ARCTIC MONKEYS // INSPO

Last night I went to watch the Arctic Monkeys in Cardiff and it was simply insane. This was the second time I'd been to a monkeys gig and they just get better and better but I'll go more in to detail about the gig in tomorrow's blog post. This post is a sort of inspo post which is going to be filled with pictures, mostly of Arctic Monkeys, because as we all know, the latest band that I go and see I become obsessed with for at least a few weeks so here we go . . .

 

 

 

HAVE A WONDERFUL MONDAY, HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEK //

I'm writing this post on a morning, like every other morning really, where I know I've got a mountain of reading to complete by Thursday. It's incredibly easy to fall in to a trap of tiredness and stress and well, everything that isn't fun basically, so I have decided to make a list of all the positives in life to make me/us feel a bit more, well, positive, about our day.

1. I am very happy that at this time in my life I am inside a house with a roof over my head and not out in the 70mph winds that are currently blowing outside my window here in the South of England.
2. My room is smelling amazing after I bought a Glade blackcurrant scented candle yesterday from Tesco - it smells like Christmaaaaas!
3. The 49rs smashed the Jaguars yesterday. Gooooo 49rs!
4. I played my first ever lacrosse match on Sunday for the uni's Mixed 2nds team and even though we lost it was an great experience with some pretty cool people.
5. Myself and Hollie watched 10 Things I Hate About You last night whilst eating the sweet potato brownies I had made in the afternoon - what more could you want? I mean, Heath Ledger and Brownies!
6. This week is looking pretty cool - Arctic Monkeys and home // Yeeeeeeeah buddy :)

But before no.6 I have to do a lot of reading so see ya' later alligatorrr. // Have a wonderful Monday everyone :)

ATTENTION!

University work is insane. When they said there was a jump from first to second year they weren't lyin'. I am basically in the library from 9am till about 5pm everyday then work at home until at least 9pm each evening but I think I've come up with system that might save me a lot of time and allow me more time to do other things such as sleep and relax! Because I am constantly so busy time flies by. I have no idea how it is already the weekend. I'm looking forward to next week a hell of a lot but you'll have to wait to understand why :)

Last Wednesday myself and Hollie headed to Kingston as I needed to take my laptop back to apple to be fixed and we thought while we were there we might as well make a day out of it. Neither myself or Hollie are big shoppers thus we spent most of our time in HMV, Disney Store and in Zizzis where we ate a delicious meal before heading back home.

It seems as though Wednesday is a day for little trips. This Wednesday myself and Hollie (again)  had to jump on a train to Ashford as we needed some fancy dress stuff for the evening as we were going to our lacrosse initiations and we were ordered to dress as army privates. After grabbing some camo bandannas and facepaint we stopped off in Staines where we bought some plain t-shirts and of course we had to stop in Starbucks for a frappacino. Later that evening we got ourselves ready and went to our initiations . . . It began with an assault course in a garden, then a funnel, a ring of shots, another few houses and some party poppers and then eventually we were awarded with a soldier that officially made us a part of the lacrosse team :) I don't drink so I was fresh (but tired) the next morning whereas others were, let's just say, not!

I LOVE SUNDAYS.

Sunday is the best day of the week by far. Not Saturday, but Sunday. It's a day, unlike Saturday, where you have no pressure to do anything. I feel like on a Saturday you have to go out, go to places, meet up with people etc. but not Sunday. For most of my school life Sundays were always busy be it going to Sunday school or travelling around Wales playing rugby but I liked it. When I'm home I wake up around 9ish, have breakfast, read the Sunday papers, take Hendrix for a walk, watch a film and then settle down for the evening with some Countryfile - yes I love countryfile everyone! In uni things are a bit different - I usually spend all my days doing work so I don't really have a Sunday in a sense but today myself, Hollie and Ellie went to a local café called Picnic on the Green  and we had some delicious cake and coffee :) Scrumdidlyumptious. I had a red velvet cupcake and a gingerbread latte - a must for autumn.

I've probably written this a million times on this blog but autumn is awesome (despite all the rain and thunder storms). There's this certain smell in the air - it's all crisp and smells of smoke (fire smoke not tobacco smoke!). It's telling you that Christmas is on its way and soon you'll be cwtched up in front of the fire watching Home Alone. Yaaaay.

