Anticipated Yumminess

I've just used www.graze.com for the first time, and ordered a box of yummy nibbles to be delivered on Thursday. I can't wait.
Almost everything on the site looked delicious, and you can pick and choose what they send you.

You should give it a go, and if you do, use the code H514HVZ and you'll get your first box absolutely free!



And now to business:
day 5- a picture of somewhere you've been


This is Positano, a little town in Italy I visited a couple years back. It's by far the most magical place I have ever been. It's on a cliffside, and there are no roads in the actual town just winding paths and lots of steps.

We took the bus there from Sorrento, where we were staying, walked down the hundreds and hundred of steps and spent the day at the market by the seaside, and the lovely little ice cream parlours. If you've never had real Italian ice cream you haven't lived.

And instead of walking all the way back up to the bus, we got the boat back to the hotel which stopped out at sea for a while so we could go swimming.

It was such a perfect day, and such a wonderful place.
And believe it or not, they had a Lacoste shop there!


Day 3/4

day 3- a picture of you as a child
day 4- a habit that you wish you didn’t have

Unfortunately, because I'm not living with my parents right now I don't have any pictures of me as a child. But if you must know, I was bleach blonde, blue eyed and had a gap in my teeth.


But day 4, that I can do.
I've got a bazillion habits I wish I didn't have.


I have a habit of becoming nocturnal. I don't know how it happens, it just does. I'm like an extreme night owl.

I procrastinate, a lot. That's definitely a terrible habit.

If I have money, I will spend it. I don't seem to comprehend the idea of "saving", and that is not a good habit to get into.



But I'm working on them. Is it possible to be without any bad habits at all?
That would be nice.

Day 2

Here we go with Day 2:
day 2- the meaning behind your blog name

Now, my blog has various names. For various reasons, mainly I couldn't settle on one.

My url is fevverwords, and this is pretty uninteresting and I mainly came up with it after a million attempts to come up with an original name. Fevvers is the name of a character in a book I was reading at the time (in fact, it's the book I said I was reading a couple posts ago, I never got far into it).

The actual title of my blog is, Les temps sont durs pour Les Rêveurs, which is a line from my all time favourite film Amelie. It means, "times are hard for dreamers". I thought it was a wonderful, original blog title, but after googling, it seems many people had the same idea as me. I love it all the same.


On a side note, I also have another Amelie quote on my blog page which is Quand le doigt montre le ciel, l'imbécile regarde le doigt. Loosely translated, this is "when a finger points to the sky, a fool looks at the finger". I adore this quote.

Finally, the image I've used as a title on the blog says yours, always. Basically, the first picture I used as a title had those words anyway, so I kind of used them as an adopted title. And when I got round to creating my own title image, I thought I'd stick with it.


And that's that!

30 Days Of Blogging - Day 1

Following in the footsteps of Lovers in a Dangerous Time and Here's Looking At You, Kid. I'm going to start, and hopefully finish the 30 days of blogging task which is as follows (meaning, you should give it a go too!)

day 1- recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself
day 2- the meaning behind your blog name
day 3- a picture of you as a child
day 4- a habit that you wish you didn’t have
day 5- a picture of somewhere you've been
day 6- favorite super hero and why
day 7- a picture of someone/something that has had the biggest impact on you
day 8- short term goals for this month and why
day 9- something you're proud of in the past few days
day 10- songs you listen to when you are happy, sad, bored, hyped, mad
day 11- write a bucket list of things you want to do before you die
day 12- write a poem to someone you love
day 13- your 5 favorite books and why
day 14- a picture of you and your family
day 15- put your ipod on shuffle: first 10 songs that play
day 16- a picture of yourself
day 17- someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why
day 18- plans/dreams/goals you have
day 19- write about a sweet memory from your past
day 20- write a letter to someone
day 21-a picture of something that makes you happy
day 22- what makes you different from everyone else
day 23- something you crave a lot
day 24- post your favorite quote or verse of scripture and why
day 25- what I would find in your bag
day 26- list 10 things that you are thankful for
day 27- my day job verses my passion
day 28- cruise a thesaurus and pick out 10 words you like the sound of
day 29 - favorite tv shows and why you like them
day 30 - movies you can watch again and again.



So here goes day 1...

This is me at the street party in Edinburgh at New Year (I'm on the right)



And here are the 15 "interesting" facts about myself...


1. I was born in Sussex (South of England) but have lived most of my life in Scotland. Also for a short time I lived in Cyprus and Germany.

