#2 Surviving Uni: Essential items you won’t realise you need till you get there!

Since I currently seem to be brimming with ideas about all things university related, I shall once again impart all the guru like wisdom that a 19 year old 1^st year student can have.  Listen up class, today’s topic shall be covering… ESSENTIAL ITEMS YOU NEED TO TAKE WITH YOU BUT NEVER THOUGHT OF.  God I’m so witty and catchy.

Lets crack on then.

1) A FAN.  

This is most definitely my number 1.  Numero uno.  Hashtaggetitnow.  I cannot stress how getting my fan back to uni altered my life completely.  Let’s paint a pretty little picture shall we?:

Satan, himself, designed my room, while sitting, all wrapped up in a duvet in the middle of the Sahara desert, hot chocolate in hand.  It is hot.  Unbearably so.  Apparently there’s something wrong with the radiator but after the fixy-uppy people came, the room still has me sweating on entry.  Seriously, I have guests over and they leave with a tan.

Therefore, the life saver that is my fan keeps everything more bearable.  You’re probably thinking to yourself ‘but Gina my sweaty friend, what if my uni is cutting costs and so I do not inherit a room/oven with prospects of third degree burns?  Won’t I then just be wasting the already very limited amount of space/box I have been cursed with for the upcoming year?’.  NO.

Let me educate you young fledglings about the ways of some adolescent, suddenly very free horny 19 year old guys and gals.  They have loud, very bed banging naughty time, right opposite your head.  What the fan does is drown out their sinful sounds with the constant droning, whizzing *insert fan noise here*.  It’s much easier to sleep to.  Trust me.

If you’re still not convinced I shall pose a last desperate point in the hope that you will realise my god-like wisdom and proceed.  Over the last two weeks, as the weathers suddenly bucked its ideas up and the sun’s popped out, my fan has been on continuously.  ‘Why not open a window’ you may ask.  ‘Are you on the bottom floor and concerned all your worldly belongings will go walkabouts?’.  Nope.  Two words. 

Fly sex.

My window seems to have become some sort of Westeros whore house over the last fortnight with up to 30 winged couples consummating the summer simultaneously.  If anyone wants to turn their room into the insect equivalent of a brothel, they merely have to open their windows and count to ten.

So, if I’ve convinced you then go buy a cheap ass fan (my friend picked one up for a fiver at a charity shop).  Ask your parents if first becuase it’s pretty likely they’ve got one hoarded away in the attic somewhere.  I promise you that after bringing mine back from home, life was 8 million times more bearable and I can’t stress it enough!

I got these socks for Christmas, be jealous!

2) SOCKS

Go to Primark and buy all the socks.  DO IT.  You may think your current drawful of socks at home is enough, but you are most mistaken.  Here’s the low down:

As a student you suddenly reach the financial status of *poor*.  Washing machines and drying machines are a luxury, normally enjoyed once a term if you play your cards right.  After reaching uni, I immediately realised that socks and knickers were what I would run out of the most quickly.  Jeans can be worn time and time again if you reframe from jumping in the puddles and spritz ‘em with spray.  You’ve probably brought a bunch of T-Shirts with you and, depending on your tendency to lean towards a sweaty betty like persona, you can get a couple of wears out of each.

What's the one thing you change every day?  Your socks and pants.  If you take 20 pairs of socks, that’s less than three week supply!  The terms 10 weeks!  Think about it and thank me later.

Bonus tip! Buy all black socks to increase pairing efficiency by 67%.  You’re a big girl now – Mummy’s not there to do it for you anymore.

Go to Primark and buy all the socks.

3) Draws

You would not believe the frustration of getting to uni and finding out your cupboard/wardrobe/draw space is beyond pitiful.  Over the Christmas break I brought back a set of old draws my mum was going to throw out and it made the world of difference.  My wardrobe has finally stopped threatening to burst and the solitary 3-draw unit no longer looks like it’s about to give way.  Hurray!

Lasty but not leastly….

4) Photocopies of passport and EHIC stored in your email

Yes the real thing may be handy too but photocopies already made and saved can set aside a world of hassle.

What with the fact you are now a crazy free individual starting up a new life in the city of London/Manchester/*insert university location here*, you need them ready at a moment’s notice.

