Experience: it's gained in retrospect.

 

I'm back! Back after a 2 month-blogging-break, and first term at university!

I was right, by the way, about having limited time whilst at university. I think my decision not to blog during term-time was a good call, I've kind of missed it, but in a weird way, seeing as I've been living at a mile a minute, it's only now that I can really sit back and reflect on an incredible 8 weeks.

I've been to concerts; talks, lectures delivered by people who wrote my course books, comedy nights (too funny to forget), cocktail nights (too good to remember clearly - just kidding! I only had two :P) and even a carol concert in the college chapel! Not to mention the standard clubbing nights, or the multitude of nights in which "staying in [college]"was actually the beginning of a great night out (in somebody else's building/ staircase party!)

University life is exactly what I hoped and worked for. No, it isn't - it's better. I feel as though I've learnt so much - and not merely in an academic sense - although I've also read approximately 100 books and journal articles!

Contrary to popular (read: media) expectations though, student life for me (I can't answer for my friends at other universities...) is not restricted to a week-long alcohol-fuelled party, with an assignment on the side, perhaps. Oh no.

I have without a doubt worked the hardest that I have ever worked in my life this past term. I'm talking everyday (well, except those 3 days at the end of term when I only had meetings to attend, seeing as I spent some of my Fresher's week beginning work, I got to do some Christmas shopping!) and for around 6 hours a day. Seriously, not including library runs across town, lectures, classes etc. But I live for it, - that's another thing I've learnt from the past term - I couldn't have it any other way. Maybe then, it's a good thing that where I am we're made to work constantly, we're reminded that that's what we're there for. And ultimately, £9,000 a year would be a very expensive party!

So, all of this work, all of this "play", where does that leave me? Well, I'll tell you. Though I may have been preoccupied with work whilst I was physically at university (the irony!) I can now tell you that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and in the last few days at home I have indeed been missing university life (and, admittedly, the independence and freedom that comes with it) which I think is mark of just how much perspective/ friends/ knowledge experience I've gained over the past 2 months.

 

The Sea/ Farewell Summer

I probably won't see the sea or a beach until next summer...:(

Can no longer deny that summer is well and truly over. Not only is the good weather gone, but my friends are beginning to move into their university halls, as of tomorrow - good luck to them! As for myself, having ridiculously short terms means that I won't be moving out for another three weeks, which is annoying, as I'm now impatient to start (I've been away from school for nearly 4 months,!) and my friends are all leaving town.

However, the last few days have given my the chance to pause, whilst buying uni stuff (which I could leave until later, but I'd rather do now :p) and remember all of the great times I've had since my exams finished. Although I may be bored now, I think the break from such intense studying was a good idea, as I'm now interested, motivated and ready to throw myself back into full-time learning again.

This summer hasn't just been a waiting period between two stages of my life, it's given me a chance to properly relax, earn a little bit of money, travel, and do all of the nonsense that I don't allow myself time for in term-time. (You never don't have the time for something, you simply choose whether or not you're going to prioritise it with the time that you do have, in my opinion).

In recent times I've re-visited my past (went to my school's Awards evening, met up to say last goodbyes to people leaving this week, and will probably do the same next week) and got a glimpse into my future (went to my university town to get some stuff yesterday, and some more scholarship information arrived today!) but most importantly I've learnt to enjoy the present, and what's left of my time at home.

I'm still counting the days though...less than three week's until Fresher's!

 

What goes around comes around!

I was originally going to use this post to talk about the image above, the composition, colours, patterns, and objects in this set, which is nice enough, and one of my best I'd like to think. However, I have discovered something incredible and much more interesting!

I was searching for a title for this post, and noted that recently the quote "and the rest is rust and stardust" keeps being used on tags, posts and picture captions recently so I decided to look it up online. I discovered that this quote actually comes from Vladimir Nabokov's, Lolita, Chapter 25, Humbert's Wanted poem. This fact, whilst interesting, is only the beginning!

