University: My life in boxes

So another term is coming to an end and as my flat slowly empties I am yet again surrounded by, yes you guessed it, boxes of my crap. I never realised just how much stuff I own until I came to university, and now I have the wonderful task of packing it all up and moving it roughly 100 miles back to my house before,in a month, having to re-pack everything I feel like i have only just unpacked and carting it all back again. I'm telling you I don't know how students who travel home by train do it. I mean I certainly couldn't carry my Death Star (desktop computer) and television, plus all my clothes back on the train. I suppose I'm lucky my parents have a seven seater car (nicknamed 'the bus') to take all my stuff back in. I have also realised this term how very many clothes I own. I set myself a challenge, mainly because I was sick of going to the laundrette and finding all the washing machines broken, that I would see how long I could go without doing any washing. I made it a remarkable 5 weeks before I ran out of Bras and it was quite fun seeing what weird outfits came out of the experiment too. My point is, I feel like when you are at university you really need two sets of 'stuff', one for home and one for your university abode, because carting all of this stuff back and forth is simply exhausting. It also got me thinking about what packing up all my stuff for summer is going to be like too, I mean I'm going to have to pack up all my kitchen utensils and the few bits I do leave in my flat over the holidays usually making it even more of a job. It's funny but when I think about how bored I got of shopping for stuff before I came to university, I didn't know how important some of the things you take for granted as owning could be. For example my mum was adamant that I was to have a good quality wok before coming to university as she said (and she was right as usual) that the hob in my apartment wouldn't cool down as quickly as I needed it to and so she didn't want my food catching. A few weeks ago I went to a friends apartment and he actually burnt what he was cooking and had to throw it away due to a poor quality wok (nice one mum). I've been speaking to a few freshers who have been reading this blog via my Facebook and its nice to know that I'm able to pass on some advice that I didn't have and getting a good quality wok is definitely something I advise as they can be used to cook tons stuff that is relatively cheap to make.

Here is a list of things I believe you should definitely have when planning on coming to university:
-A clothes horse (laundrette dryers don't always get the job done right)
-A printer (printing costs are sky high and going to the library to print isn't always convenient)
-A bottle opener (for opening 'sparkling water' ;-) )
-Posters and photos from home (personally my dorm room looks a little like a prison cell when the walls are bare)
-Hand wash equipment (sometimes you can avoid doing a big wash by hand washing a few bits)
-Frozen meals from home (having mum cook up some pasta sauce or Shepard's pie to stick in the freezer saves you cooking and money!)
-A budget book (it's really easy to waste money, keeping track is important so things don't get out of hand)
-A list of accommodation services and their phone numbers at hand in case of emergency (or some drunk guy passes out in front of your apartment door)
-Speakers (even cheap speakers do the job for parties or those all important 'who can be louder' competitions with the apartment upstairs)
-A toaster (not always provided though can be bought as a flat)
-A first aid kit and lots of flu remedy, Strepsils and cough medicine(Fresher's flu is a bitch, ask anyone!)
-An emergency fund! (This is perhaps the most important one, sometimes crap does happen, you lose a student card or your key which can cost up to £50 to replace.Having money set aside as a backup may seem less fun than spending it on a night out, but it could save your butt in the end!)

Anyhow, i know this has been more informative than fun but I feel like knowledge should be shared not hoarded and I wish someone had told me about this stuff! If any current students have advice or an item they couldn't have done without that I haven't thought of, then please feel free to comment.

Atargatis, now off to sleep in a fort made of boxes, over and out! XxxX

The Labels of Love

So it's nearly 2am and i'm sitting as i do most nights when i cant sleep with my headphones in thinking about life in general and this song comes onto the radio i'm listening to and i recognise it straight away, it's from 'Sex and the city the movie'. So i'm getting a little groove on and then i start really listening to the lyrics:
'Love's like a runway, but which one do i love more?"
So for my male readers out there this is the time you realise i'm gonna start talking fashion and bolt onto some other webpage about cross bows or hunting rifles or something... go on... it's okay... we all understand when it comes to fashion you men only PRETEND to be interested. 

Okay so now the men are gone i want to talk about labels. You know the ones i'm talking about, the ones that when you hear the words it makes your stomach flip and then your mind boggle and the subsequent price tag attached to that dress you just 'have to have!' The question is, there are just so many different types: Gucci, Dior, Chanel, Cartier, Roberto Cavali, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Vera Wang, Manolo Blahnik, Louboutin, Jimmy Choo, Vivienne Westwood and not forgetting the lovely Calvin Klein. It seems with all this choice in high quality merchandise those of us who have the cash to splash are lucky girls! It seems as though nowadays so many people in this world won't settle for anything less than designer brands, but what is the difference between two identical dresses one from the shelf of the Vera Wang store in New York and one from Primark in every mall in the country?I mean if they look the same what difference does a little label make? I mean i can almost guarantee you that the one that costs more even though it appears the same probably will wear much better in the long term. Now don't get me wrong, i'm as big a Fan of Primark as the next gal and I've found some pretty sweet deals among the rummage sale they call a store but would i rather have the Vera Wang? Hell to the Yeah! It then makes me wonder if so many people aren't willing to settle for anything less than designer, then why are more and more women settling for men that simply 'don't fit right'?

