June Update

Well hello there, long time no see! I haven't posted a blog since April, I really ought to get better at this. I thought I'd write a little post about what I've been up to since my last post. Spoiler alert: it's a lot!

Some of my travel snaps, find more here

First of all, I went travelling! I'm still in shock that it's over but, on the 30th of April, a friend and I flew to Paris and spent a whole month wandering around Europe with huge bags on our backs and blisters on our feet. It was one of the best experiences I've ever had and very freeing. We made up our route as we went along and it was so exciting to be able to change where we were going at the last minute. Since returning, I've been compiling my travel notes and drawings into some comprehensive blog posts. I was pretty rubbish at writing everything that happened as we went along in great detail but I kept a bullet point list of all the big points of our trip. I am currently in the process of filling in the gaps.

Originally posted on Tumblr

I have also been doing a lot of drawing and creative writing and thought I would take this opportunity to post about my new art blog. I created it in January and am currently using SketchFlynn as a way to share my own original sketches, paintings and digital work. I'm not using it because I think I am some amazing artist! But I am very passionate about art and want very much to grow as an artist and learn as much as I can.

And finally, as always, I have been reading lots! Europe was a fantastic opportunity for me to get back into the swing of reading and make a dent on my 'to read' list. However, I spent a large portion of my trip solely focussed on reading the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. I developed a bit of an obsession and read the first 6 books within about 3 weeks! Meanwhile, my travel companion, Hayley, was reading Game of Thrones and kept making fun of me for reading a book aimed at 13 year olds. I have zero regrets.

I had enough time to also read Still Alice by Lisa Genova, this month's book club read, whilst I was kicking back and relaxing on a sunbed. It was a very harrowing and interesting read, touching on the subject of Alzheimers, and I must say I found myself fogging up my sunglasses as I had a secret cry more than once. Probably to Hayley's embarrassment...

So that, alongside a fair few cocktails and dodgy selfies, is what I've been up to. What about you?

The Start of a Healthier, Happier Me!

This year I've decided to focus on my fitness a bit more and start my own weight loss journey.

Black forest berries and strawberry smoothie!

Since finishing university, I've lost over a stone without really trying, which just goes to show how poorly I'd been eating whilst living away from home. I've decided to step up my game a bit and really work on improving my healthy eating and exercise regime.

I've never felt overweight. I was a normal sized child but went through a serious chubby stage from the age of around 10 to 14/15. I started doing a lot more exercise as a teenager and did Taekwon Do three times a week, and loved it! It incorporated a lot of great things like core training as well as cardio and I felt really strong because of it. Looking back, I realise that I struggled a lot with my self-image at that time, even though I was generally a good weight. When I see pictures of my sixteen year old self, I wonder why I was so worried because I looked so nice! I was especially happy with my weight at age 17/18.

When I went to university, things went a little down hill for me. I struggled to eat healthily and my weight really yo-yo-ed, especially related to my stress. I specifically remember my diet taking quite drastic turns during exam time: in first year I over ate to deal with stress whilst in my second year I more or less starved myself due to nerves. Thankfully, I now have a healthier approach to food and a slightly better understanding of what my body needs.

To get to my ideal weight I think I would like to lose about two stone which I think could be doable by September time, depending on how well I stick to my new plan. Ideally, I will be doing 25-50 minute workouts 4 or 5 times a week at home, alongside the weekly Pilates sessions I have started attending with some friends! I will be keeping track of this on the calendar in my room because the only way I will be able to do this is if I write it down and document my efforts.

In my diet, I don't want to deprive myself of the things I really love like chocolate and ice cream but I do need to cut down on my portions. I will also be making myself a lot of home made smoothies, and replacing my lunch, which is usually consisting of a lot of carbs, with a smoothie. One of my friends is doing that at the moment and says she feels amazing! So far it's been a tasty and fun way to get more fruit into my diet.

I've been looking at a lot of fitness blogs for tips  and I've bookmarked a lot of really great videos on YouTube as well as joined Fitness Blender which posts lots of useful videos (for free). I've also been thinking about how to motivate myself and I've set myself some weight loss deadlines:

• 30th April - five pounds loss. This is the date I set off for Europe for a month! I only have about three weeks to achieve this so I'm not sure how ambitious this is but I will do my best!
• July - I would like to have kept the five pounds off or maybe even lost a little more. This will mean watching what I eat quite closely in Europe.
• July - 1 stone loss.
• August - 1 stone 7 pounds loss.
• September - 2 stone loss.
 

