Valentine's Day

  Last year, I did a very anti Valentine's Day post and you can find it here. It really makes me laugh how cold I was. This year, part of V Day was spent in a two hour class where we discussed Beauvoir's views on how women are oppressed by men in society. Ouch. I actually really enjoyed reading Beauvoir's 'Le Deuxième Sexe' and I would even go as far as to say that it's my favourite part of my compulsory philosophy unit. Beauvoir's main idea is that one is not born a woman; one becomes a woman due to the limits that are set by the patriarchal society, which benefits from keeping women in an inferior position in society. Some of her views, especially those on marriage and motherhood, are quite extreme and I don't agree with them but I would definitely recommend the book as it is often cited as what started the second wave of feminism. But I am digressing. This post is about V Day.

  From my last post, it is evident that I have had a 'change of heart' regarding the whole notion of 'dating'. I still stand by what seventeen year old Kenny said about it being stupid to rush into a relationship at a young age and being forced to do certain things due to peer pressure. However, I now firmly believe in the importance of 'speaking now', and not letting love pass you by. This is something that I have been trying to work on as I am very, very private person and few people are privy to my true feelings on things.

  As always, it is as if my sister has read my mind and she has managed to sum up all that I'm trying to say here. I know I'm not making much sense at the moment but what I want to say about Valentine's Day is that yes, it is overly commercialised but one should still show love and this day gives people that opportunity to be bold. People should just try and be that bold and loving on an everyday basis. I had a lovely V Day with friends and I am so blessed to be surrounded by loving people.

PS- I'm not really married; it's just a college marriage.

Thursday, half eight.

  So, this resolution isn't going too well...I blame second term stress and myself mostly for not reading enough during the holidays and signing myself up for too many social things. I have been incredibly busy and I'll have some very exciting news soon, but here's a poem that I wrote on one thing that happened recently. Enjoy!


"Hey, I know we only talked briefly, but I thought you seemed great,
Can we go for a drink, how's Thursday at eight?"

Flattered, shocked, worried all at once,
Is this what I think it means, or am I being a dunce?

What if it's awkward and what if I say the wrong thing?
Or he misunderstands me and thinks I want a 'fling'?

Stop it, I tell myself, stop overthinking it,
Just answer his message and take it bit by bit.

Thursday comes and brings many nerves,
But he made the first move and I'm new to this so I'll observe.

My worries turn out to be absolutely silly,
As we only buy one drink each, talk for nearly three hours, laugh and forget that it's chilly.

Am I finally ready to put myself out there,
To start accepting dates and opening up my 'cold' heart?
I don't know, but going for a drink at half eight seems like a good start.

Death Comes to Pemberley

  Oh yes, death did come to Pemberley and it destroyed Jane Austen's much loved characters. The period drama mini-series that the BBC shows over the Christmas holidays is a well-known and eagerly anticipated tradition that rounds up the festive period but this year's (2013's) offering was quite disappointing.

  'Death Comes to Pemberley' is an adaptation of PD James' 2009 murder mystery novel of the same time, a sequel to Pride and Prejudice that occurs six years after the events of the much loved story. PD James' novel and the BBC adaptation follows the aftermath of a murder in Pemberley Woods that throws the Darcy family into chaos as the main suspect is the scandalous rogue, George Wickham. Now, this writer has very strong  views about sequels to well known classics but that is a post for another day. There were many things wrong with this period drama.

  First of all, not everyone would have been able to follow it as you'd have to be quite familiar with the Pride and Prejudice story to understand the characters and their motivations, (If you haven't read P&P, do so, NOW). Secondly, in my opinion, Anna Maxwell Martin looked too old playing Elizabeth, who is supposed to be around twenty-six at this point. In fact, at times, she even looked older than Matthew Rhys' Fitzwilliam Darcy and Alexandra Moen's Jane Bingley! In addition, the liveliness and wit that P&P fans associate with the character of Elizabeth was lost in this adaptation and replaced with pointless, forlorn and solemn glances.

  Thirdly, the spark between Elizabeth and Darcy seemed to be lost for most of this adaptation and when it was eventually 'regained', it was done in an unneeded manner that ironically seemed to take away the sensitivity and high level of romance that readers love so much about the characters, (vague so as not to give away spoilers).