I typed the quote into Google, being the curious soul that I am, and found a Tumblr* link with the same title. Tumblr has always fascinated me, because it has the ability to simultaneously amuse and confuse me, and so I love looking at people's Tumblr pages, usually consisting of deep, meaningful quotes in coloured boxes and borders, and pictures of teenage girls, often with their faces hidden, in various states of dress. Anyway, I clicked on the link, and began my habitual scroll.**

And then, to my absolute astonishment, I saw an image that I had once used to edit with GIMP, featured on some strange Tumblr page, whose owner is probably living hundreds of miles away, and will probably never speak to me, or know of me, let alone meet me!

The image has been reposted, liked and commented on thousands of times.
It seems strange that the concept, the idea, has now come full-circle to me! Here's the evidence;

My original post, Feb 2011:

http://notesfromadaydreambeliever.blogspot.co.uk/2011_02_01_archive.html

The Tumblr I found the image on today, August 2012:

http://drivemysoull.tumblr.com/post/29216309677

The number of people who have interacted with this image!: http://drivemysoull.tumblr.com/post/29216309677

 

*I love Tumblr, but unfortunately I can't make it work. I've tried setting up an account, but if I can't make things work, then I can't make things my own, and then they just don't work for me. I had a Tumblr account for a couple of days though, to try it out, and I had a single, solitary follower! Sorry in advance, if you are that follower, and are wondering what on earth happened to that weird, half-established Tumblr page that you were following! I'll remain forever grateful for that single person, who, for a couple of days, made sure that my Tumblr was not a complete failure!
**I love scrolling Tumblr pages, with rows and rows of images to consider, they're the best because they require the least clicking - very addictive though, it's like constantly spinning a wheel - how do you know when to stop?
 

Just another day, that I had the best day of my life.

Celebratory set!


I feel like I've been waiting my whole life to post this, honestly.

Dream

So, we all have dreams don't we? Funnily enough, although we dream at night, most of our true dreams are things that we carry around during the day, in our thoughts, and in my case this is definitely true - I'd spent the whole week, throughout driving lessons (somewhat distracting!), working, even trips to the cinema (!) thinking about Results day, and what it could possibly mean for me and my friends, but mostly, I must confess, what it would mean for my own future.

Well, there's no doubt that yesterday was one of the most dramatic days of my life, I'd gone to bed at 1 in the morning, and kept waking up, woke up properly at about 6 and had about 1/2 an hour's sleep when my friend rings me to tell me that UCAS track has updated online!

About 5 minutes later, I find out something incredible.

My place at university had been confirmed.

Now, I had no idea of my grades, but after that point I didn't really care, I just kept logging on and off to check that I wasn't still dreaming, having been sleep deprived for several days! The day, however, just got better, my sister got ABCC in her AS results, despite only being predicted BCC, my friends all got into their first or second choice universities, or were able to find spaces at very good universities (University of East Anglia for example) through Clearing within an hour or so. AND, my final grades were A*A*A :o well over what I needed to get in - AAA.

It was incredible, I'm talking; champagne, photos, crying, laughing, lunch AND dinner out, about a million phone calls and a great evening with my friends and family. Seriously, seeing my teachers happy and my family proud was the best thing ever, and yesterday was without a doubt one of the best days of my life. Being able to talk about university without using the word "if" in the same sentence is fantastic, and even better is being able to get excited about the direction my life is going in for the next 3 years, it makes years of hard work and pressure really worth it.

So, the moral of the story is, if you have a dream, work hard and don't let go. Yes, you'll spend some days crying, and some days smiling, you'll have moments of satisfaction and despair (my lowest grade was ironically in History, after an exam paper that had me very worried for 8 weeks! But I got my A and that's all that counts :D). It'll be worth it all, I promise you, being able to look back over the past 4 years or so and have no major regrets is a great feeling. I think several people in my year realised a little too late that working a bit harder, putting in the extra effort and never giving up might have made a real difference to their results.

People might look at someone with As and A*s and think they're a genius, which could be true, but it mostly likely isn't. I know I could have never achieved those grades without solid hard work, and an average of 10 hours of revision a day in the peak of my exams, not even counting the months of coursework and revision leading up to that! I chose to make academia my life, and everyone else must choose what they wish to do with their own life, and, as long as it's their own choice then they've made a good decision, I'd say.

Would I do all of that work over again to get where I am today? Of course!

