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 ;_;

hatfield moors photoset 1 :)

Got back from my workout an hour or so ago and i feel gooooooood :) I convinced myself to get outside and go for a run/walk (and believe me when i say, it took a lotta convincing :L)
I ended up staying out for about an hour. I did hill “sprints” when i got to the park, which weren’t really sprints because the ground was a bit slippy so i had to tread carefully. But i basically just ran up a big hill and walked back down until i couldnt quite make it to the top, at which point i sat and got my breathing back before doing it again :D This took up probably about 20-30 minutes and felt great after :)
Finished up with a few sprints/light jog/lots of walking 3 circuits of the big pond and then jogged home.

good stuffffff!
Might go to pole dancing class tonight, if i can get it booked. That would be interesting :L but i’d be up for the workout!
anyway off to class now :) 1 class on thursday at 4…life is good today B-)

peace 

Student living. feels bad man.

with the new year coming up i’ve been doing a little thinking. resolutions and what not. but that’s not exactly what this post is about.

since i got here in september i’ve had a weird desire to do a bit of an…. independent study, if you will. i doubt you could call it scientific beyond basic data collection, and it’s not particularly groundbreaking research that will change to world. it’s more the type of thing someone might run as a fluff piece, a mini blurb on the margin of a newspaper.

i’m thinking i might just get on with it in the new year for my own amusement and to satisfy my curiosity…

okay enough buildup :P what i want to study is..well… what effect my saying “thankyou” to the bus driver as i alight has on the probability of those within earshot also saying thankyou.
and that is literally it. 
i dont know why this idea keeps bugging me :L
i’ve thought it out in my head several times. i’d have a special little notebook and would simply put a tally mark in one category if the person behind me also says thankyou, and a tally mark in the other if they dont, and then of course a page for recording activity that strays from the norm (e.g. the person immediately in front of me turning around and saying thankyou after exiting the bus when they hear me express my gratitude)
conversely i will also see what happens when i dont say thankyou and keep track the same way. i’ll feel really bad in the process but i figure maybe i can just flash the driver a smile or something :P

so yeah. there’s my big idea for research. it only occurred to me today that tumblr would be an apt place to publish my results :L it was that thought that made me consider it more seriously in the coming year. i’ll let you know how things develop.

 i’m sure everyone’s dying to know…

goodnight!

peace

Anniversary in Sheffield :) Luke and Lacey one year and counting ^_^ look how cute he isssss
city is pretty great too ;) 

So, after a rather uneasy start to things, i finally feel like i’m just about settled back into my life in Manchester. My room is sorted, i’ve just done my first week of lectures, and i’m feeling good! 

Not sure that i mentioned that i’m taking a formal french class with the uni. Hopefully this will speed up my french basics, and get me speaking more coherently. I think it’ll mostly be helpful with my accent, which is a bit painful to the ear for anyone who actually knows french :P seven years of spanish will do that to you i suppose. When i can’t say something in french i usually end up speaking spanish instead by mistake, which is mildly amusing yet frustrating. I’m sure with more practice i’ll be able to draw more of a line between the two in my mind. I will hopefully be going to Paris in the spring with Luke and his family :)

Meanwhile, i just had my riding tryouts this past week. I got stuck with a tough unresponsive mare for my trial which was disappointing, but i ended up making the development team. It certainly is better than no team at all, so i’m quite excited for training to start this week! There’s still time for teams to be shuffled around, so if i prove myself over the next few weeks i could be moved up. i wouldnt be upset if i stayed where i am though. Means things will be more relaxed. Also i know a couple of my teammates pretty well already so i’d be happy to stick with them :) Another girl that is in the riding club has invited me to ireland to come try cross country riding on one of her ponies. I’d really like to work that out with her, if it was only for a weekend or something. How amazing would that be!!

This past weekend my lovely boyfriend came for a visit after an unfortunately long two weeks of separation! It’s his birthday tomorrow so we celebrated it while he was here, as you probably will see from the previous post. I got him a vinyl copy of an album he very much enjoys, and i will post the album art here for everyone to enjoy-

Which he loved more than i anticipated :) Now to think of what to get him for our anniversary next week…. 

I also made him a vegan cake which you can see in one of my previous posts (we’re both veggie and he’s working on being more vegan :P leading the way) And a card, but i always do that :P

We had a really great couple of days! Friday we went to see the one and only Sam Duckworth (Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.) which is ironic because we saw him on exactly the same date last year :) And that night was the night when it started to become clear that we were going to be more than friends. And there we were a year later, a week away from our first anniversary! awwwwww we’re so cute :P

It was a really great concert, my only complaint being that the three opening acts kinda ate up most of the night and we didnt get that much time with actual get cape :P when he was on though it was amazing as usual, and he played some new songs which will hopefully be on the upcoming get cape album! Also, the most awesome thing happened when we arrived. After being grilled by security and the ticket window people (Luke didnt bring ID and it was an 18+ thing :P)  we strolled into the venue. It was completely dead. But then, a guy walks past us, and it was no other than Sam Duckworth himself!!!!!!!  He looked at me briefly, and i was just like :O i never imagined myself to be the star-struck kinda girl, but i was in shock for a moment. Took Luke a bit longer to notice but when he did his reaction was similar xD

Yesterday we enjoyed the unseasonably warm Manchester weather for a little while before checking out the Whitworth Art Gallery. I’ve been meaning to visit it for the past year or so, but never got on with it. I’m sure we ended up spening a couple hours in there, cause  it was fantastic! There were some undescribably cool interactive pieces, as well as some trippy short films, strange abstract pieces, and more straightforward amazingly detailed works. A few that particularly caught my eye were some abstract pieces which we found out were pictures or prints of radioactive materials left behind from the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. There were three of them i believe, all of them very minimalistic and seemingly meaningless until you read the title. They were really beautiful, and i thought it was a great tribute to the disastrous event without being graphic and overstated. The Artist was Elin O’Hara Slavick, and i’ve just looked it up and found a couple photos of them.

It was a great experience overall, and Luke enjoyed it much more than i ever imagined he would. As far as i had known he was a bit skeptical of this ‘art’ business, and i think rightfully so in some cases (especially with the more abstract pieces. It’s hard even for me to take that seriously at times and try to see any depth). But after exploring the Whitworth we are both eager to explore whatever else is on offer!
 Sadly Luke had to leave earlier than usual as he was going to head home to spend some time with his family. It felt good to see him again though, and has really refreshed me. I think the week will go by quickly :) I can’t wait to go visit him in Sheffield and see the city! It sounds pretty amazing if i go off what he says. I think i’ll also be meeting his flatmates, which is a nervewracking yet exciting thought. Finally, there’s a mod night every saturday night which i’m looking forward to checking out with him eventually :D i’m looking for my very own 60’s mod dress for the occassion. I will of course, post a photo when i procure such a thing.
that’s it from me for now! :) 
peace 

Field trip to the zoo! I went here last spring but i forgot my camera. Very happy to have a second chance to capture everything :) was a fun day!

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

here’s my guy on the hamster wheel at whitworth park…being amazingly strong as usual ;)