Big news

It has been WAY too long since the last French post so watch this space because there will be a post on French words trés trés soon. 

I do not know if I have mentioned this before but I'm MOVING TO PARIS!

It was so last minute, only confirmed last month but paperwork is still dragging along. I am now taking a year out of university, and working in Paris for the next year starting from September. I decided that learning French in a classroom was too slow of a way to learn French for me, so I signed up for a scheme  (http://www.britishcouncil.org/language-assistants) where you can teach English in France.

After a taste of living abroad on my ERASMUS in the Netherlands I decided I hadn't quite gotten enough. I am super nervous, because I don't know anyone in Paris, my French is extremely poor right now Paris is hella expensive and I haven't even found anywhere to live yet! But life is an adventure and each new big experience that puts me out of my comfort zone is almost an adrenalin rush for me. 

Here's to making it through 9 months in Paris. 

How not to lose your virginity

1) With a stranger

No, no! Don't do it! Trust me from experience, it's not fun, it's not pretty the next morning, and it's never a good story to tell your future boyfriend when he questions how you lost your v card. 

As corny as it sounds, wouldn't you rather have sex with someone you're comfortable?

2) With some douchebag/play/BNOC (big name on campus)

You will expect great sex but it will be mediocre at best. He does not care about you, he merely wants to add to his sex-count, and he will probably have no idea what he is doing. Because BNOC's generally have no problem getting laid, therefore it is not about pleasing you, it is about pleasing him.

3) Drunk

When you feel dizzy and slightly nauseous, it's not the best idea to lose your virginity. Being sick on someone during intercourse sure is memorable but not in all the right ways. Not remembering who the guy was that you lost your virginity to isn't a great idea either. 

4) With the LAD

Or more specifically, someone so very keen to be a lad, and tries awfully hard to be one as well. You will notice this specimen through the following traits: a desire to prove their masculinity to other males, a vague smell of insecurity in their manhood, and of course the constant repetition of the word, lad.

"Terry is such a lad cause he downed that pint."
"Ben slept with that slut from last night, what a lad!"
"I can't believe you flipped her off mate, you're such a lad."

Unless of course this is your type of guy.

To each their own. Chacun à son goût.

Studying abroad

Hollaaa my long lost sweet blog,

It's been months! And I'm sorry, I really am. But there is a brilliant excuse behind this: I spend the last semester studying abroad in the Netherlands, in the most beautiful, exciting, quaint place called Maastricht.

I also didn't want to be that kid posting every week about my adventures because honestly, do you really want to hear about how great the ice cream was at Luxembourg (7/10 max.) and how I did all the clichéd things in Brussels? No. I am no expert when it comes to the best beer in Germany and this is not a travel blog. This is a fucking categorically confused blog so let's try and stick to that.

Dear me, what a great couple of months though. I had the fucking time of my life, and it was the happiest I could remember being. I swear to you there must have been something in the water in Maastricht because I would just be riding my bike to the shops, or to university, thinking about how beautiful everything was. Maybe because everything was beautiful in Maastricht, here is a sample:

(Maastricht town hall)

(My faculty, Fasos, at Maastricht University)

(A road near the inner-city library in Maastricht)

(Maastricht from the highest point in the Netherlands)

It was everything, from the good company of my flatmates and everyone I'd met, to the good food, good drinks and the lovely Maastricht streets. This has just increased my hearts desire to travel, and if anyone is hesitant about doing a semester abroad (especially if you're in England), DO IT. Don't even think, not for a second, just do it. You might feel lonely for the first couple of weeks, but the rest of time will be worthwhile. You'll learn so much about yourself, about your country, and about the world.

If you're studying at sixth form in England right now, seriously consider going abroad for university. I wish I had. It's places like Maastricht that make you realize that there's more to the world.

This is the thing, travelling changes you. If you have done it right it makes you wiser, more appreciative and you can be damn sure that your views on the world will not be the same as when you started. My heart aches from the lost piece that I left in Maastricht but isn't that always the trouble with travelling? You leave pieces of your heart scattered, miles away with people or places. Is it worth it? Always.

Leaving

My life has taken some pretty alarming turns since I last posted on this blog. If I remember correctly, I was mopey over a relationship that clearly wasn't meant to be but oh wow have things changed. I finally got the guy who I've been pining after since October (since the first time I met him, how cheesy), a guy who treats me so well, who's lovely and better than anything I could have imagined, and what timing too. About a month after we got together it turned out I had to leave because I was doing a semester abroad. I rarely fall for many men as hard as I've fallen for Pug (let's call The Boy that shall we?), which made leaving so much harder.

We've agreed to carry things on while I'm in the Netherlands studying at the University of Maastricht but boy does it suck.

I won't lie to you, I hated leaving. I didn't think I would be as emotional or regretful but I was a mess on the last day. Tears, hating every second of saying goodbye, more tears, lots of awkward silences as I'm not the best person when it comes to saying the right thing. God I loathed it. It seemed more like a final goodbye because the chances were, after this semester I might go on a placement year and my best friends will have graduated by then. As will have Pug, who is currently in his final year.

I don't dare to think how much I'll hate to say goodbye to my mother who might not be able to come and see me off.

