Instagram weekend round up #1

 

I've been so looking forward to this past weekend for a long time. October has felt a bit like a new beginning. September was always going to be a bit of a slump. My sister moved to university a couple of weeks ago and is now living in halls, going out a few times a week and generally enjoying herself. It made me a little bit nostalgic for my time at university and I realised it's been five years since I started. Nothing like a realisation like that to make you feel well and truly old. This has also been the first year I've not been going into another year of education or at least planning to do so. This time last year I was knee deep in NCTJ homework, coursework, revision notes and shorthand outlines. Feels like it's been much longer since that started and finished!

So, this weekend has kicked off gig season for me. Between now and Christmas I've got tickets for a grand total of ten gigs, which is ridiculous but exciting at the same time. I've been going to see bands since I was about 14 (not including the pop phase of my life when it was all S Club 7, Busted, McFly etc.) and I try to go to as many as I can, which since starting my current job two years ago, has proven a bit more difficult as I work in the evenings. Fortunately, most of the shows coming up are at weekends, so my bank balance has been drained on buying tickets. 

On Saturday, I went to Manchester to meet up with my sister. We had Nandos (standard) and cocktails before making our way to Sound Control to see Blitz Kids. I've been looking forward to seeing them since I first heard The Good Youth at the beginning of the year. It was a really good night, and the best way to round off a rather dull week of just being at work. Then, yesterday, I met up with my friend for a weekly catch up over a TGI Friday's and then a little bit of shopping having just being paid on Friday. 

I'm happy September's over with. The new lot of students in town has done nothing but make me feel old, stuffy and nostalgic for uni. October also means that life is hopefully going to get a bit busier, what with all the gigs and a week off work at the end of the month, plus a university open day. I might also have something a bit more exciting to post about too.

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Blog Overhaul: New Beginnings

Hello (:

I've decided I want to do a complete overhaul of this little corner of the internet. I've run out of things to write about, in short. For a while, I was writing for another blog/website and I found I was putting all my energy into writing for that, as it was a way to get my writing out there to more readers. I thought it looked more professional in my portfolio if it was published by someone other than myself. That blog has since been abandoned, and I started writing for Cultnoise. I get to write whatever I want over there, so I've been sticking to advice-like pieces, reviews of books and eventually, when I start going to gigs again, I'll be writing about those. So, instead of writing those sorts of posts for this blog, I decided I wanted to take back my little dent in the internet and use it to document my life instead.

I turned 23 in July and since then I've made some decisions, some of which are still up in the air. The next year or so is going to be the year of deciding what I actually want to do with the rest of my life. Or as my friend said to me last month on a night out, 2015 is the year we get ourselves sorted. I finished university in 2012 and have done bugger all with my degree, it hasn't even enabled me to get a graduate job in a different field. All those 'transferable' skills have failed me and I'm at risk of becoming very bitter and jaded at such a young age.

So, hello, my name is Laura, I'm a 23 year old, creative writing graduate who stupidly jumped in to doing an NCTJ diploma without fully thinking it through. I'm the queen of knee jerk reactions. So, that is why I'm giving myself the next year to fully make a decision that will hopefully cement myself some sort of career. It's not that I want to turn my back on creative writing or journalism, it's that those haven't been the logical choices. I'm never going to stop writing, it's just less often now.

I will warn you, I'm going to post about anything and everything. If I discover something I like, I'll probably gush about it, or if I go on a day out somewhere interesting, I'll probably bang on about it and encourage anyone who stumbles over this to go. I don't lead a particularly interesting life, I go to a lot of gigs, go to TGI Friday's far too often, get drunk at weekends, and I'm still far too emotionally invested in Harry Potter. But I'm hoping I can look back in a years time and see how far I've come along and what, if anything, has changed.

I hope this won't be too much of a boring read for you. It's something I've been thinking about for a while, I just needed a kick up the arse to put it in motion.

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