Next week you might be off to Argentina with the canoe club or hitchhiking in France on a jail break.  YOU JUST DON’T KNOW!  Don’t miss out on opportunities and be that lame guy who gets left behind just because you’re unprepared.  I myself joined the officer cadets and underwater hockey club.  Why the Octopush team wanted my passport details, I’ll never know…

Phew long post!  Hope this has been slightly helpful to some of you.  Of course, I have not included my zombie apocalypse survival pack but that goes without saying ;)

Peace out lovelies, I’m off to revise a cheeky bit of Tort law.  Joy.

Gina xx

#1 Surviving Uni: Top Tips on being able to afford to eat

Hello strange place a la internet, how you been doing?  Long time no chat, huh?! Okay yep a torrent of verbal abuse was totally appropriate for my ‘Missing In Action’ like status for the last few months!  Woah put the shoval DOWN Mister!

Today I’m going to write about some top tips for any future university goers.  Being just about to finish my first year of law, I feel perfectly qualified in relaying the terror, hunger and stress you about to experience, and giving out some tips to combat them.  Fight back, as my old nan would say as she hurls a snail over the hedge. 

So today’s topic is going to be on budgeting and how I’m superb at it and I want to throttle those people who are not.  Ranting.  I reckon I might end up ranting.

To set the scene, imagine a magical princess, locked away in a castle that’s costing her £125 a week.  Yeah.  Magical right.  Alas, her fairy godmother (aka student finance) is feeling pretty stingy, probably went on a spending spree bender with our beloved heroin pennies, leaving her with SIGNIFICANTLY LESS than said enchanted tower rent.  That enchanted tower?  Decrease the image in your head to an 8 foot box.  Factor it into the picture.

A scaled size of my actual residence.  Mmmhhmmm cosy...

So, as you can imagine money’s pretty tight around here.  I am not afraid to say I will be that cool kid who bends down to pick up a 20 pence piece from the pavement.  Since my Aldie noodles cost 18p this is a bonified victory over the other starving students, scavenging the streets of England.  I’m not trying to show off or anything of the sorts but I HAVE and DO cook for 2 people on a meagre budget of 80 pence.  I can confirm that I physically cannot buy anything in Aldi or Iceland for over a quid and am horrified when items finally leave the special offer price bracket.

Perhaps then you can understand why when a dear sweet flatmate of mine participated in our weekly pity party – a time of splendour where our flat gathers round to discuss money saving tips – and revealed her weakly ‘pocket money’.  Interrupting the marvellous idea of liberating toilet roll from the student unions, she flat out states that mummy and daddy are sending her £75 a week!  I honestly nearly dropped my noodles.  Seventy five freaking Great British Pounds and she has the nerve to suggest it was not enough to live on.

I spend less than £40 a month on food, take you riches elsewhere please madam.  I mean, what is she even doing with it?  Using it as wallpaper?  Thus I have created some budgeting tips to help my poor dear hard done to flatmate to really stretch that three-quarters-of-a-hundred-quid as far out as it will go, since she seems to be struggling.  Do I sound bitter?  I might be bitter.

1) It is not okay to spend £40 at the Disney store and then return to moan about your impulsive nature.  Not ever.

2) Waitrose food tastes the same as Aldi food.  If you think it doesn’t (which it don’t), you can cry into your wads of saved cash.

3) Eating in is the same as eating out.  Only cheaper.  And with more noodles.

4) Your wardrobe is literally less than a foot in diameter.  Where are you storing all those extra dresses you keep coming home with?!

5) Doubles are cheaper than singles.  Flirting is cheaper than buying your own.  Water is the cheapest of them all.

6) Portion sizes.  If you are not still hungry after a meal, you have eaten too much.  The extra could have been tomorrow’s lunch!

7) Eating rice and an egg two days in a row is perfectly acceptable.  Also a third and a… sixth?

9) Asking flatmates if they intend to finish that last morsel of bacon is actually helping the environment and totally okay.  Taking it while they aren’t looking is less acceptable but I’d still encourage it.

10) Having a friend/parent/unicorn over and asking them to provide their own grub may seem rude at first but you’ll never serve them up a dish they aren’t going to like.  (If you do though, feel free to tuck in…)

I recommend chicken and curry flavour.  *Do not expect any actual chicken in either!

