This little voice in my head won't go away.

No, I'm not going insane.

It's just there's a voice in the back of my head that's always saying something, something along the lines of "YOU STILL HAVE HALF AN ESSAY AND A METHODS WRITE UP TO COMPLETE BEFORE 7TH. YOU STILL HAVE HALF AN ESSAY AND A METHODS WRITE UP TO COMPLETE BEFORE 7TH. YOU STILL HAVE HALF AN ESSAY AND A METHODS WRITE UP TO COMPLETE BEFORE 7TH."

I STILL HAVE HALF AN ESSAY AND A METHODS WRITE UP TO COMPLETE BEFORE THE 7TH.

How is it already 30th December and almost the end of Christmas break? Why has my Christmas break been shortened by a week this year? Why am I going back to uni after next week already? Why have I not enjoyed Christmas at all this year? Why is 3rd year continuously on my mind? Why do I not care about anything else apart from university?

My life feels so sucky this year because of the workload. Not sure how other people in my course are coping but I find this really taxing. The fact that I work at the pace of snail when it comes to coursework - I've grown into the habit of doing very little but often - not sure if that's a bad thing or a good thing but I've spoken about this to my personal advisor and I made it seem like a bad thing because the stress is ongoing. I rarely have a day where I'm like "okay! screw work, I'm going to just sit around and do nothing." In fact if I ever did that, I'd feel so guilty, I'd force myself to do some work even if it means sleeping at 5am.

I just want to graduate already and have a summer full of nothingness apart from sleeping, eating, seeing friends, eating, sleeping. Before another year of studies starts again. GRADUATION NEEDS TO COME FASTER PLS. At this point, I'm not even thinking about next year, or my future for once, I just want to get what needs to be done out of the way so I can actually consider my future (well my future has already been decided actually).

Something not work related. I must have spent at least £200 in the past week. Boxing day sales have got the better of me and I ended up buying so much.

• 3 pairs of heels (yes 3, don't ask why, I don't even wear heels out much unless it's to a party...)
• Jeans, a vest top and a checkered shirt from Superdry (I've become such a sucker for Superdry clothes even though they sell at extortionate prices...) 
• 2 party dresses and a clutch bag from Republic 
• A hoodie (even though I have so many already, stupid stupid stupid me)
• A cardigan I saw yesterday when I went shopping with Sherilyn

I vow to not shop again until the end of exams. 

Although I'm feeling slightly guilty, I'm also feeling quite proud of myself at the moment for 2 reasons - I'm not in overdraft for once in my crappy student life and I've still managed to reach my goal for savings.

NO MORE. NO MORE SHOPPING. EVER AGAIN. 

So how did I spend my Christmas anyway? I played mahjong with my family and totally destroyed all of them, I won around £17. 

Boxing day I went to my uncle's place and saw my baby cousin/nephew or whatever people call their cousin's children. He's the cutest thing ever. He was so hyper when he saw everyone and started dancing Gangnam style and forcing everyone else to dance. HE WAS SO CUTE I ALMOST COULDN'T CONTAIN MYSELF. Then the realisation came to me, I'm no longer the youngest Yu in my family. Huhuhu.

Not much else to update. My room is still incomplete, sadly. Everything else is done except for the cupboards in my room. My bed is here, I have a lovely memory foam mattress now that I can't wait to sleep on. Actually, I can't wait to move back into my room. I'm tired of staying in the same room as my brother. But I've said this many times, the excitement is wearing away a little as I have no idea when my room will be complete which is ultra annoying. 

Anyway, as you can probably tell, I made this entry to run away from doing my work but as I've run out of things to talk about I guess I'll have to start something. I think I'll do my methods write up now since my essay requires thought and I don't really want to open that document up just yet. I'm pretty brain dead today since it's Sunday and the weather is killing me with its gloominess.   

Christmas.

IT'S CHRISTMAS.

Well, nearly the end of Christmas but I thought I'd make this anyway. 

As usual, every year I spend Christmas day with my family.

