Some Pictures and Some Thoughts

Phew! I am having the busiest time of my life right now. I'll be leaving universtity soon, and so begins the desperate search for jobs, the praying that an agent will take me on, and the mighty mighty business plan.

So I haven't found much time for blogging, to be honest! But here I am with a precious spare hour, and I thought I would share some pictures and thoughts with you.

Some of my photos are lazy and rubbish, some are kinda artistic and cool. But the important thing is that I am taking them! Here are some of my favourites from the last week and a half.

I went for a few morning walks and this is one picture that makes me feel really happy! This place is right by my house in York, I used to go running there all the time. And striding across it early morning filled me with all sorts of positivity, especially as it was such a beautiful day! This pictures stirs up that hearty feeling I had that morning. Early morning walks are good. I may even make a challenge out of them.

Here is another photo of the same place, but on a very different morning! Beautiful, but in a different way. I really love this picture, I think it's one of my best. There's a wee artist in here somewhere! All of my best photos for this have been taken outside, and to be honest it's made me quite appreciative of the beauty of the world around us - I'm glad this challenge has made me go looking for it.


Another good example of that would be this tree! This photo doesn't quite do it justice, but trust me guys, this is an effing great tree. Gorgeously silver. I had been staying in a rented house with my boyfriend and his family for his sister's wedding, and this tree was just outside. I didn't even notice it until the last day. A friend of the family was helping unload left over wedding stuff from the car, and he stopped to have a good look, which of course made me have a good look. And we both marveled at how eerily beautiful this tree was! So I took a photo. I love how photos serve both as a record of your experience but also something on its own. In many ways this photo can't come near the original view, but in many ways it is more beautiful too. I think the camera has brightened the blue somewhat, making a really pretty photo that I wasn't quite expecting. So I have the image vs my memory - both slightly unreliable reflections of a nice moment experienced, which is now gone.

And here is a photo that I wanted to show you more for the content rather than the artistry - I bought a brilliant new suitcase for me to fit my life into! As a self employed actor I need to be travelling light - and so I invested in an uber case that I could realistically go on tour with. I was such a nerd when I got home, I couldn't wait to pack it, so I put all my stuff from the big holdall I had brought home for the holidays into it. And I packed it all fancy so that it would look nice. And there's still loads of room! This perhaps wasn't the most productive use of my time - but I am the queen of active procrastination. And at least I'm mostly ready now for going back to Birmingham on Sat. While I was packing it, I was imagining all the jobs I might do in the future where I will be living out of this bag - and I got super excited. Sometimes it's really nice to do something like that, something that excites you about the future. This week has been a good week for things like that.

And now, let me tell you a bit about the diary writing part of this challenge! I have a lovely story for you.

So I was originally doing the diary writing on my PC - because I wanted to use the pictures. And I actually started to enjoy it! Long gone are my teenage years when I would use a diary to moan and lament about how dreadful my life was. This is different now, it's simply a record of my activities, my feelings on the day, and my plans for the next. It feels like a really nice way to wrap up the end of the day, just getting some thoughts down onto a page, and I go to sleep thinking of my plans and hopes for the next day, and also the future. It's been a good thing for me to do at this point in my life, when the future is very much now! However, it's not great doing it on a computer, as staring at a screen and typing is not an ideal bed time activity. So I decided to go classic and use a notepad.

I have loads of notebooks on my shelves many with barely anything written in them, so I dug out a beautiful one my friend gave me for my eighteenth birthday. I took it to LIPA when I did my foundation course, and used it to write down funny quotes my housemates said. So the first ten pages are full of quotes, but the rest is blank. Reading the quotes that I had almost forgotten, I was filled with that gorgeous nostalgic feeling you get when looking at old photos. What was even better was that I hadn't written down who said what, so many of the quotes I can't remember, and can't even picture who said them! But still, because I wrote them down they are here nonetheless, making me laugh and remember the awesome times I had.

My favourite was this: "If you draw on an X instead of writing it, well then that, my friend, is a kiss - unless it's drawn on a map, because then it's probably important."

I don't know who said that - but it's wonderful.

