Random news blogpost.

I just read the thing about the mother suffering from post natal depression and killing her children.

I find it really admirable that the husband can forgive the wife for killing their children. It's really brave of him to stand up for her in court and defend her even though she'd taken away something precious from him.

When people read the article, I noticed that a lot of comments weren't negative towards the mother even though she'd just killed two innocent children. Of course, I feel the same way - I don't think anyone can judge her on what she's done because no one knows how traumatic post natal depression can be unless they've had it or are experiencing it. It's fine to say that the bottom line is that she's killed her children but at the same time, I feel like she'll be paying for that in her own way throughout her whole life. She doesn't need a jail sentence because she'll be reminded of it every single day for the rest of her life. I feel really sorry for her in a way.

I actually believe that she was a good mother, mental illnesses can make people do bizarre things.

Herp Derp.

Anyone else can't sleep with cold feet?

I hate feet, other people's feet touching me.

I was hanging out with my brother in his room tucked in under the same duvet and he touches me with his cold feet - I freak out like "OMG FEET DON'T TOUCH ME WITH YOUR FEEEEEEET!" It was quite funny because he started kicking me with his disgusting cold feet again and again, I guess it's what annoying brothers like to do =.=  

My skin has cleared up finally, I've been keeping a careful watch over how much water to tea ratio I've been taking in. Usually when I drink tea, I end up neglecting the amount of water I take in as well which is bad because the skin needs water, not some dehydrating tea that just goes in you and comes out the other end shortly after. Actually I tend to make my tea really strong, I've realised that I double the quantity of tea leaves to water now. I usually add 1 spoon but now it's 2 because I love the bitter kick at the end. My parents think I'm mad for drinking so much tea, but it's the only way I keep calm and carry on. I even treated my skin to a clay detox mask after cleaning today. My skin felt so lovely and smooooth, I wish it'd stay like this forever.

I'm back in my room writing an entry because my stupid brother fell asleep on me. Our definition of hanging out tends to be playing separate games on our iPhones and not even talking. Anti-social but social at the same time har har. Can you believe he fell asleep in the middle of a game? Once he fell asleep when he was on his MacBook... Yeah, with his hands still on the keyboard - how does that happen?

My parents are waking me up tomorrow to go grocery shopping with them. The only sleep in day I've had this week is Thursday T___T, my parents are determined to take my sleep in days away because they don't like me sleeping so much. It doesn't make a difference anyway because if I have no reason to wake up the next day, no matter how early I woke up on the day, I still won't be able to sleep before 3am at the very least.

We're having hotpot on Sunday as a sort of tradition for when the weather gets cold. I know it sounds odd - kinda like celebrating the cold weather? Not really a celebration though because there's nothing to celebrate. But whenever winter comes around, we always have hotpot because it makes us all warm and fuzzy inside. My Dad wants to buy beer as well and he's buying me cider now because he knows I drink it. I don't hate beer, I actually feel like I'm one of the minority of girls that can drink it without saying it's disgusting (actually beer is more tolerable when I'm already a bit drunk). I'd much rather have cider than beer though, as a personal preference.

So what am I doing now? Because I had badminton today, I got back really late so I started my extra reading for Advanced Developmental Psychology rather late. I still have one paper to read before I sleep but I always slow down near the end because I know there's not much to do. It's a bad habit because my papers and pens have been out on my desk since 4pm and it's now 1:30am. Procrastination is bad.

I'm the worst sometimes.

What judgement do you make when you decide to trust someone? How long you've known them? What they've done for you? How they helped you? 

It's really easy to say things like "trust no one" - but do you really trust no one? I feel like sometimes trust can be something that you don't realise you've given to someone until they've backstabbed you and you become affected by the pain and hurt that comes with it. I say things like "I don't trust anyone" but in fact it's amazing how much I realise how many people I've actually trusted. Of course at the same time, trust can be subjective, it can vary from lending someone your favourite shirt to trusting someone with your life. 

