H is for Happy week 7

It's that time of week again! Okay so it's not really a specific time because I don't have this go out on a specific day for multiple reasons...However I'm in a fairly good mood today because a Lush has opened up in Sunderland (finally) and the uni lecturers are striking so I was free to go to it as soon as it opened. Greeted by a lovely glass of bucks fizz I restocked my bath bombs, bought a sneaky something for my mamma for mother's day and scraped together enough change (poor man in Lush had to deal with all my 10ps and 20ps...whoops) for a charity pot. Plus my Internet's been fairly decent today so I've been able to download a few sermons to watch.

Anyway rambling introduction out of the way, here is this week's H is for Happy:

• Getting excited for stuff. Michelle and I have officially started our "OHMYGOODNESSTAYLORSWIFTSOON!!!" messages. We will probably look something like Spongebob and Patrick with the beautiful wide eyes and excited grins next Wednesday seeing the lovely Taylor Swift in London.

• "You have been tagged by ______ in x new photos" Yes facebook informing me I've been tagged in photos make me happy. Why? Because my brother's girlfriend puts up photos of my niece and nephew then tags the family in them which means I get to see them even when I'm over 200 miles away. How adorable is my nephew here?!

• The Holiday is possibly one of my favourite films and tends to be right up there as a go to film when I need cheering up. I've had a rubbish few weeks and this film was needed so on it went! I actually adore Jack Black in this film and the character of Amanda's next door neighbour is easily the best character in the film.

• Emma Watson gets two pictures this week. Why? Because I couldn't pick between these two outfits taken on the set of her latest modelling (ooo get here) shot for Lancome. The 'daytime' look works brilliantly thanks to the hat and the tie and I love the mix of texture in the 'night' look. Plus her hair looks amazing slicked back like that.

AND FINALLY...

• "The sun has got his hat on, hip-hip-hip-hooray. The sun has got his hat on and he’s coming out today" The sun has been shining beautifully over the last few days and I've been able to venture out in just a cardigan (admittedly my hoody still comes with me but I haven't had to wear it yet. Hurrah!)

Third Time Taylor

This time next week myself and the lovely Michelle will be in London screaming very loudly in a fan-girlish manner. Why? We are going to see Taylor Swift in concert...for the third time in two years. My boyfriend asked why I was going again to see someone I'd already seen twice so I felt a bit inspired by that to write the following post...

• She does gorgeous photo shoots and looks like she's simply having a laugh with friends and a camera taking slightly goofy poses every now and then. This humour transcends onto stage and her talking between songs.

• Her songs are brilliant in both album form and live format. She genuinely encourages the audience to sing along and who doesn't love a good old sing song?

• She has great style and sets. The first time we saw Taylor it was at London's Shepard's Bush arena which is titchy compared to somewhere like Wembley. This meant the concert was Taylor in a gorgeous silver sequinned dress and the band. No sets (wah!). However when the album really took off Taylor did a whole load of new tour dates in the UK which enabled us UK fans to see for ourselves the amazing sets put together including the You Belong With Me marching band/dress costume change on stage, Love Story dancers, Forever and Always chair throwing (amaaaaazing!), the mash up of You're Not Sorry with Justin Timberlake's What Goes Around (Comes Around) and the personal favourite of mine...the Should've Said No waterfall:

So if, this time next week, you hear excited screaming and singing of country songs you might have just run into us pre/post Taylor concert.

H is for Happy; week three

♥Taylor Swift. My tickets for her Speak Now tour date in London came today. Props to my mum for knowing this would be worth texting me about and brightening up my day.

♥CANDY! Sweet Home Alabama is an amazing sweet shop just down the road from my uni flat and does my favourite sweets for a decent price. I introduced a friend to the shop this week and they love it as much as I do.

♥The Saturdays. I saw these lovely ladies in Newcastle on Monday and it was excellent. I wasn't sure what they would be like live but they are good. I love this picture the most from all the ones I took on the night. Mollie (my favourite) just looks ready to party and this was my favourite costume set they had.

♥Hanging out and being goofy (on the odd occasion) with a friend/friends. My friend Kerri from back home came to visit me this week. She arrived on Monday (she came with me to see the Saturdays) and left this evening (Friday) and slept on my floor in my comfier-than-my-bed sleeping bag. I loved having her visit and enjoyed taking her to Lush, Paperchase, the Disney Store and Sweet Home Alabama - none of which we have back home.

♥Converse. I treated myself to these last week (thank you bursary) and have almost been living in them since then. I think there's been the odd occasion where I've just popped across the road to Wilko in ballet pumps but my love affair with Converse has been reignited this week.

And that is five things that has been making my life lovely this week.

30 day blog challenge: day 13

Day 13 - Your favourite musician and why?

Again, I'm going to ever so slightly bend the rules to this day's post. I have two favourite musicians so both will feature.

Artist number one is Alexz Johnson. She's a Canadian singer and actress who I first stumbled across in t.v. show Instant Star (follows the winner of a talent contest similar to the X Factor with a rather attractive ex-boy band member as her mentor), when I was fifteen. I was instantly amazed by her vocals. Add in the fact she wrote a lot of her songs for the series and I was hooked. She released her first solo album this year and it's simply brilliant. My favourite tracks from it are Mr Jones, A little Bit, Taker and Boogie Love although I could easily just list all eleven tracks. I'm waiting for the day I can afford to go see her in Canada/America or for her to come over here.