Because my family are quite... traditional, we don't have Christmas dinner with turkey. Instead we do hot pot. I don't know how many Chinese families celebrate Christmas with hot pot but mine certainly does. Well, the downside to it is that I don't get to have a mega feast with turkey, potatoes and whatever else you have with Christmas dinner... The upside is, I guess I feel a lot healthier because hot pot is mostly boiled food. 

Anyway, we play mahjong as well. I seem to be doing well every time I play mahjong with my family nowadays, I won last time and this time currently I'm winning again. I feel like mahjong is 30% skill and 70% luck. For me, I was incredibly lucky to start with a trashy set of tiles and end up winning. I could just be blind and throwing all sorts of tiles out but I was always picking up good ones back. Mahjong is an awesome game. 

What else have I done today..? Hmm not much, I was watching Lord of The Rings earlier because it was on TV, oh and Shrek. I love Shrek. I was stuffing my face with chocolate as well. 

I'm going to my uncle's place tomorrow for dinner. Mum and Dad are going to be gossiping so much as Chinese adults do and me and my brother will just be there rolling our eyes as we always do. The joys of spending time at relatives' places.

Hope everyone had an awesome Christmas!

I'm in for a chocolate paralysis Christmas.

So, my brother went to Brussels for the day with his girlfriend and came home with about £50 worth of Belgian chocolate.

*dies*

Also, Mum bought so much junk food home from god-knows-what crazy offers she's seen. Mum is a sucker for offers, buy one get one free - she buys more than 1. So in the kitchen, there's a sack of truffles/praline (truffles and praline are my FAVOURITE type of chocolate - I have such an awesome brother that knows what good chocolate is *cries tears of joy*), boxes of Ferrero Rocher (sadly, I love these too), huge bags of crisps (about 4 or 5), 2 packs of Maryland cookies (I love these too...) and a pack of chocolate digestives (and these...). You know what, forget Christmas dinner coma, I'm going to be in junk food coma this Christmas.

I'm actually really looking forward to Christmas this year because for once, my brother is taking a full month off his PhD - last year, he worked all the way up until Christmas eve or something and had only a week off. Also, what's even more special is that my parents will be here and not working anymore since they retired recently. Annnnd, I might be spending Christmas over at my uncle's place with their family and I'll get to see my cousin's new baby! The only downside to this year is our house is still a mess, the refurb schedule was all messed up since the carpenter fell ill one weekend so everything was pushed back and now things are still incomplete. Mum is paranoid about them running away (she watches too much Watchdog/Rogue Traders/Cowboy Builders), I feel a little bad because this one time she was close to tears - she has a lack of trust for these kind of traders. I mean, they may be a little slow at doing things but that's no reason to suspect they'll run away with your cash.

And yeah, that also means my room won't be ready by Christmas day :< I'm still shacked up in my brother's room and it's not really nice because he sleeps like a whale and sometimes sounds like one too. My bed is here though, it survived doomsday. Mum wants to build it soon but I don't really mind, I mean, whether I get to sleep in it now or later doesn't make a difference to me. I just want my own room back T___T.

Other than that, I still have a ton of work to do for uni. I'm falling slightly behind schedule because of laziness and my brother being home (yeah, I can't work with him at home because we end up hanging out too much and before I know it, it's already past midnight...) so, I might attempt to do some more work now.

Roll on new years eve! There's no way I'm staying indoors after surviving 21/12/2012.

When can I ever be happy with myself?

Another self-directed rant.

You know those days where you wake up just wondering what the hell is wrong with yourself? No? Okay, well I'm having one of those days, the weather is absolute shitting hell outside (excuse my language), it's affected my mood adversely. I woke up feeling like poo this morning which resulted in me skipping placement for the day (I love how the handbook says "if you're ill just don't come in", I don't even have to email or call up anyone to tell them I'm not coming). Furthermore, my umbrella is non-existant at the moment because it's either broken without me knowing or buried under some pile of mass somewhere in my house - so that makes going out a bit impossible.