Trusting no one is difficult, some societies live together collectively and rely on trust. Do you really want to live your life suspecting everyone is out to get you? In some sense it's wise to be that way because then you don't get hurt. There are some people out there that don't put themselves first and foremost, the most selfless of people will always look out for others, perhaps to the extremes of even becoming a doormat for people. It's not pitiful but somehow no matter how much these people get hurt or betrayed by the people they look out for, they're always happy. I think that some people are just naturally selfless, maybe they've been brought up to care for others more than themselves but isn't there an extent to how many times someone's trust can be broken before enough is enough?  

There are also people who have had their trust broken by the people that they cared about the most, time and time again. Whether it be cheating on your partner, being let down by the same people, finding out your friend has been gossiping about you again. Whatever it is, I find it hard to see how some people can be so accepting of others back into their lives. For me, if my trust is ever broken, there are obvious grounds to totally remove them from my life, once your trust has been broken it's really hard to get it back. There's always things I can't forget. 

I guess you could say I'm not the most forgiving of people. Once someone has been a backstabber, what they did will always be in my memory. Of course, forgiveness is dependent on what they did in the first place, some things are forgiveable, some simply aren''t. 

It's this distrust or loss of trust that distances me from a lot of people. I prefer a close circle of friends over huge groups, I want to be able to trust a select few but at the same time, I don't think it's good to trust a lot of people. Maybe if you trust a lot of people this'll be reflected in how friendly and how willing you are to do things for other people. But at the same time, I feel like sometimes I have to live life pretending everyone new I meet is a total idiot.

They say trust is the basis of friendships, but I actually think that you can be friends with people without trusting them. To me, trust isn't a superficial thing, trust to me is more deep rooted. I can lend you my things without trusting you (as long as I know you'll give it back, of course - this is also debatable because if I know you'll give it back it means I trust that you'll give it back), but at the same time there may be things that I don't trust telling you for personal reasons. For me, I can say I trust someone when I tell them things I wouldn't tell others - the secret telling type thing, because I trust that you won't tell other people. Referring back to the bracketed part about lending items - to me, it's not fully trust involved because material things can be replaced, hurting my feelings by spreading secrets that I've trusted you with can't be fixed easily. 

How about trusting members of the opposite sex? Where's the line when men start to trust women and women start to trust men? In a relationship? But how well do you know this guy/girl? I don't believe in getting into a relationship half heartedly - I've made mistakes in the past, assuming certain guys are good but then find out something that just destroys every part of trust that I started building. It doesn't take much to hurt me actually, I'm not emotionally strong, I'm affected by imperfection, I overcome imperfection by accepting. But sometimes there's things I can't accept, because the grounds for forgiveness and forgetting isn't there. The reasons people give me for what they did is not acceptable and no matter how much I convince myself it'll be okay, it won't.

From a female perspective, there are times where I wonder how much a man can be trusted. When their past is unknown it's up to you to decide based on what you see. I know the past is the past, some men do horrible things and come back a new man but there are some who just never change. I'm not experienced, I might even be a bit too mature minded about things, setting expectations for certain people doesn't help either. I've tried lowering my expectations for people but sometimes you just can't get away from what you really want. You start to question if this is how you imagined your life to be like. I start to think too far into the future, considering if my ideal future life is matching with the reality before my eyes - if it isn't, I start to consider change. 

I'm not the go-with-the-flow type of person. I'm afraid of the unpredictable, I'm afraid of change, I'm afraid of the unknown. I like things to be orderly and planned in life, I like being able to imagine what my life would be like in the next 10 years. I'm a human with many flaws like everyone else, but sometimes my expectations get the better of me.   

Procrastination post.

Derp.

Today is horrible, I overslept so now I'm really de-motivated.

I spent all night making this blog look decent. As you can probably tell, I've changed the layout - I decided the font on the old layout was too small and since I type so much text, having small font is off-putting.

To say the least, I meant to wake up early and get all my work done before 3pm so I can have the night off, but that doesn't look likely. I woke up late, so now I'm feeding off sugar to get my mood and motivation back up there to do work.

