Monthly Musings: May!

So I guess another month has come and gone and, all of a sudden, here we are in June with my trip to the USA less than two weeks away. I'm not entirely sure whether the last few weeks have flown by or whether they've crept forward at a frustratingly sluggish pace, but there's one thing I am certain of. My to do list never seems to get any shorter. 

So, with my next adventure just around the corner and the month of June well and truly upon us, it's time for what might be my last monthly musing until I get back in three month's time...

Obsession of the month...

My current obsession continues to be Game of Thrones. I'm sorry, but I'm still totally addicted to it. I'm halfway through the third season and, as I lie awake in bed at night, I'm plagued with the troubling thought that I might not manage to get through all of the episodes before I leave for the USA. True, I should probably be more concerned about the fact that I still don't have travel insurance, but the thought of spending the next three months in suspense, knowing there's a whole other season out there I have yet to watch...it's just too much! 

(Those of you who follow me on Instagram may have seen my ambitious attempt at Daenerys Targaryen hair. Oh how I wish I was as cool as she is!)

Accomplishment of the month...

This month I attended my last cheer competition of the season, Cheer Sport Wales in Newport. And would you believe it? We came second! Yes out opening stunt went a bit...wonky and yes the timing was off in the pyramid, but we came second! Not bad for a team who came dead last at the start of the season. In fact, not bad for any team!

Low point of the month...

Looking at my bank account after paying off the remainder of my trip. Ouch!

Book of the month...

The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 

I'm a sucker for a nineteenth century novel and this one has the added allure of a gripping plot, twists and turns galore and so much suspense I found myself huddled under the duvet until 3am most nights, promising myself I'd go to sleep "after just a few pages more". The book is written from the perspective of various characters, jumping back and forth between them to unravel the mystery of the Woman in White, who, as you may be able to guess, is a creepy enigma...dressed in white. Expect the unexpected! 

Youtuber of the month...

Stepanka

As well as your typical hair and beauty type videos, Stepanka uploads a lot of videos where she pretty much just talks at the camera about whatever's on her mind. Be it about her relationships, her dog, her boobs, she doesn't really have a filter and that's something I really enjoy in a Youtuber. I mean, hello! Have you seen my channel? Not even I know what I'm talking about most of the time! 

Things ticked off The 2015 List...

31. Go on a trip by myself

Ok, so technically when I came up with this one I was thinking of a holiday or even a night away, but, seeing as the 2015 list has been an epic fail so far, I feel like I can cheat a little and count the day trip I took to Manchester. 

I had to attend a summer camp orientation day in Manchester at the start of the month and, when the orientation ended three hours early and I was stranded, unable to catch my train until after 6pm, I took a little look around the city. I'll be honest, it was nothing like I expected. The picture I had in my head was somewhere between a scene from the Industrial Revolution with huge chimneys pouring out a thick black smog, and Coronation Street. In reality Manchester was one of the most beautiful cities I've visited and the people were extremely friendly and helpful (which was great because I got lost...a lot). 

Next month I will aim to...

Be the best summer camp counsellor in history! Or, at the very least, not have the kids think I'm a complete and utter loser. 

A Trip to London Part 2: Scary Horse Statues, Men with Guns and the Artful Dodger.

In my last post I told you all about the seemingly endless process of applying for my J-1 Visa. The paperwork, the bizarre questions, the ordeal of finding the US Embassy for my interview and, of course, the queues, queues as far as the eye could see!

But, once my interview was over and done with and I'd bravely made my way back through the gates of the Embassy, past the guards with giant guns ("you'd better get used to guns if you're going to America. I've seen the ID channel. Guns everywhere!" as my mother helpfully added), my mother and I had the rest of the day to spend wandering around London. And here's how that panned out...

I wanted to go to the Dickens Museum. I mean, they have costumed tours and a gift shop. What's not to love? But my mother isn't a big fan of Dickens...or museums. She wanted to have a wander around Debenhams instead. In the end we compromised ended up in the Disney Store.