I'm looking around and it seems that since becoming more adept at being single it is becoming easier to spot a 'knock-off', so the thing i wanna know is, where the hell is my Dior?

The other thing about relationships these days is that everything, and the same goes for clothes, seems to be getting more and more disposable. I mean you've all heard of the girl who won't go near her Fendi purse simply because it is 'so last season'. It is then you realise that the reason the Fashion industry is a multi-million dollar one, is that we as a sex are getting bored rather a bit more quickly these days. I am yet to find any cave paintings of a cave-woman ordering her mate to go kill ANOTHER saber tooth tiger so she can have a new tiger-skin dress as the old one is so 'stone age', but there we go!
It's also a question of what you can salvage and what you can't, if my designer dress breaks i'm more than likely to get my needle and thread out, but if its something from Primark i am more likely gonna bin it, the same way if i really like someone and think most of their personality is fantastic i will work to fix any problems as opposed to just walking away from  someone i haven't invested in emotionally.

So when it comes to guys (and designers as well) we don't always like what they're putting down the runway now do we? And that Vivienne West wood faux polar bear cape may thrill your best friend, but may leave you with a 'What the hell does she like that for?' look on your face that can cause certain bumps in the road of friendship. The thing about clothing is when a girlfriend asks my opinion of an outfit i'm more than likely gonna tell her if it makes her legs look too stubby, or her chest too flat. However it just isn't that easy when it comes to saying: "Actually that guy you really like? Yeah he's a total assface."

Here for your amusement is a list of the types of men and which label best defines them! (well in my opinion anyway)

Guy types as Labels:

Sporty guy: Definitely Ralph Lauren, easy going, snug fitting stuff to keep you warm and also makes you look adorable and petite next to his giant muscles.

Business Guy: Somebody say Armani? Sharp edges and bold statements make this man a fantastic accessory for any party gal.

Zen Guy: Chilled and mellow in colour, Calvin Klein is a fantastic fit here for all those chilled casual girls who just wanna cuddle on the sofa, with a range of great winter range that keep you totally warm all year round.

Quirky Guy: Completely Burberry with a range of weird and wonderful hats and patterns with some controversial trench coats, this guy is certainly an acquired taste and perfect for those looking for something a bit different.

Tortured soul Guy: Dolce and Gabbana best describes this moody soul with their use of grey's and blacks along with faded denims and intricate Victorian era design.

So which Label man are you trying on this season?

Atargatis, hoping to be in possession of some 'designer brands' soon, over and out! xxx

An approach to love: Science vs Fate

So this week i've been sitting down to watch this tv series on BBC iplayer called 'the year of making love'. It's basically following the people that put themselves in for an experiment to try and prove that compatibility and attraction between two people can be determined through a scientific process. This process consists of filling out an in depth psychological questionnaire and adhering the results to a formula that has been designed to match people with whom they would be most compatible. When i first started watching this my thoughts were 'what is the world coming to', and going back to what i said in an earlier post about how cynical the world is becoming i think this partly proves my point. People have been falling in love for hundreds if not thousands of years, and it makes you wonder, if there is really a scientific formula to falling in love how the hell have we been managing it for so long.

 For me, finding someone i'm attracted to often seems like trying to shoot a very small target, with a very old gun, in a room with all the lights turned off. Difficult, if not impossible. So i'm watching this show, kind of smirking to myself at the thought that this formula could possibly work, and then you start watching the 'ideal matches' come together. It's interesting watching two people who obviously have the belief that they are made for one another come together, firstly you have the two people whose eyes meet across the stage and they are instantly hooked. You then have the couples that aren't wowed but are willing to give each other a chance, thinking, 'well maybe he/she has a really great personality'. The third type of couple I observed walking across the stage was also the most hilarious to watch: It's the two people who take one look at each other and automatically think 'oh Jesus' and want to run in the opposite direction. It's interesting to see how much stock we as human beings put in physical appearance, but a staggering 80% of the women paired with men shorter than them didn't call for a second date. This figure was much higher than in the other couples where the man was taller. A part of you then starts to think, 'Woah hang on there!', the reason that women want a guy who's taller than them is because they are attracted to mates that they believe will be able to protect them, and one day their young.

 

 It is important to note here, I think, the role of evolution in matchmaking. The fact that women want big strong men to take care of them and men want women with curvy childbearing hips. Or do they? Could it be that over time these preconceptions about what makes a good partner have changed, I mean it's all very well a guy being built like a truck and all, but if he lacks intellectual gifts then how the hell are you going to pay your bills when he fails to hold down a job? Watching these couples judging each other straight away made me doubt whether or not we are all still just cavemen fumbling about in the dark, trying to create the first fire.

