Hobbies.

Throughout school and university hobbies were what took over most of my life. When 3:30pm came and the school bell rang I would grab my bags and head to hockey, rugby, net-ball, running club or piano lessons. This has been the routine for most of my life thus far. However, now working full time and travelling three hours a day means that I don’t really have that much spare time to do anything other than exercise, eat dinner and sleep. This routine has been making me a little bit (read: hugely) frustrated over the last few months.

I’m the sort of person who likes to achieve things. Be that getting good grades in my work, finish a half marathon, read a certain amount of books in a specific time frame etc. Due to regularly working weekends and not arriving home until late on weekdays I have been feeling as though I have not been achieving much at all recently which has not been good.

I often feel my blood start to boil and my body begins to shake with frustration and anger almost that I’m not out there constantly achieving and working so hard that I am truly exhausted. It’s like we want to be stressed and tired just so we can tell people that we’re stressed and tired so that they will think, “oh waw, she works hard.” 

But that’s just stupid.

I do have my hobbies – exercising, reading, playing the piano, listening to music, writing and so on. And I do really want to do more of every single one of them but that’s not too realistic right now. Instead of getting frustrated that maybe I don’t have time right now to dedicate to them all simultaneously I am going to just pick one or two a week that I will concentrate on; making everything seem less daunting.

I don’t know about you but I often find myself wasting time thinking of all the things that I need/want to be doing instead of actually doing them. Once you actively start to get the ball rolling things don’t seem so impossible. By prioritising one or two hobbies a week instead of constantly thinking of all the things I want to be doing but not having time for, I hope this will allow me to feel more accomplished and less like a failure.

I’ve only been in full time work for 6 months so I’m still learning on how to time manage everything but breaking issues up into smaller more manageable pieces just makes life seem more achievable.

SUMMER PLANS & STUDENT WORRIES

My Italy posts will be up as soon as possible. While in Venice we endured a day of torrential rain, so much rain in fact that it broke my camera thus I now have to wait for my friends to sort out their pictures and send them to me before I can actually get to posting them. Ohh the joys of rain and not so waterproof coats! 

After an awesome 2 (very hot) weeks travelling around northern Italy I am home for summer for a few weeks before I am off once more back down to Windsor/Egham with my family for a few days, Reading festival and then to the South of France to surf :D All of these things I am really excited for.

However, I am home and despite sending a gazzilion e-mails searching for work experience I have heard nothing thus far although I only sent some off recently so their is still some hope. Sometimes, actually most of the time, I feel really guilty for not having anything planned in terms of work/experience over the summer but to be honest, neither have my friends. I feel as though I should be doing something productive which will benefit me in the future. Despite this feeling, being at uni is incredibly stressful and tiring. Throughout first and second term which lasts from September to the end of March I had an essay a week to complete as well as seminar work and readings. Even through christmas holidays I was tapping away at my laptop writing essays while all my other friends from home were chilling and enjoying the break. I am not complaining because I love to learn and I like (although not always) being at a hard university because I really think (hope) that it will benefit me in the future but it does sometimes get a bit much.

I can not sit and do nothing and I think this is my biggest downfall. My friend Ruth was amazed by the questions I would randomly ask while we'd just be sitting in a cafe somewhere in Italy. She would say to me "Lisa, you think way too much in depth about everything. Just stop thinking for a bit". When I look into the sky I immediately think about space and planets and where does it all end - does the blackness just go on forever, surly it has to stop somewhere. Even while typing this my mind has drifted into attempting to figure out the unknown.

It's because of this relentless mind spinning that I have been throwing myself into reading a lot over the last week or so while also exercising everyday and working on my fitness blog - theimportanceofbeingstrong.wordpress.com . Working on this blog is something that I am really into at the moment and I hope that it will grow into something bigger in the next month or so. So really I am getting work experience, the experience of writing on a daily basis (with Lisi Loo and Importance of Being Strong) it's just that I am working for myself rather than a magazine or newspaper. Over the next few weeks I have also got to start reading and planning for my final year dissertation which is a bit scary but that's all I can do is my best and if that isn't good enough then I can't do much more than that.

