Time to Blog!

My final year of university is over!

I've finally finished my dissertation, all of my essays and exams. I've finished my final year of university. You have no idea how weird it feels to say that (or type it actually). It's bittersweet, that's for sure.

The past year has been more than stressful, especially the last six months, but now that it's over I miss it already. I now have that problem of praying I pass my degree and trying to find a job in a world with very few jobs actually going. So big thumbs up to me. I'm an adult. And I'm not sure I'm liking it, but I'll just keep telling myself I'm still getting accustomed to it. I still find myself looking around for the adult when something happens and then I have that awful moment of realising 'oh sh*t, that's me'.

I do have a few things I'm looking forward to now that I don't have constant work to do morning and night, like blogging *wink, wink* and reading. Oh my god, how I want to read! I haven't read a book (that wasn't for uni, and even then...) in a very, very long time. I read one book for my own pleasure at christmas and that was it. Do you realise how depressing that is? I basically haven't been happy because I haven't had good books in my life for nearly a year. And now I'm happy that I can read. Woop, woop!!! Also, I can finally start binge watching Grey's Anatomy again, because I had quite the obsession until I had to make myself stop because I was doing that thing where you think 'I'll watch one episode then I'll do some work' and seven hours later I was still watching it, it was dark outside and I had to go to bed, still having done no work. So I had to stop. Go cold turkey. Otherwise I had no chance of getting this degree. But now I can have all of the happy things in my life back! Also, season 4 of Orange is the New Black just came out on Netflix so I have to fit that in one day too, but it's all good because I've got time, time and more time on my hands.

So, I guess it's time for a life update. It's been what? Six months, since I last posted on here?

Well, as much as I would like to say a lot has happened (although a lot of lovely things have happened) there haven't been too many adventures that haven't involved being at the library at 9 in the morning and leaving at 9 at night.

We've had Christmas, which was awesome, of course - when is Christmas not? Bit strange talking about Christmas when we're only six months away from the next one, but I'm meant to be catching you up on the awesome things, so I've gotta mention it.

I also got to go on this amazing week away at the beginning of February, to this lovely place called Thanet Well in the Lake District. My mum and I stayed in this amazing lodge with a jacuzzi and, basically, I had the time of my life and got a week to relax as an early birthday present from my mama (as well as it being a birthday present from my mama to herself - I'm sure she likes to pretend she was only doing it for me, but we all know she enjoyed herself too!). I didn't do any work for the week because it was the rules. No work was to be done. And I was perfectly okay with that rule. We basically spent the entire time in the jacuzzi. I used to think why would anyone want to go in a jacuzzi in winter when it's freezing cold but, actually, it made it a million times better. I don't like the idea of going in a jacuzzi in the summer because I'm a hot, sweaty, unattractive mess as it is, the last thing I want is more heat. Whereas, in the winter it's perfect because when you're inside the water you're at the perfect temperature and you can easily lie there forever (but you can't because, ya know, it's not good for you or something). I also got the best surprise when one day all of my favourite little ones arrived for the whole day to come and play, because my very thoughtful mum knew I was a bit upset that I was home for the week and wouldn't get to see them (don't get me wrong though, I was super grateful to be able to go the lodge, so I wasn't going to complain) but when they turned up I legit nearly cried because I couldn't believe my mum had been so thoughtful to not only book and organise the lodge but to invite them for a day too!

I also got to go on a lovely spa break in the Easter holidays, because I very thoughtfully organised for my mum to go on a spa break as a Christmas present and it worked extremely well in my favour too because obviously I couldn't let her go alone... So once again, I got another relaxing little weekend break but I did have to take my work with me on that trip, but it was still incredible.

There was a lot of time spent on my dissertation, so obviously when I completed it I was more than proud, I nearly cried handing it in because I spent a year writing it and I'm proud of how it turned out. Part of me didn't want to hand it over, it was, and is, my baby but, obviously, I was being irrational and needed to hand it in. So I did. Then went for Nandos after to celebrate. Because what better thing is there to do!

We made sure that we got tickets to the university Varsity this year. If you don't know what the varsity is then it's basically when the two universities from the same area go head-to-head - so here it's Nottingham Trent University (woo!) against The University of Nottingham (boo!). Considering this was our final year at uni and we've failed to get tickets every year, we took no chances and got tickets to the basketball and, of course, the ice hockey as soon as they went on sale.

My birthday came around, just my 21st, nothing important, ya know. My grandparents came to visit me for the whole week in Nottingham because I had too many deadlines to go home. It was absolutely lovely to have them here, if not a little cold at times considering we were staying in a caravan but I actually couldn't have loved it more just because my grandparents were there and I got to celebrate my 21st with them.

Whilst my grandma and grandad were here we went to The Heights of Abraham in Matlock. You go up in this little cable cart to the top of the mountain. The best way to describe Matlock is like a bowl (I think there's actually a part of it that's called Matlock Bath because that's exactly what it's like). When you're at the bottom it's like you're in a huge bowl with all the sides going up around you and you're the cereal, then these cable carts can take you up to the heights (like we're the cereal on the spoon) and the views up there are out of this world. It was incredible. Slightly scary taking two dogs in the cable cart with us though, especially when one has a tendency to be hyper...

Finally, earlier this week me and two of my friends went to Gradball. It has never been nicer to let my hair down and celebrate that we've finally finished, after three, long at time/short at others, years at university. (I also did a bit of a side-post a few days ago on an annoying thing about posting pictures to social media HERE). It's finally hit home that we're finished. Done. What made it hit home even more? My student discount ended this week. That moment was sadder than the end of university. I don't think I can ever shop again knowing I'm going to have to pay full price.

So that's us up to date I think, now let's get on to more exciting blog posts (hopefully anyway!).

Katie x