Name a place/country you'd like to visit some day

It's terribly cliche but I'd love to visit Paris. I've wanted to for absolutely years and plan to sometime in the near future. I hate that it's become cliche to even want to go there but it looks like such a beautiful place and I'm not going to avoid experiencing it for myself because everyone goes there. I can say though if I were to be proposed to in Paris on top of the Eiffle Tower than I would consider it far too cliche and cry a little inside (no offence!). Also the Maldives, 100% going there, my honeymoon destination is already decided!

Favourite things to do in the summer

Read on the beach, go for long walks along the cliffs, sit outside with family & friends, have bbq's, have drinks in the evening, have drinks in the day, as of late go for morning runs...and mainly lounge around whenever I get the chance!

What is something you don't leave your house without

Erm well my bag and it's contents is rarely left behind, so mainly my purse, a bottle of water, phone, ipod and a pot of Vaseline.

Most embarrassing moment you had this year

Oh lord well...earlier this year I spent a few too many days drinking and it all caught up with me when we did a few shots in a row that were truly disgusting and (because I'm honest about my student life I'm telling the internet this okay) I may have involuntarily thrown up...on the bar...in front of people...but not too many people so that's okay...but it wasn't okay, I felt awful for it because it's grose but I can say my god it was embarrassing...oh uni what do you do to me?!

Name 2 of your worst habits

Is being messy a habit? Because I can't keep my room tidy for more than a few hours and it causes my boyfriend a lot of stress. Then there's also picking off my nail varnish, I'll paint it in the morning and feel all pretty but by the end of the day I'll have peeled it all off, it's really frustrating especially when I do nail art!

Would you rather be able to see the future or go back in time?

Most definitely go back in time. I really wouldn't want to see the future in case I didn't like what I saw. I always wonder what the future will be like, but I'd rather not see it. I suppose if I saw it and didn't like what I saw I could try learn from my mistakes but then I'd spend my whole life trying not to let the future I saw happen, and how tiring would that be?! I'd rather go back and see the past, especially my family's past, I'd meet the members of my family that I never got that chance to meet and discover more about my family history.

Name 5 weird things that you like

Drinking gravy

Gravy and pasta

One Direction

Taylor Swift

Vodka in coffee (not in like an alcoholic way okay, just to perk me up before a night out on the odd occasion)

What time did you wake up today?

At 6ish but then I realised I could manage another hour of sleep before work, so at 7am I woke up, quarter to 8 I was in work. So interesting.

Describe yourself in one word

Can I consider 'erm' a word because it describes my perpetual state of thinking - I find it incredibly hard to switch off, my mind's always on the past, the future, the present, work, uni, exercise, to do lists, the latest novel I'm reading, the song lyrics in my head that I'm not sure whether I'm the genius who wrote them or I heard them in my sleep, whether I switched everything off downstairs, upstairs, oh God I'm gonna burn the house down, if I gave the right change at work, if I signed myself in and out, what to blog about next, that blog post I wrote, or wait did I read that, that episode of Gossip Girl I've seen several times already, why is Jenny's eye make up so heavy, why aren't my legs as long as Serena's, I'm Chuck Bass, just Ed Westwick,...HOW IS THAT PERSON GOSSIP GIRL?, you know just life in general...

I hope you enjoyed reading some random facts about me!

MissIsGoode

For many of you your home is soon to, or may already, be a rented student house. After experiencing halls you probably think things can get much worse in terms of your accommodation - especially if you were a student in Keele's truly wonderful Hawthorns halls - and in most cases you're probably right, but just to give you a little knowledge of what to expect I thought I'd pass on my experience, as well as that of my friends and family, of being a student tenant.

So first off, be aware that your neighbours may already hate you. As a group of students, they expect nothing less than parties, noise, sex and alcohol - and they're probably readying themselves to complain about you a lot during the coming year. For us, we were reported to the council on our first night at our new house, due to noise. After a visit from a man from the council giving us a stern telling off whilst we all sat around our dingy kitchen table still drunk and in our pj's we made the decision to go round and apologise. A few days later when we popped next door, the lady informed us that she didn't want to come round and ask us to be quiet because she thought we might be 'dangerous' and 'unfriendly'. In most cases, your neighbours won't live in fear that you are knife wielding youths who are a danger to society. One group of my friends experienced a next door neighbour who went no less than bat shit crazy every time they had people over for pre drinks - even if it wasn't noisy. Though to calm her down, all you had to do was send the lads from the house round to make an apology, because she fancied the pants off of them. My advice is to simply try your best to be considerate of your neighbours, try to keep the noise levels a little lower than if you were in halls, give them some warning if you're planning a party or a gathering so they know what to expect, and try to refrain from swearing whilst sitting outside in the garden - the thing that our neighbour complains about most. 

