HALF MARATHON RUNNING FOR MIND

I'm a person who likes to be on my own a lot of the time. I am not a great fan of being surrounded by people 24/7. I have to have downtime to read, listen to music, to watch a few shows on netflix or to simply sit on my own with nothing but my thoughts. Being this type of person can be quite hard when you get to university especially if you live with very outgoing and extrovert people. Thankfully I lived with people who were understanding that not everyone wants to go out 3/4 times a week and stay up until the sunrises and I am INCREDIBLY thankful for this.

Also I am a morning person. A typical day for me would see my alarm go off at 6am and me closing my book or closing my laptop at 10pm. I have always been this way and will probably always be this way and this is a reason why I would never be able to work in a bar. I just get too tired. This tiredness thing is really annoying. Somedays (most days) I wake up almost as tired as I was when I went to bed. It's just one of those things I guess but it is tres annoying none-the-less. It is also for this reason that I get up early because I know that if I do all I need to do before 5pm then I will complete my tasks with energy that I will not have come dinner time.

I exercise a lot and eat very healthily, not as a part of a weight loss diet, but because it is something (the exercise that is) that calms me and gives me a sense of achievement. It's an hour or so out of my day when I am completely focused on the single challenge that I have to complete, be that an hour of circuits, some sprints or a 10km run. I usually do this in the morning as it puts me in a good mood moving forward, the rest of the day (during term time) is spent in the library and then in bed. Ohhhh what an exciting life!! It might not be all that exciting but I enjoy it :)

Despite being a person who likes to be on their own, if I spend too much time on my own then that is not good. My thoughts become very loud, I feel lazy, I feel like I never do enough and that I should constantly be doing things even though I know that I do more than most on one of my 'lazy days'. This feeling has begun to creep up on my during this time in limbo between exams finishing, 3rd year lectures beginning and summer.

If you haven't guessed it already I suffer from anxiety. I guess all of us suffer from anxiety from time to time it's just that some of us get more affected than others. Since about 3 years I have been dealing with a sort of chronic anxiety which never really goes away but certainly it comes in waves. It's not the most fun thing in the world and it gets a bit tiring after a while. Somedays I feel great, these are usually the days when I am busy and doing something that I love. Other days aren't so great and these days are not fun. You could say that I'm having a bit of a down day at the moment but as soon as I am busy again and feel like I'm contributing something to society then I will be tip-top or as close to tip-top as possible.

I worry about stupid things that I won't bore you with here and the annoying thing is that deep down I know that there is no need to worry which frustrates me even more. I am currently making a conscious decision to concentrate on the positives in life and see how far I have come rather than how far I have left to go. I am learning not to compare myself with others because this really gets me down and makes me very critical of myself. I yearn to live a simple life and not get bogged down with little trivial worthless issues which we all seem to obsess over. I want to just be happy. That is my single goal in life, well I have two goals in life - to be happy and healthy. Isn't that what life is all about at the end of the day?

I am running the Cardiff Half Marathon on October 5th in name of MIND, the mental health charity. If you would like to donate here is my Virgin Money Giving page. Thank You. 

ARCTIC MONKEYS FINSBURY PARK 24.5.14

I think it was less than a week after seeing the Arctic Monkeys in Cardiff back in November of last year that I had already bought tickets to see them at their Finsbury Park gig. The Monkeys are definitely the band of our generation and seeing them live now is totally different to when I first saw them back in 2007 - which is a great thing.

There is no doubting that Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not & Favourite Worst Nightmare are two of the best albums from the last decade and with songs such as Dancing Shoes, Fake Tales of San Fransisco, Brianstorm & Fluorescent Adolecence it is obvious why. However, their  2009 and 2011 albums Humbug & Suck it and See respectively, despite one or two songs such as Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair, didn't connect with their audience as much as AM has.
Since AM's release last year it has just exploded and their new live set that is filled with most of the tracks off the new album feels as comfortable and familiar as any of their hit-filled shows.

