Tuesday 9 June 2015

Music Crush #20

It's Music Crush time again! Wooooo!

I have quite the eclectic music taste; one minute it can be rock, the next charts/pop, to relaxed, to some kind of heavy rock stuff, to disney, to blues, to everything basically. 

Lately, I've been listening to the more relaxed music out there and, honestly, a lot of it's been classical/piano music, like Ludivico Einaudi and Roberto Cacciapaglia, but I didn't think they really suited this blog (although they are great musicians that you should listen to at least once in your life!). 

So, sticking to the relaxed music I've been listening too, I found an old sing that I've recently re-found, but a one that I  absolutely love!

Birdy

~ ~ ~ 

Wings

This song is beautiful.

I love the fact that I can still here the piano in it, hence why it's a part of my relaxed playlist at the moment. Birdy's voice is perfect with it too, there's just something about her voice that lulls me into a kind of calm serenity, in an eerie kind of way.

The fact that she's only nineteen too, amazes me - she writes amazing music, can sing, play the piano and is just all round pretty awesome, before she can even go to America and legally drink! Wow.

Here's the song, all for your listening!


Katie x

Saturday 6 June 2015

5 Things I Love About Home

 I'm home!

Which I already told you, I think, but, well, I'm telling you again! It feels so good to know that I'm home and I don't have to worry about all the things I should be doing back at uni, because there isn't anything! Now I have the whole summer to relax a bit and slowly start working on my dissertation. It's an incredible feeling to not have to worry about deadlines!

In honour of being home for the next few months, I thought I'd list a few things I love about home, because we all know how I love a good list.

1.

Family.

An obvious one, really. But no matter how often I try to make a journey home, I always miss my family the most. Especially my last month or so in Nottingham I started to get really homesick, and there are only so many Skype conversations you can have before you realise it's just making you miss your family that much more. So I can't wait to spend the whole summer with my family and going on adventures with the little ones.

2.

Baths.

From family to baths. Yep. That's how I roll! When people tell me they don't like baths, I actually question that person's sanity because, honestly, how can you not love baths?! Light a few candles, grab a book, make sure there's loads of bubbles and climb into that lovely hot water and life is brilliant!

3.

Cheese.

Shallow, I know. Seriously though, that stuff is freakin' expensive, and I'm a cheese addict! At uni I have to make a conscious effort to cut down on the amount of cheese I eat and try and make it last me. Therefore, when I'm home, I do the exact opposite; I eat as much cheese as humanly possibly and annoy my mum when she comes home and realises I've eaten all the cheese that she only bought a few days ago - sorry mum...

4.

My House.

Before you start thinking I live in this huge mansion, I don't. I live in a normal little house but it's home, and I love it. My mum has cute pictures of the little ones all around (as well as a few embarrassing ones of me and my brother when we were younger), and it just feels home-y. And it always smells nice; I never need to worry about walking into the hallway... not that we have one of those at home but if we did I wouldn't have to worry about it smelling like sweaty feet or whatever other kinds of smells there were at uni.

5.

The Countryside.

I don't actually live in the countryside, not properly anyway. However, my grandparents live in a little village surrounded by fields and gorgeous views and I live with them part of the time; it's one of my favourite things to be able to go and run outdoors in some place quiet and calm with just me and my iPod, and occasionally a dog or two as well if I'm at my grandparents. Something as simple as a lovely, peaceful view can make me the happiest person for a few hours. I'm going to blame it on the creative writer in me; it helps me to think better.

There are plenty of other things I love about being home but those are the five that come straight to my mind. Of course, there are things I miss about being at uni too, like all of my friends and my flatmates and I love living in a big city too, but it's nice to have a change and a little break from all that busy-ness.

Katie x

Thursday 4 June 2015

Music Crush #19

I've missed writing these sooooo much!

I debated for quite a while as whether to make this my music crush or not, but I've been in love with this musician so I figured I'm just going to go for it. Although, I'm pre-warning, if you fall in love with this rendition of this song as much as I have, it's not available to buy. Yet. Hopefully this guy will get signed soon and then I can listen to his beautiful voice all the time.

Calum Scott

~ ~ ~

Dancing On My Own


He has one of those voices that I can quite happily listen to on repeat for hours and days on end and not get the slightest bit bored of. It's thanks to one of Britain's biggest TV shows that I heard him too; he appeared on Britain's Got Talent, singing this song in his first audition, and I couldn't take my eyes away from him. His voice has that haunting edge that makes it hit you with every bit of emotion he pours into it - which is a lot

For his second appearance, on the live shows of the program, he sang a cover of We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off, and I can safely say I've never heard it sang as well as when he did. It was truly stunning. 