When will I get my A-level results? What is the weather like here? Is there life on other planets? Read on to find out the answer to two of these three very important questions...

If only I had something more interesting to write about, than the fact that it's 4 days until I get my A2 results, and time has never gone so slowly! But I don't. Recently here the weather has improved (well, until tomorrow that is) and so I've been making the most of bing outside! I can't believe that the London 2012 Olympics is nearly over, after all of the preparation, hype, build up and then the spectacular event itself! It has proved me with a great distraction these last two weeks :p. Hayfever aside, I really love the summer, being able to wear nicer clothes (summer clothes are so much more attractive than practical winter clothes!), go out when I want, generally do what I want...it's a good life, though sometimes I do miss the routine of school.

The image above (another one of my creations on Polyvore) includes classic summer images, and a floral-themed outfit, complete with a matching clutch! I think my favourite part about it is the use of gold frames and the peachy-pink coloured blossom and flowers, it's a very romantic look, and it really shows up the summer sunlight filtering through the pictures, which is just perfect for a dreamy summer afternoon :)

March

March by nikigirl featuring vintage style jewelry

Rose-tinted heaven

Rose-tinted heaven

Found some of my old polyvore images from earlier in the year that I never got to publish on here, despite it being close to 1 'o' clock in the morning, I thought - why not? I need a good old clear out of my drafts, or "ghost posts" as I prefer to call them. Here are some creations that I never found the words for.

London 2012 - Olympic fever!

London 2012

I have returned! And in the last week, I've been in and out of London twice, braving the Tube and trains around central London, including Euston, Victoria, the Circle, Northern and District lines, all whilst carrying a handbag, suitcase and another carrier bag full of books and shoes (i.e, my life in a bag, essentially) - I think that this deserves some kind of recognition! I went over near Canterbury to my Dad's, in case anyone was wondering who on earth would go through such travel chaos at a time like this.

Oh, and it turns out that Victoria is in the direction of the Olympic Park, and I also had the stops for Horseguards' Parade and Hyde Park to navigate around, but I did it, albeit having to literally stop and take cover with my suitcase at times, when the crowds became unbearable, and then I scurried like a little mouse to the stairs, before the next tube could come in!

Whilst I was at the coast I had time to look around the Turner contemporary gallery in Margate, go to the beach at Deal, and walk through Canterbury. Pretty good, except for the weather, I have genuinely never seen a sunny day in Kent, it's like a geographical black hole, or maybe I'm just unlucky.

Anyway, back to London 2012 and team GB. When I left, they had only 1 silver medal I think? What a difference 5 days makes! Currently 3rd on the medal table (which could change in a week) which is an amazing feat considering the size of our population, compared to the USA, Russia or China, which just goes to show, quality over quantity every time. (The same is true of Olympic medals I have discovered, it matters less the no. of silver and bronze, it's all about the GOLD.)

Unless of course, you are discussing Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice;

"All that glisters is not gold."

Creativity takes courage

Quote by the French* artist Henri Matisse, whose work I studied during my days of GCSE Art & Design! The title of this post is relevant to 3 things;

a) The above image is my first shaped set ever! I've never made anything like it on Polyvore, and I really like the fact that it isn't square and that the pieces don't quite fit perfectly, I think it adds something. Trying something new or different requires creative courage.

b) Today I watched my sister's performance (at my town's theatre) which was written for the Olympic culture festival, and so my sister and her friends are the original cast! Standing up on stage, reciting lines and acting, in front of the actual playwright and associated press (tonight was the first time that the play has been performed) takes massive courage.

c) I've been watching the London 2012 Olympics (well, I love watching sport on TV, and I am mildly patriotic, I watched the Diamond Jubilee, Royal Wedding etc.) since the Opening ceremony** and the amount of creativity and courage involved in the Olympics is really inspirational. It's not just Danny Boyle's opening ceremony which was creative - every dive, gymnastics/trampolining routine, dressage performance, every athlete's requires artist design. It's not just the competitors who need courage either, the organisers, and so that decided to make the 2012 Olympics so eccentric and so different to any really seen before must have had courage too.

Therefore these two things, as illustrated by the above examples, go hand in hand.


