Imagine you start getting a pain in your knee every so often, you don’t think anything of it. But then that pain turns to both knees, hips, ankles, shoulders and wrists. And it’s just a twinge here and an ache there until it’s not. Until it’s excruciating, shooting pain coming from all of your joints simultaneously. Except this isn’t some hypothetical or imaginary situation, this … Continue reading Struggling With Chronic Pain: My Experience
Before coming back to uni for my final year, I was practically itching to get back. I love my family very dearly, but after living without them for most of the year, it’s easy to miss the lifestyle you’ve built away from them when you move back over the summer. However, once I moved into my new house, and my mum had left me to … Continue reading Homesickness in Third Year
October was not just the end of freshers and Halloween for me; it was also my birthday month! This year it was a special one, I turned 21! Do I feel 21? – absolutely not, in my head I’m still a 16-year-old teenager. However, being considered a fully-fledged adult everywhere in the world now, I thought I would pass down all of my wisdom. Both … Continue reading 21 Things I Have Learnt In My 21 Years of Life
So here we are at my last ever column, and to mark the occasion IÔÇÖve compiled a list of the things I wish I knew before coming to uni. IÔÇÖve kept it to the fairly inconsequential stuff since the big lessons you learn will be things you have to experience first hand to really know, and as someone whose uni years have been so dominated … Continue reading Lessons From University : 25 Things It Helps to Know Going In
Over the course of just six weeks in the Spring of 1948 Arthur Miller produced, in my opinion, the greatest play of the twentieth century. Centred on the Loman family of New York, Death of A Salesman serves as the psychological post mortem of a man who dared to buy into Capitalist dreams of success. MillerÔÇÖs subject for this dissection comes in Willy Loman, a … Continue reading The Most Heartbreaking Line of Dialogue Ever Written : How Arthur MillerÔÇÖs Death of A Salesman Reveals the Human Tragedy of Late Capitalism┬á
I think weÔÇÖve all been in this situation before. Uni work mounting up fast, bedroom a tip, and the incessant buzzing of group chats, emails, and texts leaving you with a sense of inexplicable dread. Eventually the to-do list gets so large that it paralyses you, and you spend your time feeling stressed and miserable, failing to attack any of your worries at the root … Continue reading Too Overwhelmed To Do Anything: Why I Think Leaving Your Phone at Home Should Be The New Veganism
ValentineÔÇÖs Day -┬á a meaningful celebration of romantic love or just another excuse for companies to shove cards, flowers, and poorly fitting lingerie down our throats? A time when single people begin to envisage themselves dying alone surrounded by cats, whilst couples fret as to whether their partners efforts will match their own. If he buys flowers when sheÔÇÖs only given him a tacky card … Continue reading ValentineÔÇÖs Day : Yay or Nay?
Samuel Pepys, Che Guevara, Leonardo da Vinci, myself – what do all these people have in common? TheyÔÇÖre all diarists. Admittedly, my diaries fall more on the Adrian Mole side of things rather than the Virginia Woolf end, but since any good historian knows the value in a range of sources IÔÇÖll be bold on this one and put mine forward as an artefact of … Continue reading The Early Days of Coronavirus, As Told Through My Teenage Diary Entries
HereÔÇÖs something of a confession for you all: I love saying horrible things about the people in my life. I love sitting down with friends to dissect everything we hate about our other friends. I love playing armchair psychologist and listing every questionable thing anyoneÔÇÖs ever done.┬á I love the drama of it, the gossip, and the pat on the back we give ourselves for … Continue reading Self Improvement Away From the Self: What Does it Mean to be Kind?
Twas the week before the end of term, and everyone was bloody exhausted. The students huddled underneath their duvets in the cold and dark, their bank accounts empty and their lectures unattended.┬á Well, thats what our house is looking like at least. Without trying to upset my housemates too much, Its fairly apparent that weÔÇÖre all in pretty urgent need of some time apart. In … Continue reading Don’t Talk to Me I’m Toddler Tired
IÔÇÖve always loved living with the seasons. I embrace the yearÔÇÖs constant cycle of change with welcome arms, from the cold sunrises in winter, to the daffodils in spring, reading on the beach in summer to drinking overpriced coffee on rainy autumn days. The seasons are so sensibly laid out, and I always find myself ready for the switch just as it arrives. There is, … Continue reading December to January: The CalendarÔÇÖs Only Mistake
Three years ago I had my first ever driving lesson. Last month I booked my first practical test. You might say that on the driving front IÔÇÖve been stalling quite majorly, if youÔÇÖll excuse the pun. The thing with learning to drive is that itÔÇÖs (A) really tricky and (B) a logistical nightmare. Of course the pandemic played a big part in the delay, but … Continue reading Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre: Finally Learning How to Drive in 2022
I had a nightmare recently – not about being chased down a hallway or loosing all my teeth – but about a phone call from my parents: the house was being sold. As stupid as it might sound, the idea of a house going on the market left me shaken with a sort of pre-emptive grief. I realised that my foundations: my hometown, my family … Continue reading Childhood’s Second Death
From the looks of it, getting old seems awful. From deteriorating eyesight and ever more debilitating hangovers to hip replacements and your friendsÔÇÖ funerals, it all sounds horrendous. But for women, I think thereÔÇÖs another side to ageing thatÔÇÖs less talked about, and itÔÇÖs the double whammy of ageism and misogyny that quietens the voices of women who still have so much to say. This … Continue reading A Defence of The Karen: Why Do We Hate Older Women Speaking Out?
IÔÇÖd like to tell you that I love cycling because I care about the environment, or my health or any of the other reasons that someone with better priorities than me might tell you to buy a bike. But for me, I own a bike out of laziness, cheapness and as a way to spend some time alone. You might see me whooshing up Senghennydd … Continue reading Cycling in the City : Why I Love Owning a Bike in Cardiff
This pandemic has cast an indelible mark on our present. We are supposedly out of the worst that the past year and a half has had to offer, and media companies like Vice are trying to steer clear from even mentioning that it ever happened. In fact, it seems, we all are. No one wants to talk about it anymore. WeÔÇÖve settled into an apathy … Continue reading Column: Post-Pandemic Blues
The term FOMO, or fear of missing out, is ÔÇÿdefined as a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absentÔǪ characterized by the desire to stay continually connected with what others are doingÔÇÖ, according to an actual scientific study done on the phenomenon. Social media makes it difficult to ignore the lives others are leading, and I felt like this ignorance … Continue reading Fear Of Missing Out: Why Is It So Hard To Say No To Nights Out?
I knew about it before IÔÇÖd even been able to type it into YouTube and watch it: Lil Nas XÔÇÖs MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) took the internet by storm last week with the official release. Everyone who loved it raved about it, and everyone who hated it rallied against it. At the time of writing this article, the music video has 94 million … Continue reading Lil Nas X: Taking On The Critics
I am now so bored with social media that I have resorted to refreshing my news app as a way to expend the energy I conserve for being too interested in other peopleÔÇÖs lives. Usually, this just leaves me feeling smugly well-informed of current affairs whilst Netflix plays in the background and my coffee goes cold on my desk. This week felt different. We all … Continue reading 97% Of Us: What We All Have In Common
If the first 12 days are anything to go by, then itÔÇÖs pretty clear that 2021 isnÔÇÖt going to be the anti-climatic year we had hoped for in comparison to 2020. In the two weeks that the Capitol Building in Washington D.C experienced a coup, the UK was put back into lockdown, my university deadlines are becoming increasingly harder to ignore, and Lana Del Rey … Continue reading A Long Overdue Critique Of Lana Del Rey