Don't expect that everyone will understand recycling - or be bothered to do it. In most halls your bins have just disappeared by the time you crawl out of your hungover pit, but when you live in a student house they never go away. Often rubbish can be found to be piled up over the bin bag itself, the large dust bin can be seen to be spilling over with take away boxes and bottles, whilst any smashed crockery will remain on the side until someone decides it's time to go. The recycling is a whole other story, and in many student houses a bit of a battle. Some choose not to recycle what can clearly be recycled, others choose to attempt to recycle everything - and quite often in the wrong place. You have a bag for cardboard, a box for tins and glass, bags for plastic, green boxes for food waste in which you're supposed to place another council provided bag - to stop you from trying in future I can tell you now it doesn't even fit in the food waste bin. Whilst it seems somewhat easier to give up on recycling and throw everything in your bin, you'll discover that once your outside bin is already full, the bin man won't take any extra bin bags away. Apparently 7 extra bin bags was too many for them...Fortunately for us our landlord made them disappear - had he not, we would have had to load them in a car and - the horror - take them to the dump ourselves. So try to get on top of recycling, if not for the environment, for the back seat of your car that could have to carry a mountain of stinking black bags of waste. 

If your landlord says that your house comes with a cleaner, don't believe them. Many groups of students are told this to give them piece of mind that they still won't have to clean up their own mess, and it's usually a lie. We're still waiting for ours to pop round and clean the oven - because seriously guys, I'm not tackling that. It's a simple fib that entices many. It took a few months before my boyfriend's cleaner actually popped round, by which point he was too disgusted by the mess him, his 7 housemates and various nights of pre drinks had caused, and had tidied the place mostly by himself. You will find that you'll get sick and tired of living in filth, and also discover that some of your housemates don't really mind filth. 

On that note, if your landlord also says that your house comes with a hoover, don't trust them. Yes, okay it does comes with a hoover, but one that actually hoovers up things? Nope. This shit's 40 year's old and barely sucks up a speck of dust, let alone pizza crusts and smashed glass (don't worry I don't really try to hoover either of those up). But you get my point, it's rarely going to do a good job of getting the muddy foot prints and thousands of crumbs off of the carpets - so give it your best effort, but usually it won't have improved too much by the time you're done. In my case, my hoover actually exploded a mountain of dust over my bedroom floor and my mum - her fault for standing in the way. Lucky for me it was my last night there (until September anyway)...

Expect there to be one person who never buys cleaning products. In my house, everyone was pretty good with this and we all took it in turns to buy things like washing up liquid, bin bags and sponges, but in other houses it may not be so easy. If you've all moved in as a group of friends it's much easier to agree upon one person buying something one week, and another the next, but if you've moved in as strangers you may feel a bit rude asking someone you don't know but now live with to buy the next bottle of Fairy. Try to keep the costs equally spread out, because if you're never contributing towards the communal products or the main one buying all of them, either people are going to get fed up with you, or you're going to get fed up with people. 

And my last warning is, don't expect your landlord to fix things that are broken the week, or even the month, or even the year, that things break. In my student house, we've had issues with a leaking shower, a broken shower door, a leaking sink, electric switches tripping (not like we were trippin' when all these problems kept happening) that all took a lot of time to be sorted...actually our sink was still leaking when we left and I'd gone so long without a shower door I sort of forgot that I ever had one. During our first week my friend's bed broke in our house, and whilst it only took a few days for the new one to arrive, the remnants of his original bed are still sat in our back garden - which our landlord said would be taken away (yeah we could take it away ourselves but our landlord has a van...not sure why that's an excuse). Putting things off is a common trait among landlords, because understandably broken things + fixing things = money. And most of the time they know that the student population can't really be bothered to argue and will still get by using a shower that leaks into the kitchen and trips the entirety of our electric supply that forces us to get ready for 9am lectures in winter beside candle light, continue to use a door less shower because it prepares you for the cold when you step out of the shower anyway, and find use for a broken bed - smashing it up just a little bit more when we're all drunk. 

So there you have it. Aside from all those lengthy warnings expect to face the cold due to heating bills, be shocked at the expense of a light bulb and one day, have to face the horror of cleaning out the fridge or even worse...the toilet. Oh and it really goes without saying, but expect more mouldy discoveries at the back of the fridge for another year running! 

Enjoy your student house guys! Really though, living with friends is a hoot. And in all seriousness, in the case that this post has terrified you rather than made you laugh, these are all just possibilities. There's plenty of positives that come with living in a student house, and fun and freedom are included and help you to overlook these 'horrors'. Make sure you get someone to look over your contract before signing it, that you understand the bills and rent properly, and that the area you're moving to is safe.

MissIsGoode

During the summer holidays before third year I began feeling pretty uninspired by my quiet life back in Cornwall, but I printed off a hefty amount of photos spanning over the fast two years I spent at university and began thinking about what advice I'd give to those who are leaving their fresher title behind...

