Well it has certainly been a hot minute but life has been rather hectic since the Summer. I can’t believe the last post was about my anxiety and how I coped in Manchester on my own for a week. I thought I would start my return back to my old little blog with a bit of a catch up through photos on my camera roll. I love reading this kind of style because they are always so raw and natural.

September started off with going back to University. My tutor asked me to do a talk to the new Level 4 class sharing what they can expect from the first year modules. I felt so overwhelmed for two reasons. The first was looking at all my work laid out on the table made me realise how much effort I had put into the first year. The second reason was the fact that I was going to be talking to a bunch of new people who I have never met before. If someone had said that I was going to be doing this talk last year, I would have told you that you had the wrong person because little old me was so nervous and anxious about speaking to new people. But guess what? I was fine! I went on to introduce them to InDesign and Illustrator for a couple of their lessons too.

I made a new friend this month too. Jess is another local blogger. You probably already know her because she is actually the insta-queen out of the two of us. We’ve met up a couple of times and have so much in common with each other which I love and find refreshing. We went to Pet Lamb Patisserie in the Grainger Market and did a bit of a photoshoot. On a side note, their brownies are to die for!

Polly, the owner of Sighh, released new tote bags. I’ve featured the ‘My Everyday Tote’ but my favourite is definitely the ‘Art Student’ one. They actually fit an A3 notebook as well as the usual rubbish that I have inside mine. As you can tell by the photo, mine gets pretty full very quickly.

I also went to the Alchemist for the first time ever. There was so many nice cocktails there but I had the Caramelised Rum Punch which looks a bit like the Butter Beer from Harry Potter. It tasted amazing!

Soon enough it was the end of September like a blink of an eye. This meant celebrating my cousins birthday. We surprised him with a trip to Ghetto Golf. I came 5th because I kept wanting to take photos instead of concentrating on golf. I absolutely loved the whole set up of the place. You can tell that so much thought was put into making the crazy golf really fun and entertaining. The drinks are a bit expensive so if you are on a budget I recommend having one or two to save on the old pennies.

Not much really happened in October but I decided to treat myself to some Dr Martens. I’ve been after them for a while now so I caved. I thought for the price it is going to be an investment. I’ve heard online that most people struggle to break them in but I’ve had no problem and I can honestly say that they have not come off my feet since. They are super comfortable and go with basically every outfit I wear. The ones that I have are the Vegan 1460 Felix Rub Off. They also do student discount if anyone is interested in them. At first I was a bit wary on how they would perform in the rain with them being a vegan friendly leather however I’ve not had any problems at all.

I was also lucky enough to go behind-the-scenes at Pink Boutique. The company was founded by a lovely girl called Alice. She was really struggling for money so she lent £45 off her mum to buy a pack of six dresses. She recruited a friend for the model and listed them on eBay where they sold really quickly. She kept reinvesting the money and did that until Pink Boutique was created. She used her lunch breaks to post orders until it got too much. Alice teamed up with her mum, Jackie, and went full time at Pink Boutique using YouTube tutorials and a lot of googling to get her head around buying, selling, marketing, admin and finances. I would describe her as a Newcastle version of Sophia Amoruso and you all know that I love her. It was such a motivating trip and I felt so lucky to get the insider knowledge. Personally I’ve never bought from Pink Boutique before because I am not a type of person to dress up like the usual stereotypical Geordie gal however they do have some really cool trainers.

One of the reasons I’ve not really had the chance to blog much over the past couple of months is due to the amount of free time that I don’t have any more. Alongside my degree this year, I’ve been doing three different placements. One has been with S Walton Eyecare where I’ve rebranded their social media accounts and made a leaflet and the other two have been fellowships within my University. A fellowship is something that can give you experience whilst at University and you get paid for it. It is a bit like becoming a student rep for your course but it is targeted towards the one you’ve applied to. I’m so incredibly lucky to be doing two this year; the first one is the Fashion Retail & Enterprise Social Media one where I basically manage the instagram account for my course and the other one is with the social media and digital marketing team at Newcastle College. I’m thoroughly enjoying both of them and can’t wait to be able to work in industry to do this as my full time job. I’ve managed to interview some incredible people so far and some rather skilled and passionate students whilst doing my fellowships.

And in the blink of an eye it was November. November was an extremely busy month! First up was visiting the annual Fenwick Christmas window with my Auntie. We had a lovely hot chocolate from Costa too which was delicious! Does anyone else get excited by the festive drinks and food that is released every year? I chose the Black Forest Hot Chocolate and it was yummy. The theme for the window this year was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It bought back so many nostalgic moments from my childhood.

A couple of days later was the annual fireworks display on the Links in Whitley Bay. Without a doubt, November the 5th is by far one of my most favourite days of the year. I think I’ve talked about why before so I won’t bore you with the details. I just love fireworks so much (but only when they are used and enjoyed in the correct way)!

I also had the chance to go to Leeds. Leeds has been a city which was on my wishlist of places to visit for a while. I only went for the day with my University but thoroughly enjoyed my time there. I definitely want to return in the future for a longer stay. I was the only student from my class who went so it was nice to spend some time with new people. I fell in love with the different vintage stores and the street art was so cool.

Durham Lumiere came back this year. I remember going in 2015 where it was extremely wet and rather muddy. I only saw a few of the installations that year and I missed it in 2017 due to working at New Look but this year I wanted to make the most of it. Craig and I walked round the cathedral and stumbled across a rather interesting and unique musician who looped music together. It was odd but cool. I think you had to be there to get the vibe of what was going on. There was some amazing installations this year but my favourites were: End Over End – a giant, glowing slinky toy, The Stars Come Out At Night – a revolving projection of stars, Spirit – fire alchemists that were in the grounds of the Cathedral, Echelle – a pink stairway into the sky and Mysticète which was a video projected onto the river water showing the story of a whale. Durham Lumiere only comes around every two years so it is a shame I won’t be able to see it until 2021 but I highly recommend going if you are into light and arty things.

In all honesty, I think I’ve struggled to come back regularly because I feel like blogging just isn’t the same these days. You can’t seem to just write because you enjoy it any more. There is a constant competition to provide the best photography, an out of this world collaboration and don’t even get me started on the numbers game! This was and always has been a hobby for me. I’m not the best photographer in the world and I’m certainly not the best writer but I want my blog to share aspects of me, my life and what I enjoy.

I love this little space on the internet that I’ve created and although many of you have probably unfollowed or don’t tend to catch up with my posts any more, I created this space for me and no one else. I’m going to really try my hardest to post a lot more on here because this is my favourite thing to do. And for those of you who still pay attention to little old me, please bare with. I’m a year two undergraduate student with dyslexia who also has two placements and a 20 hour job but let’s try and recreate my little blog again.

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