Next up is Taylor Swift. This is a kind of obvious one for those of you who know me. I've seen her live twice so far, but I'm going again at the end of March for her Speak Now tour. I'm so excited! I love the way she expresses herself through her music and I have mega respect for where she writes her own lyrics and music. Plus she's totally funny, the kind of girl you can imagine being friends with and goofing around with (youtube her general videos, they're hilariously silly).

Home Sweet Home

I'm writing this on the train waiting to go home for reading week.I officially love reading week.I get to spend the next 10 and a half days with some of my favourite people,some of whom I haven't seen since I left for uni.

I've kept it quiet that I'm coming back.Partly because I wanted to surprise people and partly because I wanted time to kick back,relax and do some work without having people demand my time.The main people who I want to know that I'll be back know.I told my boyfriend first, followed by two of my best friends,then my parents and my brother. Family, best friends and the boyfriend. The most important people know the important stuff first and I get to arrange to see them as and when I want before people who haven't bothered with me feel the need to insist we meet up.

Admittedly I was back last weekend but it was for Chellington so I was only home for about two hours and only saw my mum and my niece. The week hasn't been too bad, work wise. It's gone fairly quickly, something which I'm thankful for because I've been looking forward to the 11 days I'm at home since I booked the tickets.

I'm entering a bit of a stand-off with the fashion editor for the e-zine I contribute to. She hasn't published my article. Fair enough I thought, I'll email her and ask why. That was three days ago. No published article and no reply to my email. Common courtesy would insinuate that I'd at least get an email explaining what's going on if she thought my article was rubbish. I'll still submit to the music section as and when I have stuff to write but no fashion articles of mine will be submitted until this is dealt with :)

I received feed back on my first assessed piece of writing in a workshop today. The workshop leader and module leader had both marked it, which is a big deal as they're both journalists, so I was really nervous going to my workshop leader for my feedback. I sat down and, to my very pleasant surprise, my piece had been marked as a first! I think I may have been the only one in my workshop to receive a first. Most people got 2:1s. I was so happy with that grade. I've only been at uni and I'm getting work marked at a grade 1! My workshop leader said it was obvious I'd come to uni already knowing how to write really well.Thank you Mrs Jewitt! She was my English teacher for five years so I may email her and thank her for all the time she told me my work was naff as it obviously worked. Legend!

I'm not even back yet and I've got stuff planned back home. It's my best friend's birthday next weekend (22nd) so I've got her present in my suitcase ready to be wrapped and presented to her. I think we're doing something just us as well as going for drinks at our local Wetherspoons with a bunch of people. Then on the 23rd I'm going to see Taylor Swift with my friend and her little sister.I'm mega excited as it's at Wembley stadium - the last time I went to see her it was at Shepherd's Bush arena, which is much smaller and thus limited the staging she could do. I've seen clips of her touring in America so I'm hoping for similar stage sets and performances. It should be mega :)

Work,work,work (and a little play)

I'm two months into the uni experience and work has only just recently gotten hectic. I finalised my 1500 word essay on the progression of women's magazines and their portrayal of women today.I have to admit it was pretty interesting.I first chose it because I thought that,what with it being about women's magazines which I read a lot of,it'd be pretty easy.It wasn't as simple as I thought it would be but it was really interesting.I loved researching the history side of it,even if my main source was restricted by lack of library resources. Boo them.

I've got my MAC 189 article to do for Friday.Working on a uni beat."Does the student party lifestyle impact their education experience?" Got to give credit to Piers for that one.The inspiration conversation went a little like this:

Me: I don't know what I'm going to focus on for my uni based article!

Piers: well think,what do uni students do?

Me: get drunk a lot?

Piers: there you go then!

Legend boyfriend :')

General source fail for a while though.Only one of the alcohol charities I contacted got back to me,and the campus bar staff sucked when I spoke to them earlier.So I'm gonna use the alcohol charity,a lecturer and interview a student.Genius?Maybe,maybe not but it's a decent idea so I'm happy.

Shorthand is going really well,strangely enough because I was looking forward to that module the least having just finished seven years worth of German lessons.However I genuinely enjoy it.I'm pretty good at it,if I do say so myself.

Aha I sound like such a geek :')

I just did my shorthand homework in about 5 minutes.I've reached official uni geek times!

Plus on top of all my actual uni work there's the added work the e-zine (injournalism/detour) creates.In the past two weeks I've done a review of Paramore's album "Brand New Eyes",a feature on autumn coats (they were pretty,I wanted to put my window/online shopping to good use considering I have a perfectly good, albeit a little muddy, coat here with me) and I've written an article on Body Shop's "Anita's favourites" collection.Waiting for the coat one to go up before I put the Body Shop one up.Could also possibly be receiving some samples/products from said collection from press office.If I do I'm so reviewing them!

I got my ticket for clothes show live on Sunday as well!I was home (via Chellington with Straight Up as per the last five years) for the weekend and my mum put the ticket on her card as they wouldn't accept mine.The fashion team from the e-zine are going.I'm mega excited as the platinum ticket I got includes a goody bag,fast tracking for the show and a guarantee of a seat and not just entry.Love love love!

Which reminds me.This time in two weeks I shall have seen Taylor Swift in concert for the second time.(Hence the picture at the beginning.That was the first time in a smaller London venue.This upcoming time its at Wembley baby!)I celebrated this fact on Monday by buying her first album,only just released over here,in Asda for £5.High School Musical 3 may have also found its way into my bag of Asda goods but hey,good memories of the film and cinema trip around it so I'm allowed methinks.

I'm gonna stop geeking about work now and go read a magazine.

All in the name of research of course ;~)