*Speaking of the French - what a good night for their swimmers! Well done for winning against some pretty tight odds and even fiercer competition!

**I absolutely loved the Opening ceremony, seeing as some reviews have been mixed about it. It wasn't a complete spectacle, like Beijing, but it wasn't supposed to be, it represented the people of Britain, all people, and the crazy British sense of humour. It focused on some of the darkest parts of our recent social history (mistreatment of workers during the industrial revolution, Suffragettes, World Wars) but then reminded the world what Britain has given to everyone, the internet being the most incredible and appropriate example, considering that you are reading this online! Sure, some of it was confusing and chaotic, but so is life - even athletes are not machines, we're all human, and that's what binds us all, regardless of nation, country, language. Isn't that what the Olympics is really about?

Regardless, GO TEAM GB!

Every day is a small victory in the game of Life and Death.

So, there you have it. Another few days of summer have passed, the weather has improved, and my life? Well, it's pretty average at the moment, although all of this boredom has led to some creative advances (see above piece for evidence!). Other than that I've been doing some more work, looking for another part time job and taking driving lessons...not exactly thrilling is it?

I've been spending a lot of time in my local park (well, technically not my local park, but the one near my city centre) for an International Festival, and on another day when I had a picnic with my friends. This is quite standard, nothing out of the ordinary (well, the International Festival itself is, but not my presence there - I go practically every year since it's on my doorstep!) EXCEPT I used to spend loads of time there 2 years ago, during my GCSE summer, it's sometimes like the past 2 years never happened (which is a crazy idea), the amount of similarities between my post-16 summer and post A-level summer - it must be the extraordinary length of time causing these parallels!

Strange when that happens, when you KNOW loads of time has passed, for example, since I was 16, and then suddenly something happens, and you remember something, a memory, a moment, in such striking clarity that it's as if no time has passed at all...

End of an era

I had my Year 13 prom last week, and it's really hit me that it's the end of an era, the prom is a milestone in itself, because throughout your school years you never consider that one day it will be you leaving, it will be your turn at the Year 13 Prom (which you will have spent the time since the Year 11 Prom hearing about)...and now it's over I feel like I really, definitely have left secondary school. Strange.

All of the effort was worth it though, and contrary to popular belief, everything, clothes, shoes, bag, hair and make-up, the ticket to prom itself did cost just under £100, and anyone spending much more than that, is in my opinion, slightly over the top. I hate news articles with teenage girls and their mothers claiming that Prom is the most important night of their lives, and therefore they must have a £200 dress, or £50 nails. In what way does that increase the importance of the night, or what it represents?

In other news, I managed to see another £5 show, the lion, the witch and the wardrobe with Mousetrap (a threatre group working mainly in London to help young people see shows) which was in Kensington Gardens, and in a 360 degree threatre which moved kind of like a cinema, but with a circular stage as well - it was incredible! The special effects (visuals, puppets, lighting, fake snow) were so varied that I found myself really engaged in the entire show, which is unusual for me, because although I like theatre, I can never usually stay focused for the whole thing, I do tend to "zone out" for 5 minutes or so.

So, this image, I got the idea of strawberries and red from Wimbledon, watching the tennis last week, and then I found those pictures of Emma Watson in a white dress, and so I combined the floral dress with the wedges at the bottom as well, the frame is a template, but I think it works well, not exactly as a masterpiece, but the way that it makes you naturally want to look straight at the lower picture of Emma Watson, and at the strawberries. They must be the "focal points" for this picture, I think.

This was my post for the end of last week, sadly, something messed up when I was publishing it, and so I'm publishing it again, now, out of chronological order, sorry for any confusion but currently there doesn't seem to be a way to change the order of published posts on Blogger!

It's not procrastination; it's a higher form of planning.

So, the last week has been pretty standard, in fact, nothing much has happened except that I visited my old first school, for their final assembly (the school is closing at the end of this term to be re-opened with my old middle school as a combined school) to give out an award to a little boy who has made some amazing academic progress! Bless, his mum looked so happy when he won his award, as did all of the children, who didn't really realise the significance of the assembly, but did very much like the look of the prizes!