To reward myself for reaching these goals I will think of some fun treats for myself. I've always wanted to go on a spa day, so perhaps that could be an incentive!
I also have a couple of clothing goals. Whilst clearing out my wardrobe this week, I found a few outfits from when I was younger that I am hoping to slim down to fit into a bit better. For example, I've had these red and white floral  shorts from Topshop since I was about 16 (6 years ago!). They still fit me but they're a little bit snug now! So this is an item I think I could feasibly be able to fit into after maybe a month or two, just in time for the summer!

I'm currently off work for two weeks, one of the perks of working in a school, so I'm taking this time to kickstart my new regime. Alongside this, I'm sending off job applications and working on some creative projects whilst trying to plan my Europe adventure in May. I'm a little bit worried that when I go back to work I'll fall into some unhealthy habits but hopefully that won't be the case. More than losing weight and gaining confidence, I would just like to make a lifestyle change. I don't want to be fit for now, I want to be fit for life.

Update // Book Haul

I have found in recent months that my motivation to write blog posts has been extremely low. If you care, I'm sorry! Since January I have been devoting a lot of time to writing my novel and drawing more (note my resolutions for this year!) leaving me with little time to get my head around writing some of the blog posts I have wanted to write. Do you ever feel like you can't get your thoughts onto paper fast enough? Because I do. My head's been aching with ideas for months now.
Other than that I've also been able to do lots of lovely things with friends, For example, myself and a few friends have started a monthly book club, something I have always wanted to do! We've had two meetings so far and will be having our third one to discuss our March book: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. I've also been to see two West End musicals, a ballet, went ziplining through the trees and had a brief* stint as a vegetarian, so it's been a busy few months for me. (*By brief, by God I mean brief. I lasted about two days and got so close to ordering a veggie burger before my mouth slipped and I asked for the cajun chicken burger. No regrets, it was possibly one of the best burgers of  my life.)

Since Christmas, I've also been a busy book worm, chomping my way through anything and everything I can get my hands on. I thought I would share some of the brilliant books I've collected over the last few months in a December - March book haul summary! I will only be focusing on the physical copies, if I went into eBooks we'd be here all night...

DECEMBER

As I have had a kindle for the last few years, my mother and I have an unspoken agreement that I won't ask for fiction books for Christmas as she'll always suggest I get it in eBook form instead. I don't mind this but it is always preferable to have the physical feel and smell of a book in your hands. I did, however, ask for a few books by some of my favourite female role models. With these kinds of autobiographical books, I always feel its more important to have a copy that you can flick through and get the full quality effect of the images also.

  These books were: Yes Please by Amy Poehler, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me by Mindy Kaling and It by Alexa Chung. I've only read Kaling's book so far but I loved it. It was a really comforting read for me to see someone with such an enviable career break down the experiences and situations she had to overcome before landing her dream job as a writer on The US Office. Also, I love her style. I can't wait to read the others, I've dipped into It a few times but am not very far yet. However, the quality of images and the book in general (I got the newly released paperback copy) is really great!

For my birthday (30th Dec), I was also given various books from friends including a really cute cupcake recipe book with space to write notes about my favourite cakes as well as a doodle book called 642 Places To Draw. If you have any friends with an artistic flair, I highly recommend that as a gift, its brimming with drawing prompts and just generally very nice to work through. My older brother, who is always really good at getting me gifts, got me Ayoade on Ayoade: A Cinematic Odyssey by Richard Ayoade, Crap CVS by Jenny Crompton as well as a really gorgeous tote bag with the Penguin Gatsby cover printed on it! Ayoade on Ayoade is weird and wonderful so far and Crap CVs is very useful for me as I start the job hunt again!

 

JANUARY/FEBRUARY

The only way I can explain the purchase of The Humans by Matt Haig and The Last Girlfriend on Earth by Simon Rich is that they were both on sale in Sainsbury's for a ridiculously cheap price. The Humans was also recommended to me by one of my best friends from uni who said that the book really made her think about life in a different way. From that, my curiosity was really piqued. With The Last Girlfriend on Earth, is it bad that I totally judged a book by it's cover, which I am prone to do, and thought it looked cool? So far it's an enjoyable read, too, opening with a hilarious short story from the perspective of a condom in a teenaged boy's wallet. Yep, you read that correctly...

When it comes to I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, I have far better reasons why I bought it. Firstly, I feel like the novel has been mentioned in the acknowledgement section of too many of my favourite author's books that I couldn't ignore it any longer. I've been meaning to read it since I was maybe thirteen years old and I plucked a copy off my friend's mum's bookcase and thought it sounded interesting. I read that first line about the girl writing from inside the sink and was hooked back then, only to resume reading nearly ten years later.