Armed with coats and umbrellas we headed on the tube over to Finsbury park last Saturday ready for an evening filled with great music. It all began at half 5 when Royal Blood came on to the stage. I had never really heard much about this Brighton duo but wow, they were awesome. Personally I felt that they were the best support group out of the three that performed before the main act came on stage. Their heavy rock sound made from just a simple bass and drum duo was insane and I have certainly added all of their songs to my Spotify playlist. Miles Kane was next, I had seen him once before as he was the support at some gig I went to which I can not for the life of my remember but despite one or two songs he was not all that great. I much preferred Royal Blood. Tame Impala were the penultimate act on stage at Finsbury and at this point we had made our way to the back of the crowd where we had THE best view of the stage as we were perched on a little hill and we had loads of room to dance/head bang and chat to random people. Tame Impala's tracks would be awesome to put on in the house on a sunny relaxing day when you just want to chill.

Just as the sun was setting the thumping sound of Do I Wanna Know sounded out around North London and Alex Turner and the band came on stage to perform to over 30,000 people. Their setlist was once again very awesome and I must say that I think my favourites from Saturday was Brianstorm because everyone just went mental, Dancing Shoes, Arabella ... actually I could go on forever. Although, there is no denying that finishing the show with R U Mine was genius and a great way to leave the crowd pumped as tens of thousands of us queued to get on the tube back to our homes after yet another awesome, mostly rain free, Monkeys gig :) Oh, and did I mention that there was a Last Shadow Puppets reunion during the encore ;)

EXAMS ARE OVER!!

This Monday just gone I sat my last exam of Second year. It was a three hour exam on the victorians and at 5pm I walked out of the sports hall a free woman. I hugged a few people, drank some Starbucks with some of my favourites and watched the last few episodes of the US Office. Over the last few days I have been attempting to adjust to the more relaxed life I now lead. However, I do not do well when I have nothing to do so I have been keeping myself relatively busy by exercising, starting new and hopefully very exciting projects, reading (a lot), hanging with friends, setting goals for the summer and travelling home for a few days of chilling.

I finished reading #Girlboss on the train home yesterday afternoon and wow, what a badass inspirational book which just made me want to go out and achieve. Myself and my friend Laura have some exciting goals for the future which I shall share on here in future but at this moment in time we are just concentrating on working hard (and God knows that we have worked hard academically over the last year) in university and in applying for internships and work experience. So many of my friends are rather weary of leaving uni but if I am honest with you I think it will be awesome, don't get me wrong I really enjoy uni but there is such a big world out there filled with potential opportunities that I am incredibly excited to enter. 

I've just attached some pictures of my journey home on the train to this post :)

LISA IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY // T W E N T Y

On the 27th of April, not the Sunday just gone but the Sunday before that, it was my birthday. I am now 20 years old. T W E N T Y! that's ridiculous if you ask me. I actually remember turning 10 and being like OMG, I am a decade old AND I am so old now that I have two digits in my age. Woooow. So many things have happened in those 10 years which makes me excited for what the next ten and the next ten etc. etc. will bring.

I was, and still currently am, revising hard for my exams over the easter so I didn't really do much for my birthday but that was just what I wanted. I woke up around 9 which was an awesome lie-in for me, did some Tudors revision in bed before Mam and Hendrix walked in with my cards and coffee, oh, and toast with a candle in it. I opened my cards, drank my coffee, had some porridge and went to the gym. Barring the revision it was a pretty nice morning finished off with a nice warm bath. After watching multiple episodes of The Office (US) and reading I did some revision here and there before mam made some homemade Chinese. I said that I didn't really want a cake so I asked for a scrumptious meal instead - it was the best decision.

While watching some Monty Python on Netflix my mam walked into the living room with some baby Collin the Caterpillars with candles in them which I blew out after some rather interesting singing from the parents. I packed my stuff and went to bed relatively early as the morning after I headed back to uni.

A nice, chillaxed birthday :)