 

I can almost hear the true romantics crying at the nature of my cynical approach to this subject, so lets look at the other way of finding your partner, leaving it up to fate. We are all so emmersed in this idea of 'the one'. Why we have this crazy notion of only one person I couldn't tell you, could it be the magic of the Walt Disney company once again weaving its way into our childhoods with it's happily ever afters and handsome princes and leaving a model for how our lives should go? Or could it be that religion has a part to play in the belief that there is only one perfect person out there for each of us. According to studies, the actual figure is something like 1 in every 100,000 people are 'perfect' for us. So if you think of it in terms of the population being approximately 7 billion, there are quite a few 'the ones' out there. This of course is what people are telling themselves these days, is it because we have simply lost the faith in that one special person ever finding us? Is it a way to beat the overwhelming loneliness at the idea that if there is only one person that is right for you they could be on the other side of the globe? It's a staggering notion that only one person in the world can make us ever truly complete and I personally don't like to believe it.

 

What do you think about science helping us find 'the one?', would you ever consider being matched with someone through scientific means?

Drop me a comment, I'm always curious to know what y'all are thinking!

 

Atargatis, over and out xxx

University: Exploring the weird the wonderful and well...yeah the weird.

So i knew when i started writing my blog for today i wanted to use an embarrassing nightclub photo and i can honestly tell you that after spending the last hour of flicking through them all that:

A) I now want to be a nightclub photographer so i can say i have witnessed an event like the one above... like, i so need to know how this happened.
B)People do some crazy shit. (especially when drunk)

It seems as though after being at university i can honestly say I've done and seen some pretty weird things, people coming out of nightclubs with their trousers round their ankles, throwing parties with a sex doll (named Phillipa i might add ) as the main attraction and going clubbing with an inflatable snowman named Derek, (RIP Derek) that met it's end under the harsh torment of a stiletto heel. I've seen people going to parties in nothing more than bin bags, people climbing into the river near my university, throwing jars of pasta sauce down the stairs at 3am and ,most annoyingly for the person living beneath him (aka ME!), gay guys singing the circle of life out of tune at 4am every morning. University is just one of those places where anything can happen. 

Its seems like when you come to university there are three types of people:
1) the people who have been drinking for a while already
2) the people person type number 1 will be influencing to start drinking (I was this type of person)
3) the people that don't like going out or drinking and keep to themselves most of the time.

For me university was to be a time of experimentation and exploration in learning about myself, it has become somewhat more of an education about drinking games and clubbing... but hey ho! 

The student community of this country (not just my little gem of a uni) has a pretty amazing ideas when it comes to partying, like some of the themes are just crazy. One of the best theme nights to observe is a 'where's wally?' theme party, the originality in the costumes is unbelievable. Another cool party theme which almost always ends in disaster (much to the amusement of other people) are 'no clothes' parties whereby you can wear anything, just not clothing. I watched people walking to this party and some of the outfits were mental. This is a small segment of what i saw walking past my apartment.

• One girl wearing nothing more than pots and pans held together with string.
• A bloke covered in duct tape.
• A girl covered in sweets held on by some kind of glue (no idea what it was made of)
• A girl in nothing but toilet paper (retro mummification!)
• A girl covered by lots of balloons held together with string (lets hope no-one had a pin on them.

So there you have it folks, another night in the life of a university student!

I mean it isn't just nightlife at university which can lead to weirdness, i was walking through the main admin building the other day and i was handed a flyer by a guy dressed as Bowser from Super Mario. The city itself in which you live is also bound to play host to all manner of odd things, Such as the mysterious 'Swidgeons' or 'Turkey Ducks' that reside in Lincoln, 'the puppet man' in Norwich or the famous 'dub step prostitute' from Mansfield. These little treasures are what make your university experience all the more fun. It isn't 

about the historical significance of the city, nor about the shopping (though many women would disagree with me on that point) but about the number of truly unique and freaky people that you see roaming the streets, free to do as they please.

Well, i'm off on a pub crawl tonight so god knows what weird wonderfulness one should encounter, especially on St Patrick's day! Leave me a comment on your weird university experiences so far!

Atargatis, wishing you happy drinking this evening, over and out! xxx

University: The place that work forgot.

