Scrapbooking

Hello again,

August. Its an odd month don’t you think?

Well I’ve always found this month a strange one, it is what I like to call the in-between part of year, the awkward summer-is-nearly-over-but-it’s-not-quite-autumn yet month, the month when everyone is making plans for the next academic year, the month where you’ve just come back from that great summer holiday and now realise that Christmas is still a fair way away, the month where the kids have been off school so long no that they’re beginning to get bored and have turned back to the computer…

You get the idea. Anyone else agree?

So yes, this August for me has been no exception. To give you a little context July was fantastic, it was crammed full of travelling around Spain/Portugal whilst I completed the fieldwork side of my dissertation project. Then in a couple of weeks I’ll disappear again to travel around and see a few more friends before I go back to University to undertake my final year. However that leaves this fortnight where I’m back at home, sort of stuck in the in-between phase with two half packed suitcases- one from Spain, one for Uni. So I’ve found myself in quite a reflective mood over the last week or so. This has led to the Scrap booking.

I’m just curious if anyone else finds themselves doing the same, but one thing I’ve realised recently is just how many photos I take. I’ve literally taken thousands of photos from the last couple of years from seeing friends, sightseeing, family gatherings etc and I’m the type of person who hates just leaving photos sitting on the computer/ sitting in the drawer. I like doing things with photos. So initially I decided to collate my favourite photos together and print them out in ‘polaroid’ form so that I could hang them on my university bedroom wall and add to the display as time continued. However this produced a small issue in that I had over 250 polaroids by the end of the academic year and I’ve created about another 50 or so whilst being back at home.

And this is where the scrapbooking idea makes it’s debut. Over the last week or so I’ve been dedicating my evenings to making a giant scrapbook of all my favourite photos, much like I used to do when I was little, and it is so much fun. I’ve found myself recapturing memories that had drifted to the back of my mind and it’s actually triggered me to reach out to a few half-lost friends which is quite cool. Then on the reverse side of the timeline it’s also prompted me to create a few personal goals for the next few months,  these are:

1.  Travel somewhere else in Europe
2.  Try to evolve my relationship from ‘casual-teenage relationship’ into an actual adult relationship
3.  Find a graduate job that grabs me instead of one that ‘comforts’ me.
4.  Smash my dissertation
5.  Maintain contact with two close friends who will both be studying abroad

Sorry for the slightly rambly style of this post but I just waned to find out if anyone else enjoys scrapbooking? If so do you have any tips for how I can really make my scrapbook look pretty.

I’ll leave you all with my current favourite page-dedicated to my little Spanish adventure.

TSB x

 

 

Hello world!

Hello there…

So how do you start these things? Well I’m not really sure to be honest, I’ve not really done this before but I think I should start by saying a little bit about what my hopes for this blog are and a little bit about me.

So lets start off with the ‘purpose of this blog’ (hmm there must be a better phrase for that because when I say it like that it makes it sound awfully dull and school like). But yes, so I guess the main reason for me starting this blog is that I just want to have a space where I can bounce around my everyday thoughts and ideas about life, and as you can probably guess about how to cope with this transition into an ‘adult’ as they call it. Now I’ve kept diaries and things before but I thought it would be quite nice to do things a little more actively this time as I’d love to meet similar people to me who are going through similar life experiences or who just like saying hello :).

To give this whole project a little more context though I’m best of giving a bit of background on me and what sort of things I’ll be writing about. So I’m a university student who is just about to go into my third year (well I guess I am already technically in my third year now) and over the next year I am aware that I’m going to have to face many changes which I’m rather nervous about. I won’t list every single one of them here but to give you a few ideas the sorts of changes that I’m facing are things like having to work out what I want to do after university, where do I want to live after university? How am I going to afford to live after university? Do I want to do further studying, or do I want to go straight into a job? Who do I want to live with after university? So you get the idea I’m basically going to be going through quite a few lifestyle changes and am just going to have to do a lot of ‘growing-up’ type things. Adding into this I face a lot of uncertainties such as wondering what grade I’ll be able to manage to get, what will happen to my friendships at the end of uni, will my relationship survive graduation etc. Now all of these thoughts have been bouncing around my head and over the last few months I’ve been searching for a way to express my thoughts and feelings about how to cope with this next transition in life…. enter this blog!

So yes the aim for this project is for me to post regular(ish) updates about how I’m coping at getting through the last year of uni and preparing for the next stage of life. So I’d love it if you could join me on this journey as it should be a lot of fun :).

I’ll finish off by saying a little more about me. Now I feel this is the point at which I should say I’m going to aim to keep this whole blog thing semi-anomalous as I just feel it will help me to be able to write a little more honestly about everything. But that being said I’ll give you a fun few facts about me, I’m 20, I’m based (mostly!) in Cornwall (aka the best place ever!) where I go to uni, I’m really into travelling around, like artsy things, am a severe chocoholic- oh and I have anxiety. That’s another thing which I’ll probably talk a bit about in this blog, as well I’m not really sure how well it fits the term ‘anxiety’ but thats what the doctor’s call it (plus anxiety sounds a bit simpler than the term having-weird-mood-swings-with-random-panic-attacks-thing).

But yes so that’s me, so I’ll say goodbye for now. It would be lovely to say hello to some of you lovely people (if anyone actually reads this XD), so say hi in the comments.

The Secret Blogger x