Home Wishlist: John Lewis

John Lewis is one of those shops where I can wander around for hours. Plus the espresso bar keeps me there a tiny bit longer! This wishlist wasn't intentionally all from John Lewis but it happened so lets just roll with it. 

1. Alice Tait New York Map £70: This is a seriously beautiful print. If I had the money to spend on things like this I would order it this second. One day this shall be mine! Plus the picture is already framed so you don't need to spend extra buying a new frame (trying to justify this to myself). 

2. Botanist Large Wooden Crate £20: I have been looking for a wooden crate like this one for ages but they are normally extremely expensive but at only £20 this is much more purse friendly. I would use this to pile all of my magazines into or to store body products. 

3. Alice Tait London Map £70: Like the New York map, I would love this so much. I think I prefer this one of the two though so if I do purchase one, it will definitely be this one.

4. Alice Tait London Mug £9: If you can't already tell, I love Alice Tate designs! The mug is more in my price range and at the moment think it's my only way of getting the London map print. I will definitely be looking out for this when I'm next in John Lewis as I am a massive mug collector! 

5. Acrylic Magazine Holder £13: I have so many magazines and really need a new storage solution for them. My glamour magazines are the only magazines that are organised in a way I am happy with. I think I'll be investing in this as it looks really well made and I love acrylic storage.

6. Cath Kidston Pencil Case £8: I love the simplicity of this pencil case and will probably buy it to house my stationery for sixth form next year. 

I'd love to know what your favourite home items are.

Megan x

My Summer School Experience

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was going on a University Summer School for a week and I thought I would do a post to talk about my experience which will hopefully be helpful if any of you get the opportunity to do this in the future. 

I went on a summer school to Nottingham University which was ran by the Sutton Trust. It was a 5 day long course whereby you got to experience a subject strand as well as participating in social activities and being able to see the university campus. Just a note that this post is fairly brief and I did a lot more but I'm sure you don't want to know when and what I ate, etc.! 

I arrived at around 12:30pm on Sunday 20th July and was shown to my room in the catered halls of residence on campus. I was lucky to only be sharing a bathroom with one other person! (in a couple of the blocks people had to share with 5 others!) Once everyone had arrived we were put into our tutor groups of around 15 people and played some icebreaker games. Trust me once you've played the human knot game, its impossible to be awkward with people! We also made a team chant, our was awful and more of a song than something that was easy to chant around the halls! We later did circus skills, drumming and a Brazilian martial art/dance called Capoeira which made my legs ache for the rest of the week. 

On Monday we started the day with our academic sessions. I did the sociology, ethics and theology strand and although the first 2 days were ethics and theology based and only the last 2 days were sociology based, I think I experienced enough to know that I don't think I want to study sociology anymore! We had 2 lectures everyday and I'm going to be honest the majority of them were super boring. I won't mention them again because we had them every morning and no one wants to hear about academic stuff! After lunch we split into groups and my group had a tour of the student union and had to create an advert for a society that Nottingham University currently has or create our own. That night we got into our mentoring groups and it was team challenge night which was basically some random games such as catchphase and dressing up our mentor. The ambassadors made this really fun by making the aim to be the winning team in order to free Katniss (above picture). I must point out that this was the night we were first introduced to the pony game, the best game ever and an amazing form of exercise, unfortunately it's not acceptable to play in a small group but was brilliant with 120 or so people.

Tuesday afternoon was when we had a workshop on how to write the best personal statement possible which was super useful and something that I am so grateful I got to attend.  That night was international night. I started by learning some Dutch with one of the Dutch lecturers at the university and afterwards we went back to the halls were there were several activities set up. I did the jaffa cake challenge, which is basically eating as many jaffa cakes as you can in 40 seconds. Would anyone like to take a guess as to how many I managed? A grand total of........1!!!!! How embarrasing!

On Wednesday afternoon we did a budgeting activity in our tutor groups. It wasn't the most exciting thing ever but I suppose it was quite useful to find out about the financial help available as well as realistically working out how much nights out, food and general living would cost. That night we went to the main student bar on campus and did a quiz in our mentoring groups. After the quiz an impromptu disco started for about half an hour which I absolutely loved. I don't normally dance in public but because there were so many of us in such a small space I really didn't care and had a great time.

(The sociology group!)

On Thursday we were split into our strand groups and did a debate. From the strand we were then split into 2 groups so that 2 separate debates could take place for each strand. When I heard we were doing a debate I was petrified. I hate public speaking and even so much as being asked to answer a question in class makes me a nervous wreck. Our topic was about whether or not women should be allowed to fight on the front line in the British Army. My group of 3 were arguing against and although all 3 of us didn't agree with what we were arguing, I really got into it and our debate got quite heated at times. I surprisingly really enjoyed it and if I do end up going to university I would definitely consider joining the debate society. 

(#Debateselfie We won!!!)

As Thursday night was our final meal we had a celebration meal with a disco afterwards. We all got dressed up for the meal (I wore a dress outside of my house for the first time in years!). The disco afterwards was pants! The music was rubbish and I much preferred the impromptu disco at the quiz night. At midnight we played our final game of pony :( and were back in our blocks by 1am. 