Also, I never knew Dodie Smith wrote 101 Dalmatians, which was adapted into  one of my favourite Disney films, so I feel like I owe it to Smith to read this one...

MARCH

The following three books I acquired for free on World Book Day at the primary school I currently work at. There was a book exchange for the kids and Mister God This Is Anna by Fynn, Lily and the Lost Boy by Paula Fox and The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien were among the leftovers. The children I work with are aged between 3-7 so I think it's safe to say these books were a little too long for some of them to read just yet! I jumped at the chance to take them home and have read a bit of Lily, which is a really nicely written story set in Greece,  so far. I've never heard of Mister God though and am very curious to start reading when I have time! 

I'd previously read a fair bit of The Hobbit on my Kindle but a lot of my Tolkien loving friends really suggested I get a physical copy which is proving to be useful, especially when I want to check back on what's happened or look at the map!

This book has been on my to-read list for years now. A lot of my friends have warned me against American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis but how can I resist a story so intriguing. Again, I'm only a couple of pages in as my book club commitments have been distracting me, but so far I have no idea what's going on, that's always fun.

My final purchase of the last few months came this past weekend when I went up to Lincoln to visit one of my old housemates for a night out and to plan our oncoming trip to Europe (!!!!). 

We mooched around Waterstones for a bit whilst we waited for our table at Nandos to be ready and of course, being the English graduates we are, we both ended up spending money.

In honour of Penguin's 80th anniversary, the publishers have released a collection of 80 classic titles to celebrate, all only 80p each! Ever since I found out about this I've been itching to get my hands on some of them. The simplicity of the cover design is so eye catching and classic which I really like. The nightingales are drunk by Hafez really caught my attention most of all.
I also found myself walking away with Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, a book I've been interested in for a while. I've only flicked through a few pages so far but it is already very different to what I normally read. First example being that I don't usually read graphic novels, although my passion for art means that I really would like to. The subject matter of the book also touches on a lot of things I'm not familiar with so I'm very excited and nervous to start this one!

As you can see I've got a lot of work to do if I want to read all of these books! Maybe it'd be best if I steer clear of bookshops for a while...

BONUS 

eBook purchases:

• The Savages by Matt Whyman
• The Guestbook by Holly Martin (read)
• My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick (read)
• We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
• The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R Carey (read)
• Lobsters by Tom Ellen & Lucy Ivison (read)
• To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han (read)
• The Summer I Turned Pretty series by Jenny Han (read)
• The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins

 

Resolutions.

So I'm only about 18 days late on this blog post but every year I make some sort of resolution. I'm not really into that "New Year, New You" idea. I don't really want a new me, I think current me is okay. She could probably lose a bit of weight but I won't be losing sleep over it.
However, there are a few things I would like to do.

1. Write more. I get so many ideas all the time, I practically dream about writing my novel but I get distracted and at this rate I'll never finish anything.

2. Draw more. I am actively trying to improve my skills all the time. This month alone I've produced so much work, some that I've really like and a lot I was less pleased with. But I know I'm still on my artist's journey and still need to develop my style. So this year I intend to work on that both with traditional and digital art. I'm thinking of starting a tumblr purely for my doodles.

My first drawing of 2015, based on the film Eagle Vs Shark.

3. Take more interest in my appearance. I don't usually care how I look but I know that I feel really good about myself if I take a little bit of time on what I look like. So whether that be spending more time on my clothes or my make up now and then or going out especially to get my nails or something done, I need to learn to invest in myself a little bit. Although I think I'll not bother with all that waxing malarky, the last time I got waxed, I ended up having a leg spasm and kicked the beautician in the boob.

And finally (a cheesy one):

4. To become a human doing rather than just a human being. I sometimes feel like I should be taking more risks and putting myself out there more now that I'm living back at home. At uni, I had to do that, to branch out and make friends. But at home I'm so comfortable that I forget to push myself. This year I want to take more chances and gain more experiences. For the first time I have time spread out ahead of me, without educational obligations or anything to alter my plans. Sometimes the magnitude of this freedom overwhelms me, but I need to beat that and start living.

Best of 2014

As seems to be tradition with me, I spent the majority of New Year's Day with my head in a toilet, so here's my slightly late round up of my personal favourite things in arts and culture from the last year. See you later, 2014...