This was a bit of a serendipitous moment for me, because its showing me the value of writing things down, so that you still have the memories years later. (even if they are only gentle reminders!) When I started this challenge I said I was fairly cynical on the effects of using a diary - but now that cynicism is gone. Now that I feel I am in a good place to actually keep one, a positive place where I can use the diary to keep me moving forward, I think it's a really great thing. And now I have seen how wonderful it is to be able to read these recorded moments again.

And I find that when I am writing, ideas begin to spill out of me. It's like the writing of my thoughts helps to slow them down and organise them, and suddenly I have a steady stream of new ideas, simply because I am writing. And of course, those ideas can go straight down onto paper too. I actually think keeping a diary could help me to become a better writer. Now there's a thought.

So yes, wonderful thoughts on this challenge, which I wasn't actually expecting. I felt like I had kind of wussed out this month because I needed something easy, but it's turned out to be perfect!

One last thing - I'm adding a mini challenge. Next month is my last month and I have a special mega challenge all planned out, but I came up with this the other day and thought it was great so I'm throwing it in - a fifteen day challenge! To keep me going through this busy time and to help fight off laziness and procrastination: I must complete at least one thing on my 'to do' list every day. Yesterday it was making a CV, today it was applying for some jobs (and I've ticked this blog off too!) - a productive few weeks ahead.

Thanks for reading, much love to you all.

xx

The Photo Diary Challenge

Happy Easter Everybody!

I didn't really announce this challenge and I am now six days in, but actually I think it's worked out quite well because now I have something to show you.

I was looking at this list of challenges that accompanies the ted talk that inspired me to start this whole thing. It was good to look at it again. I wish I had looked more because there are some on the list that I wish I had tried this year, but never mind I have forever to try them :) Some I think I am not quite brave enough for (talking to a stranger everyday for example!) but maybe that's a good reason to do them.

Anyway, I had a scan and I saw 'take a photo every day' and I thought brilliant! I can put my new camera phone to good use! It also reminded me of the 365 day photo challenge I see on facebook, which I really like. I think it's a really nice way for people to share their lives with eachother and also get a little creative. Then I saw 'keep a journal' - something I attempted to do in my youth but never stuck with, and I thought why not. So I've combined the two and I am doing a photo diary each day.

Here are the rules:

No Selfies

This is not me saying I hate selfies. Far from it. I think selfies are good fun. But I just don't want to use them in this challenge because I want it to be 'look at what I've seen and experienced today' not 'look at me with this cool thing'. So no selfies. And also, I have to take the photos myself, so basically I am not going to be in the photos.

The Journal Section is Not for Public Reading

I may occasionally post some extracts on here, but I'm being very careful when I write the journal NOT to think of it as something someone else is going to read. Over this year, this blog has essentially become my journal, but obviously when I write it I'm writing it for other people to read. This is just for me. Now, as a fairly open person, I don't have any deep and dark secrets that I desperately need to confess to a journal. However I want to see if there is anything in having a little written self reflection every day. I'm actually fairly cynical on the idea (which I don't think most people would expect!) I'm really not sure if there's much use or good in keeping a journal, but I have never really done it regularly, so I'm putting it to the test.

And so, here is my photo of the week: Which is actually todays photo, because I wanted to share with you the madness of easter in my house.

Ok. So basically, we are big children and my mum is one too. And she loves buying us this stuff. Like, she really goes in on it. We get more now than when we were little (because let's face it giving a kid this amount of chocolate would be a baaaaad idea.

There are three piles, me, my sister, and our lovely friend Ailish who we've known since we were babies and we spend nearly every easter with. Usually the piles would be identical but this year there is one hilarious difference. Because I loved my no sugar challenge so much, I have committed to it for a full year now. Which means no chocolate today. So that pile on the right, full of fruit and nuts and nakd bars, is for me. I love my mum. She is actually the greatest person.

Hope you all have a lovely easter, and I'll post some more photos soon!

Twenty four days to go

X

Word Of The Day Story

Morning all

So here is the poem/short story I wrote using the word of the day this month!

It's been fun. And strange. Some great words that I didn't know before (marcescent, gynecocracy and thrasonical being some of my favorites) and some words I'm sure I'll never use again, such as Poikilotherm: An organism, such as a fish or reptile, having a body temperature that varies with the temperature of its surroundings. Doubt I'll ever need to use a term for that specific thing again!