2. I'm quite into politics. In fact, I was one of the 1000 students who travelled down to England for the infamous protests in London (disclaimer, I was a peaceful protester)as well as taking part in the many protests which happened in Edinburgh following that. If you don't know, we were protesting an increase in tuition fees, education cuts, and the abolishment of EMA.

3. Biggest procrastinator you will ever meet.

4. I've got a thing about French films, and anything French really. I know it's corny, and cliché, but when I went to Paris I utterly fell in love with it there. I don't know what it is about it, it's just special.

5. Coffee is a big part of my life.

6. I have a little brother and a little sister. I say little, my brother is almost 17 and my sister is 13.

7. I have just realised that my brother is almost 17 and that is a scary thought.

8. In keeping with age related facts, I turn 21 this year!

9. I go to University in Edinburgh, but not to the University OF Edinburgh. This confuses some people.

10. I love almost all kinds of music. Especially live, nothing beats live music.

11. In the future, I want to work with pharmaceuticals. Hopefully in a lab somewhere, researching new drugs. But I change my mind a lot.

12. I want to learn to speak fluent French one day.

13. I play the piano and drums, a little.

14. I am high disorganised, but am endeavouring to change that.

15. And finally, that's not my natural hair colour! I'm more a mousy-brown.



Ciao x

Hello again

I wish I could say that the last week I have been super productive, so much so that I couldn't even squeeze in the time to write a little blog to let you all know how super productive I am being.

Unfortunately this is not the case.

For the past week I've been flitting between feeling horribly ill or simply feeling, for lack of an appropriate word, "eugh".
The only thing I did manage to achieve this week, was to become fully nocturnal. Which is not so much of an achievement, but more of an annoyance, as I'm now ready to join the world again in daylight hours.


One good thing though, at the beginning of last week I got a phone call from my parents asking if I got any time off in October. They wanted to go on holiday and wanted me to house/dog sit. Unfortunately, I don't get any time off from September to Christmas. And when I asked where they were going I was utterly surprised. Cyprus.

I feel I should point out now that my father has issues parting with even the smallest amount of money.
So I convinced them to take me with them.

I've always wanted to go back to Cyprus. We lived there when I was about 2 because my father was in the Military Police. I don't remember it at all, but in all the pictures it looked beautiful.

So we've booked the flights and a lovely little villa in a village near the beach and the mountains, away from all the nausiatingly touristy/clubby places which Cyprus is becoming famous for.

These are the sea caves there (Peyia)


I've also decided to make an effort to start reading again. I went through a phase this Summer of buying lots of books, and even a bookshelf. So now I have a bookshelf full of wonderful books which I have barely made a dent in.

I'm going to start off with Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter.

New Look

After faffing about with Template Designer for far too long, I've finally come up with something I like. Complete with custom image header, huzzah!

What are 5 things someone must know about you to understand you?

I was asked this question on formspring, and thought it would the perfect thing to muse and blog about on this otherwise lazy Sunday afternoon.

Firstly, I am one of those people who genuinely appreciate time alone with themselves. I'm not anti-social, but I can't be around people constantly all the time. I have friends and family, who I love dearly and with whom I enjoy spending time, but I am perfectly content spending time alone and doing things that I enjoy. Reading, writing, drawing, cooking a little. This does not mean that I don't like spending time with others, this does not mean that I am weird, or a recluse. And I guess this is something you must know about me to understand me.

I am probably the least confrontational person you will ever meet, or read their blog. I used to be painfully shy, but through high school I came out of my shell, but I still don't have the ability to confront or argue with someone, or even show my true emotions. Other than with my immediate family, I have only ever argued with one person, once. He was my boyfriends, now ex, and he was drunk at the time so it doesn't really count. And I very rarely show my true emotions, or my true feelings. If I'm happy or course I'll show it, but if I'm sad, hurt, etc, I usually don't feel comfortable confiding in even the closest of friends. And that's just the way I am.

Third on my list, is that I'm not one of those people that can be categorised into either scientific-minded or creatively-minded. I am studying biochemistry at the moment, and it's something I'm very passionate about learning about. Excuse my geekiness, but it's true. But people seem to think that if you study a science, and have chosen science as a career path, that you can't be creative, or appreciate art. Now I don't consider myself particularly creative, but I do appreciate art. And I enjoy drawing, it calms me. Music as well, I adore practically any genre of music, including classical (however excluding drum and bass, grime, dance etc). I suppose this isn't so much a big part of my personality, but it's important to me nonetheless.

