End of Summer Blues...Well Kind Of

Finally (is that even the correct word? Maybe I should perhaps change it to 'regrettably'), what seemed like a never-ending summer has started to give way to chilly mornings and blustery showers. Autumn is on its way, along with everything that comes with it. This is one of the reasons why I love the UK - I could not live anywhere that didn't exhibit at least a hint of the four seasons...although global warming, if true, could put a stop to this worldwide! I love nature's colourful display of burnished oranges and golds, accompanied by crisp mornings and the first frost. I am a knitter so naturally indulge in the opportunity to make any item of warmth, as well as being very partial to a pumpkin spice latte or marshmallowy hot chocolate. Jumpers and scarves take up well over half of my wardrobe. Definitely a cold weather person here! Not that I don't enjoy summer and not freezing my arse off on the commute to uni. However, there are some bloody awful things about this time of the year too, mostly to do with rain and sludge. I don't want to get out of bed at 6am and leave the house whilst it's still dark only to get back well after nightfall! And don't even mention the Scaling an Icy Hill to get to an Exam incident. I actually feared for my life.

Anyway, to welcome the season in, I've started reading the Song of Ice and Fire series and embarked on a new knitting project of making a Slytherin scarf for the bro. Double Knit weight wool is a little bugger. I've also stocked up on stationery things for the new academic year (I'm an addict) in an attempt - however futile - to organise my life after the months of being at home. The first book (A Game of Thrones) is reading very well so far. I'm actually quite surprised that I enjoy this type of book because I was convinced that it was going to be very Lord of the Ringsy (even though I haven't even attempted to read the trilogy!). However, the language and the layout of the book is pretty different and also satisfies my over-active imagination by being set in a fantasy world with all sorts of weird creatures and lands.

Most of all though, I'm really looking forward to starting third year. I can't wait. My aims for this year are to be involved more in my societies and I'm even toying with the idea of setting my own one up. The prospect of having some hard work coming my way seems to excite me, probably because I'm slightly bored of bumming around with no concrete plan for the majority of the summer. My house this year is just beautiful and full of period features: high ceilings, fancy plasterwork and stained glass. Not bad for a student house! Of course I will miss my family and pets greatly (saying goodbye is usually a messy affair for both parties...definitely an occasion for the good old waterproof mascara) but I suppose that this is an unavoidable inconvenience of living away from home. Thankfully, I have a lot of things to be looking forward to back at uni so it kind of makes up for the gut-wrenching feeling of leaving home!

Another Day At The Pharmacy

Trust me, if you work in a pharmacy (or any health-related job) you are bound to witness some massively classic situations. They range from annoying to downright hilarious. The most frequent one involves being accused of losing someone's prescription and I must learn to keep a straight face when people pronounce drug names wrong. 

The staff don't help the 'being serious' problem either: half an hour this morning consisted of making suggestive and perhaps slightly vulgar jokes about Rolf Harris' recent charges...obviously there weren't any customers around! 

However, it's the interesting and funny things that keep me satisfied with working in a pharmacy. It breaks up the monotony of constantly dispensing and doesn't lead me to dread the job! There's nothing more satisfying than helping someone to solve a problem, especially when they show some gratitude, and even when they don't it's still a pretty nice feeling! 

Bank Holiday

Isn't it funny how when there's minimal structure to your life, the days just kind of blend into one and you have no idea what day or date it is?! This is me at the moment. I couldn't tell you what date it is today without looking at my laptop. It probably isn't helped by the presence of the World's most mundane assignment, which I'm currently trying to slave through. 

Along with the assignment, I've been frantically trying to sort out some finance things so that NS&I don't keep on sending me God knows how many forms through the post every week. I haven't been able to ride my horse either because the farrier couldn't shoe her last week. First World problems. 

However, along with all these annoying things, I have managed to finally set in stone my future life/career plans. Grad entry medicine is my main goal, so my action plan now is to ace my degree (surely knowing loads about drugs can only be a good thing for med school?!), increase my experience portfolio and just suck up the fact that it's going to be at least 2 more years until  can finally go to med school. In my opinion, I feel that having more life experience and a related degree under my belt will prepare me for medical school a lot more than going straight there after A levels. 

