How To Survive The First Week Of University

Going to University for the first time, is both exciting and terrifying.
For the first time, you are left to your own devices and yes, again, thats both exciting and terrifying. 
Getting through that first week is the hardest part of University, finding your feet, adjusting to being away from home, and meeting new people; it's a lot to comprehend! 

Here are my top tips on surviving the first week of university: 

1. Drink Plenty Of Water 

We all know Freshers is bound to take over. Keeping hydrated is key. Try to alternate with alcoholic beverage, water, alcoholic beverage, water. This doesn't mean you can't keep up. It just means that your hangover the next day - will not be as bad as your dehydrated friends! It's important to drink loads the next day too! 

A Day Trip To Rye

Rye is a beautiful seaside town in Kent with antique, jewellery and coffee shops galore!

It’s a perfect destination for a weekend escape with family, friends or your significant other, or simply for a day out to do some off-the-high-street shopping!

On a warm July afternoon, my Mum and I popped to Rye for a Mummy-Daughter-Day.

There are lots of lovely little jewellery shops throughout Rye, most of them Antique Jewellery shops offering hundreds of unique trinkets, their window displays housing everything from rings to necklaces to broaches, popular designs being art deco and marcasite pieces. Mum and I spent hours wandering from shop to shop marvelling at all the sparkles filling the cabinets, the major problem being limited money and far too many beautiful things.

For lunch we were aiming for The Bell restaurant, a beautiful old pub with an outside area underneath a beautiful Wisteria Tree.

However, all the outside tables were taken as it was at the height of lunchtime – but just opposite, was a beautifully quaint tea room called The Cobbles Tea Room, tucked away down a little cobbled pathway. So we decided to have a bite to eat there instead.

This café was once a lovely little house and has been turned into a cosy tea room, with a lovely outside area and courtyard.

We each had a Jacket Potato, served with coleslaw and a side of salad with a refreshing lemonade. The staff were incredibly friendly and the food was great, despite it being fairly busy the wait was not too long either.

20 Things I Learnt in my First Year at University

I've finished my first year at University. And as cliché as it may be, it's flown by, I literally cannot comprehend just how quickly time has gone over these past 6 months; and how much I've learnt. 

I've compiled together a list of the most important things I've learnt whilst being in first year at university... 

1. Making Mistakes 

Making mistakes is okay, as long as you learn for them. We will all make mistakes, and there are many we must make ourselves, it's a learning curve, it will happen. Don't punish yourself for it, take it on the chin, learn from it and move on. 

2. Homesickness 

Being a family girl, I knew I would miss being at home with my family, despite the fact I'm only an hours drive away. Having lived away from home, I've learnt to value what's important. 

3. You Can't Get Along With Everybody 

We cannot please everybody in this world, much like not everybody will please us. Learning to be polite, and to accept others as who they are despite your differences is one of the most important lessons someone can learn. 

My Long Distance Relationship Has Finally Come To An End

After three years of living a good three and a half hours away from one another - our long distance relationship has finally become just 'a relationship'! 

And boy, does it feel good to say that!!!

It has not always been easy, in fact, at times it has felt almost impossible, but here we are.
Three years later; he with an upper 2nd in Product and Furniture Design, and I still with two years left of university, which is thankfully less than an hours drive away from home.

Our lives are about to return to normality. But our normality is living apart.

So our next journey will be learning to live near each other.

Our relationship began in the summer before he went off to university. So there has never been any consistency for us.
We would just start to get used to having each other around all the time, and then he had to leave again, and then we'd have to readjust to being apart.
It was difficult. It was constantly, stop, start, stop, start, stop, start, when it came to our relationship. Always putting it on hold, and quickly launching back into it again whenever we had a weekend to spare. But somehow we managed to survive our long distance relationship. 

It felt as though we were living on borrowed time.
And now it's all over. We can actually be together!
At the time, it seemed like those three years would never end, but looking back now it has flown by.

The six most important pieces of advice I'd give to anyone in a long distance relationship are these:

A Day At Wimbledon

I was lucky enough to be able to get my hands on a pair of Grounds Tickets for The Wimbledon Championships 2016!

I have not always been the biggest sports fan, nor the biggest fan of tennis. But it was always an event I was interested in going to if I got the opportunity. And that opportunity finally arose!

So Monday 27th June 2016, my bestie and I headed off on our tennis filled day.

Driving to Wimbledon can be a huge pain in the neck, the traffic is a nightmare and for where I live, it was just easier to make use of public transport.
We jumped on the tram from New Addington, only to have to hop off at Grove Hill because we realised we had forgotten the tickets... Luckily enough my Grandfather hadn't got far and managed to drop them to us in a matter of minutes - I will definitely not be doing that one again!

So, tickets in hand, we finally embarked on our journey!

My Relationship With Feminism

What is feminism? Ask a handful of people, and you will most likely get a variety of different answers. And that's okay, we should respect the individual opinions of what people value as feminism without judgement.  

But what feminism isn't, is misandry. 

"Man hating" has unfortunately been confused with the term feminism. The idea of feminism is to achieve equality, not an attempt to slate or tear men down. 

I personally value feminism as the liberation of women. The choice for women to express themselves in which ever manner they wish, may that be through sexuality, style, hobbies, career or behaviour. 
For women to do what they want, where they want, how they want, on their own terms, with nobody else judging them, or dragging them through the dirt. 

Social Media is Ruining Relationships

Relationships over the years have faced many difficulties, but I feel we face the most challenging yet.

Social Media.

The private life of what goes on in the password barred social media apps, is exactly that. Private.
Everybody deserves their privacy, true.
But how healthy is this 'privacy' when it comes to relationships.

The delicate balance of sharing a life and living ones own life within a relationship is a difficult one, and occasionally boundaries may be over stepped.
The notion that social media is supporting and encouraging unfaithful relationships, making it much easier for one to hide things from their significant other has risen popularly among the top social media sites.
As if it's not difficult enough to maintain a healthy relationship, these platforms are offering ways to make infidelity much easier, with lesser risk of being discovered.