Needless to say I got in Cinderella's carriage

From there we went and had a quick nose around Selfridges. I'm not entirely sure my mother understood just how very out of place we were. She kept looking at me and asking if I'd seen anything I wanted to try on. When I told her I definitely couldn't afford anything in the shop she seemed to think that I was just being a bit of a miser until she spotted a dress she fancied and took a look at the price tag.
"I don't have my glasses on. What does that say? £19.50?"
"No...that's £1950."
We quickly vacated Selfridges after that.

At the start of the day it was a struggle to get my mother on the tube. Yes, it’s dank and scary and squashed full of people who shoulder you out of the way and push past you on the station. Yes, it smells and yes it is totally unnatural for human beings to be propelled from one end of the city to the other underneath the ground at hurtling speeds. But, for all its unhygienic and terrifying qualities, the tube really is the best way to get around.

And, once my mother got over her initial fear that we were all certainly going to die and saw how quickly we could hop on at one station and pop up somewhere entirely new, she really began to enjoy it. In fact, when we got home that night, she and my dad discussed the wonders of the tube in depth for half an hour or more. As if it was some kind of miraculous new invention.

Next ventured over to Camden Market on a whim. It was awesome! You could spend days wandering through the little stalls, peering at all the weird and wonderful curiosities on display. There were clothes, jewellery, ornaments, books, food, artwork…pretty much everything you can imagine, only quirkier and more bizarre. There were little winding alleyways, cobbled tunnels and shops that were tucked up and hidden out of the way, a barrage of different sights and sounds and a new smell every time we turned a corner (some good and some…not so good).

The Stables Market was my favourite (despite the fact that the horse statues made me very uneasy) because its nineteenth century stonework, worn floorboards and general hustle and bustle made it feel almost as though the Artful Dodger could pop up at any moment. I guess it was the next best thing to the Dickens museum.
  

Next we headed to Covent Garden. Yes, I know it’s one of the most famous places in London and yes I know it has a Chanel and a Burberry and it’s very fancy and all that, but I preferred the randomness and weirdly endearing griminess of Camden Market. Besides, I am in no way posh enough to go wandering around Dior so it’s just as well that I stick with the little stalls in Camden where a pair of earrings is £4. 

When the time came for us to get our train, neither of us were ready to head home, partly because we were having such a lovely time nosing around London and partly because we had foolishly left it until rush hour to catch the tube. Commuters are hostile at the best of times, but in the city centre at 5:30pm a tourist could potentially lose a limb.

Spending the day in London made us realise that we really don’t take advantage of the interesting places we have on our doorstep. Here I am jetting off to explore America and I still haven’t even begun to explore to UK. So I’m going to make an effort to travel more within the country. Top of the list? The Dickens Museum!

A Trip to London Part 1: I Take on the US Embassy

In the midst of my stress-ridden daily routine of filling in online paperwork, making my endless way through lists that never seem to get any shorter, staring into my wardrobe for hours on end without ever coming to any kind of conclusion on what needs to be stuffed into the case that I have yet to purchase, and countless other anxiety-inducing preparations for my trip next month, let me tell you about my trip to the US Embassy in London.

Perhaps it will distract me from the cruel blow of waking up this morning to find we were out of Nutella.

In a world where tourists need to be screened by the DHS before they can hop on a plane to Disneyworld, it probably goes without saying that I needed a visa for my trip to the USA next month. Applying for a J-1 visa was (in my case at least) a long, convoluted and slightly terrifying experience. It involved excessive amounts of paperwork, bizarre security questions (“Are you planning on entering the country to become a prostitute?” “Are you a drug smuggler?” “Do you plan on becoming a drug smuggler in the near future?” and so on), an array of important reference numbers, passwords and memorable information (all of which seemed to disappear as soon as I needed them) and, of course, a hugely unflattering visa photograph that makes me look like I actually could be a prostitute and/or drug smuggler. And, when all of that was done, I still had to head up to London for a face to face interview.

Naturally my mother wouldn't hear of her fully-grown adult daughter heading into the city alone so she tagged along too.

