Busy Bee: What I've Been Up To!

Good Afternoon you lovely people!

It's been so long since I last did a post that I've rewritten this several times because I just wasn't getting into the swing of it. I am pretty disappointed in myself for not continuing to blog but honestly I just haven't had much time to myself whatsoever! I'm pay to be blogging agin though and I've got a fair few posts ready to write for the next fee weeks, so lets get on with this one which will basically just been a roundup of what I've been up to recently!

As per the main reason I haven't been blogging is university, I've just finished my second year and will be going into my last year come September which don't get me wrong I am super excited about, but at the same time I really don't want to leave! This is a big change for me as I have hated every single place I have studied from primary school through secondary, sixth form and college! Uni is brilliant though and I love it so much. With going into my last year I've been mulling over dissertation topics for the last few months and after having like 9 different ideas I think I have finally found a topic that gels with me and that I'm really passionate and excited to write! Next year will be heavy but so fun so overall I'm looking forward to it and I'm actually quite optimistic about my grades for this year too, so yey! 

Oh the frustrations of a Venflo!

I've had a LOT going on with my health lately, as you can probably gather from the image to the right, so me and Simon have been travelling halfway down the country for tests and things, the hospital appointments are really long and pretty boring sometimes so we are bringing books along with us, games, laptop just to keep up busy. I'm allowed to go for walks between tests so it's not like I'm sat on my butt all day doing nothing. Other than that I have been feeling pretty great lately, our puppy Luna is now letting us sleep until a decent time, usually she gets annoyed at us waking her up! We take her for walks everyday and she is absolutely loving it. So are we!

Like I mentioned earlier not much has been going on other than getting loads and loads of Uni work, revision, placement days, report writing and things to get on with which is all done now thankfully but in our spare time me and Simon have been going out to the cinema, we actually managed to go and see Love, Simon (ironically) on the day it came out in cinemas and Oh My God! That's definitely one of my favourite films I've seen recently, I absolutely love anything romance-ish and Nick Robinson is a fab actor so I just loved the whole thing from start to finish, I then went and bought the book so I'm hoping to read that sometime in the summer. We also went to see Infinity War which was way better than I ever thought it would be! No spoilers obviously, I know people who still haven't seen it, but yeah it was really well worked and considering the amount of different characters coming from completely different movies they gel well together and it is so so so funny in many places. We also went to see Deadpool 2, again awesome but personally I preferred Deadpool the original, in fact I prefer the comics but the movies are still fab, definitely getting all of those on DVD when they come out.

A great book!

I've spent a lot of time reading and taking up a couple of new hobbies. I started reading Pornography by Andrea Dworkin. This is a really really good book if you're interested in feminism and topics around patriarchy and pornography, it's heavy reading but very interesting. I've also been reading Fat is a Feminist Issue but Susie Orbrach and this has got to be the most interesting book I've read in a very long time, fatness and social perceptions of fat people have always both fascinated and enraged me and this book captured my attention from the introduction so I would give this a read especially if you're interested in body positivity and fat acceptance type arenas. 

I've recently also picked up a could of new hobbies, because I obviously can't do a huge amount of exercise because of back pain, and a more recent and happy *sarcasm* addition, leg pain. I've started swimming which really relaxes my my back is still a great way to keep fit, me and Simon have also taken up ice skating recently, which is something I struggle at and have to take a lot of breaks with, it tends to take me and hour to get around one lap of the rink and then I'm done after that but still it's a fun day out and something I could hopefully build upon. 

Afternoon walks with Simon and Luna

Finally, I've picked up a few books and CDs and I'm planning to teach myself how to speak German because it's something I've always wanted to do and I'm passionate about, I love the German language and I have no idea why. Hopefully at the end of my third year at Uni I'll be taking a trip over to Berlin or into the Christmas markets in Germany so we will see how that goes, haha! 

So, basically through Uni, movies, books, ice skating and learning German I've been pretty busy but now it's officially summer I am looking forward to getting back into blogging and will hopefully have another post up on Tuesday. 

I hope all of my readers are doing awesome and will see you very very soon! ;) 

Love Katherine   xx

Maya Angelou 'Letter To My Daughter' Book Review

Hello everyone! 

Today's second post is going to be the first of many book reviews that I'm planning on writing on this blog, I'm extremely excited about these posts as I grab any chance I have to post about books. As I'm an avid reader I doubt I'll be running short of books to review, some of the books I'll be reviewing in the future will be rather old and some relatively new, this is because I believe that somewhere, someone will read my blog and might just want to read one of the books that have been reviewed and I honestly can't think of a better way to use this blog than giving someone a bloody good book to read! I'll be reviewing each and every one in my own words and not all of the books I'll be reviewing will be good or booth that I've really enjoyed. As this is my first book review post I'm doing it on a Tuesday because I'm so excited to get it out and finished, however, from now on I'll be posting these reviews either every Sunday or every other Sunday depending on how much time I get to read because of college. 

This week's book is by the late, very great Maya Angelou and it's her book 'Letter To My Daughter' that I'll be looking at this week. I received this book for Christmas from my Mam and I was overjoyed when I unwrapped it; Angelou is one of my favourite writers, one of which I've only recently gotten into, I've some of her other work and I find her writing truly mesmerising, and her writing style a joy to read. This book is a collection of brief essays in an autobiographical form in which Angelou recounts lessons she's learned throughout her life;  she addresses this book to her daughters. Angelou gave birth only once to a son but in her book entitled 'Letter To My Daughter' she speaks to the millions of women around the world, in her introduction she states this as follows "fat and thin, pretty and plain, gay and straight, educated and unlettered. I am talking to you all". Throughout the book Angelou provides each brief chapter or essay with her usual passion and delivers it with her usual, beautifully poetic style, in fact some chapters are pure poetry, literally.
When I was reading this book I was given the sense that I was being spoken to by a gentle and caring relative grandmother figure, if you will. Chapters addressing issues from rape, vulgarity and finding love at a mature age, each gives a fantastically powerful message to end with and it was truly a joy to read, some things in this book I believe I will kep with me for the rest of my life, for example, Angelou speaks of being charitable simply by giving others your smile, of turning your music down if it's overly loud and she speaks of being brutally honest when people ask "how are you?". I will cherish and treasure this book always, I'd highly recommend it to anyone.


Love Katherine. X