(The night of the disco)

We all had to be out of our rooms at 9am on Friday morning and although some people were sad to be leaving I was quite glad. Overall I did have a good experience but I would be lying if I said I wasn't happy to be going home. I slept all day Friday btw, thats how exhausting the experience was!!

The Sutton Trust summer schools run in around 12 universities all over the country and are for students in year 12 but you can check the website for all of the information about it. If you do get the opportunity to go to one, definitely go for it! There is so much more I want to say about my experience but this post is already quite long. I might do a facts about summer school post with some bullet points.

If you are thinking of applying to a summer school and have any questions please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer. 

Megan x

P.S. Excuse my face in all of the photos!

My Favourite Stationery

This may seem like a strange thing to write about to those of you who aren't avid stationery lovers like myself, but nonetheless I have decided I would share my favourite stationery with you all. I've always loved stationery but use my blog as a way to justify my excessive collection. I like to make lists but can't just use boring paper and a black biro! 

Lets start with pens. My absolute favourite pens are the coloured InkJoy pens from Papermate. I have purchased so many packs of these purely for the pink and purple although I do use the other colours occasionally. *You'll notice I have a thing about pink and purple pens* 

My other favourite pens are the Stabilo point 88 pens. I use these when I'm planning my monthly schedule of blogposts. They are also really pretty pens and look nice on my desk and unlike some pens these are practical whilst still looking good.

As for notebooks I thought I was a complete Paperchase girl, which is where the Cat notebook is from along with the majority of others in my collection, however I found the pink one in Asda the other day for only £1.50 and the paper is really good quality and I love the colour of the notebook. I do like investing in stationery but sometimes I do find Paperchase quite expensive. If we're talking notebooks for revision and taking notes in lessons, I use Oxford notebooks as the paper quality is amazing (top marks for the Oxford notebooks). 

As a stationery lover, I could go on about it all day but I will stop myself now. I'd love to know whether you are into stationery or not and if so what your favourite items are!

Megan x

What I'm Doing #2

I know I only did a what I'm doing post a couple of weeks ago but since I last updated you on my life a lot has happened. I mentioned in my last update that I was attending a summer school at Nottingham University and that finished on Friday 25th July. As much as I was enjoying it by the end, I was quite happy to be coming home. I have a whole post on that ready to go live if anyone would be interested in reading about my experience?

On the day after I got home, I turned facebook on when I had just woken up and there was a job advert for a local cafe type thing (it's not a proper cafe but lets just say it is). I messaged the owner on facebook and an hour later I was stood in the cafe working. It was a fast process to say the least. I have been working pretty much full time since I started but the extra money is obviously nice. The only disadvantage is that it is a seasonal cafe so come October I will no longer have a job :( I am still looking for a permanent job so hopefully I will hit luck soon.

On a blogging note I reached 250 followers on Bloglovin on Monday!!! Thank you to everyone who reads and follows my blog! I am planning a giveaway but just need to buy a few things before I can post it. I also wrote a post for Click Fragrance about Revlon Lip Butters which can be found here. I'd love to know your thoughts on the post.  

I've also been meeting up with friends a lot this week. It mainly just involves sitting on the floor in Derby, going to McDonalds numerous times each night and being talked to by strange people. It's fun, I promise! I'm excited for next week, there are 2 parties planned for my friends birthday and hopefully a full on shopping trip is on the cards. It's also results day on Thursday but I'm trying not to think about that!

I think that's everything for now but I'd love to know what you've been up to over the past couple of weeks.

Megan x

Method Disney Handwashes

As a massive Disney fan, when I saw that Method had bought out Mickey and Minnie Mouse hand washes I was excited to try them. Firstly I love the bottles, they are super cute and in the classic Mickey Mouse head shape. I will definitely be refilling them when I have finished the current hand wash as it would be a crime to to get rid of them. 

The Mickey Mouse hand wash is lemonade scented which I'm going to be honest I dislike. To me it smells too much like lemsip and as the scent lingers on the skin I haven't been enjoying using it. The soap in itself though isn't as foaming as I initially thought it would be but it does make your hands feel clean without making them feel dry. This also goes for the Minnie Mouse soap too!

I love the Minnie Mouse Soap, it's strawberry scented but isn't too strong and artificial, its smells a little bit like the strawberry range from the body shop which I am also a massive fan of. This scent also lingers on the skin for a bit but I don't think its strong enough for others to notice and it definitely won't clash with perfume as it certainly isn't that strong. 

These hand washes are £4 which I think is a little bit pricey but the Minnie Mouse one is definitely worth it, even if only for the bottle! I would recommend Method hand washes in general as I have loved every one that I have tried minus the Mickey Mouse one. 

August Goals

I love writing lists and setting goals for myself so thought I would share my goals for August with you all. This post was scheduled to go up on the 1st but I didn't realise until now that it hadn't gone up, hence the lateness. Sorry!  

1. Go to the cinema.
2. Start exercising more.
3. Read 4 books.
4. Post on my blog at least 3 times a week.
5. Lose 5lbs.
6. Go out for a meal with my friends.
7. Get some of my photos printed.
8. Write the first draft of my personal statement. 
9. Meet up with friends more.
10. Order my provisional driving licence.

Be sure to let me know what your goals for August are!

Megan x