Our first issue was trying to find the embassy. As if I wasn't already hampered enough by my non-existent sense of direction and complete inability to read street maps, my phone died as soon as we stepped off the tube so Google wasn't around to save us. As it happens, there’s a big square where all the embassies are and, once we found the square, it was simply a case of working out which one was the American embassy.

“Do you think they’ll have a flag outside?” My mother asked as we aimlessly wandered around the square.

“There’s a star spangled banner on the moon. I’m pretty sure there’ll be one outside the US embassy.”

Looking back, I’m still not entirely sure how it took so long to work out which one was the right building. The US embassy was about the size of four or five of the others, with an enormous eagle on top along with what was probably the most gigantic flag I've ever seen in my life. 

There was a lot of queueing involved to get into the embassy. Queueing to get my forms checked, queuing to have my bags searched, queueing to explain to the security guy that the suspicious electronic device in my bag was my rape alarm (“because a girl can’t be too careful”), queueing to get my fingerprints taken, and, finally, queueing for the actual interview.

The interview itself was actually the quickest part of the whole experience.

“What do you plan on doing in the USA?”

“I’m going to be teaching arts and crafts at a summer camp in Maine.”

“Ok. Well, I’m going to approve your visa!”

It was as simple as that.

Obviously it was a lot more upbeat and enjoyable because the interviewer was American and therefore wonderfully friendly and happy. In fact, I got so caught up in the moment that I told her to “have a nice day”. I hope she didn’t think I was being facetious…

And so trauma of my visa application was over (apart from the ordeal of trying to get hold of it a few weeks later when the embassy released it to a mystical courier service whose location is so well hidden it might as well be protected by a magic spell that makes it invisible to muggles. But that's a story for a different day). And so, with my appointment at the embassy behind me and a full day in London ahead of us, we set off to explore.

But first we had to deal with her crippling fear of the tube...

Please Prewarn Obama, I'm Going to the USA

Hand me my cowboy boots and a map to the Jack Daniel's distillery, I'm going to the USA! Yes, for those of you who missed the announcement in my latest Monthly Musings post, I've gone and gotten myself a job as a summer camp counsellor in New England. I also have 30 days of bonus travel time once camp is over so I can run wild in America, binging on Cap'n Crunch cereal and slowly working my way ever-closer to the South, which, as we all know, is the capital of big hair, hoop-skirts and whisky and therefore, my mother-ship.

In six worryingly short weeks I'll be heading out to camp with an ample supply of enthusiasm and excitement (and a suitcase stuffed with Disney princess t-shirts) to undertake my new role as...director of arts and crafts. Yes, it's my job to come up with all the arts and crafts projects, write up the itinerary, buy the supplies and to ensure that fabulous keepsakes are made, fun is had, and no one burns off their fingerprints using the glue-gun. No pressure.

I have to admit, when I was first contacted by the camp I was a little concerned. You see, it's an all boys sports camp. In fact there isn't a single female in any of their photos or videos...at all...anywhere. Naturally I was initially a little hesitant as a) I'm a girl and b) I am the least athletic person in the greater South Wales area. My friend, Beth, tried to be helpful by pointing out that with such a skewed male to female ratio at least there would be a good chance of me finding romance. I quickly pointed out that, while there will be an ample supply of testosterone, the vast majority of guys there will be aged 8-15. Not exactly marriage material.

But anxiety has melted away into excitement. After all, surely no one is going to expect me to be any good at catching a ball while I'm in the arts and crafts room...right?

When camp is over and I've had my fair share of s'mores and poster paint, I have a month of travelling ahead of me. I'm hoping to make some friends at camp to travel with (hopefully they'll have a better sense of direction than I do), but I do worry that no one will want to visit the bizarre places I plan on going to. I'm sure most people will want to go to New York and Washington D.C, but I'm looking more towards the witch museum in Salem and Bourbon Street in New Orleans. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

All I really know for sure is I'm jetting off to America next month and I still don't have a thing to wear!

To hear more about my upcoming American adventure you can watch my video on it!

Monthly Musings: Apirl

Do you ever feel like life is train, hurtling forward at a speed so obscenely fast that sometimes you feel like shouting, "Hey, can't we just pull over for a minute so I can pee?" 