It was funny how I would get four or five words in a row that made complete sense to lead on from each other, and then suddenly I would have a word that would take me somewhere completely different. Cowpooling was one of those words, which means 'the practice of two or more parties jointly purchasing all or part of a butchered cow and dividing the meat between them. God, it was SO frustrating having to put that in!

Of course, the result is a very odd piece of text which goes in several strange directions, not my best work, but I think it was definitely worth doing! In terms of improving my vocab, I actually think this is a useful exercise. Looking over what I have written, I know exactly what each word means because I've given it context. And it has given me a few ideas for some other pieces :)

Perhaps something to try when I'm stuck for ideas in the future would be to create a whole poem around one new word, or maybe even a small collection. Definitely worth trying!

New challenge tomorrow, until then, enjoy.

The men had turned marcescent

And were blown away at the hands dynamitards

Put to sleep with a dwale

Now stuck in a wheel with a pawl

Turned around by the fine upstanders

Every crank sends a quilisma through them

Invisible mitraille wedging between their vertebrae, paralyzing

Still they kept to their tapinage

Waiting. To bring down. The Gynecocracy.

The women’s thrasonical demeanour had begun to take its toll

Bunched together, botryoidal, they swelled with pride

But with this came niaserie

And a thrave of rebels were ready

Unsonsy to the victors soon to be victims

As if they were poikilotherms the sun seemed to boil their blood

They had hardened with their torture and not a single flebile man remained

Watching the women nurdle on about their current state

Living in this cacotopia they had created

The rebels met under the cromlech

Their numbers increased in chilliads until an army had gathered

It was the neomenia and the new moon stirred in them an animal

Their long oppressed gene pool had left them all with illiteracy and dyscalculia, their lack of 

                understanding of the world around them only adding to their rage

But their leader, strong and cool headed, spoke with such parrhesia you’d think he was a scholar

His henotheism had helped to heal; the knowing that there was always another way

And his plan to escape this ergosphere they had been placed in was coming to a head

They dined; meat and bread and stolen cymling

They filled their pockets with dittany, prepared for their wounds

And the ethnarch led the way

His team of close friends by his side, knowing they may never cowpool together again

Time to stop being dapifers. Time to take action.

A Short Summary Of The Reading Challenge

Hello everybody!

So my challenge finishes tomorrow, and I will be posting my increasingly melodramatic poem then :)

This has been a nice relaxing challenge at a pretty stressful time of year, so it's been good for me in many ways. I suppose I can't call it the vocabulary challenge anymore, more like 'The Reading Challenge' - and I've read three books and am well into my fourth in just one month! So that is something to be happy with.

At that rate I could be reading over forty books a year! Which would be fantastic!

Now I must admit I've not got too much to say on this challenge. I've already spoken about how great reading is for you and some books that I love. Aside from 'I'm really glad I've pushed myself to read more' there isn't much to report! Just a few small things:

It's clear now that this journey of mine has been all about figuring out what kind of things I like to do, and what kind of person I want to be, and pushing myself into it. There have been many revelations along the way, but now as the challenges are getting easier (I started with the more difficult!) there are fewer big life lessons cropping up. Instead, there's a calm, assured feeling of 'Yes, I can do this.'

As I'm readying for the end of this challenging year (only two left!) I am thinking of the future and more goals I want to set myself. Maybe more thirty day challenges, maybe some long term ones. For example, I've extended my No Sugar challenge for a whole year. I want to keep pushing myself after this is all over.

With that in mind, I think I could continue with this challenge and make it harder. This reading challenge has been really fun because I've been reading some great fiction, but I also have a stack of factual books that I really want to read. I never do, because reading that kind of stuff is actually really hard for me. But as I have learned from many of my challenges, practice makes perfect. So now that I am reading so much, perhaps a long term goal for me could be to make every fourth book I read a factual one, so I can keep challenging myself, train my brain up for harder reading, and hopefully learn some new stuff!!

And that's all folks! I'll post the poem tomorrow (it's very bad but has been quite fun!) and then on to the next one.

Taraar!

Books I think Are Great

Hello!