Also noodles.  I promise I’m not on commission but for real.  18p.  Flavoured.  Aldi.  Fly my minions, FLY.

Anyway, peace out lovelies.  I’m off to devour a cheeky bowl of pasta.  Yum.

Gina xxx

Skincare!

Just got back from a Criminology exam and what with being the little eager beaver I am, I thought I’d sit down and write my next Blogger Challenge Post – EARLY!  (Don’t worry the organisation skills are shocking me too).

Let’s take a looksie shall we:

And the winner is *drumrole please* SKINCARE!

Ooherrr Gaby’s trying to turn us all into beauty bloggers?!

Where to start!?  With a disclaimer I suppose.  Although I wouldn’t say I swore by this routine, I really like it but the disclaimer revolves around the fact this face cleansing ritual I do twice every single blumin day, has yet to rid me of a humongous spot near my mouth.  So feel free to write to the companies coming up and tell them their products are useless and I still have a gynormouse freaking spot!

Probably not the best way to start my skin care routine but hey ho, off we go…

FIRST you shall be presented with an itinerary picture from which we shall systematically go through.

1) On the left we have the Garnier Skin Naturals Fresh Essentials ‘Refreshing Gel Wash’ enriched with grape extracts that promises to purify and clean.  I shall be honest and tell you that I have just run out and that is an empty bottle.  On the plus side at least I can give a well informed review!  I really have never been fussed in the slightest about what face wash I use, I’m a bit of a face wash whore truth be told, always going for the cheapest.  I really did like this one though, it spells divine and although I won’t be repurchasing (as you will find out I have become a Simple girl) it was through no fault of its own!

2) Next along would be Garnier’s replacement – Simple, Sensitive Expert range ‘Kind to Skin Vital Vitamin foam cleanser’.  They don’t all have half posh names these lot!  I adore it!  It’s absolutely lovely and foamy and not only washing my face but making me happy at the same time through the sculpture of Santa Clause beards every day, twice a day.  The only con I am seeing with this is that the formula seems to be going down pretty quickly, possibly because it takes a fair amount to get the required two squirts it recommends.  Hopefully I won’t have to repurchase TOO soon!

3) Third from the left is Simple’s ‘Kind to skin purifying cleansing lotion’.  I mainly use this to get rid of those stubborn bits of mascara that you would normally find hanging out drizzled all down your face the morning after the night before.  It’s lovely and creamy and I really can’t fault its ability to move all that stubborn makeup I never seem to be able to get with a wipe.

4) Next up is Clean and Clear’s ‘Blackheads clearing cleanser’.  This was a repurchase and possibly my favourite face product of all time (apart from the obvious moisturiser).  I love the tingly feeling you get when you smear it all over your face (though my new one doesn't seem to give it as much) and how clean and refreshed it leaves my face feeling.  I have a massive confession to make.  I actually never even knew what a black head was until just after Christmas when I asked my boyfriend what the black things were on his nose.  I thought that a blackhead was just a general spot and that was what the formula was clearing up.  Think how good that makes this stuff.  HAVING USED THIS FOR ALL THESE YEARS I HAVE NEVER HAD A BLACKHEAD!?!?  Now it may be down to genetics or something but I’m just going to go with the fact that it was Clean and Clear looking out for me like the bros that they are.  Since my boyfriend had these mythical blackheads I bought him some of this stuff for Christmas and have got him into a cleansing routine like a boss!

5) FIVE. Simple's ‘Soothing Facial Toner’.  To be honest I have no ideas what this does.  No clue.  All I know is that it was on offer when I was buying the others and it seemed like a good idea at the time.  It claims to make my skin feel clarified and refreshed, but I’ve used so many products by this point it could be any one of them.  I’m not hating it seems nice enough but nothing special in contrast to the other Simple products.  If anyone has any ideas about what I am actually gaining from swiping over my face, feel free to let me know!

6) Lastly but certainly not least is that Simple ‘Kind to Skin Replenishing Moisturiser’.  I have about 3 of these floating around my room from when I bought them on sale.  They are absolutely a life saver for keeping my skin feeling hydrated and clear (most of the time, damn you spot!).  This is the cherry on the top of my Simple collection.  I love it!