I still have 2 papers to read but reading academic papers is such a chore, I'm trying to practice how to read them more efficiently to get to the information I want. One of my lecturers gave me a really good idea how to sift through the usual, very long winded introductions - usually the last sentence of the introduction explains the experimental aims and hypotheses that the study is looking at so that's quite a handy tip. I now literally skim through the introduction, skipping sections that are textbook knowledge and get straight to the results and discussion. I try not to spend more than 45 minutes reading one paper if possible. I just feel so demotivated whenever I'm faced with a 20+ page paper that contain multiple experiments meaning multiple explanations of results and multiple conclusions.

I'm doing additonal reading for Organisational Psychology today. I do like the course so far but the content is very dry, it reminds me a lot of social psychology with a little bit of personality and individual differences from last year just applied in a business context. It is interesting to see how businesses use psychology to employ the best people, motivate workers for maximum efficiency, why employers use psychological tests etc. But of course we all know some businesses use them in the wrong way and end up judging people wrongly because of a score in a psychological measure or an IQ test. Actually this is off topic because the reading I'm doing today is on how people categorise themselves as part of an organisation that differentiates them from other companies. Dry.

In other news, my laptop is officially dying. Core temperature is currently 83 degrees C. Back in the day when it was fine, it was around 50-60. I'm just waiting for the moment it hits over 90 degrees and breaks down completely (actually that would be a bad thing because this is the fastest laptop I have access to right now... My netbook is too small to do any kind of reading on). I suspect taking the CPU fan out and giving it a clean would help but that takes too much time and effort so I'm just going to stick with it until the end of November. I can't wait to get all frustrated using a MacBook, I'm going to miss Windows so much.

But you know as they say, it's time to move on and adapt.

I promise I'll post something more meaningful when I have time. I miss making deep-centred-thoughts type posts. My life is all uni and work right now, I'm married to my psychology textbooks, remember?

The weather in London is a total let down.

Monday - fog, mist, disgusting spitty type rain. My hair was outrageous by the time I got home and I estimate, I only spent around 10 minutes walking in the rain at that time.

Tuesday - same as Monday, except I was clever enough to tie my hair up that day.

Wednesday - same but no spitty rain, my hair survived today.

Anyway I didn't make this to talk about my hair but rather, my week. I thought I'd blog about the "end of my week" on a Wednesday because technically, it is the end of my week as I have no more uni hours. In a way it depresses me that I only get 6 contact hours this year. I'd want more so I feel like I'm paying £3k worth of tuition, but on the flipside, having so much spare time to get my reading done and my notes up to date, project sorted out, I even have time to be OCD about what my notes are named as on my netbook. Can't really complain about that. I'm somewhat determined to have no life this year apart from uni and placement. I'm so excited for my hospital placement - I know, I sound so lame but I'd love to work in a hospital in the future. I wouldn't say I'm a people person but doing something you're interested in is really fun. I really want to have a job in the future that I enjoy, you know? There's no point being a doctor/lawyer if you don't enjoy it or have an interest in it if you get what I mean?

My day started off a little different today, I was up at 8:30am to buy tickets for the Big Bang concert. YES, I AM GOING. I ended up forking out for 4 tickets but I have reliable friends that pay me back instantly which is good haha. A little expensive but I MIGHT NOT EVER GET THE CHANCE TO SEE THEM AGAIN. Then I drove to uni - as usual, no parking space so I just dumped my car somewhere and went to lecture. I was literally dead when I came home, who knew waking up an hour earlier than usual would make me feel so ill. I was moaning to Jenny about having to get up at 8:30am when she has to get up at 6am ahaha, I felt so evil.

I took a colossal 3 hour nap, Mum woke me up JUST when I fell asleep to ask me for my bank details so she can transfer me some savings. Must say I was not impressed, she always wakes me up at the wrong time. But luckily I fell asleep again shortly after. There's nothing worse than having your sleep disrupted, I get so moody if I'm woken up during a nap. Anyway, by the time I woke up for dinner I felt super ill, stupid ulcer in my mouth doesn't help either, I didn't really have an appetite because the hot rice was really painful against my ulcer.

