22.12.16 — Journal

I Did Survive First Semester

I come to you to promise the above, that I have indeed made it through my first semester of my final year of university relatively unscathed. I apologise for the severe delay in blog posts, but a quick-fire set of deadlines after my first project and as I entered the second half of the semester meant that my free time has been very limited, and so when it does come along I’ve been spending it out of the house doing as much fun stuff as I can! But this all does indeed mean that I can share just a little bit of it with you guys now…

First up, as a post-deadline treat after my first project, I headed out with some friends to go and see the hilarious Trixie Mattel perform live in Leeds, and what a great night we had! Trixie was hilarious and the time I didn’t spend laughing at her act was spent admiring the sheer scale and rigidity of her wig…

Trixie performs in Leeds

At home, whilst not buried under a mountain of sketchbooks and pens working away on a YCN brief for uni, I made the time to crack out my box of tinsel and fairy lights and get my room looking a little more festive for the period. To do this I managed to wire the fairy lights into the existing wireless lighting system in my room, and cleared my little display of tidbits off the table below my window to create my own festive snow-scene display…

Some festivities added around my desk
My little Christmas scene

Although moving from my uni room and onto campus and back again in order to work becomes as laborious and boring as it is to read, the winter weather (when not biting our fingers off with the chill) has provided some beautiful scenes here in the city, including a gloriously colourful sunset on campus which rewarded us for working late one evening…

Leeds University looking beautiful
A view over the river

Also, as regular readers may have guessed, I also dedicated a chunk of my free time to eating, making a lovely trip back to Lupe’s Cantina, arguably the best Mexican food in Leeds, after which some fog rolled in and made Hyde Park look quite like the moody Yorkshire one might find on a postcard.

Welcome to Hyde Park

Over the past few weeks though, and as I am sure I have mentioned multiple times thus far, the overarching matter has been the job of getting my designs for my second project wrapped up, printed off and handed in. This project will soon land on my portfolio, so I shan’t divulge too many details just yet, but I can reveal that what I ended up making left my room in a flood of paper and other craft stuff…

Design is messy

Sooner or later though I had my final document handed in, then a proposal written for my independent project brief which will be completed next year, and finally it was time to relax. We all made our way straight to Belgrave to share some huge trays of chips and hand out our Secret Santa gifts, during which Rhea presented me with a huge bag full of hilarious goodies!

Belgrave looking nice and green
Gifts for everyone!

And so after that whirlwind overview of the past month or so, we hit today. Just this past week I’ve been suffering quite a bit from some kind of viral infection plus a wisdom tooth intent on causing me never-ending pain, so me and Izzy have been taking it easy and chilling in the house. I’m very much looking forward to Christmas but I don’t think the real excitement is going to hit properly until I land back in Burnley this weekend – leaving it late or what?!