  The adaptation wasn't all bad, though. Jenna Coleman was spot on as the ever childish Lydia Wickham, even bringing out a vulnerable element to the character that made audiences able to empathise with her predicament and pity her. Eleanor Tomlinson was beautiful as Georgiana Darcy, giving more depth to the character than audiences are used to seeing and Rebecca Front's Mrs Bennett was wonderfully overbearing and irritating. The location and costumes were also spectacular, so one can at least say the drama was pretty to look at.

  Maybe the novel is better than the lacklustre adaptation that the BBC provided. I really hope that it is.

Rating 5/10

I AM AWFUL

 Twenty three days into 2014 and I've already broken one of my goals of posting here every week. In my defence, with returning back to college, I have been incredibly busy with revising for 'collections', which are mock exams at the start of each term, getting my stuff together and unpacking my room again as I have to move out every term which is a long 'ting and just general, little admin stuff which took up a lot of my time when added together. I was also with my sister for a few days at her university which was a lot of fun and she was a great host.

  However, I am now somewhat settled once again back into college life and I will make up the blog posts that I missed. Forgive me!

Bonne Année, 2014!

  Happy New Year! I am so, so excited for 2014 because 2013 was absolutely awesome and as 14 is my favourite number, I have big hopes for 2014 and I know that it will be even greater than 2013 was. Highlights of 2013 included; getting 5/5 university offers, 'The Dragon Trilogy', getting a high merit in my Grade 8 singing exam even though I can't sight read (bantz), going to two proms, 'singing camp' in the summer, becoming better friends with great people, starting university in October and many more memories. I have a lot to be thankful to God for and words can't express how grateful I am to Him for all that He has blessed me with. I'm happy to say that I met 3/4 of my New Year's resolutions so, here are the resolutions for 2014:

- Post on this blog at least 52 times this year. once a week is the minimum.
*amended on Wednesday 28th May 2014*

- Pray and read my Bible more.

- Save money.

- Exercise more- do more sport at uni and even maybe start running.

- Be nicer to my little brother, AD.

- Make more of an effort with people, even if they're not too responsive, don't give up.

That's all for now, folks. I go back to university in fifteen days and I've done very little of the work that I've been set so I'd better get cracking!

My holiday message

   Once again, my sister and I are in sync and she's said everything that I wanted to say about Christmas this year on her most recent blog post- http://medicineandtai.wordpress.com/2013/12/25/a-sentimental-message/.
      If you're not following her blog, what are you doing with yourself?! Happy holiday, everyone :)

I survived!

  Michaelmas term ended on the 7th of December and I am now home for the holidays! I survived my first term at university, thank God and
huzzah! Although I've been home for over a week now, I feel like my holidays have only just begun because one of my tutors set an essay that was due in the first week of the holidays (absolute nightmare!). So, I slaved over that for a few days and was hugely stressed, despite being home and term being over. However, I finished the essay and sent it on Friday and now I can relax. (I'm choosing to ignore the fact that I have over ten books to read for next term, excluding secondary reading, and collections, which are tests at the start of each term to revise for for now.) There's no rest for the wicked as I'm back at work and panto season is absolute madness but it's great to be back with old work pals.

So, what have I learned in my first term at uni?

1) It is possible to do Freshers' Week completely sober and you can still have sooo much fun.

2) Procrastinaps are amazing and they can get you through the day and stressful situations.

3) I am most productive in the early hours of the morning/ working in completely darkness with headphones in and my hood up, completely blocking out the world.

4) I now dislike songs such as Avicii's 'Wake Me Up' and Jason Derulo's 'Talk Dirty' due to the fact that they were wayyy overplayed during Freshers' Week.

5) I can survive and be my own person without my twin sister (even though it was a very weird experience at first). I've always thought that the fact that I'm cheerful and chipper most of the time is because my sister's always been there by my side, to laugh at my poor jokes and be weird with me. But at uni, I realised that I'm like this by myself and my sister is as well.

6) Access is a very touchy subject for me, something that I strongly believe in and that I will work at improving whilst I'm at university.

7) I'm still a massive keeno; the KEENny nickname has reached university.

8) My university is not as snobby as I was lead to believe; I've met so many great people that are from state schools, independent schools and public schools that I hope to be friends with for a long time.
And so on.

I'm already missing uni (the people, definitely not the workload aha) but I am glad to be home and I'm also glad to be reunited with my favourite people. Shout out to my bestfriend, Rosie, who is currently travelling the world on a gap yah and still takes the time to read my blog. Love ya, Chicken, and missing you lots and lots. I hope to watch more films and do more reading so that I can review stuff on here like I used to but we will see. Cheerio for now.