Now that I have a job I don’t feel so guilty about spending the money I saved from my student finance for my first year of uni. I decided to buy an iPad as a treat to myself for finishing my first year at university and for getting a job. Tyrone was selling his so I thought I might as well buy his off him to save myself some money. It’s a forth generation iPad that is black (to match my iPod and iPhone) and it’s 32gb. And, just like the rest of my Apple family, he has a name that relates to The Who. His name is Ace after the character the Ace Face from the film Quadrophenia. The Ace Face was also played by Sting, which relates to my love of The Police too. I’ve barely switched on my laptop since I bought Ace.

Last Monday was a bank holiday here in the UK (yeah, I know, it’s been too long since I last blogged). I had the day off so I went to Oulton Park race track to watch the British Superbikes with Tyrone. I use to go every year with my parents as we knew the people who owned one of the racing teams, and at one point my brother was one of the engineers for the team. However, it has been quite a few years since I last went and now I am old enough to appreciate it more. When I was younger my only interest was going to the hospitality tent to get some free food and drink! Tyrone and his dad took loads of amazing pictures but then their cameras are a million times better than mine. I was just there to enjoy the races and to make the most of the sun.

This week I am home alone. My parents have gone on a cruise around the Greek Islands and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous. It means that I have the house to myself but it’s back to cooking for myself again. Also, getting to work and back is a pain in the arse because it keeps raining all the time here. On Friday when I was walking home I got stuck in a torrential down pour and my work uniform was so wet that I had to ring the water out of it. I guess this is just a typical British spring/summer.

I’d like to get around to making a new layout for Empfire. I’m completely sick of this one. Unfortunately, I don’t have must inspiration right now, so bare with me. I’m going to hunt down some new ideas.

Yesterday I had my first exam of the year. My friend Becky was an absolute star and gave me a lift to the train station so that I could commute in for my exam, rather than staying the night in halls. She came to Liverpool with me and while I sat my exam she went shopping. We had lunch in Starbucks before I went off to the exam venue. I think it went pretty well to be honest. I had done plenty of revision so I felt prepared. The exam comprised of two essay questions, one of which was a ‘seen’ question so I was able to prepare this before the exam. Fortunately for the second essay there was a question on flooding which is a topic I know really well. I’m pretty confident that I achieved a good grade but really I only need 50% to pass that whole module with a 1st.

After the exam I met up with Becky again. Becky had always wanted to go for afternoon tea at The Hard Days Night Hotel so we went. It’s a Beatles themed hotel that is very posh! It was a lovely treat to have after my exam. Such a civilised thing to do for a couple of 19 year olds!

I have one more exam on Tuesday and then I am finished for the year! My mum is taking me to Liverpool to sit my second exam.

Today I received some very good news. A few weeks ago I went for a job interview at my local Asda. For those of you non-Brits, Asda is a supermarket and it’s owned by Walmart. I honestly didn’t think I had got the job as I hadn’t heard back from them for a while. However, today I got the phone call saying that I had got the job and that I start Sunday! I’m so happy! I really need the money as it help towards getting my flat sorted next year. Or I can put it towards a new laptop. I’m slightly nervous but more excited about finally earning some money.

I promise to start blogging more often once again. I just need to get this one exam out of the way and then I will finally have some time on my hands.

 They are limited edition from the London collection. They are black on the outside and have a funky print on the inside. I have never owned a pair of sunglasses that fit me and suit me so well. I have absolutly no regrets. Even at £135. 

On Saturday I moved home for summer. Yes, summer! I know it’s only March and it’s snowing but I have finished my lectures for the year. I have two exams after the Easter holidays but I like to think my summer break starts here. I could really do with a job but I do have a lot of my student loan for the year left over so it’s not like I am going to be skint this summer.

Being home is great. I have still got a couple of assignments to complete but now I don’t have to worry about cooking, cleaning, going to lectures, going food shopping etc. I can focus of my work and give it my full concentration. I have two field reports to write and they are slowly killing me. One is almost complete but the other is far off the word count and I can’t think of anything more to write. The lecturer didn’t really give us a brief about what to write so we are all pretty confused. I’m just going to try my best and then if I do crap then at least I can try and make up for it in the exam.

On Friday I am off to Portugal. Prehaps I will get a chance to wear my new sunglasses! The weather forecast for the Algarve isn’t fantastic but just having a break from the UK will be nice. I’ll try and take some nice pictures for you.

The pictures are from my Instagram. Feel free to follow. I will follow back.

Speaking of the rest of the years, I have been given the options for my optional modules next year. We have two core modules (both physical geography) and we have to choose 3 from the options given. I know that most people on my course will be choosing physical geography modules (we are doing a BSc after all) but I really do love human geography. Of course, I don’t want to totally give up on physical geography so I will choose one physical module (Volcanoes, earthquakes and society) and two human (Valuing the environment and Globalisation & Development).