So it's 4pm... and i just got up, now i know what y'all are thinking: 'Typical student!' right? Well what if i told you that i was only asleep so long because i was at the library until 3;30 am? Yeah! Not so lazy now am i? Ahhh i'm only kidding, my post today is about University and the work it brings. Now for me personally since transferring from a science to a humanities subject, i'm not gonna lie, i have noticed a drop in work load. A 22 hour drop to be exact, going down to only 1 hour of lectures and 4 hours of seminars a week. It's an interesting fact that few people know but when doing a degree the first year in 90% of cases doesn't count towards the level of degree you come out with and sometimes even the second year has no bearing on what level you come out with either. It begs the question...why am i paying 9000 pounds a year if this doesn't even count? So the universities reckon that the first year is used to bring everyone up to the same standard, so my question to them is: Why the hell aren't A levels doing this? I slogged out my guts for two years learning chemistry and biology, only to come to university and sit down in my first weeks of lectures to a powerpoint presentation labelled 'The atom: a history' Now i'm not being funny, but i've known about the history and constituent parts of an atom since i was in year 9. Before even GCSE level science existed to me. So why the hell are there going to be people on a BIOLOGY degree course that don't even have a basic level of scientific knowledge?!? Crazy right?

I suppose it all really depends on what university you go to, i mean my university is a UCAS tarriff uni...meaning you don't have to have a certain grade (other than a pass), but rather must meet a total number of points with all your grades combined. A part of me likes this system because it means that you can earn extra points through other activities to pull up your total, so your work ethic is more of a factor, but the other side of me, the part that was sat in lectures learning what a proton is, really believes that students are not prepared well enough by A levels.

So as far as i can see the obvious solution is then to get the universities to set the A level syllabus right? WRONG! You can't do that because if you do it means that each individual student will have to decide which university they want to attend straight after receiving their GCSE results, and its bloody hard enough doing it mid A level, let alone anytime before that. 

A part of me loves the idea of American College (although it would suck being in high school until the age of 18 and having to carry all your subjects right through to graduating) the liberty of being able to pick both a minor and a major seems beautiful to someone like me who had such trouble deciding what they wanted to do. It seems a little insane asking a 14 year old to choose GCSE options which shape what you can do with your life. I mean if you asked me what i wanted to do at age 4 i could have told you with certainty that i wanted to be an archaeologist  then at age 13 i wanted to be a lawyer, at age 14 i wanted to be a forensic scientist, and finally settled on a biomedical scientist at age 17. All this led me onto studying biomedical science at university which i was doing until about a month ago, until one day i sat up in bed, realised i was miserable on my course and had the sudden feeling that for the last 2 years of being so focused on getting onto the course i thought was right for me, i had absolutely no bloody idea what i was doing. 

The crazy thing is, i did realise, and i feel like a part of me had always known, what it was i wanted to do, and so i transferred to studying English. I remember being sat across from the head of English and trying to explain to her why i wanted to leave biomedical science, a course i had been getting firsts in up until this point, and transfer to English, something seemingly alot... how can i put this... 'softer' and a million miles away from what i had been studying. She just smiled at me and listened to me rambling passionately before telling me that... and this is the crazy part, they were going to let me transfer immediately. It gets better, in the sense of the craziness increases, when she goes on to tell me that in fact i won't have to catch up on any of the first term as they will take the credits i gained in BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE and use them towards my ENGLISH degree! This is a perfect demonstration of how fucking pointless the first year at university is. I mean if it doesn't affect my degree if one sixth of it is made up of credits earned in a totally different subject how much can anything you do the first year really make any difference. 

For me personally i wish that they would condense university courses into 2 years, cut out the first year by better preparing everyone at A level and save us all approximately 15,000 a year in loans. Oh and actually give us some work, because for somebody who isn't the biggest fan of having to do work i'm actually finding myself bored out of my brain... hence why i am rambling like a crazy cat lady in this blog.

What do you think of the university system? Do you think you are getting your moneys worth? What is your work load like?
Lemme know!

Atargatis xxxx
p.s I'm thinking that next year when i'm writing a blog moaning about how much work i've got i will be looking back at this and laughing.

Friend Zone or Danger Zone?

The friend zone: that desolate lonely place full of conversations about potential partners that leaves you with that thought:
 'Why are you interested in them? I would treat you one hundred times better than they ever could!'
 It's cold and barren and the signal sucks, leaving you feeling cold at night wishing the person you call your 'friend' was lying naked next to you and feeling as though even if you screamed your feelings to the world, you still wouldnt be heard! It's an interesting concept, getting on with somone like a house on fire, yet having no sexual feelings for them and not being able to view them in a girlfriend or boyfriend capacity. it's as though god is laughing at you, having someone of the opposite sex with whom you are so compatible and yet unable to feel the 'spark' we always seek when finding a partner. It also seems incredibly ironic that in many cases when we do feel that surge of sexual energy, the person we feel it for turns out to be a total ass anyway.