I guess you could say today was pretty crap. I can't wait for this ulcer to heal so I can eat again. I hate eating my favourite foods when I have ulcers, it's not enjoyable so I opt not to eat anything yummy until it heals so I can enjoy it :)

Tomorrow will be a day of textbook reading, extra note taking and eating lots of Haribo to fuel my brain with glucose.

November = month of no life.

Literally.

Many good things happened today. I'm so excited for Novemeer but at the same time, I'm scared.

I won't be applying to UCL this year, because the course requirement requires me to have already gained my degree at the time of application. Therefore, I'll be applying to City instead, I might even end up at UCL anyway if I get rejected from City. But the difference is I'll be paying £7k to study an MRes for a year and then get into UCL SLT the year after. Either way, I'll end up being where I want to be by the end. Not applying to Reading anymore because of their wacky admission procedures and the chances of me getting a place there is very slim because they only have 10 places for 300 applicants. Derp.

So today, I was sitting in lecture and then during the break, I check my email... I got offered a placement at the stroke unit at Charing Cross Hospital. I actually had to do a double take because I was so surprised, I couldn't manage to get an assistant placement for SLT but working with people who have suffered stroke is just... amazing. I don't know, maybe I have weird interests but it would be so damn exciting to work with patients who have suffered stroke, to observe and help out and just experience what it's like to work with these people would be such a wonderful thing. So obviously, I emailed back immediately saying I'm interested, funny thing is my email sounds so uninterested when I read it but obviously I can't be all like "OMG YES PLEASE!!" in my email even though my reaction was pretty much that inside my head. Need to keep professional...

After my lecture I went to visit Jess, I don't think it'll actually dawn on me that she's actually leaving for Beijing tomorrow and that I won't see her for 9 months. I'm just glad I got to see her one last time without all the noise and gathering of parties with drink involved. It's nice to be able to get one-on-one time with her and just chat over a cup of tea or something (I'm turning into such a granny...). But all the same, I wish her all the best for the next 9 months, wishing her luck with her TEFL course and her new experiences! My friends are growing up so fast it makes me shed a tear haha.

I may be getting a new car for my graduation, I don't actually know why because when I graduate and move on to study in central London, I won't be needing a car anymore =/ but my Dad insists on exchanging my car that's falling apart and is quite possibly, the most unlucky car ever. The other day, I had a flat tyre due to a nail getting stuck in, had to call breakdown to change my tyre over to the spare and then drive it to the garage and fork out £60 for a new tyre - that wasn't a very exciting start to my day. This car has had so many nails in it, scrapes, bumps and scratches to it. I just don't know what car I should get... I don't want a Honda Civic anymore because my Dad bought one and I wouldn't be seen dead owning the same car as him haha. I love Japanese cars because they're just so amazing to drive in and so durable so I might just swap it for a smaller, cuter Mazda 2. I'm actually quite attached to my Mazda 3 even though it's so ugly and generically silver (I have a strong dislike for silver cars), I get sad whenever something bad happens to it - am I weird? Or should I get a Mazda RX-8? Ohhh that car is so sexy, but I'd be swimming in debt for the rest of my life. I saw someone drive a shiny red Mazda RX-8 at uni and I look at my Mazda 3 and... Nah, I'm kidding, I love my ugly car.  

Exhausted.

I guess I can kinda see why 3rd years are rarely in, there's so much to be done once lectures are over.

I'm just waiting till I get a nervous breakdown from all this stress. Today was the worst, deadline for ethical submission is tomorrow so me and my group were running around campus from lecture to supervisor's office to reception to get things handed in and signed - had about 8 bits of paper flapping around to hand in. Then I went to the library - almost forgot about the book I reserved and then finally walked the length of the campus back to my car to go home. When I got to my car, holy shite, my car was a MESS. Basically, I couldn't find a space this morning, I don't know what it is about today specifically but the car park was full! The car park I always park in is never full so I was trying to decide whether it would be worth driving to the other car park to check for spaces. Time was running out so I just parked my car anywhere, by anywhere, I meant in a bush, where it was impossible for me to get out of the car from the driver side without being stabbed to death by thorny branches. Had to climb out of the other side like climbing out from a wreckage, was quite embarrassing indeed. When I finally got out, I figured I should park my car a little closer to the bush so cars can pass by my car easier and perhaps avoid collison or even scraping my car - I mean, I'm not even parked in a space, my car looks abandoned if anything - so I climbed back into my car to reverse a little and adjust. Little did I know the mess I was creating by climbing in and out, until I got back to my car - there was dried mud everywhere from the passenger side, to the carpet on that side, to the controls side, to the drivers side. Oh also a bird shat on the top of my car to add to the mess, cheers.