In  addition to that incredible voice of his, he seems like a genuinely lovely guy too. In any interviews I've seen with him, he's definitely managed to melt a lot of hearts and I'm sure he's going to break a lot too with that whole clean-cut look he's got going on!

He didn't win, for those of you wondering, however, he made it to the final and he was one hell of a contender. I'm living in hope that a record label is going to snap him up because they'd be stupid not to - I'd buy his music instantly, with no arguments!

Well, here's his version of Robyn's Dancing On My Own. And I've also put his version of We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off below as well, because if you don't fall in love with him as quickly as I have then we're going wrong somewhere!





Katie x

Wednesday 3 June 2015

Second Year = Completed!

Haven't written one of these in a while! 

It's definitely not been hard to notice I've been as absent from this blog as a first-year uni student who doesn't actually care about passing the year with higher than the necessary 40%. I've missed this little space but I've really just had no time for anything that isn't Literature essay related *sad face*. 

However, as of a week and a bit ago, I am finished for the summer! Woop woop! It's been a hectic few months and uni work practically buried me (if you'd seen the state of my friend's room - you'd have thought she was trying to bury herself under a million printed drafts of essays about urban landscapes and feminism).

As you can tell, we were more than a little bit happy to have finished our
final exam and second year!

So, even though it's been a hell of a long time since my last post, there hasn't actually been that much happening... but here's a little life update anyway!

The last blog post I did I told you all about the awesomeness of The Script concert that I went to (HERE). Some of the girls from my course and I booked tickets to go see Imagine Dragons at the Capital FM Arena in November, which I can't wait for! I love their music so obviously as soon as we heard they were coming to Nottingham we realised we had to go.  I'm considering it a birthday treat to myself, as well as an end-of-second-year-of-uni treat.


Only a few days after I went to see The Script, my grandma and grandad came to visit me in Nottingham, brought the dogs, and stayed for a whole week, which was amazing! It was perfect timing too, because homesickness had started to overtake, seen as I hadn't been home for over three months. It was lovely to see them and I got to show them around Nottingham a bit more as well as taking them to Sherwood Forest, one of my favourite places in Notts.


I went on a work placement with a friend from uni at the beginning of my Easter holidays before going home, where I got to see all of my little ones! I really hate how fast they grow, they just seem to ignore me when I tell them they're supposed to stay little babies forever! My nephew has learnt to say my name too, so he kept walking around going 'Kakie' and grabbing my hand to lead me to what he wanted, because of course he would know that I'm a softie and give in to cuteness way too easily. Although I did end up working most of the time I was home, which sucked because I wanted to see people but it was good at the same time because money. What student doesn't need money? Also, rather bizarrely, it ended up snowing for quite a few of those days - I know I live in the North of the UK, and our weather is often a lot crappier, but snow in April? That's crazy weather, even for us!



In the meantime it's been a few months of many birthdays, including my own! Which has left me rather poor, thanks to many nights out (although very awesome nights out, may I add), meals, presents, etc., etc. All of which were very lovely and deserved!



As for me, I've unfortunately left the teenage years behind and I've entered my twenties, I'm going to make 'twenteen' an age though because it sounds way cooler... right? My lovely flatmates decorated the flat and got me a cake whilst my amazing best friend (I better say that, in case she ever reads this ;) ) took me to the cinema to see The Avengers: Age of Ultron which, may I add, was a frickin' incredible movie. Obviously. My mum also rang me to tell me she'd sent me a card but she'd sent it to the wrong address... again. Yep. Again. It's not the first time she's sent me something and then I've had to go and retrieve it from some random strangers that she's sent it too by accident - she's lucky I love her.



Then came all the deadlines and exams and all the boring stuff, blah, blah, blah. Needless to say they were a tiring few months filled with a lot of work and very little sleep. However, I did find a lovely little place that I started running, or even just going for 'procastination walks' throughout revision period, but I'm gutted I found it so late in the year, especially when I won't be living in halls again next year so I won't be able to just walk out my door and down the road to it whenever I want. Oh yeah, and I developed an addiction to chocolate digestives thanks to stupid revision. Ugh.



BUT! We had a great final weekend - as an end-of-exams celebration and a birthday night out for my bestie, we went for our final ever Saturday night out of our second year, with some of the best people, and had an awesome night with a hell of a lot of dancing and laughing!



So I've realised I maybe had more to update you on than I first thought, and this became a much longer post than I first thought it was going to be.

It feels incredibly strange to think we've finished our second year of uni; it seems to have gone so quickly and it feels even weirder when I think about the fact that I'm heading into my final ever year of university (and education in general) - now that's a crazily scary thought!

Katie x