I woke up to my parents arguing (I woke up and fell back to sleep a few times I guess you can imagine), yet again. They've argued a lot recently because of the house, the work is stalling, Mum trusts no one, Dad likes to vent, blah. Yeah, Mum still thinks she's being scammed by these blokes because they're working super slow at the moment and the problem is that they already have most of our money. I feel a little helpless because there's nothing I can do really, if I do find out that they've run off with our money, I won't hesitate to call Watchdog on behalf of my Mum haha. No, I'm serious.

Anyway, I'm making some sort of feeble attempt at doing my essay today. I'm still aiming for 1500 words to be done by Saturday so I can focus on other things in the next 2 weeks. Videos should take 2 days to code, methods should take 3 days to write up so that's my next week sorted. Any spare days I should be spending on my essay since almost everything is due the first week back and I know I'll panic if I fall behind. I'm currently on 664 words, I'll aim to do about 750 today and call it a day, maybe do another 400 words tomorrow and then fill in the rest on Saturday. I really would like a day of rest so... I'm giving myself Sundays off plus Christmas Day and NYE (only because I do plan on going out and getting sloshed with Jen).

I'll slink back into my essay now...

/horribleday
/stupidrant
/don'tworryidon'thatemyself

Franichi.

Don't ask what my new URL means, because I have no idea.

It's just a random word I made up in the last hour and I thought it sounded cute.

/weirdo.

But anyway, the new URL for this blog is now http://franichi.blogspot.co.uk/

(So make sure you update your bookmark, favourites, hide your kids, hide your wife etc).

Since it's Christmas break.

I thought I'd go back to regular blogging (even though I'm so busy still, ughhh). I'll probably blog about something that interests me daily (if possible).

[Anyone who is reading this who is trying to contact me and hasn't got a reply, I'm sorta ignoring messages on my iPhone at the moment just because I want to try and get some work started at least so I can establish some sort of routine/balance between work and play. I can't go out comfortably without at least getting a fair amount done =/ you could say I'm trying to become a study-holic this year - maybe a 70/30 balance between work and play. If you need me urgently or something, give me a call, I'll answer calls (because no one calls me anyway hur hur)].

Dad got caught doing 36mph in a 30mph area which constitutes to "speeding". It might not seem like much but you probably know, it's not arguable, you could be doing 31mph down a 30 road and still be a speeder. Anyway, the standard penalty is a fine and 3 points on his license, the police has offered him either that or pay the fine and do a 4 hour course and get no points added. My initial reaction was "a course? a speeders course? what could that include?" I mean it sounds so ridiculous, the rationale behind such a course is to change people's behaviours so they won't speed again. I don't really believe in classes/interventions that aim to change behaviour - a lot of behaviour is down to personality and an individual's personality is usually stable through life - unless you change personality, behaviour is very hard to change. It's like they're not getting to the root of the problem, if someone is a habitual speeder, it's probably because they're impulsive or some other personality related aspect.

So I read up a bit on the course online and what other people have said about it since Mum considered getting Dad to take the course so he won't get any penalty points on his license. I found that the course is something similar to what you'd do at school, introducing yourself (can you imagine... "hello my name is _______ and I'm a speeder." no duh!), getting together in groups of 2-3 and sticking pictures down on a large piece of paper, watching video clips with kids getting hit by speeding cars or motorcycles getting hit by speeding cars etc etc. Those sort of activities that aim to "change" behaviour, I'd be really interested to see how effective such measures are in actually changing people - in terms of data for how many of these people actually are driving at 30 in rural areas and which are still driving at 40 in a 30 street. I'd probably expect most people just take the course because they can avoid the points hence avoid their insurance shooting sky high (especially if they're young) and of course, the government get money for the price of the course (£95!).

Maybe the government aren't bothered by the amount of behaviour the course can change but rather they want to implement some sort of system where they can feel like they are doing something to prevent tragedies on the road. But of course, with such bogus classes, the speeders get away with being punished with penalty points and the government can get away with the guilt of feeling as if they cannot do anything about the amount of speeders out there.

Increasing the confidence within myself.

I think one of the main aspects of myself that has improved a lot within 2012 is my ability to communicate with other people and my openness to the world in general. 