Film

• Her - dir. Spike Jonze

Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with his phone, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Need I say anything else?  But honestly, this film is brilliant. It is shot beautifully and made me think about my own relationship with technology. Side note: I'm not going to shag my laptop...

• The Grand Budapest Hotel - dir. Wes Anderson

Symmetry, cakes, intrigue, just brilliant and in classic Anderson style.

• The Double - dir. Richard Ayoade

I can't even remember the details of this film, just that it made me feel a certain way. As a whole it is very atmospheric and very dark.  Literally. I don't think a single scene is shot in daylight.

• Boyhood - dir. Richard Linklater

Shot over 12 years, Boyhood chronicles Mason's life from childhood through adolescence. I'm probably only one or two years older than the protagonist of this film, and I was personally struck by the way the use of certain pieces of music, as well as other references, threw me back to a similar time in my life.

• Mockingjay Part One - dir. Francis Lawrence

The beginning of the end of The Hunger Games film franchise. Once again, all involved bring a tense and aesthetically pleasing adaptation to screen. Sticking true to the source material, Mockingjay delivers.

• The Wind Rises - dir. Hayao Myazaki

From the creator of My Neighbour Totoro, The Wind Rises follows Jiro Horikoshi and his dream to become an aircraft designer. Plot wise the film is slow, languidly exploring Jiro's life, but visually is an absolute triumph in animation, blending the use of hand painted scenery with modern digital animation.

• How To Train Your Dragon 2 - dir. Dean DeBlois

Animated sequel that will 100% make you cry. I just love some of the messages this films puts across. For example, the hero loses his leg in the first film and yet, despite his disability, Hiccup shows strength and courage, going on to again save the day and get on with his life. An excellent message to people, especially young people, in a similar position. 

TV

• In The Flesh - created by Dominic Mitchell

The rural town of Roarton is recovering from "The Rising". During the rising, thousands of people across the country rose from the dead, including Kieren Walker, a teen who took his own life. It deals not so much with zombie attacks but frames the undead as victims - "partially deceased" - who are targeted by the living as they try to assimilate back into society. It is excellent.

• Sherlock - created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat

Excuse me for being late to the party on this one, but after years of friends badgering me about it, I finally bothered to watch it. And let me tell you, I finally understand the hype behind that Benderback Cumberbiscuit. No, but really, I loved it. A lot more than I anticipated I would. I especially loved the character of Molly, portrayed by Louise Brealey. I want nothing more than for her feelings for the cold and oblivious Sherlock to finally be requited.


Literature

• We Were Liars - E. Lockhart

Since reading this book in early 2014, I have since passed it book on to many of my friends who have all similarly loved this book. It is a YA romance of it's own kind. We Were Liars is a mystery that will have you guessing (and screaming, probably) until the very end.

• Tiger Lily - Jodi Lynn Anderson

I can't remember what happens but the prose is so beautiful, Anderson's quality of writing is a really high standard. As a retelling of Peter Pan, we follow wild child, Tiger Lily, as the boy she loves falls for someone else. It is brilliant and touching.

• One Hundred Proposals - Holly Martin

So good I somehow had time to read it twice! The main character, Suzie McKenzie, has my dream job. She runs a website that specialises in helping people work out how to propose to their other half.
Her best friend, Harry, helps her run it and, as a marketing ploy, decides to test the proposals out on Suzie and start a blog. The only problem is that Suzie loves Harry and every fake proposal breaks her heart. I really didn't expect to love this book, but after three years of reading the heavy stuff at uni, it was lovely to read something that was so nice and relaxing to read. 

• Isla and the Happily Ever After - Stephanie Perkins

In the third and final book of the series, we return to Paris, this time following sweet and shy Isla as she tackles her final year of school just as she embarks on a romance with the boy she's always been in love with. Cute and quirky, Perkins creates the perfect love story, full of drama, set in the City of Light.

Music

• 1989 - Taylor Swift

Swift takes a risk with this departure from her usual country genre, branching out to pop. It pays off. 1989 is easily one of my favourite albums of 2014. Swift herself has been especially impressive this year, having grown so much as a woman and a feminist. Check out Blank Space (obvs) and Welcome to New York. 

• So Long, See You Tomorrow - Bombay Bicycle Club

Not only my favourite album of last year but possibly of all time. I've been a Bombay fan since I was about 16 but this album is, to me, a step beyond their previous work. Listen to Luna, Eyes Off You, Come To... Just listen to it all, okay?

So, to round off, 2014 was a pretty big year. I watched, read and listened to some pretty good stuff. Here's to 2015 and whatever this year will bring!
Happy new year!