So it was after I cleaned the interior up could I finally go home. I was driving like a lunatic on the way home, I got to uni today in record time of 25 minutes by speeding everywhere. I was worried I'd be late because I was extra picky about what to wear today for some reason, making myself a panini took a long time too.

Good thing is that it's Wednesday, my 4 day weekend starts here (not much of a weekend because I have work to do for the next 3 days), project is on hold until training day (29th), personal statement is written, proof read - all I need to do is give it to careers to check it over one last time before I submit it to UCL. Mum and dad are treating me to lunch tomorrow because they know how hard I'm working this year, d'awww.

I love my parents, they called me today in the library asking if I wanted them to buy me new tights. Totally made my day.

I'm just a ball of frustration right now.

I've finally got everything on the way-sorted. Makes no sense, I know but yeah, everything's getting there.

Final year project - once ethics is approved, I can start. I'm just finding it difficult to be organised, went to the office to hand some forms in and oops I forgot I'm grabbing the last part of the form on Wednesday -___-" had to do the awkward "oops, I'll come back in 2 days time."

This week's worth of lectures were dead. Actually, today's was quite interesting, the lecturer was funny, he kept cracking jokes - some were awkward where no one actually understood the meaning behind them and others were dirty jokes. He actually said something along the lines of "it's better to do it in a group than to do it alone - actually, let's not go down that route" omg. Even though I had been up since 9:30am (I know, it's not that early compared to some people - but I've been sleeping at ridiculous times, starving myself of sleep and just being a bad sleeper in general these past few months) I managed to crack a smirk sometimes at his crude jokes.

What else? Oh yeah, applications. I got approval from 2 academic people from the psych dept to be my refereeeees yaaaaay. I was so happy that part was out of the way - I just never know how to approach people when to ask for a favour. Should I do it by email? Or by person? Generally, I think it's better to ask in person because the response time is quicker (I'd rather ask than sit around waiting for an email). So the references part is out the way, I just needed to do my personal statement of 3000 characters - easy enough right? Wrong. Now 3000 characters is nothing, it's barely a page typed up on word, the hard thing is to express myself concisely within the limit. I tend to waffle around too much and get sidetracked talking about irrelevant things but I'm glad that I managed to produce something that expresses why I want to be an SLT. I was surprised at how professional it sounds actually! Talking about my third year project sounds so surreal for some reason, I feel like a researcher applying for some research position with the words "In my final year project..." anyway... before I submit everything, I've sent it off to my academic tutor for it to be checked over. After all, this is quite an important thing in my life at the moment, it's the thing that matters to me the most right now just because the deadline is so near. The bottom line is, I will definitely be doing a Masters - the difference is whether I have to pay £7000 tuition or not - goodbye another 1-2 years of my life.

So as you can imagine, my life has been full of university-related stuff. Nothing much exciting has happened, I've met a bunch of new people from going out around summer time - it's nice to talk to new people sometimes, because I can be impartial with the things I say. Not sure if impartial is the right word in this context but I mean that I don't have to think about what I say with the fear of "what if x tells y about z" you know? Sometimes talking to someone who is out of your circle of friends is quite therapeutic because they can be an unbiased judge to the situation (if there is a situation). Not that I don't care about my circle of friends but you just don't know who you can trust sometimes (yes, I trust no one, I've learnt the hard way that it's just best not to give everyone your all - anyone can betray you when the time is right for them... let's not go into that dark side of the topic though).