I often feel like 'I just want to be friends' is one of those lines like 'it isn't me, it's you' in a break up. Sometimes it IS you... the other person is just too polite to say anything, the same way 'friends' is code for 'NOT BOYFRIEND'. I have heard this 'friends' word tossed around alot after relationships break up too and i often wonder how you forcibly friend zone (perhaps without having a choice in the matter) someone you actually have had sexual feelings towards. How do people ever become friends with an Ex? I have been in two long term relationships and i can tell you that both men i deteste with a vengence, this often leading to much enjoyment thinking of scenarios in which they are somehow magically run over by a truck, or impaled by a narwhal. Even when things do end on good terms how can we get rid of those memories we had with an Ex? Do all the sexual feelings dissipate because of the emotional pain of break up, or does becoming friends with an Ex bring those feelings to the surface and cause even more pain and confusion.

Some say it is a question of time, but if time is a healer, love is definately some infectious disease perhaps immortalised through the memories we sometimes wish we could get rid of. It is my experience that no amount of time makes friendship with an ex easy. I mean after all, how do you deal with their new partner should they have one andhow do you get over the attraction that must have been there to start with?

The thing about the friend zone is, once you reside there it's like being in an episode of 'LOST', trapped on an island that can move through time and is pretty much undetectable to any rescue vehicles. Of course you should be thankful you havent been stranded in the middle of vast ocean of lonliness, having kept your friend, but this is a rarely appreciated constellation prize.

The thing that makes me laugh about 'LOST' is that for the first 3 series the characters are fighting tooth and nail to get off the damn island, only to return BY CHOICE one series later. So keeping with my rather lovely analogy i've got going on right now: If you do, by some miracle ever make your way out of the friend zone and things go okay for a while but then it all falls apart, how the hell do you get back there, to the friend zone you so despised to begin with?Is it purely a question of finding that common ground that made you great friends to begin with and recapturing those rivetting sexless conversations that made you intruiged by that person to begin with? I often worry, having had many friendships end because feelings have not been mutual that if i ever did actually have feelings toward a friend and take the risk in trying to be with them, that if the relationship did end, the fallout would be 100x worse than friend zoning them in the first place.

I've been asking around a few of my friends and another interesting thing i've noticed is the amount of girls that have never been friend-zoned compared to the amount of guys that have. Is it because the testerone flying at light speed around their little bodies makes it impossible for them not to see every woman, no matter how good of a friend they may be, in some kind of sexual way? Or could it be because they simply don't have enough blood in their body to use both their brain and penis at the same time, making sex with a friend far too easy as the act itself can be considered brainless.

Anyway, lots of questions asked today, have you ever been friend zoned, managed to be friends with an Ex or managed to swim off that desert island known as the friend zone? Drop me a comment, i'm dying to know!

Atargatis, calling it a night for now, over and out! xxx

Baggage Claim

So this week i've been thinking alot about baggage. How do we get it? How can we get rid of it? And how do you spot someone with tons of it? You get to a certain age and you start realizing that everybody's got it in some shape or form. Crappy childhood, abusive past relationships, controlling ex girlfriends, addiction. Everyone has some form of baggage, the question is: Is it an easily maneuverable wheelie suitcase or a large unsightly and old fashioned buckle up with only one handle that stops you moving at more than 0.5 miles per hour?
I met a guy a few months back, and as i got to know him more it seemed that the list of issues he was dealing with just kept on growing it, started off with 'I just lost my job' and ended with 'because i had a mental breakdown and am on lots of medication because my ex girlfriend was raped.' Of course he never mentioned this second part until i'd known him quite a while and by that point i really didn't know what to say. You certainly can't do much to help someone in that situation much in the way throwing a dinghy to someone caught in a tsunami doesn't do much good. It's selfish but in some cases i really do believe the best thing to do is to preserve yourself and walk away. In all honestly the thing about baggage is, it's mainly invisible until you are comfortable enough with someone to let them in past all the defences said baggage has caused you to put up in the first place, and by then it is usually too late to be able to simply walk away as feelings are involved. I suppose the other thing is, if someone dumped you for YOUR baggage then you'd be pretty damn offended,  it comes down to that we really shouldn't judge people on their past, give them a clean slate and hope that all their issues don't affect what's going on in the present. But seriously though how often does that happen? If you know that someone has been in an abusive relationship no doubt you are going to put any trust issues they have down to that without even a second thought that it may be something else at the root of the problem.  Unfortunately for us as a species we take part in something called Experiential learning whereby we learn from the things that happen to us throughout our lives. This often means that without wanting it to past events will effect current day actions, does this mean that we can never really ditch the baggage we accumulate? Or does it mean that we simply need a long term opposite experience to counteract the problem?

I was in a debate the other day about Terminal illness and suddenly some young man places up his hand and asks a really interesting question:
"How long would you wait to tell someone you had just started dating that you had a long term degenerative disease (such as Alzheimers or Multiple sclerosis)"
I thought this question was fantastic but from my point of view i said that i would tell them straight away so that they had all the facts before deciding whether or not to continue with pursuit of a relationship. So then this other guy puts up his hand and unbelievably says:
"I don't think i would ever tell them, what they don't know can't hurt them right?" He said this with such confidence i nearly fell off my seat. I can just picture being married to someone for 25 years and suddenly they can't remember who you are anymore, and you find out that they knew all along they were going to develop the condition. How pissed would you be?! That was when i realised that i would rather have all the issues out on the table than be afraid to uncover what people have going round on that 'oh so irritating' luggage carousel.