So here's to relaxing, writing, working, exercising and enjoying summer.

SUN FOR DAYS

Last week was soooo sunny and hot. Most days I would revise in the morning and then I'd go for a walk before lunch and continuing my revision and every time when I'd arrive home I had to change in to my shorts because it was just so warm outside. Everyone was wearing their shorts, dresses and vest tops and sunbathing! It was a nice distraction from uni work and a nice way to spend my revision break out in the sun! Our whole block took our blankets out and spent the afternoons in the sun reading magazines, revising and drinking some Pimms.

 We also went to watch Iron Man 3 after my exam on Wednesday Evening. It was awesome! Like really awesome! I love Robert Downey Jr. On the way out of the cinema I saw Sulley and Mike. Love these guys! Looking forward to the new film!!!

Home, Home, Home

So, I've finally arrived home! After a month of living and working in the Italian summer school, I can now sleep in my double bed and watch the Olympics all day. If I was tweeting this now I would hash tag it #LovingLife! Since I posted on here last I've been on many more trips and organised a tone of activities!

We visited Saint Davids once more! This time when we visited Newgale beach on the way home, I decided to go for a little swim in the sea. Yes it was cold, but I just don't give a banana man! No, it was actually really nice, although pretty darn wavy - good for surfing, not so good for swimming! I was in there for about 45mins and then decided that I probably should come out before I turn in to a shrimp or get hypothermia or something!

The day after we headed to Heatherton and the staff had a little Heatherton Olympics which involved clay shooting, pistol shooting, archery, crazy golf and go-karting. Even though I picked up a zero for clay shooting, I still managed to pic up an overall bronze medal! I pulled it back with my awesome pistol shooting skills!

I've got some very cool things coming up soon so stay tuned for that!

IS THAT A MAN OR A WOMAN?!

Ciao! Well we're still as busy as ever with this new group of children! Each day seems to be melting in to one after nearly a month of doing this job! 7:30 am wake up for breakfast, break at half 10, lunch at half 12, then sports etc in the afternoon! It's fun though, so I don't mind but you do get confused sometimes as to what day it is, the time and you begin to forget what you did when! 




 Since they arrived last Tuesday we have been on a few trips, including Cardiff to visit the museum and to shop! Well I didn't shop much at all because I spent too much money there the last time! The only thing I bought this time was the Despicable Me DVD! £3 - bargain! 

 There were so many dinosaurs everywhere! I LOVE DINOSAURS - like I am obsessed with them! 

 We also visited the Bay which looked awesome in the sunshine! The British rowing championships were also being held in the bay that day so the place was crowded with Irish, Scottish etc waving there flags and even one or two kilts! 

These were the Olympic rings outside the City hall. 

The day after, we headed over the Severn Bridge to Bath. This was the first time that I'd actually properly visited the City, I've only ever driven through it en route to different places.  The city was beautiful and filled with history. The architecture of the City with its roman stone buildings was different to any city I've ever visited. We visited the fashion museum which I really enjoyed. In one section they had costumes used in Shakespearean and other historical films such as Dame Helen Mirren's Elizabeth I costume. They were beautiful! I really enjoyed the costumes they had there and would like to go back sometime when I could take my time to go around the places that I'd like to go without having to chase after children and without  having to go around searching for missing bags and packed lunches! We visited a few parks to eat our lunch and then we headed in to town for a quick shop. After buying a few things here and there, we headed over to the famous Roman Baths. It's quite a strange feeling to walk around the baths on the same stone floor as the Romans would have done all those centuries ago. 

 This is the costume Colin Firth wore in the King's Speech! 

After a day off from trips on Monday, when Tuesday arrived we were off again. This time we had a half day trip to Llansteffan. Tuesday was the start of this nice weather we've been having recently so we had a very hot but relaxing time playing rugby and volleyball along with sunbathing up in the castle and chillaxing on the beach eating ice-cream and playing Zipball, cricket and flying some kites. Stunning like innit'. 

Wwww, and we also had a cross dressing disco one night  - this was the result!