Penultimately, I'm a procrastinator. And I'm sure there are many of us out there. I'm utterly terrible at leaving things to the last minute. From handing in the essay, to getting ready to leave the flat, to paying the rent, everything in every aspect of my life is procrastinated. And it's ridiculous! That's why this year my new years resolution is to be more organised, subheading: don't procrastinate. And it's going well. But then again, it has only been 16 days...

And here we are at the last hurdle, and I'd like to point out that this is a lot more difficult than it seems.

Finally, I'm not as confident as I'd like to be. And I guess this ties in with the second point, but I feel it merits its own paragraph. You come across people that are so confident in themselves, of their opinions, of anything, and I wish I could be more like them. I struggle to, not have an opinion, but make it known to others. I sometimes hold back from making big changes in my life, such as studying abroad for a year, because I lack confidence - I should point out this isn't the only reason, but it does play its part. But again, this is something I'm working on, because I refuse to let my life be characterised by what I'm too scared to do. In just over a year, I'll be graduating and looking for a job, a career, a new life. And I simply can't let lack of confidence affect these big decisions, it wouldn't be right and I don't think I could forgive myself if I did.


Anyway, that's my lot. And it wasn't easy. This is probably the most honest I've been with myself for a good while, but it was interesting.
And I hope some of you will have a bash at answering it.

'Til next time. x

First Week

And so the first week is officially over, and it's been an anticlimax or sorts. I think I expected to get straight into work with lots and lots to do, but I'm not complaining.
Today I had a lecture about our Research Studies module, basically explaining what it is we have to do - a literary review on either a subject of our choosing or a subject chosen by our tutors depending on whether we get a nice tutor or not.

I've already emailed mine asking if I can do drug metabolism or something along those lines. I figured I'd email asking before he had a chance to make ones up to give us, so hopefully I'll get to do it anyway. Here's hoping.
It will finally be my chance to do a piece of work entirely on my own that I am genuinely really interested in. And excuse my geeky side, but I'm quite excited about that.

And now for the weekend!

Has anyone noticed

Almost everyone on Blogger seems to be married, getting married, in a serious relationship, pregnant, or with children. And if they don't fall into one or more of these categories, they certainly aspire too.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
It's just not me at all.



Wine times.

My day off yesterday was beautifully unproductive. And in the evening we got dolled up, went out and met up with some friends, which was lovely. Admittedly, I did get excessively drunk but I did have a marvellous time, even waiting for a taxi in the pouring rain at 3am this morning.

However, I did end up not going into Uni for my morning class. I knew I couldn't survive the bus ride in. But, in keeping with my new years resolution, I'm going to go over the lecture myself now, write myself up some notes and read about it in the textbook. I refuse to let myself fall behind this semester, and in the coming weeks if I do seem to be letting things slip, please feel free to shout abuse at me. No really.

This is a happy post.

Hello lovelies.

The exam has been and gone, and without going into extraordinary detail (I realise so far I have mostly talked about nothing except Uni), it went ok. Two exam questions. One was a marvellous god-send, and one was ok. Overall, not nearly as bad as I expected.
And so began my good mood of the day!

In order to celebrate me finishing exams, me and my darling flatmate Natasha and our friend Natalie decided to make fajitas this evening. Which were delicious, I might add.

I also, for the first time I can remember, made cupcakes. I don't know why, but I was in such a good mood I thought I'd give it a bash. So I looked up a basic recipe, got my ingredients, plus I decided to be creative and add lemon extract to the mixture.

They were delicious!

And I'm going to put this in perspective for you. I barely cook, let alone bake anything. I struggle coping with more that one pan at a time, so as you can imagine, I'm not entirely talented in the kitchen. And may I also point out that we don't own a set of scales, so all my amounts were guesstimated.

And I'm so happy they turned out beautifully. Lovely lemony cupcakes, with vanilla buttercream icing and decorated with mini chocolate "jazzies".




Here they are. Now I know they may not look much to you, but it's certainly an achievement for me.
Perhaps I'll try something more adventurous next time.


So that's part of the reason I'm in such a good mood. And the fact I have a day off tomorrow. And not just any day off, a day off in which there is really not an awful lot to do at all. Which feels extremely odd, in a good way. I've been bogged down with so much work in the past months, that any day I've taken off is never fully enjoyed because in the back of my mind, I know there are so many things I need to do.