I know that this post is pretty heavy and so here for your entertainment is a list of the ten weirdest things ever left unclaimed in baggage claim. I mean we've all seen that one lonely case left on the conveyor after everyone else has gone, but it's a little hard to believe these items were forgotten!
1) Life size 'Hoggle' minion doll from 'Labrinth'
2)A large case full of ancient Egyptian artifacts (including a mummified hand!)
3) A rattle snake
4)A naval guidance system worth $250,000
5) A barbie doll full of $500 bills
6) A full suit of medieval Armour
7)A violin made in 1770
8)A 5.8 carat canary diamond
9) A camera designed for use on the NASA space shuttle
10) A 40.98 carat natural emerald.

Hope this gave you some food for thought and that you had a little giggle at the list above.  What are your views on dealing with baggage? What for you is just too much to help someone carry? Drop me a comment.
TTFN! 
Atargatis xxx

Lets get Cynical... Cynical!

So I've been thinking over the last few days about cynicism and how infectious it has become. It is perhaps the leading cause of feeling down and doubtful and it is caused by the unavoidable toxin known as the bad experience. What happened to the belief that everything will work out for the best and that each of us will get a Walt Disney company patented happily ever after? That romance isn't dead? That we will find the one person we are supposed to spend our lives with in some mystical 'meeting under a yellow umbrella' so to speak? You only have to look at the number of people signing up to dating websites and taking up speed dating to see, the belief that 'the one' will find you is about as dead as the proverbial dodo. So what is it that's driving this cynicism? Is it that now more than ever we are seeing love fall apart in the way of our own parents as divorce rates hit an all time high? Is it that we are now becoming more afraid than ever of becoming the crazy lady down the street who owns 40 cats and can't leave the house in case she misses the latest episode of 'Coronation street'? Or is it just that in a world where we are more and more exposed to death, disease, heartbreak and beautiful people getting plastic surgery they really don't need in the media we simply cannot believe that good things really do happen, or that if they do happen, that they will last? It seems as though even when everything is going perfectly in my life I'm still bracing myself for the next disaster, the next obstacle, the next pimple.

I mean, in a way you can kind of blame the Writers of the Walt Disney company for raising the hopes of little girls everywhere that they will meet a 'prince charming'. We grow up waiting for that guy, and does he ever turn up, blonde locks flowing in the wind on horseback with a tub of Ben and Jerry's cookie dough ice cream? Uh... I think not. It would seem that being cynical serves as defence, so that when you discover the person you have feelings for isn't prince charming, you sigh, feel sorry for yourself for a few days and then accept that everyone has problems and baggage and carry on. It would seem that women nowadays are finding themselves not expecting romance, this is great in some ways because when it does happen, the surprise you feel is fantastic. However, if that special person never does make the effort we simply accept it and keep on going, whereas perhaps less than a hundred years ago, women in that position would have turned on one heel and walked away with sassy swag not settling. But can we really blame men for a lack of either acting like a gentleman or being romantic if we don't expect it? I mean if we heard a man expected us to be in the kitchen making him a sandwich he would get a swift slap around the back of the head right?

Times are changing and yet we still find ourselves longing for that olden day courting which is somehow lost, someone to open doors and pull out chairs. For everyone out there thinking this I say, open your own doors, pull out your own chair and stop expecting prince charming to ride up on a white steed and save you. Get out YOUR broad sword and start hacking! Don't be the damsel in distress and don't settle for less than makes you happy. Maybe it isn't cynicism that's gripping this world, but rather the acceptance that we are all responsible for ourselves and our future and that we can't just sit around waiting for life to happen:WE have to make it happen.

University: Double life or half life?

So you come to university expecting this amazing change in your life and you wanna know the great thing? You aren't going to get a life change, you are going to get a NEW life! The fact is spending approximately 6 months in another city and then returning to your dull origins for the other half of the year does have it's challenges but also it's perks. The good thing is, no matter how much of a mess you make of things in your Uni life, there is always that place we call home (supposedly where the heart is) that we can run back to. Of course this has it's own challenges, as depending on how far away you live, you may only be able to escape (if you so desire) one or twice a term due to rising train costs, to which i say a student rail card is an invaluable tool, or certainly has been for me in cutting train costs by as much as 40%.