So an update on the Vocabulary challenge... it has morphed. I'm still reading, I'm still compiling my lil word of the day poem... but I've given up on vocabulary.com. Mostly because it's actually a really bad website with a lot of errors and I didn't think it was doing much good. A shame, but there you go.

So mostly this challenge is now just reading every day, which isn't too challenging as I love reading! But it's good to force myself to do it. I am now on my third book in one month, which is about as many books as I think I've read in the last year, so there you go. It's amazing what you can do with a little bit of effort.

I thought I'd do a blog post today about some of my favorite books. I would like to number them in some kind of order, but it's too damn hard! So here, in no particular order, are five books that have struck with me and I think everyone should read.

Peter Pan

I love all things Peter Pan. I love the play, the ballet, the Disney cartoon. My favorite film of all time is 'Hook'. And all of that came from a beautiful children's book with a great background to it. (Watch Finding Neverland for that - it's also great like everything else Peter Pan related.) I've read it a few times, and it is just gorgeous. It's like someone took the perfect untainted imagination of a child, bottled it, mixed it with ink and then poured it onto paper. Children's books from this era are so much more eloquent than what we usually get today, and a delight to read!

Beloved

This is actually one I have just read this month! Maybe it's a bit soon to add it to my top five, but I really think it might be one of the best written books I've ever read. It centers around an escaped slave in America and her broken family. It's a heartbreaking, touching and haunting story, but what's really wonderful about it is how Toni Morrison weaves it. She is so clever with how she writes, knowing exactly how to captivate your attention and keep you wanting more. She captures thought brilliantly, and you really feel like you get under the skin of her characters. There's something quite challenging about it, in a good way. It is a pleasure to read because it makes you work a little. And her use of description is utterly utterly beautiful. I was blown away.

The ENTIRE Harry Potter Series

I know this is cheating a bit, it's seven books, but the whole series has had a huge impact on my life. I genuinely feel so lucky to have been a child in the time when this was written. The memories I have of getting the books on a Saturday morning, and the house being completely silent while my sister and I poured ourselves into them, will stay with me forever. For the last one we even queued up at waterstones in fancy dress at midnight. So many people!! I don't know if we'll ever see a fuss like that over a children's book again. It was so great to be a part of.

And these books were so important to us. I have never cared about any character as much as I did about Harry, Ron and Hermione. I was so invested in this story, and still am. I have read them all at least twice and I daresay I shall read them all again. AND watch all of the films repeatedly. And I really believe it's not just nostalgia (though that plays a large part) I think J.K.Rowling came up with a wonderful story that has great lessons in it, and she created a truly magical world. The work that went into all that detail is incredible, and has influenced an entire generation's imagination. She has defined what 'magic' means to so many, and I think she did a bloody good job too. I'm still waiting for my Hogwarts letter.

Northern Lights

Peter Pan... Harry Potter... bit of a theme for fantasy here. And I personally think that His Dark Materials is perfection as far as fantasy goes. I do have a particular fondness for Northern Lights over the others, I'm not even sure why. It's the one I always want to read again! Phillip Pullman establishes in it the most incredible fantasy world, and you feel when you read it that your own imagination is a part of it's creation (which is why I KNEW the film was going to be awful - some things are meant to just be on the page)

When I read it as a child I was engrossed in the beautiful storytelling, and as an adult I appreciated it's ideas and values. It also has one of the most kick ass heroines in all of literature, and I was genuinely sad when I finished the series that I would be leaving Lyra behind. She is all I wanted to be. Truly, I think this is the one book I would recommend to every single person on the planet. It's just.... I can't even... just read it.

One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest

THIS BOOK! It's been years now since I read it and as I began to type I realized how much I need to read it again. It's brilliant. It tells the story of the charismatic Randle Patrick McMurphy, who faked insanity so that he could serve his sentence in hospital and not prison. He's a fantastic character who stirs up a bit of a revolution amongst the oppressed patients he now resides with. But the truly excellent part of the book is the narration - you watch the rise and fall of our hero through the eyes of the strong, silent, gentle giant Chief. And through his eyes you fall a little bit in love with every patient, and your heart breaks for all of them. It is an amazing celebration of the beauty of the human mind, and it makes you FEEL THINGS INSIDE!!! And the film is brilliant too - Jack Nicholson at his finest. Oh I love this book I do. Another must read.