My dad bought a brand new car - 62 plate. I was actually surprised he would - the first thing he splashes his cash on is a brand new car. I must say though, I love it so much, even though I won't get to drive it yet, it's so lovely, the interior is so comfortable and you just get that nice new smell once you're inside. I might be going over the top haha. But yeah, nice cars are lovely - obviously. It's a shame Mum isn't letting him drive it around everywhere no matter how much he wants to, awww. Earlier, Mum was talking to me saying "Dad wants to go here and there just so he can get to drive his new car around." He is seriously a prime example of "boys and their toys" - once he picked it up, I spent an hour sitting in the car listening to him show off all the new gadgets and technology it has. Yeah, keep making me jealous, Dad :(

My room is getting a full refurbish in the next couple of months! I'm quite excited for this because well, I hate my room with a passion, it's like dancing around glass when I come in here. I knock one thing over, 5 other things fall with it. I've outgrown my bed as well. Only downside is that I'll be room-less for a month or 2, I'll be sleeping in my brother's room, noooooooo. Sharing a room is going to be a pain with him because the spare bed is crap and how is a nocturnal person (me) supposed to sleep in the same room as someone who has a normal sleep pattern (him)? This'll be fun.

I'm also getting a MacBook Pro courtesy of Mum and Dad haha. Nah, it's my 21st birthday present actually. I was having trouble deciding between iPad 3 or MacBook. The obvious choice would be MacBook, I know, but I wanted to consider something more lightweight, can watch movies on, can bring around everywhere with you etc. But I decided that it's time my 5 year old laptop takes a break from all the abuse I dish it, it's been a good companion but it's time for it to retire. I've managed to persuade them to buy me the i7 processor one (sorry, I'm going to be a liiiiittle geeky here...), my brother has the i5 processor one, it's fast, don't get me wrong but with the i7 processor out now, why wouldn't you spend an extra £300 to get the newer version rather than opt for the older version? I haven't tested out i7 processor yet, I know many Windows models have it too but the MacBook being arguable the most powerful laptop out there at the moment, you'd be a fool not to accept. Actually, I had this argument with myself, I've used Windows since like what? Windows 95 - switching over to Apple OS will be a big change, I'm definitely going to install Windows on my MacBook as well so I can get the best of both worlds (this isn't actually illegal!) It's just getting used to the functions on MacBook is going to be hard for me who's always liked the simplicity of Windows... I'll stop being a nerd now.

Sooo... This was just a thorough update on my life at the moment. Not much going on life-wise apart from parents being constantly at home now because Chef For You has hung up the wok. They're abandoning me for 6 weeks at the end of January next year. Dad gets to spend his birthday in Hong Kong - I bet he's super happy. New car, new bedroom, new laptop. Apart from that, university, university, university. Third year has been indeed stressful from the get go. I get anxious making plans outside of study because I only get Sundays off work now. And Sunday happens to be a family day so... Yeah. My life currently revolves around my family (oh god, speaking of family, I had to teach both of my parents to use an iPhone - they both have one now even though I have no idea why they would need one EACH...) and studies. I do miss my friends but this is the most important year of my life so if any of you are reading this, please forgive my lack of communication and introvertedness. I've decided to be a total introvert and nerd this upcoming year, I'm married to my textbooks for now but I still love you all!        

Never driving in UGGs again.

Just read an article about how some woman crashed her car as her ugg boot got stuck under the pedal. To be honest, I've never been comfortable driving in uggs, they expand my feet by about 1.5x so my foot ends up being bigger than the pedal. Obviously, that's not right. I can just about drive in uggs and high heels, but even if I do, it's only for short distances, I'd never take the risk and drive in incorrect shoes long distance, especially to uni where I have to drive on roads of all different speeds up to 70-80mph. Actually I always imagine some freak accident happening like in Final Destination where maybe my brake is broken and I crash off into the water below the fast road.

Anyway, the woman is banned for 4 months and fined £350. A bit of a tap on the wrist really, it was her responsibility to wear comfortable shoes to drive in. It's been known for AGES that uggs are a danger when driving, along with flip flops and high heels.

Oh well, shit happens. Back to work.

Busyness - continued.

Aside from being cryptic.