Still the fact is university students are living pretty much a double life. But is this really as exciting as it seems and what are the complications of this? Well for me the big one is if you do meet anyone who isn't just looking for fun at university and does actually want  relationship (rare but it does happen) how are you going to handle being apart 6 months a year, possibly at opposite ends of the country? Also what about the masses of friends you make at university? You gotta admit it's gonna totally suck not seeing each other for such extended periods of time. Of course on the flip side you have the home-bound issues too, like keeping in touch with people you have perhaps been friends with since primary school. Now don't get me wrong, i have seen so many people making the effort to travel across the country to keep their friendships going, which is incredible, but there are just as many people letting their friendships slide through the cracks because they just aren't in contact as much as they used to be. Sure we have Facebook and Skype and all, but it still isn't the same as face to face contact with someone now is it? Also you have the issue that you will be away from your family for six months a year, which anyone pre- university would say: 'Pfft! I can't wait to get out from under my parents roof!" To you people i say... you have no idea how boring it is to wait in a launderette for 2 hours waiting for your washing because you don't have a washing machine in your flat, having to wash the dishes by hand because you don't have a dishwasher, and that you don't appreciate the fact that your parents go out and stock your house with food, the amount of which is not limited by the capacity that one person alone can carry. Also of course, if you are like me and you actually get on with your family very well you do miss the company too, but i think even people with the most distant kinds of relationships from their parents will appreciate the fact that when you live at home, with your parents running around after you, you have it pretty easy. Also for me particularly, living where i do i find it inconceivable when i go home that i cannot simply walk into the city, and that going out clubbing costs me a £50 return taxi ride before i even think about drink or club entry. I love being at university because it's like a little universe where everything i need is within a ten minute walk and if i want a Maccy D's at 3am i can just get up and go and buy one.

I think it's interesting how leading such a double life where you really reside in no one place for more than 12 weeks at a time can leave one feeling even more trapped by the constraints of this limited time than you would living in only one city. Is it really a double life? Or is it a half life? Where you can't commit to anything for more than a year because you don't know where you'll be sleeping in September or even what you'll be feeling in a future that is not so distant to the point where you could probably blink and find yourself there? At university, time moves so fast. You don't realise when you live at home but washing up, food shopping and doing your laundry do take up valuable time, and by the time you're finished with all that you still have to get your work done, go to lectures and make time for partying with friends. Everyone thinks university is a bunch of students slobbing around, but when i list it like that it doesn't sound so laid back does it? On top of all this there is the drama of finding a job whilst living in different places for half the year, but that is a topic for another time!
Enough rambling from me, what do you guys think about all this anyway? Drop me a comment!
Atargatis over and out xxx

Warning: Pretty is the new ugly.

I've been writing this blog a little while now and i've been getting this question quite frequently:

"Why is your blog called coyote pretty? That's a bit of a weird name isn't it?"

Well yes, it is a weird name, but as with most things, there is a reason. It comes from the film 'Coyote Ugly'

"Have you ever woken up from a one night stand and the person lying next to you is so ugly that you would rather chew off your own arm than wake them? THAT'S Coyote Ugly!"

So what happens when you wake up the next day from a one night stand and the person lying next to you, ISN'T so ugly you want to chew off your own arm? What if in fact you (foolishly so) find yourself hoping for more than just one night? Well that is what i do, find myself unable to let go, and that is why my blog is thus named 'Coyote Pretty'.

It's interesting that in life we find ourselves so willing to heed all the cautious advice telling us  to look after our bodies as we only get the one, but isn't it true that we only get the one heart as well? When you buy a packet of cigarettes, there in bold letters on the front ' SMOKING KILLS' but where is the giant warning label on the head of the guy you've just met in a night club saying 'ISN'T LOOKING FOR A RELATIONSHIP' or 'IS A NEUROTIC EGOCENTRIC ASSHOLE.' Even if these labels were provided, would it stop us? Knowing as most of us do by now, that everybody comes with baggage, where's the line between baggage so heavy it can't possibly be overlooked, and that which you can help someone carry? If only there was a pill we could take to lift that fog caused by infatuation and hormones rushing around us at a hundred miles an hour, some workout we could undertake to keep our hearts strong, protected and impervious to the charms of people we would be better to avoid. I suppose having been through several guys as of late it is clear that the best medicine for such things is breaking your cycle, learning from our mistakes and learning that if someone won't make the effort you expect them to, they probably aren't worth your time. This is certainly what i will be doing from now on and to the guys that have been messing me around i can honestly say i just don't have the freaking' time or effort to keep someone around who isn't bothered.

Obsession is a funny thing, when it overtakes us we can do some incredibly stupid things, even to the point of self destruction. I was reading today about a girl who was being attacked online by these so called 'beliebers' for getting her tweet re tweeted by the Bieber himself. She said:

"Not really a fan of Justin Bieber but his acoustic album is really good!"