So those are some Books I Think Are Great!!! If you haven't read any of the ones I've listed, go and read them!! Hopefully they will effect you like they do me. And I hope to have a load more books to contend with these in the future.

Nine more days.

Reading Vs Watching T.V (and other news)

Good morning my lovelies!

I'm feeling particularly chipper today and I'm going to put it down to the breakfast I just had. I seriously recommend it!! Grate a small apple and half a beetroot into a saucepan and cook up with a smidgen of butter. Then add a sliced banana and stir a little. Mix in five tablespoons of oats and a heaped teaspoon of cocoa powder. Add sufficient milk/milk substitute and leave to bubble. Top with flaked almonds. You will have a deliciously dark purple porridge that will fill you to the brim and make you feel fantastic. Just like this.

You KNOW she had a good breakfast.

Anyway, back to the vocabulary challenge :) I have been doing my half an hour stint on vocabulary.com daily (although sometimes I only manage twenty minutes - it can be rather grueling) and I think it's helpful. It's made me start to look at how words are constructed, which means I can now start to work out what a word means when I've never heard it before. Nailing down the words is mostly a process of repetition, and aside from some website issues (quite a few of the multiple choice questions don't really have a correct answer, more like a synonym than a definition) I think it works pretty well. It's reignited my interest in language and words which is always nice.

The 'word of the day' story I am not so happy with. I thought giving myself a whole paragraph per word would make it more challenging, but actually it's making it easier for me to skate around to make sense of the wacky words I am using - resulting in something much less fun than I intended. So I have decided to back peddle a bit and do one line per word - which should mean I end up with a fun, nonsensical very short story/poem that is a bit less contrived. So I need to go back and do that for the eight words I have so far, and then from today I shall stick with that plan.

The reading element of my challenge is FANTASTIC! Reading is one of my favorite things to do, but often at the end of the day it seems so much easier to just switch on the telly. But as I learned from October's Challenge of Cutting Down TV and Facebook, watching T.V can drain so much time, when you could have been achieving things! And too much sitting around and staring at the screen can make you feel A Bit Shitty.

Now I am a great lover of good T.V and Cinema, but it's all about finding that balance, and sometimes I think you have to give yourself a little push and say 'no, I'm gonna read instead.' A lot of the time it just feels like you don't want to put in the extra effort that reading requires. But in fact, once you get going, it's really not that hard! It's like running - the hardest part is putting on your shoes and getting out of the door. Motivation is key.

Unfortunately, since October, I have fallen easily into watching T.V again. But this challenge, forcing me to read, has reminded me that ultimately I would like to end up spending more of my 'down time' reading than watching T.V. Why? Because it's simply better for your brain. It's actually more relaxing. It might not seem like it at first: but here is why.

The phrase 'T.V rots your brain' might seem like a parental trick to get us moving - akin to 'eating your crusts gives you curly hair' (My sister always ate her crusts and I didn't for a long time. My hair is curly and hers is straight. MYTH BUSTED) but actually it's a pretty accurate description. When you watch T.V you are allowing your brain to make almost no effort. You're kind of vegetating. And the brain is sort of like a muscle in that it needs to be put to good use to develop further. So any form of vegetating should really be kept to a minimum.

But we all need a rest now and again, right? The problem is, watching T.V isn't really rest. When you sleep, your brain is getting proper rest and time to recuperate. But when you watch T.V, your brain might not be doing much work but it IS being stimulated. The flashing colours and lights are creating a little chemical party in your head. If you watch too much T.V, you get used to the lightening fast stimulation, and you adjust yourself to it, resulting in a shorter attention span overall.

I myself experienced this yesterday. I had a really productive morning, and then I watched some T.V over lunch and suddenly my focus was all over the place. Not good.