Somehow April has come and gone before I even got out of the habit of writing March on all my paperwork. But, regardless of whether I'm prepared for the onset of May or not, here it comes. And, with the end of the month come my Monthly Musings. 

 Obsession of the month...

I know I am extremely late to the party on this one, but this month I started watching Game of Thrones. Why did this take so long?! Why did no one force me to sit down and watch this years ago? I mean, yes, my ex-boyfriend did try, and my housemates, and then my friends...and my brother. And I suppose it's true that my father has been demanding I watch it for at least the last 8 months, but, really, I feel like more could have been done. 

I am now trying to make up for lost time by binge-watching it every evening and have started silently cursing every episode of Coronation Street, Eastenders and various other soap opera-type rubbish that my mother insists on watching. Woman, you are eating into my Game of Thrones time and some of us are desperate to know what's going to happen to John Snow!  

Accomplishment of the month...

This month I got a job as a summer camp counsellor...in Maine! In just 7 short weeks I jet off to spend a summer toasting smores on a camp-fire, trying to come to terms with the fact that the letter 'u' will all but cease to exist, and slowly edging my way ever closer to the Jack Daniels distillery. This is the stuff that dreams are made of!

What's more, I've already Googled the bear population in the town I'll be based in and it seems very unlikely that I will be mauled to death (although back in 2012 a bear did attempt to steal a couple's hamburgers) so that's one less thing to worry about.

The moose population, however, is an entirely different matter...

Low point of the month...

Without a doubt the low point of my month was turning on Netflix and discovering that Greek had been removed. Why would Mr. Netflix do such a thing?! I had intentionally imposed a Greek ration to stop myself from burning through the entire series too quickly (à la Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Desperate Housewives, and, of course, Toddlers and Tiaras) and suddenly, not even midway through the series, it has been cruelly snatched away from me! Is it too much to want to know if Cappie and Casey will ever get back together or whether anyone will finally push Rebecca Logan off a high cliff?!

Book of the month...

Memoirs of a Geisha. I thoroughly enjoyed this book (which was a relief after trawling through last month's book)! It's beautifully written without being too dense or heavy-going, the plot is intriguing and unlike anything I've read before, and yes, it did make me cry! If you're on the lookout for your next read then I would definitely recommend this one! 

Youtuber of the month...

BuzzFeedYellow

I love ridiculous Buzzfeed articles so when I realised there were ridiculous Buzfeed videos...naturally I was all over that! From 'If Disney Princesses Texted their Princes' to 'If Girlfriends were Honest when Arguing', they have a video for pretty much every mood and I find them all hilarious. 

Things ticked off The 2015 List...

Another epic fail with regards to the 2015 List. There's no real excuse seeing as so many of the things on there can be done from the comfort of my own home with little to no effort (it's not as if watching When Harry Met Sally is going to be particularly taxing). But, once again, I've done absolutely nothing on the list. I'm a failure. I accept it. Let's move on.

Next month I will aim to...

Aside from finalising my travel plans, coming up with a three week arts and crafts itinerary for camp, and finding myself a suitcase big enough for all my junk, by the end of May I aim to have 500 subscribers on my Youtube channel. My original aim for the entire year was to reach 100 so I've already smashed that target. But 500? Are there really 500 people out there willing to listen to my rambling? 

We'll see I guess!

6 PMS Struggles Every Woman will Understand

I once had a lecturer who was convinced that PMS was a social construct, derived from the necessity of some sort of biological 'evidence' that would corroborate with the myth that women are mentally inferior to men. Now, that's a nice theory and all, but I have 12 years worth of experience of mascara-stained tears and rage-induced door slamming to suggest that PMS is real. And a bit of a bitch. 

So, to distract me from my own monthly bout of emotional upheaval and pain, I thought I'd write up a list of ridiculous PMS struggles every woman will understand.

1. You've bloated to the size of a small house 
There's nothing like gaining 3lbs in the space of 2 days and ballooning to the size of the HMS Bounty to exacerbate an already emotionally challenging few days. Those cute new skinny jeans may have fit you on Monday, but now they're so tight there's a risk the button will shoot off and blind someone across the room from you. Just be grateful that someone invented sweat pants.

