i hate not knowing :P but i havent got time to go locate batteries just yet :’(

i’ve been eating rather well, today was the first day i had a little chocolate after my exam as a treat :) a little circle lolly and some buttons. And Luke made me a delicious big curry with a million kinds of vegetables and chickpeas :D it was delicious! much bigger than my normal dinners but i had a tiny lunch today so it’s fine ;)

still not been back to the gym, only one exam left to conquer on friday. seeing as i have mucho mucho revision to do in the space of tomorrow i think i will probably hold off until friday afternoon :P plus my knee is still tweaky :( do not like.

i did do some cycling today which was nice! just to get to and from my exam, but it was up towards the city center so farther than usual anyway. It didnt bother my knee at all so i think i will certainly stick to the stationary bike at the gym for my cardio. Which i probably should be doing anyway if i wanna gear up for my long cycle in spring! stationary bike is nahtttt my favourite thing, but maybe i’ll look around and see if i cant find ways to mix it up a little bit. There’s intervals of course, and then what i can only describe as posting (like in horseback riding, up down up down…) so we’ll see!
i also saw another good variation on treadmill work…basically the opposite if what i was doing before. Rather than planking with my legs on the belt, its planking with your hands on the belt :O :O definitely giving it a go next time i’m at the gym! 

just personal shiz in the read more, i’ll spare those of you who cba!

Read More

Just taking a small break from revision. i’ve got like 6 essay plans written out to memorise…joy. i’ll only memorise one to finish out the night then its up early tomorrow to smash the rest. i’m a little more nervous for this one than the last, but no where near the anxiety i usually get.

currently i’m having more fun planning out my workout schedule once exams are finished :) (my left hamstring/back of knee is feeling strained so i’ve stayed away from the gym for a bit. plus revision. i’m gonna go back maybe tomorrow or thursday but probably just do the bike and strength work because its been bothering me for a few weeks now :P)
My boyfriend got me this amazing book called ballet beautiful for christmas, and it’s a book full of ballet-based exercises and stretches :) i want to get reading after my friday exam and plan maybe three sessions of that a week along with whatever else i’m doing. Gotta break in my new (vegan!) ballet shoes which he also got me ;) <3 <3

anyway. back to revising i guess ;_;

I’m back in Manchester now, have a fully stocked refridgerator and heaps of revision to do. Tomorrow begins strict exam period schedule!

-wake up at 8 am
-Breakfast. oatmeal + seeds/nuts
-Pack lunch
-Library/cube @ 9
-Eat packed lunch at 1230. Take 30 minute break.
-Revise 1-4:30
-Go home and make dinner
-Chill for an hour. (~530-630)
-Gym 7-8 pm
-Revise 9-10:30
-Sleep. Wakeup. repeat until tuesday and resume on thursday. 

and honestly, i’m kinda excited to get back. I’ve been doing studying and such but this week is the week for cracking down and blitzing through things and remembering it all. 
Mostly i’m excited to be back  buying my own food, having gym access, and doing all my cooking :)  i want a trip to unicorn shortly after i return so i can stock up on fresh local veggies, fruits, nuts and seeds (whilst other exam takers will be piling up on the junk food :L) to keep me happily fueled and healthy throughout studying! i tend to do pretty well during exams exercise and food wise because i go into self discipline mode with studying and it carries over to everything else.

i’m just gonna ramble about my plans now so i’ll stick it under a read more :P

Read More

i’m back in the good old US of a once more, with about 2 weeks before i’m due to set off for manchester yettttt again :P The test went quite well in the end, i answered 46/50 questions which was a good amount more than the first time :P i passed in my summer coursework and got 80% which is an A woooo :D so i’m quite pleased with that!

Whilst in manchester i had some vegan food adventures with my dear friend Molly
 

here’s an awkwardly resized picture of us in Scotland with an orange and some tea :P you can see why we get along…..

But yes, we made lots of delicious vegan foodsies (not all squeaky clean or healthy but we were revising so cut us some slack :P) and i shall be happy to link you to her fantastic blogpost about the very delicious but not fantastically healthy (though not THAT unhealthy thinking back on it…) Pancakes that we made! her pictures are a lot nicer than the crappy quality phone ones i offered up.

so you can see our pancake adventure here: http://veganconvert.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/american-style-pancakes-blueberry-and-choc-chip-pancake-recipe/

as for fitness, i havent been doing much cardio for the last couple weeks mostly due to revising and whatnot and not being able to ride being in england. i have been working a lot on  upper body, as i mentioned a few posts back my current focus is being able to hold a tucked planche and then raise into a handstand. progress is slow but the frog-stand to tucked planche poses have helped me get a little better at balancing my handstands and holding them for longer which is a great thing! 
today i rode 2 horses so that was pretty good and i’ll be continuing riding all week :) hoping to maybe get some biking in at some point maybe, possibly a run but i havent been in so long so i’m probably quite out of shape. Eating hasnt been stellar but again revision doesnt help, being sat around the house all day studying molecular genetics makes one prone to treating oneself with chocolate and quick easy meals…

i AM feeling a bit blech and tubby and out of shape but i know it wont take long for me to get back to being all good and active now that i’m free of stress :) a week of good eating and riding/exercising daily will whip me right back into shape!