Anyway, I'm off downstairs to munch on some banoffee pie (diet will start tomorrow!) and wind down! 

My Week #2

Hi All, so this week isn't remarkable with regards to both events and presentation of my diary! 

In fact, the only thing this week's entry is useful for, is to show you what a typical mid-summer (non-studying) week looks like for me. Pretty uncluttered but rather ugly. I didn't see the point of colour-coding anything because I'm not majorly busy. Most of my weeks involves my horse and trying to complete miscellaneous to-do tasks! 

I'd say that the highlights of my week were:

• Finally deciding for good and telling my family what my future career plans are. After being unsuccessful at gaining a place at medical school 2 years ago, I have decided that I'm not going to give up and want to pursue GEM. 
• I got a beautiful lamp for my new house. It's a coral anglepoise and is gorgeous!
• I managed to do half of one of my assignments that I'd been putting off for ages. 
• I went for a fantastic ride with my horse - the first time we'd managed to gallop in about a month! 

What I'm Reading: August

Considering that August is the only month where I'm completely free to read whatever I want, I haven't made much progress with my growing list of books to get through!

Earlier, I read Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. Now, I must confess that I'm a complete Dan Brown addict so obviously enjoyed this book very much. It was focussed around a different character than in the da Vinci series and had a more modern twist, which was a nice change. Even my mum commented that I had turned into a book recluse whilst reading it...it was extremely gripping!

Then I tried to finish The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. For an unknown reason, I'm really finding this book hard to get through. It's an interesting book but I just seem to get distracted or too tired. Here's to hoping that I'll finish it before uni starts again!

As I've been spending more time with my horse, I've been refreshing my knowledge of equine behaviour by dipping into Kelly Marks' Perfect Partners & Perfect Manners, as well as  Monty Roberts' From My Hands To Yours. Fantastic books if you're into horses. Some of the points mentioned in Monty's book about body language and herd behaviour are absolutely fascinating.

So yes, I've still got a backlog of books but I'm making a little bit of progress!

Less Mr. Grumpy & More Little Miss Sunshine

Yesterday, I found this on Tumblr:

As I read through both sides, I (worryingly) noticed that more and more of my current personality traits were matching up with the portrayal of the unsuccessful person on the right hand side. Not everything matched, but quite a bit. This was not a good. It made me realise that I'm focussing on the current difficulties in my life instead of long term goals.

I'm too wrapped up in what I've failed in and how seemingly unfair parts of my life have been. However, what I failed to realise was that being in a constantly negative state of mind is not going to help me achieve my goals any quicker, or benefit my mental health in any way! 

So from now on, I'm not going to dwell on things and I'm going to strive to become more like the person on the left hand side. I need to stop criticising people as much as I do and start focussing on my own downfalls! 

Filofax or Lilly Pulitzer?

First of all, sorry for my huge lengthy absence! All I can say is that end of year exams + full time internship + being lazy = no posts! 

For a while, I have been seriously considering using my filofax as a more overall planner to include finances, family engagements, etc. So basically a desk-bound reference planner. For this to be practical, I would need to get another planner just for my academic stuff. The problem I have with using the filofax (personal size) for university is that I just can't fit assignments, classes and everything else on one day. I am also reluctant to lug around a bigger filofax due to the already-heavy weight of my bag! 

In high school, I was a massive fan of the Paperchase academic diaries, but my American friends are absolutely raving about the Lilly Pulitzer agendas. I don't blame them either. The designs are beautiful and they even come with stickers (appealing to my, perhaps dominant, childish side!). The colourful layout and inspiring quotes even encourage you to want to organise your life! 

Image from devonalanadesign.com

"Well why don't you just get one, then?" I hear you saying...one problem: I'm in the UK. Lilly does not ship outside of the States. The handful of companies that do ship charge a hefty £16.59 postage charge, on top of the price of the agenda, which is considerably more than your average Smith's diary. 

So, do I just bite the bullet and fork out the £30 something, or just make do with a UK one?! Have any of you guys had experience with the Lilly agendas?