2. Your emotions are as unpredictable as the National Rail Service 
One minute you're sobbing over an episode of The One Show, the next you're overcome with a burning desire the jab someone's eyes out. You hate everyone and everything (except, obviously, Nutella) and if your period doesn't come soon there is a serious risk that the next person to push in front of you in the queue at the supermarket will meet with an untimely and gruesome end.

3. You're a blotchy, greasy mess
You woke up looking like some kind of partially evolved sub-species of human. You have spots on your chin so huge there's a risk that when they finally leave they might be legally entitled to take half of your belongings with them, and your entire head looks as though it has been dipped in a vat of oil. There is not enough makeup in the world to counter a serious case of pre-menstrual hideousness.

4. Your mental faculties have deserted you
You find yourself unable to retain the simplest of information, you put salt in your tea, moisturiser on your toothbrush, and find yourself spending a good 4 hours typing up a blog post about PMS which, on any other day, would have taken half an hour or less.

5. In the last 20 minutes you've consumed appropriately 6,000 calories
There is not enough raw cookie dough, melted cheese or white bread in the world to satisfy your random cravings and endless hunger. And if the PMS demands you eat and entire jar of Nutella, who are you to refuse?

6. You just...can't be bothered
Everything from brushing your hair to reaching over to grab the TV remote requires significantly more effort than you are willing to muster. All of life's unnecessary frivolities (work, cooked meals, looking presentable etc) go out the window in favour of donning your pjs and curling up in a cocoon of self-pity with 900g of chocolate and the entire Sex and the City boxset.

I May be a Freak, but I'm a Freak with Snazzy Pens: Cult Pens Review

I'm a freak. There are a great many layers to my weirdness and a whole array of kinks and quirks that contribute to my overall uniqueness, but essentially what it all boils down to is that I am a fairly quirky human being. I keep a box of buttons, organised by colour, I have over 150 Disney songs on my Ipod and I have a paralysing fear of cows (they just have such a menacing look about them!).

Another one of my odd traits is my obsession with stationary. I mean, is it really normal to have so many feelings about post-it notes and page dividers? And surely most people wouldn't include a label maker on their list of desert island must-haves, right? But I have a deep-rooted love for anything that can organise, colour-code or sub-divide any aspect of my life and there's simply nothing I can do about it.

So, when I decided to undertake a new project last weekend, I'm sure you'll now understand why said project simply could not go ahead until I'd ordered myself a new packet of fineliners. Fineliners were, after all, the only thing that kept me sane throughout the torturous months spent drafting my dissertation. Actually, Jack Daniels may have played a part too, but mostly it was down to having all of my spider diagrams colour-coded and cute-looking.

And now we finally arrive at the point of this post. On my search for the best value packet of fineliners I could get my hands on, I came across I website called Cult Pens and, if you're a freak like me then you need this website in your life.

They have every type of pen you could possibly need in your life as well as some other stationary-type bits and bobs and they had the best price I could find for those fineliners I so desperately needed. Not only that, but shipping was free and crazy fast (I placed my order Wednesday evening and here we are on Friday and I already have them). And not only that, but my parcel also contained some sneaky surprises. I got some complimentary Staedtler pencils to go with my Staedtler pens and...a packet of Haribo!

As if I wasn't excited enough about the fineliners, they go and throw in some scrumptious sweeties as well!

So I know the vast majority of you will think this post, along with my enthusiasm for colour co-ordination, is very strange and/or unnecessary, but when I find a product or a company that impresses me, I like to share it with you guys. Sometimes that may be a new App or a restaurant and sometimes it's a shop that specialises in pens. That's the beauty of this blog. You really never know what you're going to get...

Also, Cult Pens in no way paid me or offered me a lifetime supply of free pens or anything in exchange for this post (trust me, if I had a lifetime supply of pens coming my way, you'd all know about it). In fact, they have no idea I'm even writing this and, in all probability, will also think I'm a freak for my excessive pen enthusiasm.

But that's fine. Because I am a freak.