Books I've read in 2017

For the past few years I have attempted to keep track of what books I've read. I start January with a list and slowly add to it throughout the first month, but once February hits, it completely goes out the window, and this year was no exception. However the other night, I thought I would attempt to get a list together. So I looked on Amazon at my past orders, looked at my university website at my past modules, and tried to remember the books I read over summer because of YALC and the list was created (however not in order).  I'm pretty sure I have missed off a few I read over summer but overall I read at least read 52 books, and I'm really quite proud of that number if I'm honest! So here it is, all the novels I read in 2017: 

1. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
2. Baumgartner’s Bombay, Anita Desai
3. How Hard Can Love Be? Holly Bourne
4.  Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie
5. Burnt Shadows, Kamila Shamsie
6. The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai
7. What Maisie Knew, Henry James
8.  The Once and Future King, T.H.White (Not all chapter but most)
9. A Court of Wings and Ruin, Sarah J. Mas
10.  Lord of Shadows, Cassandra Clare
11. Idylls of the King, Alfred Lord Tennyson
12. The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
13. Tales from a Shadowhunter academy, Cassandra Clare
14. Wing Jones, Katherine Webber
15. Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery
16.  Once and For All, Sarah Dessen
17. Always and Forever: Lara Jean, Jenny Han
18. The Upside of Unrequited, Becky Albertalli
19. A Quiet Kind of Thunder, Sara Barnard
20. The Truth about Forever, Sarah Dessen [re-read]
21. This Lullaby, Sarah Dessen [re-read]
22. The Names They Gave Us, Emery Lord
23. Geekerella, Ashley Poston
24. This Raging Light: But Then I Came Back, Estelle Laure
25.  Malory Towers, Enid Blyton
26. Peter and Wendy, J.M. Barrie
27. City of Spades, Colin MacInnes
28. Girl in pieces, Kathleen Glasgow
29. This Raging Light, Estella Laure
30. Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Becky Albertalli
31.  Love & Gelato, Jenna Evans Welch
32.  The Dark Days Club, Alison Goodman
33. Mansfield park, Jane Austen
34.  Lock and Key, Sarah Dessen [re-read]
35.   Under the Net, Iris Murdoch
36.  The L-Shaped Room, Lynne Reid Banks
37. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Alan Sillitoe 
38.  Disreputable History of Franke Landau Banks, E. Lockhart [re-read]
39. Am I Normal Yet?, Holly Bourne
40. Girlhood, Cat Clarke
41. It Only Happens in the Movies, Holly Bourne
42. Moxie, Jennifer Mathieu
43.  The Exact Opposite of Okay, Laura Stevens
44. Everless, Sarah Holland
45. One of us is Lying, Karen McManus
46. Freshers, Lucy Ivison and Tom Ellen
47. The Loneliest Girl in the Universe, Lauren James
48. The Truth and Lies of Ella Black, Emily Barr
49. The Hazel Wood, Melissa Albert
50.   Juniper Lemon’s, The Happiness Index, Julie Israel
51. The End of the Affair, Graham Greene
52.  The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins

As you can tell, with my course and my own personal taste, I read quite a range of novels! I had thought I would pick my few favourites, but I honestly am struggling to pick out just a few, so I have put my favourite eleven books in bold, although I would recommend most of these books to anyone! 

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas, surrounded by friends, family and lots of food. I had a lovely few days break, however it's already back to essay writing for me as I've got 6,000 words due in next Thursday! But it makes it so much better being surrounded by home comforts and all my family. I'll hopefully write my year round-up, or 2018 hopes soon. Christina xox

Nearing the end of another chapter

I remember that feeling in the last year of school that you knew it was the last chapter of that part of your life, and I felt so nostalgic and confused. Because on one hand, I was so excited for the next chapter, but also,  I didn't want to leave my school, dance school and living at home and say goodbye to the things that made me feel most comfortable.

And a friend reminded me of that feeling today, and I realised, I'm having it all over again in my third and final year of University. I think that's why I felt the need to document my life over on Instagram by taking a photo every day - to acknowledge to myself and the world, that this part of my life will be over at some point soon, and I'm not quite ready for that yet.

Now this term has not been nice at all. It's included many breakdowns, much stress and a lot of feeling down, I'm not going to lie to you. Third year is F****** hard (I'm sorry about the profanity but it's how I honestly feel.) A part of me just wants to be done with uni, and already be on the other side of the world, meeting new people which I will (fingers crossed) be next year!
 Quite a large part of me also is just so over never being finished with work, always having another novel I need to read and always having something I should be working on. However another part of me is sad (who knew one person could hold all these different feelings!) I had my last seminar with my favourite tutor today and whenever I think of the fact I won't actually be learning new things next year it does make me grateful of life right now. Because I do like my course, however much stress its giving me at the moment, I do really like it. I love reading novels, I love learning about history linking with novels and I love my dissertation topic. So although I am so ready to say goodbye to essays, there is a part of me that isn't ready to say goodbye to studying texts. Then there is uni life - my job at the student union bar and my cheerleading club - things I am no way ready to say goodbye to and the thought that they will go on next year without me is very disheartening at the moment.

Life's weird basically, I have so many contrasting feelings about Uni at the moment. Who knows what life will be like this time next year but right now I just need to get through the next week - write one essay and get a good start on my two other ones, then finally Christmas will be here!

Snapshots from Home

Sometimes all you need to do is curl up with a blanket, watch a Disney film on your mum's sofa and zone out from the world for a bit.

Last week I wrote about how I was struggling with motivation etc, but the thing that got me through was the idea of a weekend in the countryside at home, I thought it was all that I needed - and it was. It's now Monday morning and I'm almost feeling back up to scratch. So, I thought I'd share some snapshots from my weekend at home.