I SPENT MY WEEKEND IN A JACUZZI WITH SOME SCARLETS PLAYERS. WHAT ABOUT YOU?!

Hey Lisa, what's up with this not blogging business? Yup, I've been asking myself the same question and I have a very reasonable explanation! We STILL HAVE NO INTERNET in the house and the BT openzone cuts out all the time thus the only time I've been able to go on the internet properly is in the uni library and I tell myself not to go on the internet when working because I get very, very distracted! Alas, I am here now :)

Last Friday my Mami came down from Wales for the weekend and I had one of the best weekends ever. I had a few lectures and seminars on Friday morning so I met my mam on the train just after lunch as we were heading to Twickenham which is 3 stops away on the train from where I go to university. The weekend didn't initially get off to the best start with the hotel telling us that they hadn't received our booking but, as I have recently come to realise, everything happens for a reason and thank God that they couldn't initially find our reservation because we got to do and see things that we would not have been able to do otherwise, like sitting in the Jacuzzi with a few of the Scarlets players ...  but we'll get back to that in a minute!

While they searched for our booking they gave us a room and said that we could have free breakfast for our whole stay which was awesome . . .  the reason for this will be revealed in a second. After we 'unpacked' (read: flung bags on floor and made huge mess) we got our swimming costumes on and headed over to the Virgin Active centre next door which was also where the hotel's gym, pool and spa was. Where we stayed was pretty cool because it was actually inside Twickenham stadium! My mum and I had went from sauna to steam room to the Jacuzzi and I even had time to do a reasonable amount of lengths and just as we were starting to head back to the changing rooms we heard the unmistakable sound of the Welsh accent and saw some of the Scarlets players walking down in to the spa thus the only thing to do was to get back in to the pool! The whole reason we had made our way to Twickenham was to watch the Scarlets take on the Harlequins in the first round of the Heineken cup match and it was one of the best rugby matches I have ever been to - club or country! It was insane. (If you want to read my account of the game click here.) Thus it was amazing to be so close to the players.

The next day we got ourselves together reasonably early as we had a long day ahead of us and the day could not have began any better - breakfast with 20+ rugby men anyone? Yes, please, thank you very much! While I ate my Muesli I could see the likes of Jonathan 'Fox' Davies, Liam Williams etc preparing for the match later that day. It was Awesome and I even made awkward eye contact with Josh Turnbull - I think he caught me staring! We also ended up in the lift having a chat with Scarlets' player Gareth Maul where I'm sure my mother put the fear of God in him when she said jokingly (maybe) "no pressure but I've travelled 5 hours on the train to be here so you better win!", well at least it looked like he was scared!

Once we had recovered from our breakfast date with the Scarlets (they didn't know it was a date but that doesn't mean that it wasn't!) myself and my mam headed in to Kingston as we wanted to do a bit of shopping. While we were there I bought a woolly hat by Hype, an amazing black fur lined coat from M&S and I also got the new iphone 5C in coral/pink. A good day's shopping I think. Before heading to the hotel to change in to my Scarlets shirt we went in to the Cabbage Patch pub to see some Scarlets supporters and once the game was over my mum and I celebrated with cocktails, her a Martini & me a cosmopolitan. We ended the night with a scrumptious Zizzis and some Jools Holland and the Manic Street Preachers.

I headed back to uni just after lunch on Sunday and my mum headed back to West Wales but we weren't going to leave before we went to that spa/pool once more :) A perfect way to end a perfect weekend :)

HAVE A BREAK, HAVE A LISTEN // PLAYLIST

Sometimes life can be stressful and people deal with stress in numerous ways but personally I find that if you've had a stressful day just have a lie down, put on your headphones and listen to some music that you find calming and I can assure you that you'll feel at least 80% better in a few minutes. People can find a variety of different genres calming - jazz, blues, folk or sometimes even some heavy metal or dub step can be what somebody needs to relax. I have created a list of a few songs that I find relaxing, it might not what you'd choose to chill to but it works for me. I'd love to know what songs you find do the trick for you so leave a comment below and make sure to have a little listen to the songs that I've chosen, you never know you might find a new song to have a little nap to.