On Saturday I went to Goodison Park for the first time in over 10 years. Goodison is the home of Everton football club and now I live in Liverpool it’s literally down the road from me. My parents and my brother Dean got the train into Liverpool in the morning. My mum wondered off to the shops and we found our way to the ground and to a pub. I decided not too drink too much considering I’d end up needing to pee for the whole match and getting out of those long rows of seats in the ground isn’t an easy task. I’d bought the tickets in advance from a ticket sales office in the city centre, so after a quick look around the club shop we went into the ground and found our seats. I’d made a good choice when choosing the location of the seats.

Unfortunately Everton lost. Although, to be fair, we played terribly and Wigan deservedly won. For me it didn’t put a downer on the day. I was just happy to finally back at Goodison after so long. We met up with my mum again after the match and went out for an early Mother’s day lunch.

In less than two weeks I shall be moving home for the summer. Hooray! No more sleepless nights in student accommodation. And hopefully, no more student accommodation ever! Tyrone and I are still on the look out for a flat next year. We hope to move in at the end of August. I’m moving home early because the majority of my lectures finish a week before the Easter holidays, and because on Good Friday I am flying out to Portugal.

Yes, it came as a shock to me too. I was speaking to my mum the other week on Skype and she was just like “We’re going to Portugal. Can you move home earlier?”. You should have seen my face. I will still be going to Portugal in the summer but this holiday will be a great break from all the work I have been doing at university. I have tonnes of coursework to get done before I go and two exams to do when I get back (I will be commuting in for these exams). The thought of going to Portugal has given me so much motivation to get work done early. I sat down for 6 hours in front of my laptop on Sunday and worked solid for the whole time on my essay on actors within society (not actors as in film stars, unfortunately ).

On Thursday afternoon I went to the pub with my flat mate and a few of her friends to celebrate a birthday. Recently I haven’t been taking well to alcohol as it makes me feel really sick, even if I only drink I small amount, so I bought a pint of cider and thought no more of it. I was fine, until later in the evening. I’m not sure if the following occurred due to the alcohol, or perhaps it was a linked to the mixture of emotions I’d felt the previous day, but that evening I was pretty ill. I won’t go into the details because I don’t want to put you off your food but it was pretty crap. I decided to go to bed early and take Friday morning off university. I wanted to get better for Friday evening.

On Friday afternoon I caught a very busy train to Manchester and met with Tyrone for a romantic meal from Burger King. We then made our way to the venue ready to see Kaiser Chiefs. There were two supporting acts on before Kaiser Chiefs. They were both pretty good bands but I preferred the first one, Heavyball. I steered clear of the alcohol so I wouldn’t feel ill and so I could enjoy the show more. Kaiser Chiefs were brilliant and really entertained the crowd. I think Ricky Wilson is a great frontman with so much energy. I was shattered after the show, and I still had to find my way to a train station I had never been to before in a city I really don’t know that well, and then catch a train that would take an hour and a quarter to get back to Liverpool. Yes, I made it back and avoided spending the night on a bench in a train station in Manchester.

No direct trains between Manchester Piccadilly and Liverpool after 10pm on a Friday. Who thought that was a good idea?!

Kaiser Chiefs, seeing a Tyrone and managing to get a train home were all positive points of the weekend. Now I continue with the negatives.

This morning Tyrone turned on my laptop. He tried logging on with my password but it kept failing. We eventually realised that it was because the V key on my laptop keyboard wasn’t working. Subsequently we discovered that the Z, X, C and V keys were all broke. We had to go into town and buy a normal wired keyboard so that I can use my laptop. It’s a pain in the arse having to sit my new keyboard on top of my old one but what am I suppose to do? My laptop is 3 years old now and has never really had any problems until now. I hope that some how I can get it fixed. I really can’t afford to replace it. Plus I’d be picky about buying a new one. Ty and I went into PC World to look at laptops and I managed to find problems with them all. None of them are as good as my current laptop. And I really don’t want Windows 8. Ugh.

When we were in town my flat mate text me. She was concerned that the fridge wasn’t working. When we returned we noticed that the fridge was warm and so was all the food inside. I called maintenance and the guy said that we had overloaded the fridge. Not my fault as I only had block of cheese and a bag of salad in there. The main problem is my other flat mate (who never speaks to us) who fills the fridge with out of date food. She had put an entire loaf of bread in there! No wonder it was over full. We removed all food that was out of date or that didn’t need to be stored in the fridge. We left it for about 2 hours and when we returned the fridge was still warm. I called maintenance again but I ended up speaking to someone from security to laughed at me and told me that maintenance had gone home.