This weekend was a break from everything. A break from the rush of London, a break from the library and a break from work. I struggled to fully relax but when, on Saturday afternoon I could have gone and read a book for my course or snuggled up on the sofa and watch Frozen - I watched Frozen. I worried I was wasting the day, but also, I just wanted to sing-a-long to Let It Go if I'm honest, so I did.  I didn't do much at home - the main events were going to a local pub for food, going on a country walk and heading to Primark to get my fancy dress costume for this week - but that was lovely. I could catch up with Madeleine, see the new kitchen we got done over the summer and get catch up with everything!

So now I'm going into the second half of the uni term, I've got five weeks of uni ahead of me and a heck load of work but it's okay. I'm excited for cheer at the moment, we got our team name and we are doing All-Girl Level 3, a level that QMA have never entered before - so that's a new challenge that I'm excited to be a part of. Plus, I'm looking forward to getting back to work, I had the week of with it being reading week but I've got a shift this evening and I'm actually kind of looking forward to it! So, life is okay, sorry for my slight breakdown last week (and the worry it caused my Dad) but I've got my positive pants on for this week and I'm taking it one day at a time!

Also I have be loving some new albums this week so thought I'd share with you:

Kelsey Bellerini's new album, Unapologetically, is beautiful! My favourites are 'In Between', 'Legends' and 'Music.' If you are a fan of old school country Taylor Swift I would definitely recommend her! The other album I am loving is Niall Horan's, Flicker album. My favourites are 'Seeing Blind', 'On My Own' and 'Too Much To Ask.' Such a lovely chilled album with some great lyrics!  

Don't forget to follow my Instagram to keep up with my photo-a-day challenge!

Keep Pushing Forwards

The past few days have been fairly shit if I'm honest. My brother came to London yesterday which was lovely, and I've had some laughs with flatmates but other than that, I feel fairly crap right now. And sorry about the swearing, but I write how I speak and that's the best way I can describe it at this moment.

This week is reading week, meaning I have a week off lectures/ seminars plus my student's union bar where I work is closed, so I have a little bit of a break. However, it being third year, I had an assignment due in today and another logbook thing I am already behind on that I want to work on, plus, you guessed it, reading! So actually, it hasn't been a break yet. On Friday I had the opinion that the next four/five days were going to be very boring, but also very productive. In a sense they were - I got my essay in, and although I don't think it is the best piece of work ever, I think I had some good ideas and hopefully that came across. However, this afternoon I sat down to do my logbook and my motivation honestly just flew straight out the window. I briefly planned my ideas but I could not make myself write down one single word, even with the novel to hand. And now I feel a horrid sense of guilt that I haven't accomplished what I'm supposed to do today and I shouldn't enjoy my evening with friends that I have planned. This guilt isn't healthy, I know that, and my work won't stop my evening with friends tonight but I feel bad and I don't quite know how to explain it. The past few days I've not been feeling 100% either if I'm honest, I just feel a bit groggy with a headache and stomach ache. I don't know. But this is where I try to turn it all around and make myself feel motivated and happy again.

I just watched Lucy Moon's 'When You're not making progress'  video and one little thing that stuck out to me was her motivating words of the fact that you just have to 'keep pushing forwards.' That yeah, you may hit a brick wall in your studies or work but you have to take a breath and eventually break down that wall. Whether it's in half an hour or by tomorrow I cannot not do this work. It has to be done sometime soon if I want a degree and if I want my degree to reflect what I am capable of doing. And once this degree is done I can escape to Australia and forget all my worries (although need to save up that money first, another thing to worry about...!) 

Third year is hard. Reading week is hard. But I really need to see the positive side of things, I'm not a negative person and I really hate it when I am so I need to flip my switch and get my positive pants back on. I am going home on Thursday which can't come soon enough, I can't wait to relax on the sofa with my mum, catch up with my dad and giggle with Madeleine, a break is very much needed! 

Hopefully next time we'll speak to you I'll be more positive! Christina xox 

Hello, I'm back (well for now at least)

Since my final year of university started I've felt the need to document everything. Deep down in my gut I know this is the last year of going to Queen Mary's. The last year of living in this little random bubble where there is a grave-yard in the middle of campus and 'Red Beer' is a normal phrase that’s just a part of everyday life. I felt this need so much so that I set myself a challenge - to take and post a photo on Instagram everyday of third year (this started a week or so into the year, but still!) and I am loving it. I can already look back and see what I've done this month and already relate the photos to feelings I had at that time. So I thought I'd share some with you. But sometimes photos aren't enough.

I do not do a photography degree, I do an English degree. Where everything I study is to do with words and stories. So, over the past few weeks I found myself looking back at my blog. The last time I posted here was a year ago. Where I wrote about how busy I was and how much I was loving life. Although I was loving life then, I was struggling as well - and that’s a part of university life that isn't talked about very much.

I want to come back to this blog. I want to write my thoughts, anecdotes and random ramblings down. However, I don't want to feel pressure to post, to write beautiful amazing things, to take incredible photo's or to get this many page views. I'm writing for myself. I'm writing because this year has already been full of ups and downs and why not write about this for the internet to see. But also for me to look back on. I love looking back on my old posts from sixth form and even earlier - I remember specific moments when photos were taken or how I was feeling when I wrote a post. And I crave that now. I crave writing about my life. I crave oversharing everything on this random corner of the internet that not many people will see. 

So, I write this after an ish-productive morning in the library (however I am supposed to be reading an essay at this moment...) Who knows how much I'll post, but for now, Stylestorey is back. (even though I cringe at that name now!)

If you do want to check out my Instagram find it here!