anyway i may be baking tonight (portion control of course, but i owe my friend a decent batch of vegan cupcakes :P bad experience, dont ask) so if i do i’ll send a post out your way. i doubt i’ll make anything interesting for dinner i’m afraid as laziness prevails, but oh well. i’ll try to bring ya something interesting this week!

incoming possibly a video of me but we’ll see how i’m feeling :P

peace

So i have 3 exams in the next 3 days… yay….
think it’ll be okay. just taking it one at a time :L

good news is i’ve been keeping up ripped in 30 :) today i suppose was my last official day of level one, as i started doing it last wednesday. Ive had a look at level 2, and i’m a little afraid xD But i’ll just try my best and see what happens. 
i can tell i’m definitely finished with the level one workout though, as it’s not tiring me out so much and my muscles arent sore from it. Mind, i still am sweating and working hard during it, particularly the push up part >_> but today i just about managed to do the push ups for as long as she asked. some on military, then as my arms began to fail i went to my knees. So i think i’m at least a little stronger!

Once exams are over and i have freedom ( ;_; ) i will work on getting more cardio in. I cant do much in my room as i said before, i live on the top floor of my house and it bothers my housemates when i’m jumping around :P my current solution is laying down like three layers of folded towels and doing the impact stuff on it to muffle any sound. Not sure how successful this is.

Luckily i will have heaps of free time this semester, especially on the weeks when i dont have labs, so you should be seeing more from me on all fronts :) That is, fitspo wise, as well as photography and artsy things. oh and vegan baking! yay :P

anyway back to studying. i’ve had my workout tumblr break and i am sad to see it go :(

peace 

that’s right

back.

So it has been an enormously stressful first week-ish back in the land of the Mancunians, but i am finally out of the woods. After 4 sleepless nights, a shitton of biology, an anxiety attack/mental breakdown, a week of waiting nervously and some mitigating circumstances forms, i am officially a zoology student at the University of Manchester. thank fuck for that.

In between the anxiety and the mitigating circumstances i spent several days with my lovely english boyfriend. The reunite went wonderfully and all of tumblr can b’aww when i tell you that he took me out to dinner at an adorable little italian restaurant where we ate pizza and sipped cappuccinos and talked about learning french (among other things) :) My days spent with him were stress-free and left me floating on cloud 9 despite all of the scary things i was dealing with at the time.

Before i expand on the french thing, let me just add that i have been staying all by my lonesome in my new house because no one else has moved in yet :P Luckily Luke did keep me company for a majority of this time so it’s all good. People will be moving in Monday so just a few more days of loneliness! i’m sure i’ll be missing the peace and quiet very much once everyone else arrives, though. 

anyway, french! My boy and i decided we wanted to learn a language together. (because we’re adorable, etc) it was between french and italian, and after heavy deliberation, french became the victor. He’s already got quite a bit under his belt so i’m playing catch-up atm :P the goal is to go to paris in the spring and put the french to use. can’t wait! i’ve been really wanting to go to Paris since i started here, as it’s quite close and a relatively inexpensive venture. of course i’ll take a billion pictures and post like 5 on here.

my musical interest has also been reignited for the first time in ages, as i bought 4 CDs for myself this past week when typically i come home empty handed. My purchases include:

Sam Duckworth - The Mannequin (just came out, really enjoyed it! love me some sam)

The XX - xx (recommended by my best friend, chilled out, very sweet, and lovely)

The Joy Formidable - The Big Roar (Prefer the EP ‘a balloon called moaning’, but if you dont mind heavier sounding stuff it’s got some real catchy tracks and abstract but pretty lyrics)

 Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend (i’ve listened to this for the past few years but never owned the CD. Good, upbeat, fun)

So all in all a successful week for music!

We also visited a shop called Forbidden Planet, which is a geek’s paradise. I loved every minute of it though! The downstairs area had a huge selection of manga and comic books and other sorts of graphic novels. The idea of kicking back with an old school spiderman comic or something really appeals to me, and i’m interested in possibly picking up some manga. The artwork has always interested me but i’ve typically shied away since at home it was always kinda “weird” if you were into that stuff. Even though i’ve been told it’s not real anime, i adored the Avatar the Last Airbender series and still rewatch episodes to this day :L it’s so good! I also watched Death Note over winter break last year, as well as a few other notable series. So i see a lot more of this Forbidden Planet store in my future, maybe get my hands on some comic books and be a proper geek in my spare time :P

Being back in england has been awesome, despite the stressful moments. Loving being in the culture and the accents and just like…everything. I’m a minority again! it certainly brings out another side of me, hard to pinpoint what exactly, but it’s a nice side. Plus the independence is nice.  Just sucks to have to pay for things again! I’m looking for a job, we will see how that goes. “Hi I dont have any UK references and i cant work weekends and only a few hours during the week. hire me?” worth a try eh :P

lastly i miss riding! i saw some signs with horses on them near my house, i might head down the road to see if there’s a farm or something. Would just be cool to pet the horses and stuff, i miss them. Riding for Uni doesnt start until october :(

well it’s late now so i am off to bed. tomorrow i will finally unpack all of my clothes and settle into my room, put up pictures and whatnot to make it less bland. i’ll take a picture when my room nears completion.

p.s. Get cape concert on september 30th yessssssssssssssss <3