The most significant thing T.V does to your brain chemically is it suppresses your Melatonin. Melatonin is basically a hormone that helps you to sleep. Any kind of light suppresses it. That's why it's so much easier to wake up in the summer when the sun is out. It means that we as humans are diurnal animals - we sleep in the dark and are active in the day. But studies have shown that blue light - light from laptop screens, phones and other electronics, is even more effective at suppressing Melatonin, which makes it harder to sleep in the hours after you've been exposed to it. This is not good news for people who's evening routine involves a lot of T.V - their version of 'rest' is actually having a negative impact on their real rest.

Most of us will be effected by this because the last thing we do is set our alarms on our phones. I've been told a good method is to plan what time you're going to bed, and an hour before set  your alarm so it's done, and turn off all your electrics. It's supposed to really improve your quality of sleep. I can believe this actually, some of the best sleeps of my life have been when I've been camping and have had no electronics around. Worth a try, I reckon.

Anyway, that's the downside of T.V. Now for the benefits of books.

Books stimulate your mind in a different way, You are gently working your brain when you read, but only mildly, like a nice stroll in the park. This means you can both relax and strengthen your brain at the same time. And you're getting much the same entertainment value (if not more) as when you watch T.V. There is no story told on film that hasn't also been written down in some way. And with books, you need to use your imagination a little bit too.

So it seems that if you replaced all your T.V time with reading time, you would still have had some entertainment and escapism, AND you would also have a better exercised and therefore better functioning brain, better quality sleep, a wider vocabulary, and a strengthened imagination. Reading really is coming out on top here.

HOWEVER. I am not for a minute suggesting that anyone forgoes all T.V and Film and replaces it all with books. Like I say, it's all about balance. There are some things books can not do. If, like me, you love a visual story with good direction, script writing, cinematography, maybe some animation and some cracking acting, then you need to watch some T.V and Film.

But perhaps that should be a checklist. Quality control. Twin Peaks (my current favourite show) certainly ticks some of those boxes. Eastenders? Not so much. But maybe it does for some people. Each to their own.

My point is, if you are going to put up with all the negative effects of T.V, then you should at least make sure that what your watching is worth it. If not, and all you want is a bit of relaxing entertainment. Then pick up that book. You're much better off.

Because basically, books are ace.

Twenty more days!

The Vocabulary Challenge

Greetings friends.

It's a new month, it's a new challenge.

In August I set myself the challenge of writing every day, and I was pretty happy with some of the stuff I came up with. Since then I have been doing a lot of performance poetry, which has been going really well. And I've rekindled my love for writing. I did attempt to write a novel in November, but I didn't quite pull it off. Still, I will not be deterred.

I wanted to do a challenge that would contribute to future writing adventures. As an actor, writer, and lover of good books, having a good vocabulary is pretty important to me, so I thought I'd do a challenge that would help me to expand mine.

So I present to you a challenge of my own design: The Vocabulary Challenge.

There are a few layers to The Vocabulary Challenge

1. They say the best way to improve your vocabulary is to read. I myself love reading, but don't make enough time for it. So I am going to commit half an hour a day to some reading.

2. I will also commit half an hour a day to playing on vocabulary.com which is a great website where you can test your vocabulary. It's kind of like a game you play in rounds to get points, and it keeps testing you on words until you solidly know them.

3. This is the fun one. I will use my word of the day app on my phone to get a new word, and I will use that word as a stimulus to write a paragraph, which of course has to contain the word. I'll be writing a new paragraph every day, and I'm going to do my best to make them link together so that at the end of the month I will have a short story, which I will post on here. I'm sure it will wind up being very silly in an effort to include all the words I'll be getting from my app!

So, as a starting point, the word of the day today is 'marcescent' - meaning 'withering but not falling off, as a blossom that persists after flowering'

And the paragraph is:

Forty two years of marriage had brought Peter and Judith, among other things, three children who had for a time consumed them completely. Their house had been full of noise and laughter, and their lives full of long working days and family filled evenings that then ended comfortably in each others company. Now their children had flown the nest to have seven more between them, and Peter and Judith had reached their long anticipated retirement. The house was empty, and their lives filled primarily of each other. Faced with the incessant ticking of the clock every day, their previous state comfort seemed to shift towards something they didn't quite have the words for. Soon, Peter and Judith began to realise that their marriage had become marcescent. Hanging by a thread that seemed determined not to break. 

I look forward to writing more :)

Day one of thirty down!