Time moves much too quickly, just 10 years ago that would have been me, sitting cross-legged on the floor, eager-eyed and staring up at the teachers at the front of the hall! It feels as much like yesterday as it does a whole lifetime ago. The building was still so familiar, although much of the decoration itself has been changed, improved, updated, and I even got to speak again to some staff who had known me when I was 4!

To disorientate myself further, with my work I was showing some foreign students around the city where my Firm university choice is. It was a good day out (I love the city, obviously, otherwise I would not have made the university there my firm choice!) but also, by association, it was a little angsty, I just want my results now so that I know whether I'll ever get to live there or not! Strange, knowing that I might well live there for 3 years, but I might well not visit again for another 10 years, if I don't get in, because I can't bear to see it again if I'm rejected, it'll be too raw.

There you have it. I feel completely in limbo :/ within 48 hours I revisited memories of my first school days, and then walked around the city that, by October, may well be my new university home. However, at the moment I am unfortunately stuck somewhere between archaic memories and distant hopes for the future, which can only be solidified by my results on the 16th of August. Until then, I fear, I am completely lost at sea.

2 Years Later...

My most recent Polyvore design

2 Years ago today I started this blog, beginning with images (coincidentally, images that I started using when I first opened my Polyvore account, at around the same time) from my GCSE Art and Design course. It started as a blog about art, concerning the creation of different types of artwork that I'd learnt about, but now my blog is much more about myself, somehow, and how this increasingly is shown through my art.

So basically, where as the the art did all the talking previously, now I do the talking, and the art is simply a more visual explanation for my thoughts.

I'd like to think that I've learnt a lot, since that 16 year old, bored after GCSEs (although admittedly I am very bored after leaving school, and genuinely cannot wait to get my results, go to university and start learning again, but that's just me I think) who had little direction in life other than some mediocre artwork and a random blog. Not that the art has really improved dramatically, although it has evolved somewhat (I primarily use Polyvore rather than GIMP to make images, and rather than photo manipulation I tend to use internet images and "arrange" them into bigger pieces rather than create the components themselves from scratch if you know what I mean).

This post is a pretty big milestone then, certainly, I know there are much older blogs around, but as far as Blogspot is concerned, the average lifespan of a blog seems to be under 2 years, so I think it's an achievement that I have continued to update this, if only for its consistency rather than for any extraordinary content, after all I'm not trying to change the world, I just want some way to record the things that I do and that I find interesting, I'm not fussed about having 100s of followers, although of course I like the idea that at least someone is reading what I write.

At this point I'd like to thank my actual followers (currently at around 15 I think?) for putting up with this nonsense, in the hope that they find something (if only occasionally) worth reading on here. As a side note, I have had over 3,900 views on this blog, which is far more than if I had decided to never publish it!

So here we are, I'm not world famous, I'm not a celebrated blogger or by any means a talented artist, I'm not a budding author or even an exceptional writer, but I am I believe, much closer than I was 2 years ago to finding myself, though if there's one thing I can be accused of, it's forgetting the past in favour of obsessing over the future, as opposed to say, living in the moment. (Ironic for a potential History student, right?)

For example, I tend to forget or overlook the things I've already achieved, the work I've done, however small, and instead I worry about what the future holds, where will my life go next etc. (to be fair, until I get my A2 results I don't even know where I'm going to be living in 2 months!) This however, is no way to live, there needs to be more of a balance I think, between positive reflection and active (but not anxious) anticipation of the future. That can be my target for the next year, until this blog's next milestone ;)

Maroon 5's song Payphone actually sums up the above scenario pretty well;

"You turned your back on tomorrow
Cause you forgot yesterday..."

The only way to the future is to remind ourselves of the best parts of the past -

"Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past"

- George Orwell, 1984

Who would have thought Maroon 5 and George Orwell would ever have belonged in the same sentence? Only on this blog!

A tree, a real life representation of Carl Jung's tree of self actualization....just kidding -

(A photograph I took on a shady walkway in Calpe, Alicante, if this picture is rotated it makes a really nice desktop background!)