So there it is!  Quite a list when I look at it now!  I also do the occasional face mask and use various spot creams when the occasional volcano pops up but mainly I can’t complain about my skin, this lot seems to keep it looking pretty clear.

I look forward to reading everyone else’s and hopefully pick up a couple of tips from you lovely ladies.

Using these skin products seem to be negating my last resolution of being a zombie in the new year.  Letting the team down most definitely.

I know Sophia, I know.

Ooft look at that complexion

A Christmas in Pictures

A Christmas in Pictures

I thought this would be a nice way to document a bunch of the things I did in Christmas 2013 for myself without having to write a post on each (like I had originally planned *grrr* damn you coursework).  It’ll be lovely to look back and remember all the things I did!  *Warning future Gina* This is a picture heavy post ;)

Christmas started, for me, with the flat Christmas party (which I already have a post up on) but I had a brilliant time with all my flatmate and some pretty awesome food as well!

Revision begun as all my flat mates went home and my lectures finally finished!  A little quote I found in the revision guide was this:

Who slipped Narnia in there!? Law was supposed to be boring!

 As people left, gifts started arriving and I had no problem filching them on discovery!

A great moment was when I found out that the boy who had left Uni had left his room unlocked and I could go and nosy around and laugh at what he had left behind!

When I finally got home, my boyfriend and I went out to the markets shopping (I remember a certain amount of kicking and screaming on his part until he saw the food and promptly shut up!).  Didn’t get any photos but we spent a whole bunch of money in the food section trying all the different things that they had to offer!  Afterwards, (as if we weren't pumpkin shaped enough as it was) we ended up in a cute Chinese desert house.  I have NEVER been in such a place before and boy was it a discovery.  We ordered 2 desserts, I only got a picture of 1 to show my mum, and they were the most delicious things I have ever tasted in my whole entire life.  One of them was a sort of ice cream fruit platter, that was HUGE and the other - waffles with chocolate ice cream and cream.  Only downside was that (yet again) I was sitting in a room and was the only one speaking English (along with my boyfriend of course)!  Everyone looked massively bemused when we started playing rock, paper, scissors for the bill (I lost grrr!).

Tell me you're not jealous?!

Since I've only just gotten my new phone, and my old was too slow to have any kinds of apps downloaded on  it, this was the Christmas of the SnapChat.  What a discovery.  I now have multiple images of my face on different days looking ridiculous on all!

Assumed use of Snapchat:

Actual use:

I attempted to wash in wash out dye my hair the same colour it already is.  Why?!  I have no idea.

Although no pictures were taken of most of our KFC food, I can guarantee we spent a considerable amount of our time in there.  Some would say too much time.  I would disagree.  Either way this was the only picture I took inside the premises itself of the most disappointing thing from the menu - cream balls.

Blah blah blah, insert hideous selfie from Martin's Birthday here… Mmmm look at those rolls!

Christmas presents!!!

Using Christmas presents! (soo manly ;)) 

Trafford Center!  Okay so this was such an awesome day!  To cut a long story short, we skipped the shopping (definitely not like me) in favour of the farrr more fun option of playing in the arcade.  We spent four hours in there and won a tonne of tickets which we fed to machines in order to claim 2 mugs, 3 Maoims and a tub of bubbles.  Unsurprisingly the bubbles were the most popular prize for us!  We did have a mooch round the Trafford Centre as well though and the Christmas lights were so pretty!

We fought over these bubbles and the half hour of entertainment they provided!

Some silly birthday snaps:

 

Cute :')

The day I left we made some chocolate shapes from Magic chocolate that I got given, for Christmas.  Unsurprisingly mine were CLEARLY better!

Mine...

Also mine...

Again, this masterpiece is mine....

I'm sorry Martin but really?! It was suppose to be a dog!

When I finally got back to York my Mama and me went to the pub before she headed back.

And last but not least, today I had a Criminology exam and as I was walking back I got some of the most gorgeous shots of my campus.  Ghost town it may be, but you can’t deny it isn’t beautiful too!

So many pictures! But I had an absolutely awesome Christmas break - minus revision which was less fun!