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So the September update was pushed aside in favour of moving in catching up with old friends and making new ones, oh and university work I guess. Here's a joint September and October update...

Any time snatched away for myself in September was mainly spent sleeping or exercising. So September has come and gone and its properly autumn now. The leaves outside my window, which were green and vibrant when I moved in, have slowly turned yellow, they’re settling on the pavements around Exeter too, making any wet walk into campus slightly treacherous.

It’s been odd, being back for second year that is. I’m back in my university town, back in my house of ten, and there is so much that I still can’t do. There’s no more late night study sessions in a quiet library, no more group trips out, no more meeting new people in seminars. As a university student, missing out on so much whilst paying £9250 as well as accommodation and living costs makes it a frustrating time. Especially when someone works out that, with your reduced contact hours, its £275 per lagging online Microsoft Teams meeting. It can be easy to lose sight of the wonderful and joyous little parts of life that made me decide it was worth coming back to second year in Exeter rather than staying at home. I try to look at the positives in terms of education, its more flexible, I’ve had an increase in independent research work, I’m developing better time management skills and techniques.

But it’s also the little parts of life itself that are important, the little interactions and moments that make me feel that it’s all worth it. The best friend who comes in every morning and lies in my bed to catch up, the coffee dates to work that get us out of the house, the joint cooking and all the hilarity that entails, the late night conversations and inside jokes that you can only understand if you were there, the bare and open bravery of admitting things in the dark with a friend, the screaming at the TV while sport plays or a horror movie haunts you. Yes future me will be in debt and will be stressed with work but this, this makes it feel worth it. I can survive the awkward mic failures in a meeting or the fear I look weird on camera for these delightful moments of joy persist despite it feeling like the whole world has turned on its head. Even the 5 minutes at the start of a seminar when people ask how you are or the awkward first group interaction over a Facebook chat are so human and the loneliness of isolation or lockdown seems to seep away for a moment or two.

So here are the things keeping me going:

Listening:

Second year = lots and lots of work. As a result I've been studying a lot and here are my favourite study playlists from September/October:

- ​feels how coffee tastes

- ​gentle low-fi

- coffee shop

Reading:

My darling best friend up in Newcastle sent me a copy of Dolly Alderton's Ghosts and I adore it. We both fell in love with Dolly's writing after her first book Everything I Know About Love. We decided to share books while interrailing so that book came on trains all around Europe with us and was read in carriages with strangers, on station platforms and in tucked away coffee shops. That was well over a year and a half ago now but we still both have our own dog eared, well worn copies at university with us, I even sent two copies to friends during lockdown.

Doing:

I'm currently juggling a lot of university work so I made a post about what I'm using here.

I'm also currently slightly obsessed with the app Co-Star. I can't help it when the notification comes up, I'm straight to the app to check how my day looks and most of the time it genuinely applies and makes me question things. For example, today it asks if I'm 'conflating co-dependency with security' and it does make me ponder on my relationships, and sometimes, just the prompt to think about and reflect on things like that is important in my opinion.

Watching:

I've recently been rewatching Grey's Anatomy, which is available in the UK on Amazon Prime. I adore this show and whenever I'm stressed out I just chose a season or a favourite storyline to rewatch. Sometimes I do just feel it's easier to rewatch shows where you know what will happen, I am one of those people after all that sometimes likes to look up the plot of a movie to see what will happen while I'm halfway through watching it.

I think I'll end this update with my favourite COVID sign off: I hope you're staying positive and testing negative. 

As I write this, I have 15 days before going back to university for my second year. I am moving into a house with 9 friends after spending nearly six months at home with my parents and my dog. I adore my friends and can’t wait to be back to student life with them all.

I haven’t got any bed sheets yet, or a duvet for that matter, but the idea of living in a ‘grown up’ house fills me with excitement. Even the little things – not having to pay extortionate rates for campus washing machines, having enough fridge space or not being on campus wifi – fill me with a sort of unabated joy. My mum would say that I’m just easily pleased but I think it’s so much more than that to me. For me, it’s about people from different backgrounds, all of us doing different things, all coming together in this mismatched harmony which leads to a truly disgusting kitchen and no sleep but also to dinners with 10 people crowded around a tiny table, to uncontrollable laughter, drunkenly walking home thick as thieves and late night gossiping with cups of tea (or a bottle of wine or two).