“So I’m just suppose to leave my food to go off?!” I asked. He laughed at me again. Got to love student accommodation.

We will have to bin all the food we purchased as it is now warm and disgusting. It’s inedible! I am going to complain to reception first thing in the morning and explain that we have wasted food due to nobody helping us. In the handbook it says that maintenance are available 24/7. Lies! I’ve already had to complain several times this week due to people playing their music stupidly loud at 2am. My mum ever contacted my accommodation as they didn’t seem to listen to me. I’m fed up of living here.

My laptop is broke. My fridge is broke. My brand new necklace from Etsy.com is broke. My guts are broke. My faith is broke.

I want to curl up in a ball, stay in bed all day and pretend that the world is a better place.

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Yesterday I purchased tickets to see one of the greatest bands in the world, The Who!

I’m so happy I could cry. I found out on Monday morning that they were doing a European tour and performing in Liverpool. I instantly contacted my parents and Tyrone and of course they all wanted tickets.

This morning at 9am I sat on Ticketmaster and tried to get tickets. Nothing came up. You see I wanted 4 tickets and apparently there weren’t 4 seats together. Even when I tried for 2 tickets, Tickermaster was giving me nothing. I ended up heading to the website for the arena and I managed to purchase 4 tickets from there.

Yes, they were expensive. Do I care? Not really. It’s The Who for goodness sake! How many opportunities in life do you get to see The Who?!

I called my mum to tell her the good news. We will be sitting in similar seats to the ones we had for Madness. I would have liked to have been closer but it’s the fact that I’m going to be there that matters. Roll on June!

I had a pretty hectic day yesterday following a not so interesting few weeks (apart from Tyrone coming to visit and going home for the weekend – those days were good). I had a lecture at 9am. You are probably thinking “Weren’t you on Ticketmaster then?”. Yes, I was late for my lecture. Well to be honest I wasn’t. After running down the road I got there for about 9.20am and the lecture hadn’t started yet. Following that I had a computer practical and it was mostly based around Excel. I love spreadsheets! That used to be sarcasm until I started using GIS software!

After my computer practical I went back to the flat, met up with my flat mate and we went swimming. I haven’t been swimming in a long time, but when I was home last weekend my mum decided to research swimming pools near to where I live. The majority of them were miles away from where I live. I wanted somewhere not too far away and in the city centre if possible. I don’t live venturing into areas I don’t know. Especially in Liverpool. It got a good reputation when it comes to crime. My mum found that there was a pool in one of the hotels in the city centre that is open for non-residents. It was £4 for a session (for students) which includes use of the pool, the gym and all the other facilities. Personally I thought it was a bargain considering the pool back home is over £5 just for a swim. It wasn’t too busy at all, and the pool was lovely and warm. I can’t wait to go again. If I get into a regular routine it will be great exercise for my hip.

Last Friday I got my results back from the phase test I took before Christmas. It was for the module Environment, Society and Sustainability. I did so much revision for the test, you have no idea. Every day for weeks and weeks up until the exam. I made so many notes, learnt the lectures off by heart and did extra reading. I was determined to do well and I am determined to achieve a great grade for my degree.

My lecturer put the scores on the board next to our student number, so that only you could know your own score. I got 91%! I then looked through the rest of the results for the class and realised that I had the highest score. The highest score out of 80 people! I couldn’t believe it! Our lecturer also showed us a graph showing the results within different percentage ranges and I was that one person who got between 90% and 100%. I was so happy, and everyone else seemed to be really happy for me. It wasn’t like that at college. But then again I failed most things I did at college.

For the first time in my life I feel like I’m achieving. It’s not just getting the highest grade in the class. Getting 1st in my assignments, and even 100% in one, it just feels so great! I work hard towards everything I do, but with college I never felt like any of it was worth it. I finally feel motivated. I feel like I can get a 1st in my degree and then go on to do a postgraduate course. I have a few in mind but I will just have to see where life takes me.

I also have an exciting side project which I haven’t blogged about as I’m trying to keep pretty secret at the moment. I’m not sure I’m even allowed to discuss it. It’s something that I have always wanted to do and now it finally looks like it is going somewhere. It may not end up anywhere but at least I will know that I’ve tried and I’ve tried my best.

I bet that has wet your appetite haha.

Tyrone is coming over to Liverpool with weekend to relieve me of my boredom (revision really takes the life out of you!). We are both trying to save some money so we will be on the hunt for things to do on the cheap. The museums are always pretty good and most of them in Liverpool are free entry. However, there’s a comic book fair on Sunday so we may both be digging deep to find some cash!