Bruce Springsteen - Racing In The Street



I could have basically filled this whole playlist with Springsteen songs. He can act like a comfort blanket when you want to shut yourself away from the world and make you feel better about yourself and what you're doing with your life when you feel a bit stressed with everything and everyone. I could basically go on and on about how I love Bruce but I'm sure you all know that by now. I hope everyone has there own Springsteen who they can turn to again and again, knowing that they'll definitely feel better after hearing the first chord to their favourite song. This might feel a bit dramatic I mean it's very hard to believe how one person can change a person's mood so dramatically but it's the truth and I'm very thankful for it and for Mr. Springsteen. Racing In The Street is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard and its perfect to put on just before bed to get you in that calm mood.

Augustana - Fire 



I can't remember how I discovered this band and this song but it was during secondary school sometime. This song used to be a staple on my playlist for the bus ride home. The vocals on this are quite haunting and very soothing, the piano also helps to calm me down. I like a good piano! It's a short and very sweet song that I think everybody needs to have on their ipods just to listen to now and again.


BB King - Let Me Love You



I am a massive fan of rhythm and blues and well there is no one else other than BB King who can chill me out after a long day at the library. Blues also remind me of home because it is always on in the background, in the kitchen as dinner is being made or in the living room as we read sunday papers etc so that's another reason why the Blues do it for me. Even today when I came back from a 6+ hour day from uni I turned the ipad on and went straight to BB King's album  BB King Story. I couldn't find the version of  Let Me Love You that's on my ipad on youtube but this version is still pretty awesome. Another good thing about rhythm and blues is that there are a few instrumental segments which are perfect to switch off to as your mind isn't distracted in attempting to concentrate on what the lyrics mean.

Ben Howard - Old Pine



Ben Howard is awesome - Simple as. His music could be the soundtrack to everyone's dreams, yes, that's how magical it is! All the "wooooo"ing and whimsical guitar rifts could send anyone straight into relax city before they could even put their headphones on properly. Having ruled the Brit Awards, Howard is still continuing to sooth people with his surfer, folk music around the world and wow, he's doing a great job of it!

Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road




Wait what? Another Springsteen song? Of course. Thunder Road is my all time favourite song and when I heard an acoustic version of it at the end of his Wembley show back in June it was honestly one of the best moments of my life (yes, I admit it, I am sad!) but it was extraordinary. Any old version of Thunder Road makes me feel happy but an acoustic version makes me ecstatic and a smile can't help but break out on my face. That first sound of the harmonica and the piano and then the singing, it's just the most perfect song ever created in the history of music! Ok, before I go too far just have a listen and see for yourselves. I dare anybody not to love it.

HELLO THERE AGAIN AMIGOS

Well, it has taken me almost three weeks but yesterday evening I was doing some reading on my bed when I randomly clicked on a wireless network in hope that I'd be able to get some internet at home (ours is coming on Wednesday hopefully, but they said that last week so . . . ) and then it happened. I remembered that I have BT Hotspot which means that I can have internet wherever I am. Typical. So now I can actually write a blog post!

I thought I'd do another little catch up before I commence with normal blogging. Last week was freshers week but it was much more relaxed than freshers first year around. We only went out properly once but we hung out with some friends for most of the week even if we just watched films together. It was just nice to ease ourselves in to the new year and house. This is a picture of when we went out in Windsor - this is the night I lost my iphone. Ta ta iphone.

This week has been quite the busy one with lectures starting, lacrosse training, surf & lacrosse socials, cycling everywhere and I mean everywhere, skateboarding and chasing ice cream vans down the street to grab a Feast before dinner. I can already feel that this year is going to be better than last as I'm doing much more things and meeting so many new people. Also I have discovered how close the nearest big town is from here on the bike - an easy 20 mins so that's tres handy. Myself and Hollie cycled down their last Saturday, grabbed a few things and just before heading back we bought ourselves a cheeky Nandos. 

Right then this was just a little catch up post but most probably tomorrow or later today I'll come back with normal lisi loo posts - it's been to long guys!