Firstly, you won't believe how fast it goes. You're sandwiched in between your first year where everyone but the lecturers reminds you that it 'doesn't count' and in the case of a three year course, your daunting final year at university. To begin with you're still acting like a fresher, and to be honest you'll probably end the year still acting like a fresher too...Though, be warned, you may tire a little more easily. The 3+ nights out per week you experienced throughout first year aren't all that easy on your head nor your stomach any more, and you can't get away with missing out on lectures and seminars quite so much.
You'll begin to realise the importance of being at university to get a degree. Your social life at university is always up high in your priorities with alcohol, food and sleep. In first year it was almost okay to sweep your education onto the side lines, because of course all you had to do was pass...however, in your second year you'll find 3rds will begin to disappoint you, rather than have you cheering about the fact that the essay you wrote entirely intoxicated at 4am still managed to blag you a pass. You'll hear of people deciding to retake their second year within the first semester after failing so many essays and then people doing retakes, upon retakes, upon even more retakes. Not knuckling down a bit this year will just stress you out. My advice is to recognise that your degree needs more attention now, this year really does count.

Whilst it is important to knuckle down this year, don't let your degree become your life. The university years are cracking, and you don't want to look back on graduation day disappointed that you didn't get more involved, or don't have some hilarious memories and stories to share. Put aside time for societies and social events at the university, gigs and house parties, nights out and nights in. Your degree is important and so is that final grade, but make sure along the way you're still having fun.
My final piece of advice is concerning living arrangements. Now, halls may have not been a breeze (hygiene wise) but the community of it was great, the cleanliness not so much, but at least in most cases a cleaner popped round sometime during the week and did a half arsed job at attempting to clean up after students (it ain't easy). If you're living in a house this time around prepare for mess. Gatherings = mess, pre drinks = oh so much mess, parties = what were you even thinking mess, post drinks = jesus christ let's just pretend this isn't here and sleep for a few days. You get my drift. The most important piece of advice I can give you is to not let mess and stealing of food, bills and late night noise cause too much friction between you and the people you live with, and if you're the one doing all that, just try and be a bit considerate, they're paying the rent too. It will get annoying if people aren't pulling their weight around the house or keep you up late at night, or are the ones telling you off for being noisy, but if you all moved in as friends then constant arguing can really cause you to drift apart. You will of course realise who you're closest too during your second year, but to enjoy your year I think it's important to have housemates you can still get a long with, just every once in a while give them a nudge to clean up or pay their part of the bills and always try and be considerate of them too. At the end of the day, you've got to live with them whether they're the messy ones or you are, just try to respect each other because having housemates that don't get along can really create an atmosphere. 

Finally, and most importantly, enjoy it. It really will fly by just as first year did. Make the most of it, socialise, work hard and have another amazing year. And good luck with it!

But first, enjoy your summer!

MissIsGoode

One of the things pinned to my summer to do list is to read at least 10 books during the holidays. Due to the fact I study literature I very rarely get to read anything I actually want to, and to be honest I'm a pretty terrible student when it comes to reading anyway. For my first book I decided to go with one I'd heard a lot about, that being a lovely yet tear-jerking novel by John Green. I knew I had to make time to read it before deciding whether or not I could bear watching the film: the answer is no, but I will watch it anyway! 

If you haven't read it already, I would highly recommend you do. The book arrived on Thursday around 11am in a lovely package from Amazon along with some more Paul Auster to guide me through my dissertation ideas. By 1pm I'd finally got around to reading it out in the garden with not nearly enough sun cream on. A few breaks were had in between to play with the cat or clean the kitchen, but by 6pm I found myself curled up on the sofa at the very tear-jerking end of the novel. Now, for those of you who don't know me very well, you won't understand how much I've come to find reading a chore. I can't bring myself to sit in the peace and quiet, usually because what I've got to read isn't something I've chosen, but having given The Fault in Our Stars a go, I can definitely say it's a wonderful yet heartbreaking book that I was completely absorbed by and has allowed me to truly enjoy reading for pleasure once more. 

I wept on more than one occasion and once I'm no longer feeling the heart break I'll reread it and probably shed a few more tears. I'm looking forward to reading more from John Green and perhaps I'll even prepare myself to watch the film of The Fault in Our Stars...and weep some more.

As said previously, I would definitely recommend this book!

MissIsGoode

This post is a little late but the past week was my last one in Keele for 3 months and it was a little chaotic so my priority was certainly not blogging at the time. But now I'm settled back into life in Cornwall it's time to show you all the cute little monkeys we spent last Sunday with...