These are a few of my favourite things from this August, I hope you enjoy!

Listening:

Podcasts:

The most recent podcast I listened to was The Missing Cryptoqueen presented by Jamie Bartlett. My family and I devoured the whole podcast in 2 days and I cannot wait for future episodes. It is incredibly well researched and they dig deep whilst also covering an incredible breadth of people and stories. As someone completely non-technical, I felt like I learnt a lot from this podcast but also felt very moved by some of the personal stories they investigated.

The High Low by Dolly Alderton and Pandora Sykes is one of my favourite podcasts. They’re currently on a summer break but I recommend this podcast to everyone. Dolly and Pandora are both so well read and their range and depth in each podcast is what makes this stand out.

Music:

Currently? Harry Styles. On repeat. That’s all I have to say.

Reading:

A little piece about me and my relationship with reading is coming soon, but I am currently enthralled by Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid. I first heard about the book through The High Low podcast (see above) and what a recommendation it was. It is an exceptionally well written book and I can’t wait to read the rest of it!

Doing:

I started the Moon Lists journal created by Leigh Patterson as a way to assess and track who I am over the next year and a half. The level of self-reflection that the journal guides you through is really interesting and definitely made me notice and find meaning in some things in my everyday life that I didn’t place much weight in before despite them being part of my usual routines. That practice of noticing and reflection has helped me make a step towards being more mindful of the things I choose to include in my everyday meander through life.

Watching:

I absolutely loved The Other One (BBC One) created by Holly Walsh and Pippa Brown. It’s a comedy, but it’s also so much more than that. The Other One manages to be tender and a beautiful portrayal of grief, family and forgiveness whilst also being a light comedy sitcom. I’ll be here patiently waiting to see whether it’ll be renewed for a second season…

Website updation on Regular Basis is so prudent. Since, after three years of experimenting user search behavior and indexing strategy, Google started to make daily changes to its search system so that only the best information is traced at Number 1 Position in Google Search. This update came with the introduction of Fritz on July 1, 2003 with several minor changes and data refreshes started to leave its impact.

After years of the launch of Google Toolbar, Google started changing indexing techniques daily.

Fritz is an algorithm update that changed the way google started indexing search pages. This made all business owners push harder with relevancy and quality to attain and maintain the strength of their digital presence. Moreover, digital marketing strategy of various digital marketing agencies in the world experienced a meaningful transformation.

И так опять тянет писать. Про то, что вокруг, про то, что в голове, про людей и настроение, погоду и события. Сейчас я нахожусь на новом, после-мастерском и безработном этапе, в котором у меня достаточно свободного времени. Поэтому, попытаюсь писать чаще. Потому что читая свои заметки из Аликанте, дома или из любого путешествия мне иногда очень жалко, что я не дописывала многие вещи, или просто набрасывала основные ключевые слова, чтобы написать позже. Потому, что я не могу через пару месяцев, да даже дней быть в том состоянии, с теми мыслями, которые меня посещали во время начала написания заметки. Поэтому, возможно, нужно взяться за зарисовки-воспоминания из прошлого? Так много всего произошло за последний год- изменения во моем мировозрении, в моих хобби и стиле жизни, в друзьях и работе/учебе. Эрасмус семестр заслуживает заметок про мой любимый Аликанте, про путешествия в Барселону, Мадрид, Сантьяго и Севилью, про мой любимый круг друзей и образ жизни, где я успевала сочетать вечеринки, учебу, спорт, пляж, поездки, посиделки на чай, чувство влюбленности и испаский с такой легкостью, с таким наслаждением от каждого дня. Летняя поездка домой, и потом 2 недели в Тулузе и Барсе, переезд в Кройцберг, мой новый этап жизни - все-все это хочется описать.