I've been so busy this week again. I literally have no time for anything - yes, I have days off but those days off are days off from lectures - not days off from work. I'm literally doing work 6 days a week for uni and then Sunday is my only day off where I do nothing. Life is hard as a 3rd year, in a way, I'm glad to be introverted, it might sound selfish of me but I quite literally feel like I have no time for anyone/anything. I'm just focusing on work and keeping healthy by doing badminton and drinking gallons of tea.

These 3 days have been a bit of madness actually starting from Tuesday, woke up in a panic thinking I've missed my PA meeting, to realising that it's actually on the following day at 10:30am. Tuesday, I had a meeting at 2pm which lasted a full hour until 3pm - got home around 4pm with all the school run traffic. Mum's iPhone arrived so I had to set that up, tried to set my Dad's iPhone up too but looks like my brother's shitty hand-me-down iPhone 3GS wasn't cutting it. Went into Hounslow with Dad to try and sort it out but to no avail. Today, I had my early meeting with my PA, ended short so I ran over to the computer lab to get some ethics approval forms sorted again, ended up arriving late to my lecture. Lecture ended early, ran off to the computer lab again with my research group and eventually did all the ethics approval submission things and finally booked a spot for risk assessment of our project. Phew. Got home, as soon as I stepped into the doorway I was greeted by my Dad - "WE'RE GOING OUT TO BUY ME AN IPHONE TOO! COME COME!", so I was back out again. Bought the damn iPhone (I don't even know why my tech-challenged Dad is getting an iPhone - he can barely use his crappy Samsung Tocco Lite), got home, set it up, got their screen protectors sorted. Gosh, I feel like I've done so much this week. I definitely need a little wind down tomorrow before I start doing my reading for Occ psy.

So that's pretty much my week in a nutshell. Next week will be just as stressful because the ethics deadline is due and I'll be finally starting my personal statement for my application to UCL - scary times.    

Words cut deep.

Why do we judge what we cannot see?
Why do we assume when we don't know?
Why are we so afraid to say what we really mean sometimes?
Why do we have to cover up everything with flowery words?
Why can't we ever be honest with ourselves?
Why do we hide the bad side of us to make an impression just to be accepted as part of society?
Why do we want to be accepted?
Why do we try so hard for some people who don't make an effort for us?

Sometimes we seem to only see what's in front of us, judge things how we see them, assume things that may not be true, but we will never know the truth unless we are honest with ourselves and the people around us.

Sunday evening.

Sunday evening, supposed to be relaxing but I have work to do.

I'm trying so hard not to fall behind on the first week because once you fall behind, it'll be so hard to catch up and the more you fall behind the more impossible it becomes to catch up.

So I've still got about 3 papers to read, supposed to be consolidating my notes on Wednesday's lecture today (because I got lazy on Thursday so I'm already a day behind). I guess I'll do that in a moment.

Mum and Dad bought a new car today. Yes, a brand new car, 2012 reg. I'm kinda jealous, it'll make my little Mazda look like crap. Speaking of Mazda, my Dad is officially transferring ownership over to me so in a month or so, it'll officially be mine (not that it isn't already, I'm already the main policy holder for the insurance... just to make things official you know?). Haggling over at the dealership was such a long process today. Mum wanted £2k for the car but of course their shitty banged up old Nissan Primera isn't worth that much. At first they only offered us £2k discount off the marked price of the car (part exchange + contribution from the dealership), but we managed to haggle an extra £1000 off the price of the car which was great. Basically, my parents ended up leaving with the deal they wanted. I love how they always threaten to leave whenever they hear an unfavourable deal. The sales guy was all panicky because we were about to leave haha.

Ergh, the thought of having uni tomorrow depresses me. I'll have even more work to do then.

Time to go get some work done now.

Hacking cough, deadlines, meetings - what else?

Stress of life is making me tres ill. 

I've had some nagging persistent cough for about 3 days now as well as other random sorts of ill health symptoms. I wouldn't say I'm at the point where I'm bed-bound ill but this to me is a nuisance. Either I've caught onto someone's fresher flu being on campus or I've caught a bit of freshers flu myself. I can't lie down without breaking into random coughing fits. FML. 