It wasn't until the end of last year that I discovered the existence of the Monkey Forest only 20 minutes or so from where I live in Newcastle-Under-Lyme. We waited patiently for it to reopen for the Spring and a sunny day to go. We somehow managed to wake up at a decent time after a late night of BBQs, drinks, music and a 3am wonder around the woods involving climbing steep hills and piggy backing Faye over a river - just call me Wonder Woman. But, there we were waking up from 9am onwards with the sun shining. We decided today was the day to get out of the house and join the monkeys. We'd all missed breakfast so a big lunch was in order, and once we parked up and got into the monkey forest, they had a lovely picnic area for us to tuck into our lunch.

We ended up spending more time then intended munching away but we're all big lovers of stuffing our faces, and we knew the monkeys would understand and wait patiently. And that they did:

This chap was from the French section of the Forest, with the monkeys down the hill being German - which my friend Sara pointed out was a little controversial, but these monkeys didn't appear to have any qualms...or any interaction at all for that matter. He sat posing away and gave us all the chance to get a selfie with him - I think he quite enjoyed the attention to be honest!

It wasn't exceptionally busy but just enough to have a good look at all the monkeys. There were plenty of guides around to answer all our questions about the monkeys and the forest itself. It was definitely fun for all the children that were there and the parents, and of course, myself and my bunch throughly enjoyed it!

It was such a lovely day and we spent a good few hours there with the sunshine on our side. I'd highly recommend it for a day out if you live in or visit the Stoke area as the guides tell you loads of interesting facts about the monkeys and the jobs they do there. You learn a lot and you get to look at cute little monkeys (with very big teeth) all day long!

MissIsGoode

I think this life lesson ties in nicely with my previous one about being yourself.

In my opinion, envy is a pretty evil thing, with it being one of the seven deadly sins of our lives. Whilst I admit that I get jealous of peoples lives, I think it's a shame that we do. Being envious shows that you're discontent with your own life. It can tear relationships and friendships apart. It can hold you back from your own achievements, because you're constantly comparing your life to someone else's, and feeling disappointed that yours is nothing like theirs.

There's not always harm in feeling jealous, sometimes being a little jealous can motivate you to be better than someone, or work harder at something, but I think envy can make you into a particularly competitive person, and not necessarily in a good way, and it can also make you over look the good in your own life. You can become so concerned with how someone else is living theirs, wishing it were your own or working your arse off trying to make yourself equal to (or better than) them, and end up missing the important moments in your own life. A person may be rich and famous, surrounded by wealth, but will being envious of them get you their life? No.

Inspiration is instead what you should take from someone. Whilst I believe it's important for you to inspire yourself, having people that inspire you is also a good way to keep you motivated. If a life of wealth is what you seek, don't envy someone who has it, push yourself to reach your goals. If you want to have a fit body and feel confident in yourself, don't be jealous of someone who already has that, allow them to inspire you and work hard enough to become your own inspiration.

According to Dante's Purgatory the punishment for the envious is to have your eyes sewn shut with wire...so don't let green be your colour of choice, instead take pleasure in what you have. You may not be the most beautiful, the wealthiest, the healthiest or the most successful person in the world but you're alive and in control of your own life. Happiness is more important than envy.

MissIsGoode

I think this is one of the most important lessons I've ever learnt, and it took me 20 years to manage to understand it. I spent a long time liking things because other people did, following the crowd, doing what I thought I was supposed to do and what I thought people expected of me.

But suddenly I realised I didn't have to try and be someone else any more.

source

Do you ever find yourself wishing you looked like another person? Had the figure of someone else? The brains? The life? If you spend all your time wishing to be someone you can't be, you'll never be your own person. Because, whilst you spend the time acting like the person you're trying to create, you don't even realise you have your own qualities, you don't realise that you don't always want to do the things your perfect creation is expected to, you don't wear the clothes that suit you as a person, because you're dressing to be someone you're not. 

In life you'll always find people better looking than you, smarter than you, having achieved more at your age, but that doesn't mean they're actually any better as a person. Everyone has a different life, some are born with a silver spoon, some with talent to get them wherever they want, and others are born into tough situations or mind numbingly normal lives. You can't change the life you're born into, you can only build upon it and be the you you want to be, not the person you want to be. By being yourself you can achieve all your own greatest goals, you can climb the ladder to success and you don't have to pretend to be someone you're not whilst doing it.

In the past I never used to challenge peoples opinions. I'd start off saying something and when they'd argue against it, I'd instantly back down. Because I was so afraid I was wrong I became a person that just let people walk all over me. I've come to realise I'm stronger than that and getting rid of people in my past has certainly helped me to let go of the person I was acting like, and allowed me to see my true self and my true worth. And everyone deserves to see that. 

There's enough fake people in the world, people who hide things from themselves and don't truly understand what they want in life but you don't have to be one of them. The more honest you are with yourself, the more you'll be yourself. And if people don't like you for who you are, are they even worth having in your life?

MissIsGoode