I suppose goodbyes are always hard when you know that there's a possibility that you will never return to that same place in your life again. My heart breaks as I think of all the nights I will never spend getting beers in a pub with the friends I once made, or never spending another evening lazing around in someone's room, talking about all the people we hate and how unfair life is. As Hugh Laurie once said:

“It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”"

Maybe this is true. I know I've never been one to worry about being ready before, I tend to go with the flow but once you have something that is worth staying for, I suppose being ready is required. 

How to get over all the embarrassing shit you do when you're drunk

Hey there drunkards who do embarrassing shit all the time,

Oh wait, maybe that's just me talking about myself.

You got it, I'm a drunk mess. And this is one of those mornings after when I'm not sure if I'm sober or not but every action of mine last night just makes me cringe and want to shop a lot. Like a lot. Spending nearly half my student loan kind of lot.

So let me tell you how your drunk or embarrassing stories can be no worse than mine. Take last night. I pretty much got talking to a really cute guy who seemed into me and vomited all over his leg. Then he tried to put me in a taxi and I wouldn't budge and kept on saying no because I refused to get in a taxi without him. At this point I must have been such a mess I don't blame him for wanting out. And I'm sure I did some more embarrassing and surely offending things, like asking someone if he was gay.

Yes. Classy lady aren't I?

So here's how to get over it:

You don't.

Sure it'd help if you tried to laugh it off but really, only time can make you feel less self concious about it.

Time, lots of episodes of Suits and good food.

Take it from someone who has been there many times and back.

Updates

Hey there good looking,

Yeah, I totally meant you because I am a shameless flirt. 

Enough so that the other night as a joke I told a guy that  if he wasn't doing anything for his birthday I'd give him an invitation to the pants party. He didn't get that it was from Anchorman and later on text me his address. 

So I should apologize for my lack of activity on this blog. As you might have guessed, I am back at university which means the party animal in me has been unleashed and I've been spending the last week partly drunk which would not make for a good blog post. 

Also I have been bombarded with reading to do and lots of work and events and argh I can't even. It feels like there's so much to do (in a good way) but so little time. It doesn't help that my application for a studying abroad is due in soon, as are my forms for a work placement. 

I shall try to review a face mask soon or talk about something vaguely interesting, instead of telling you these sorry excuses. 

You stay classy blog readers.

Appreciation

So it is that time of year again, where I move out of London and back to university. Where I spend four days panicking and the last hour hurriedly packing everything that catches my eye. Even the three mini garden gnomes I somehow have managed to find in my room.

It all fills me with a bitter-sweet emotion because I love my family, and I love how I never have to pay for food, but I can't wait to see my friends again and party hard get my shit together this year.

It's like that feeling you get when you go back to school after the summer holidays and you just feel a bit like a new born deer. You've just been away from everything for so long, and you just never want to step out of your front door because you know it will mean that you have to leave all those long summer days behind.

But you do, you step out of your front door, you go back to school and it turns out to be okay.

Hopefully this year won't be go badly for me.

So after an eventful summer, where I begrudgingly worked at a superstore, gave a presentation at a conference full of lecturers, actually went to a conference full of lecturers, started my blog and learnt to appreciate my family, it's time to go back.

It's been a good four months.

Hello Fresher

Hey there,

So I know this might be a little late but I thought I'd make a post about some tips for freshers! Firstly, I would like to say congratulations for getting into university! You are going to have the finest, most memorable and crazy years of your life there.

We've all heard about the mental partying, missing home, not being able to cook for yourself and the work hard, play hard aspect of university. So let me not bore you with that and instead give you some small tips to overcome unusual/not so spoken about problems that I discovered last year:

1. If you live in a self-catered hall you will most probably have to do your own dishes and won't have a dishwasher. Now here's what you shouldn't do. Put your sponge in the sink assuming that it will not be destroyed and eventually have more food than sponge on it.

2.  You will run out of tissue paper. And kitchen tissue rolls.


3. If you are a girl you will have to shave/wax every other freakin' day for nights out. So be wise and get some tops with sleeves and leggings with patterns on it or something?

4. Eventually all your clothes will smell of spilled alcohol from nights out/generally smell because you just haven't washed them since you've gotten there. As will you bedsheets. And you'll have crumbs on them from all the times you eat in bed watching shit on your laptop. 

So either spray that shit with perfume/do NOT forget to do a massive wash. Or you will smell and drive all your shiny new friends away. 

5. You will meet a lot of people on nights out. But here's the thing, sometimes you want to meet people who actually like the same things as you. So a lot of people might tell you not to go crazy and sign up for a lot of societies but don't do the complete opposite and sign up for nothing.

Don't end up joining nothing and eventually realizing that it's too late to sign up for anything at all. 

That'll be THE best way to meet people who aren't in your course and live in your halls. Because by the end of the year you'll feel like you've limited yourself so much. 

There you are. All done. 

I really hope they helped and these aren't just problems that I faced. 

Once again, although I'm sure you've heard it before, don't get so pissed at freshers that you don't know what you're doing. And don't do something stupid while you're that drunk like losing your virginity or passing out in a field in the middle of nowhere. 

Also, try to redecorate the pavement with your vomit because I don't want to see that shit you animal.  

(Also avoid your kitchen table/bed)

On that note, good bye and RIP to FMF