Deadlines. I have a deadline on the 18th to submit my ethics for approval, that's pretty much done now anyway but it's a deadline nonetheless. The word deadline just makes my stress meter rise a tiny bit even if I know it's already done. Just having that something to remember and think about is quite stressful already. 

I have meetings with my personal advisor and project supervisor which neeeeeds to be done. I need to request references from them as well to apply for masters. I was undecided but I guess I've decided again. I was considering other things but after speaking to my brother I think I've decided to stick with plan A. Plan B will be the MRes -> PhD route. I'm not too big on doing a PhD, can you imagine another 3 years of university on top of your original 3 years? I mean, fair enough if I get a job out of it but holy shit, 3 years of my life spent learning and another 3 spent on research? I'm not too sure. I wouldn't be sure what my parents would say either, I mean, can you imagine me with a PhD? I can't LOL. Mum and Dad would probably be like "YOU WON'T FIND A HUSBAND." - for those of you who don't get it, my parents are them traditional parents that just want their kids to hurry up and get married after education. Also, they'd have a problem with me being "overeducated" to marry if you get what I mean - would men feel belittled dating someone with higher educational qualifications than them? Sounds like a very old fashioned thing. 

But for some reason, I myself wouldn't want to marry a guy with lower qualifications than myself. That's just a personal view, no offense to anyone. Of course, it would be a different story if his earnings were more than me.

Thank god it's Saturday tomorrow. I've had such a hectic week getting used to uni, applying for my parking permit, getting final bits of the first part of my project together for the first deadline, buying books (crater in my bank account already), printing papers to read for the week, deciding on dissertation supervisors, deciding on dissertation topic, coming home on Wednesday thinking I can have a lie in after a long 3 days and finding out I have an eye test the next morning, then also realising that I have to be up early on Friday to visit the care home. Crazy week. Definitely not used to being busy.. yet. 

First week of being a finalist student at university - survived.

So, as the title suggests, yes I am alive after a very tiring 3 days. 

Of course, after spending the past 2 months sleeping at ridiculous times, it will take a few more weeks until I can get over the tiredness associated with waking up at 9:30am to get into uni for my 11am lecture. The life of a commuter is indeed a difficult one. Though, I'm not one to complain since I'm saved from having to take public transport because of my trusty little motor. 

I really have no idea how these 3 days have been so tiring. My week throughout term 1 doesn't sound all that bad. 3 x 11am lectures Mon-Weds for 2 hours each day. I guess the drive to uni is quite long and tiring, I loathe driving, I'd rather be driven around if anything. If anything, in the future, I refuse to be a wife that drives her husband around. 

Anyhow, my project is underway, I work with 2 other people so it's not all that bad. I'd rather a smaller group than a large project group - easier to communicate with 2 people rather than 5 if you get what I mean. 

In terms of my dissertation, I'm actually still on square one. Speaking of dissertation, the deadline in choosing a supervisor is looming and I've only made a rough choice - incase I actually forget to submit my choices, I've submitted a rough one, just an idea of who I might like to have (hey, you never know what could happen, I call it the 5-months-of-being-out-of-education-amnesia). But with only 2 days until the deadline, I don't think I have time to personally meet any of the potential supervisors, but rather I'd have to just read their little research descriptions on the Psychology page and decide from that.

On top of that, I've actually decided to try and meet my personal advisor before I apply for UCL. Though, I'm not sure if she'd be of much help. The toughness of getting into MSc for SLT is so high that I might need to reconsider what I would do if it turns out I won't be able to do the course because of a lack of experience compared to other people. I need to write my statement for that too... Darn. I need to get references too, I actually don't know whether to apply this year. A big problem is that I don't know if I can ask Courtenay for a reference since she doesn't really know me, at the moment, I only have one solid referee and that's my personal advisor. I might actually decide to do one year of research instead at UCL and then... either go into PHD or do another masters at UCL for speech and language therapy. So confusing. I need to talk to my advisor about this. But can you really imagine me with a BSc, MRes AND MSc? I'll be so overqualified. Boo.