You see, I used to be this shy little girl afraid of knowing new people. Within a setting where I don't know anyone, I would be the one that sits quietly, not speaking unless spoken to. I didn't know how to initiate conversations with people nor did I know how to get others to talk to me, to like me, to perceive me in a way that I want to be perceived. We're all human, we all want to be liked by others, whether it's popularity within a social group or giving the right impression to someone you just met, we all want to put ourselves across as a likeable person. 

Initiating conversations seems to be a skill I kinda... developed through this year. I never knew where to begin? You're placed with a stranger, you know nothing about each other, how do you start a conversation with this person as well as putting yourself across as a likeable person? There's so many things involved. Interestingly, you might have noticed you exhibit more than one personality in different situations. When I'm here, typing this post, I'm exhibiting a different sort of personality than I would at a club for example. Or you could argue that these are not separate personalities but rather they all make me who I am. It's just, I'm intentionally suppressing certain aspects of my personality (one personality) to fit societal rules and conventions. Or maybe I'm trying to make people like me by typing in a way that is intellectual rather than paragraphs of internet speak. Who knows? I don't really know. 

But to avoid diverging from the topic, the ability to talk to strangers is really something I value now. From the year I spent in the care home, communicating with residents with dementia who might not even know what I'm saying to them, who might forget me after every time they see me, who for every week is their first time meeting me even though I've been visiting for 12 months... You can imagine how scary it is being them. I've learnt way more from my volunteer experience than I do taking a course at university. You could even say, I value the gift of being able to talk full stop - which leads on to why I want to do speech therapy. 

This morning (or afternoon rather), I woke up thinking why I want to career into a profession where I have to talk to clients on a daily basis. This led to me reflecting on the person I used to be, when I was shy and generally unable to initiate conversations with strangers, I would've been satisfied with a simple office job, an admin job, a job where I don't have to directly assess, advise or interact with people. But beyond that, do I want to be stuck behind a desk forever? I'm not belittling anyone's job here, please don't take offence if you are someone who does work behind a desk on a daily basis. But on a personal level, I realised that I'm no longer the little girl I once was, I'm no longer someone who is afraid to talk publicly - this year has changed me, it has changed the way I see the world, the way I see certain people around me, it has led me to re-evaluate my life, what do I want to do? where do I want to be in 10 years? I'm quite happy to talk publicly, give presentations or whatever, talk to strangers. I've made decisions and thankfully I haven't regretted any of them. The things I put first in my life today and the things I used to put first in my life last year - I can really see the difference.

I haven't had the chance to talk about my placement much, I know I said I would but there are certain things I'm sworn to privacy such as what patients talk to me about I'm not really supposed to reveal. But I'll let you guys know that it's amazing to get clinical experience if you want to profession into something medical. Speaking to patients throughout the day when I volunteer is something I really like doing, I'm starting to really like talking to people in general. There was a friend I knew, he's much older than me but when he told me he loves talking to people, inside I wondered why and how - sometimes being surrounded by people is really suffocating for me - you know when you just really need that alone time. But hearing about his life experiences and what he's done made me realise that you can actually learn a lot from talking to different people. I've certainly learnt a lot from the type of people I've met in the stroke unit. There are new patients every week to talk to which makes the placement much more rewarding. It's quite sad when you hear some patients have no relatives to visit them often, when you have nothing to do apart from sitting around and taking medication, it's not really fun. Some of them even talk about the frustration of having to share wards with other people, they deal with not being able to sleep properly because they're not in an environment that they're used to, they have to deal with other patients that snore etc etc. I'm just glad some of them are really talkative, there was this really nice old man who I spoke easily to for half an hour about his life, his hobbies, his family. I mean, at first, I was worried about invading his privacy into his private life but these people seem to be glad to talk about their family especially and their children and grandchildren.

One of my greatest fears was actually communicating with people - ironic isn't it when I want to go into a profession that involves talking to random people. I guess you could say I'm almost there in terms of conquering this fear. I really envy people that can talk to others so easily.