Alicante, Spain 2012

Alicante, Spain 2012

Just got back from my week's holiday, looking through all of the photos and working out what I'm going to do with the rest of the summer! To summarise the past week;

• Fiestas, with live music and fireworks on the beach (the Bonfires of St. John)
• Party in the town where we were staying due to Spain's success in the Euros
• Private pool at the villa we rented!
• Shopping at the sea front, sun bathing, actually being able to go swimming in the sea without dying of pneumonia or something similar...
• Eating out, late, and every night, with cocktails and bars overlooking the sea shore
• Living on about 4 hours sleep a night, but not caring, and simply getting up the next day at noon to do it all again...(starting to sound like a lyric from Katy Perry's Last Friday Night)
• Sounds stupid, but I really loved this one night that we just stayed in, and cooked a massive BBQ (there were 11 of us!) and then played music all night, whilst taking photos, and some people jumped into the pool fully clothed

I miss the sun already (welcome back to England, where "summer" usually consists of a month of rain, wind or if you're lucky, tolerable overcast days) but not the heat actually, most days it was above 35 degrees and we're just not used to it, and so we had to keep finding places with air-con, and apply ridiculous amounts of sun tan lotion, which turns oily and attracts insects :s

Honestly, it was a great week, well worthy the mass organisation and months of preparation, just what was needed after exams. I'm not joking, some parts of the trips practically required head counts, and the precision of a military operation, but I'm so glad we did it - and now we have loads of great photos to remember the holiday - the polyvore image above is made of pictures which are a representation of parts of the holiday, not my actual photos (though I have nearly a hundred of those). Regardless, I think the mood of the collage comes across fairly accurately :)

EDIT: found some of my best photos to upload!

I'm back :D

I'm back!!!

Just finished my exams! In 3 days I'm going on holiday abroad for a week with my friends, so excited! Can't believe it's all over. Considering how important these exams are, I don't think I've done quite well enough :s However, I can just pray that I scrap by...

ANYWAY, I can't think about results now, I'm free, and I need to enjoy myself for a couple of weeks, to make up for all of the stress! I've revised for hundreds of hours over the past 4 months, let alone the work I did the rest of the year, so I think I deserve a break - and now I have until September to do what I want (well, and work, because I need SOME sort of money :p).

Can't tell you how good it is to not be thinking about what I should revise next, or how long until my next break etc. AMAZING.  The collage above is a collection of images that I chose because for me they sum up all of the good parts of a holiday abroad, the relaxation, the excitement, the beautiful surroundings and of course the beach! (This is particularly significant because where I live in England I am really far from the coast, which is ironic, considering it's an island!)

I survived A-levels, and now my life awaits. Until the next stage (counting from Result's Day) I have 6 weeks, in which I can catch up with all of the things that I love, and generally just enjoy life again :')

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. (Gandhi)

It's been another long week (hence the late-night blog update!) in which I have been to the theatre twice to see Les Miserables and Trojan women. I know, cheerful stuff, right? Anyway, not much else has happened aside from the usual, except for some reason I seem to have spent a lot of time thinking about the brevity of life (ironic, surely thinking about this sort of thing defeats the purpose of living life to the full?) which may or may not have something to do with the fact that I only just learnt that YOLO is not actually some kind of African greeting, it means "You Only Live Once", which I'm guessing most people already know.

The only thing that annoys me about that saying is that recently people my age have been doing stupid things and then justifying it by tagging YOLO after (publicly advertising) whatever (usually reckless) thing that they're doing. Why can't YOLO be used in the context of "I'm helping a friend", YOLO or "I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing", YOLO. I guess the problem with humans is that we are attracted to things that don't conform.

The casual collage above however, has many objects in it that are completely normal, and seem very ordinary. That's the point, the things in my collage are what they seem to be, and the style is determined to be "mainstream" which is paradoxically the opposite these days, that is to say, it's a rarity, it feels like everyone is trying too hard to be "different" or "edgy", and due to this they loose sight of themselves. Speaking of which, I wish I owned half of the objects in the image, especially the vintage suitcase, badges and butterfly pictures, but that's just me.