Yes people... this girl is so clearly evil and deserves to be bullied online for being grown up enough to put her preconceived ideas aside, and actually withhold judgement in order to experience something new that Justin Bieber has created... I mean surely as fans they should be glad that more people are jumping on the 'belieber' bandwagon right? Instead the 15 year old who originally tweeted this has been met with comments such as 'go kill yourself' and being called a 'whore'. I swear it worries me how the future scientists, politicians and parents of our world will turn on each other over something so completely and utterly ridiculous.

Anyhoo, that's me about done ranting for today, trying out a few new styles of blogging each time i post now, so drop me a comment and let me know what you think!

Atargatis over and out xxx

More, more, more!

Everybody thinks that when you become a student you resign yourself to the life of beans on toast and instant noodles when really this is far from the truth. Yes it is true that being a student brings with it all kinds of financial difficulties but in some cases I have found that many students are actually better off than someone with a full time job. The truth is that because of the way the loan system works (which can admittedly be said to be flawed) most students don't pay anything for their accommodation until they have a job: this means all they have to do is provide themselves with food and money for the essentials (aka drinking). Most students I know, despite being lumbered with the stereotype of being incredibly lazy and having it easy are clawing tooth and nail for jobs that a monkey could do, so you would think that considering we are at university and therefore considered to be in the higher intellectual bracket of this country that it would be easier to get a job. WRONG! Because of the way in which the university term works, it just so happens that most students are at home during the busiest times of the year, and what kind of nut job employer wants someone who is absent when they are most needed? On top of all that, when Uni student jobs are available they usually go to someone that the employer knows personally, it is true what they say: 'its not what you know, it's who you know.' Of course I know people who have gotten jobs at university but the majority of the time, especially if you are in your first year obtaining a job seems difficult if not impossible. So a job is out of the question or so it would seem at the moment, so what do you do next? Do you scrounge and save and not go out? Hahaha! Of course not! I have been at university nearly two whole terms now and rarely have I heard someone say 'I don't have the money to go out tonight' it's always 'I don't have the money to buy these textbooks.' Or 'I seem to have misplaced my funds for food this week'. It's hilarious but in a survey 80% of students said they would rather give up food than alcohol .It scares me to think that I'm surrounded by the future engineers and scientists that will fuel our great nation sometimes. A great trick for earning cash that I heard the other day was a young man volunteering himself for medical testing, like some kind of rat or something! It's absurd what people will do for a bit of cash when jobs are In short supply (apart from giving up clubbing of course, we could NEVER do that!)

All in all i think life as a student could be much worse from a financial standpoint, but in terms of getting a job, it really is dumb luck. I suppose this is a fantastic lesson in budgeting and all, but it doesn't help when you're craving a Maccy D's and cant find the extra cash!

The really important Firsts.

Speak to any person on the street and ask them about the important firsts and they'll give you the standard list: First breath, first word, first steps, first day at school, first crush and the first time you have sex.
But what about after the seemingly IMPORTANT firsts are all over and done with, are we done with new experiences? I mean just because you've had sex for the first time doesn't make you an expert and just because you've taken your first steps doesn't mean you can go run a marathon does it? I feel like people worry too much about Firsts, especially the first time you have sex and fall in love! I mean at the end of the day how many peoples first relationships work out? (I looked it up and its something like less than 5%) We all make this big deal about milestones but essentially, every day is a milestone. For me coming to university has meant that I've begun seeing alot more of these milestones on the roadside of this journey i call my life. The first time i ever got drunk being one that was particularly memorable whereby i somehow constructed a fort out of the furniture in the communal area of my Student flat, much to the amusement of my rather hungover flatmate as she emerged the next day and found me asleep inside it. It's never the skills we pick up on our first times doing things that get us anywhere in life or determine how we will live the rest of our lives but yet purely provide a little 'groping around in the dark' and exploration to get us comfortable. I have been in relationships practically my whole teenage life with guys that weren't right for me and these experiences have shown me what i do not want, rather than what i do. I used to get so down on myself when things didn't happen the way i wanted the first time i did them. Then in moving away from home and having to deal with my own mistakes,and without any parental supervision at all i realise that i will never stop making mistakes, and all i can do is learn from them. Another first that i have encountered was the first time i had ever lived with other people my own age, which i can tell any potential students right now has more challenges than you can ever be prepared for attached to it!

Like i said... i feel like people make this massive deal about firsts, when in all honesty what we should be concerned about is where we go from there, how can we better ourselves, how can we learn from what we did wrong the last time. I mean if everyone was as concerned about first times as some people i know Edison would never have invented the light-bulb just because his first ideas didn't pan out so good. It makes me wonder if this obsession with firsts comes from the impact of a first impression, because the judgments we make in the first hour of meeting someone impact how we see them for perhaps the rest of the relationship we have with them. Why do you think mother child bonding occurs most strongly within the first few hours after birth? My point is, in this world there is so much to experience, so do as much as you can, for as long as you want, with as much enthusiasm as you can muster... because tomorrow you could be dead!