my chocolate cravings, I ended up eating the last of the chocolate that I brought back from Switzerland (I was going to save it for results day but never mind). This bar is called a ‘Ragusa’ and it is honestly one of the best chocolate bars I’ve ever tasted. Instead of describing how it looks to you, I’ll attach a photo. One thing I will say is that the filling in the middle tastes like nutella but more smooth! If you ever go to Switzerland and happen to see this chocolate in a shop, I highly recommend you buy it and try it! Only if you’re not allergic to hazelnuts of course…

I’ve also discovered another potential university that I could apply to: The University of Newcastle. Their psychology course looks really interesting, they offer placement years and this university is ranked quite highly for psychology. I’ve ordered a prospectus so I’ll look into it more when it arrives. You can tell a lot about a university by it’s prospectus in my opinion. I’ve also ordered a prospectus for the University of Surrey. Gosh, literally half of my bookcase is going to be taken up by prospectuses soon! Oh well, they are free!

Saturday 23/07/16

Yesterday, one of my closest friends, Mia, came round my house for a sleepover. We have been friends for over 7 years which is quite a long time. I still remember the first day that we met: I was inside my kitchen getting a drink and I was feeling incredibly bored as it was the half term holidays and the girl I usually “played out” with was on holiday. Anyway, whilst I was glancing outside my window, I saw a girl who looked about my age ride past on a bike. A couple of minutes later, she rode past again. And again. And again. Spontaneously, I decided to just go outside and wait for her to ride past again. “Hi, what’s your name?” I asked casually.

“Mia.” she replied. And since that day, we have been very good friends. Admittedly, there was a period of time when we sort of fell out but that was more due to the other girl on our street who was always saying things behind our backs. Once Mia started coming to my secondary school, we became much closer and we have been through so much together, as cliche as it sounds. Unfortunately, she moved house just over a year ago and we are now two bus journeys apart. I know that isn’t far compared to some friends who live on opposite ends of the world, but considering we used to live literally 30 seconds from each other, this is quite a distance. As a result, we now only see each other in the holidays. In a way, it has kind of made our friendship stronger because we now appreciate the time we spend together more whereas before, it was something we just took for granted. There are also limited things to do where I live, especially now our local park has been demolished and is now just a fenced off area of overgrown grass.

Mia said something to me yesterday which really made me think… she said: “The friends who mostly stick by you are the ones who you grow up with” or something like that. I actually agree with this so much. There are people from my sixth form who I consider as friends but once there are no more lessons to attend, we just drift apart until the next term begins. This isn’t because we don’t like each other; we just simply have no common interests outside of academia and we haven’t been through enough experiences to make us close.

Anyway, sleepovers at my house always mean LOTS of junk food and LOTS of horror movies and psychological thrillers. The best film we watched in my opinion was one called ‘The Visit’. I remember having to watch the trailer for this at the cinema last year and being absolutely petrified since it is a horror movie. After having watched it last night, I would say that it is more of a psychological thriller than a horror movie but the unexpected jump scares and the creepy behaviour of the grandma makes it seem like a horror. Also, without spoiling anything, there is a MASSIVE plot twist towards the end that just sends shivers down my entire body. Honestly, you will not expect it at all. I’d definitely recommend you watch it though, it isn’t that scary, and this is coming from someone who usually covers their eyes and ears throughout horror movies. I’ll attach the link to the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCsULFGldi8

I’m now going to finish watching last week’s episode of Pretty Little Liars and then do my daily Welsh activity on Duolingo. Nos da! (Goodnight in Welsh 😉 )

Thursday 21/07/16

I managed to get a bit of maths done this morning, although not as much as I’d hoped. Saying that though, I think I should give myself a bit of break and not be too hard on myself if I don’t do all of the studying that I had planned to do this week. Since it is the holidays and I do not have any exams any time soon, a more laid back approach where I just study when I’m in the mood to study would probably be more beneficial.

Unfortunately, Tesco did not have the pesto pasta salad in stock today so I opted for a mozzarella and mixed bean salad instead. This costed £3 but it looked so aesthetically pleasing so I couldn’t resist. I even took a photo of it for you!

In the afternoon, I mainly researched psychology courses at different universities and I really like the look of Swansea, St Andrews, Bath, Kent, Loughborough, Royal Holloway and Bangor. The only one I’m 100% certain of applying to at the moment is Bangor. The most annoying thing is that I don’t even know how high I should be aiming because I don’t have a clue what my exam results are. If in the improbable event that I get AAA this year, I may even give Cambridge a shot but right now, anything could happen. God, I hate thinking about results day so I’m going to stop now.

I’m now going to read as much of ‘eleanor & park’ as I can before I get really tired and then before going to sleep, I’ll learn a little bit of Welsh on Duolingo. I’ve decided to start learning Welsh because if I end up studying at Bangor, being able to speak Welsh will make getting a part-time job much easier and I’ll be able to mix with the locals better. Whilst reading, I’ll be listening to some classical music which I’ve recently gotten into. It makes me feel like going to a massive country house and having afternoon tea.