But its the beginning of the semester, no work has been set. Not even a proper lecture to go over yet. I have a completely free day and I'm relishing the thought.

So, as well as venturing into the world of baking and general use of foreign kitchen utensils (eg. a spatula), I've decided to get back into reading again. Hopefully branch into some new genres. I've always been very book fussy, sticking to the same genres, the same kinds of stories, and authors. Or in fact sticking to the same kind of books altogether.

So I'll be looking for any good books anyone has to recommend.
As well as any good recipes!


I can tell, this year is going to be good.

Yikes

Off to do my exam, having done hardly any work for it. And this is no exaggeration.





Wish me luck!

I may have bitten off more than I can chew...

Two posts in one day, good lord. You can tell I have plenty to get on with, I only ever seem to post when I have much to do.

First day of semester over and done with and I am already feeling an overwhelming amount of work looming above my head, ready to drop on me with an almighty crash in the coming weeks.

Admittedly, last semester I put zero effort in, and it shows. And so, vowing that this semester would be different, I vowed to myself that this time it would be different. And different it will be, not to mention stressful, and probably soul-destroying. But let's not dwell on that.

Firstly, one of my four modules this year, is Research Methods, which constitutes zero lectures aside from the introductory one. Essentially it's a literary review, almost like a mini dissertation. And it looks a heck of a lot of work. And what is most daunting is that there are no lectures. It requires planning, and organisation, in order to pass. Unfortunately, I have never been able to comprehend the idea of planning in advance let alone actually putting it in practise. But I live in hope.

Next, we have my three other modules: Microbial Pathology, Microbial Physiology and Cell Biology. All of which, for once, I have a genuine interest in. But nevertheless require a butt-load of personal reading blah blah. Pathology also includes another mini-dissertation task, which just sounds delightful.

And by no means am I done yet. Last semester I applied, successfully, to do a pilot course run by an insurance company, during term time. Why I thought I would be able to manage another course on top of my modules, I don't know. But it was a really fantastic opportunity. It's an employability course, and teaches essential skills, like interviewing or assessment centre skills in order to give you the edge when applying for graduate level jobs. It also incorporates a certified Financial Planning Qualification, which couldn't hurt to have lurking on my C.V.

And finally, I am a School Officer for Life Sciences at my Uni, which means I help organise the class representatives, and represent the students and voice their opinions, concerns etc to the Uni itself or to the Union. We had our first meeting of the semester tonight, and good lord there's a lot to be doing this semester.


So I'm officially worried. And I have an exam tomorrow.
Which, I'm pretty sure, won't allocate me marks for blogging skills so I'd best get back to work.

Night all.
H x

New Semester, New Start.

Today is the first day of a new semester, one of which I am determined to do better in. My new years resolution this year mainly, is to be more organised. More specifically, generally be a better student. So far, through the past two and a half years, I've coasted along doing just enough to pass. And it occurred to me the other day, how ridiculous this is. After all, it was my decision to go to University. It was my decision to further my eduction in this area, so why would I not put the effort in?
And so, hopefully this thought will provide me with the much needed motivation to get me successfully through the semester.

In honesty, I am rather excited about this semester. Specifically the modules I will be taking, which I had already known I was going to do as soon as I saw them when I was in first year. Microbial pathology. To me, sounds like heaven. I've always been interested in diseases, not in a morbid way, but I guess as I have worked, and do work in healthcare, I've seen the real-life side of these diseases and it's satisfying being able to understand it on another level.
And although, through my years at Uni, my interests have shifted from microbiology to biochemistry, more specifically drugs (in keeping which my interests in healthcare). I really do hope this lives up to my expectations.

I feel I should point out that "excited" probably isn't the best word to use here. But, through lack of knowing how to explain it, it's just been this thing that I have been secretly looking forward to.

However, before I can begin to look forward to that, I have to focus my attention on the exam, which was cancelled during exam time and has been rescheduled for tomorrow. For which I have done little to no work.
But I'm oddly not worried about it at all. What I'm more, not worried, but mildly irritated about it is that it has been scheduled during one of my classes. A lecture followed by a lab session. Which means I will miss them, which annoys me simply because, as part of my new years resolution I was going to attend all classes. Or as many as humanly possible.

Anyway, as my cup of coffee has emptied itself, I think a refill is in order. Thanks to the Christmas Holidays, I forgot that this time in the morning even existed.


And before I forget, Merry Belated Christmas, and Happy Late New Year!