The reason we are saving money? We are going on holiday together in July. My mum and dad are flying out to Portugal to spend two weeks at the villa we always stay at every summer. Tyrone and I are flying out to spend the last week with my parents. We bought our flights a week ago and now we need to save spending money and money for the taxi to the airport. I’ve never travelled without my parents before so it’s going to be an experience. I’m really looking forward to the break.

It was such an effort to come back to uni after the Christmas break. I finally remembered how to relax and I haven’t been very motivated since I’ve been back. None the less, I have attended my lectures and I’m getting on with the work slowly. I have a multiple choice test next week so this weekend my time will be consumed by revision.

On Sunday it was my 19th birthday. It was also the day I returned to Liverpool so I was feeling a mixture of emotions. I opened my presents at home and then about 12 noon we travelled up to Liverpool. My eldest brother came along too and we went out for a meal at my favourite restaurant. I’d printed a voucher of the internet and I received a free bottle of champagne for my birthday.Later on, after my parents had gone home, I Skyped with Tyrone and opened my presents with him. Skype is brilliant but nothing is the same as being in the same room as the one you love.

And then it was back to reality. Back to lectures on Monday morning. Ugh.

I have a day off on Tuesdays so I decided to treat myself. I started the day with lunch in Costa, followed by a stroll around the shops in Liverpool. I had a long list of things I wanted to buy but things didn’t go to plan. I just couldn’t find what I wanted. I’m desperately in need of new boots as mine have a hole in and I’m getting fed up of wet feet. However, every pair of boots seems to be accompanied by a large heel, and I don’t wear heels!

In the end I bought a diary and a hoodie. The hoodie is amazing. It was suppose to be £90 but it was reduced to £60 in the sale, yet when I got it to the till it was £50. It’s from Jack Wills and it is fur lined. I’ve been wanted a fur lined hoodie for ages but the ones in Hollister were overprice and stupid sizes. They were way too short.

I apologise for the short and uninteresting blog with this week. I’m really not feeling motivated at all.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, my family were all coming over to our house for Christmas Day. We had a lovely lunch cooked by my mum and a really lazy day, opening presents and drinking and eating too much.

For Christmas I asked for the money. I bought my iPhone, Pete, in October after I got fed up of my HTC letting me down. The money I got off my parents and my nan covered the cost of the phone so technically the phone was my Christmas present and I was very happy with having it early. However, my mum surprised me on Christmas morning with an extra gift. She bought me a record player! I’ve been collecting records for a while now but I haven’t been able to play them because I didn’t have a record player. I bought them because they make great decorations for my bedroom. Finally I can hear what they sound like. Some aren’t great quality and skip a lot. Others are perfect and the sound is amazing.

So really, for Christmas, I got two different geneations of music players; an iPhone and a record player.

My parents also bought be a Soap and Glory gift set, some pyjamas, slippers and Pete Townshend’s autobiography, “Who I Am’. As I mentioned my nan gave me money and bought me some of my favourite foundation too. My other nan also gave me money. My uncle got me a gift voucher for Next, which will definitely be spent on jeans. My brother Dean bought me a years subscription to National Geographic magazine and a £25 iTunes voucher. My brother Adam bought me a bottle of sparkling wine and he painted me a picture. It’s adorable!

Tyrone gave me a Kindle, which I love! I discovered that I could put my lecture notes on it, which is a real bonus. It means I don’t have to carry around lots of books and notes with me. And it fits perfectly in my handbag. He also gave a beautiful bracelet, a mug with the Joker on it (to match my Harley Quinn mug ) and some of my favourite chocolates. I bought Tyrone Lego, which I believe is the perfect gift for any man. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you all want Lego, even if you don’t want to admit it! I also bought him the Lego Lord of the Rings game for PC.

I really do feel like a very lucky girl. Next stop, my 19th birthday on the 6th of January!

With Christmas over it means it’s nearly the start of a new year. 2012 has been a year of big changes for me. It’s been stressful and scary, but there has also been a hell of a lot of good times. My favourite memory? Well that’s a difficult question. I guess travelling is always a highlight for me and my cruise around the Mediterranean Sea was one of the most incredible experiences. But there have been so many memories and I have spent them with wonderful people.

So what’s new for 2013? I have some idea of where I would like to be this time next year but I’ve got a lot of work to do to get there. In life it’s difficult to make plans because everything changes from day to day and you never know what is going to happen. But I can hope and I can dream. So this year I won’t be making any new year resolutions. Instead I’m going to create a list of things that I would like to achieve in 2013. A list of things that are more measurable than resolutions.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Here are some pictures of my presents to finish…

Kindle from Tyrone.

Record player.

Pete Townshend’s autobiography.

The picture my brother painted for me.