 

 

Wednesday 20/07/16

Hello! Today has been another relaxing day. Relaxing days are nice, but I’m starting to get a little bit sick of them now. I need something to keep me busy. Studying A-level content does not really suffice at the moment, especially in this scorching heat. The maths topic I’m currently studying is actually really interesting but my attention span has been ridiculously short today due to the fact that the hot and uncomfortably sticky air is omnipresent and has made me a very sweaty and grumpy person as a result. I’ve had my bedroom windows open all day (which is a massive milestone for somebody with arachnophobia who has had many experiences of spiders crawling in through them!) and my parents have even let me borrow their fan to put in my room, yet it is still the hottest and most humid room in the house! I’m going to be so happy when the temperature finally cools down.

The highlight of my day has probably been when I took a stroll to my local Tesco to buy my favourite pasta pot: Feta & Sun-dried tomato pasta. I’ll probably go back tomorrow and buy another one, or maybe i’ll try the Pesto & Sun-dried tomato one. Wow, I can’t believe my life is so uneventful at the moment that I am actually writing about which pasta I’m going to buy. There’s no point applying for any more jobs or volunteering opportunities right now since I’m going on holiday to Greece in a week and you can guarantee that if in the unlikely event I actually get contacted back by an employer, it will be during the two weeks I am in Greece with limited WiFi. Therefore, I will do that joyous task once I have returned home.

I’m going to end this blog post here as I don’t really have much else to say. I’ll probably catch up with Pretty Little Liars and then do a bit of reading if I am not too tired.

Tuesday 19/07/16

*Late post because the WiFi in my house has been playing up and each time I try to upload a photo, there is an ‘error’. *

Today I FINALLY left the house as my dad booked a day off work so that we could go to Matlock for the day. I’ve been to Matlock many times before with my family so I am quite familiar with it. Besides, it is a very small place. We traveled by train and once we’d arrived, we went into a cafe for lunch. I decided to have chips, mushy peas and mozarella sticks. Not your usual chip shop combination but then again, most things I choose are not very usual.

We then hired a rowing boat and spent about 45 minutes going up and down the river on it which was nice and relaxing. Afterwards, we went into a pub and I consumed a pint of diet coke and two J20s because I was so thirsty. I guess a good thing about this heat is that it pushes me to actually stay hydrated!

Unfortunately, despite my many attempts, I cannot upload any more pictures because an ‘error’ keeps occurring. Grrrrr. More like ‘crappy WiFi’ is occurring. Maybe in the future when it has sorted itself out, I will add some more to this post but until then, this will have to do.

Monday 18/07/16

The past two days, especially today, have been so unproductive and uneventful. I know it’s the summer holidays, but still. The weather has been SO hot and me being a lil’ British person-I am not used to hot climates at all. I don’t mind them when I’m on holiday as I can go swimming in either a pool or the ocean but where I live right now is right in the middle of England so I am miles away from a beach and there are no nice swimming pools here. Therefore, all I can do is sit and melt and put off doing the ‘summer work’ I had planned to do. Oh well, I’ll just catch up with today’s work on Wednesday because I have literally no plans for this week apart from tomorrow when I am going on a day trip with my dad. I wish I had at least one friend who lives nearby and is up for doing spontaneous things… *sigh*. I also wish I had a part-time job so that I could earn money so that I could actually afford to do things with my friends who live quite far away!!

The rest of the books that I ordered from Amazon arrived today! 

The book I am currently reading is ‘eleanor & park’. I’ll share my thoughts on it and rate it out of 5 once I have finished it. I think i’ll try and finish this by Friday because I started reading this last summer…

Now i’m going to have a nice relaxing bath, put on a summery face mask and then put some tanning moisturiser on my legs because they are looking super pale compared to my arms [kinda don’t want to be the palest girl on the beach when I go to Greece :p ]. After that, I’m going to watch a film called ‘If I Stay’ which I have been wanting to watch for over a year!

Saturday 16/07/16

Sometimes, coming up with a first sentence is very difficult. I thought i’d start this post by telling you that to make it less difficult.

Today has been very relaxing but I’ve still been quite productive. I’ve tidied my room which previously had university prospectuses and textbooks strewn all over the floor and then I had a little fright whilst emptying my pencil case before throwing it away. Once I’d taken all of the stationary out of it, I noticed that there was a spider sitting in the bottom of it! Ewwww! I immediately zipped up the pencil case and threw it in the bin that is furthest away from my bedroom. After that, I started panicking that there were spiders in every single bag, drawer and item of clothing in my room. I think it’s safe to say that I have arachnophobia. Ugh.

After lunch, I hoovered my room and then starting learning the ‘algebraic fractions’ topic in C3 for maths. It doesn’t seem too difficult but I bet the exam questions will be. After dinner, I made some notes on the Circular Motion topic of A2 physics whilst watching ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ for the third time. I know it sounds cliche but I love this movie so much. It is full of metaphors that we can relate to our own lives and a lot of the quotes have such deep meanings. It is more than just a love story in my opinion; it shows us how everything we experience in life is only temporary and this can be both comforting and daunting. This is especially portrayed in the scene where Hazel and Gus appear to be having the ‘perfect’ time in Amsterdam until Gus suddenly sits Hazel down and tells her that he is dying. My favourite quote from the movie is “Some infinities are bigger than other infinities” as this make me wonder: what even is an infinity? You can say that there are an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1, but between 0 and 2 you would have twice the amount of this infinity. So is an infinity actually endless, or is it just simply the limit between two certainties which are most often just the beginning and the end?