In the true spirit of YOLO (although I prefer the above quote, captioned on this post) I'll be temporarily abandoning this blog to revise for my final exams, which mean a lot to me. My first exam is in 2 weeks, and I really don't want to keep staying up so late to fit everything in, so I'm cutting a lot of stuff out of my life for the next month and a half or so. I'll be back around the end of June, before I go on holiday (can't wait!:D) but life goes on in the meantime, and I think it'll be over quicker than I realise - especially with the last day of school approaching so soon :o

Don't forget me and I won't forget you! Have a nice few weeks - I'll be back ASAP- wish me luck! ;)

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful.Times are hard for dreamers.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful.

This week has been randomly hard for some reason, I don't know why, everything has just felt like it's taking more and more effort to do the things that I would normally do anyway. Strange. Anyway, it's the end of the week now so I'm going to start completely fresh tomorrow, "a new leaf" as it were, and that goes for revision too :s

However, in a strange kind of way, time is on my side. 46 days until my exams end, so that's a month and 2 weeks, just long enough to really focus on revision, but the end is definitely in sight, if you see what I mean, school doesn't feel endless anymore, and I know that soon my life will be completely different. That's motivation enough I guess, only 46 more days of waking up and feeling guility every minute that I'm not studying, and to be honest, I started revising in March, so around 68 days ago, so I've officially done more revision than I have left to do (if that makes sense!)...

So this collage, it has all the usual in it (well, usual for me) icons of Paris, pink, cupcakes, tea cups, flowers, blossom, pink, books, some slightly vintage looking things and...the pocket watch in the top left hand corner. I think the watch is important, it shows that things don't go on indefinitely (revision :( ) and serves as a reminder that "come what may, time and hour run through the roughest day".

There you are, that's a very appropriate quote from Macbeth, and therefore I have successfully found a way to intergrate revision and blogging :D

28.04.12

  by nikigirl on polyvore.com

Well, the April showers have continued, and here we are a week later...I wish I had something more interesting to report, but aside from preparing for exams, schoolwork, and hearing people complain about the weather, this week has not been that eventful. Not that that's a bad thing, necessarily, but there you have it. I created this image ages ago, and for some reason having gotten around to publishing it before now, I think I've just had it saved somewhere and forgot about it. I hope that how my memory works, you know, during an exam when you can't remember something but then it appears really randomly, as if it's been "saved" somewhere, just waiting for the right thought to trigger it.

I think one of my favourite quotes that I have come across this week is by Mary Waldrop, she says;

"It's important that people know what you stand for. It's equally important that they know what you won't stand for."

I think for me this is a definite target, I have a horrible habit of saying yes to things, usually work, or something someone else wants, just for the sake of keeping peace. Although helping people constantly is a good thing, and let's people know that you stand for kindness and helpfulness, I think that there is definitely a time and a place to say no, otherwise you end up with nothing left for yourself!

Another quote I found (Einstein's extension of Parkinson's Law) is one that I'm writing up simply because it describes my life so well at the moment; "A work project expands to fill the space avaliable", it's the same with my revision for the next 6 weeks, it's not about getting a certain amount of revision done, it's about filling all the avaliable space I can with revision, and subsequently re-remembering and learning things constantly, rather than sitting down and saying "I have to do 5 hours a day" or something.

Wish me luck.

April Showers!

April Showers!

Decided to update this today, unusual for a friday night but it means that I have less to do on the weekend! I thought that the title seems appropriate considering the weather in England at the moment, as soon as they declare an official drought it always rains non-stop for days afterwards!

Anyway, the run-up to exams is really speeding up, in fact in 2 months time/ 8 weeks today I will (hopefully!) leave school forever, after my last A2 exam! :o Insane isn't it? Scary times.

Thought I'd share a really great quote that I saw a couple of days ago and really made me think;

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power".
- Abraham Lincoln

It's true, or it seems accurate to me. Well, the saying is true enough for women too, of course...

So this collage has a vintage/ Parisian/ floral look, which suits the current season, Spring, and also reminds me of 2 years ago when I went to Paris for the Easter holidays, and had a really great time! We stayed in an apartment and everything...have to say, since looking at this, I can't help wish that I was back there, away from the rain, and back in time, away from the stress of looming A2 exams.....

Every cloud has a silver lining!