project 365: 040-046

 040 After my 9am lecture I spent a few hours in the city centre browsing. I wasn't actually aimlessly browsing, but had a few things that I'd looked up online and wanted to check out in person and am still contemplating to buy. I also went to the Kirkgate market to buy some flowers. I've finally decided to become one of those people who buy themselves flowers. Also, this lovely lady saw me taking photos at the market, first merely mentioning that the market is beautiful, to which I agreed. She then continued to walk past me, but turned back and told me that if I go upstairs I'd probably be able to take even more pretty shots. That was so lovely, and I'm going to go back to do just that as soon as I feel like I have the time!

 041 My mum sent me some sweets for Valentine's Day. The dark chocolate with apple, brittle and hazelnut was delicious. And obviously she sent me some Moomin cards!

 042 Actually hate this building. It's an absolute maze, but once you've found your way to wherever you were supposed to go you don't feel happy or rewarded, you're just late and annoyed. I can understand someone designing this and being allowed to have it built, but I'm also pretty sure it's received some sort of a design award which is just beyond me. The Roger Stevens building, ladies and gentlemen. It won't be missed after I leave uni.

 043 The latest damage I've caused upon my poor body. It's not even funny how easily I bruise these days..

 044 These are the wee tulips I bought on Monday. I've already thrown them away, but I really like seeing flowers go through all of their stages from a wee bud to being so hideous even I need to take them out of my room. I think it's in 19th-century still life paintings that often had really plentiful flowers in rich colours, but once you'd look at them closer at least some of them would be dying. And I like that.

 045 What I'm reading at the moment!

046 A good/sad (whichever way you want to see it) day of le internet. And pretending to read some more, but didn't really make any progress now, did I?

I feel like this has been a bit of a rambly post, but what you gonna do. It also feels as if these are the only kinds of posts I've written lately and I'll try to get some other content up soon as well, haha. I'm genuinely so busy with uni, but as I'm about to start majorly procrastinating I'm sure you'll be seeing me quite as much as you normally would. If not more. I'll catch you later and hope you're having a wonderful start to the week!

thursday thoughts pt. 43

Some time ago I was going through all my old letters and cards I have received over the years. Does anyone else keep all of their letters and cards or is that odd? I've two big boxes full, haha! I get so attached to things and I love keeping everything and looking back with nostalgia. I genuinely have more feelings about things I own or have owned and places I've been to than about all the people that have been a part of my life.. This is a quote one of my friends had written in a birthday card for my 15th birthday (I think, anyway somewhere around that age.). Obviously it's just meant to be something funny, but I can't help but think that maybe there's a little truth in it as well:-)

project 365: 033-039

 033 Lips of the day/week/month/life. And this perfect lil' red even matches with my new pocket mirror that I got from my Secret Santa, haha!

034 Honey on toast, hot chocolate and "Spy Fiction, Spy Films, and Real Intelligence" in the morning. A lot of the things I read for uni are actually so interesting and I also love how we're doing for example Fleming and le Carré this semester. I just wish I had less of a mentality of thinking along the lines "this is for school, I don't like it" most of the time..

 035 A sneaky peak at something I ordered a wee while ago. Quite excited about this:--)

036 This is the worst photograph ever, possibly. I mostly forgot about this wee project of mine. I've also forgotten about this little reminder of how much work I should be doing, as well as a half-planned trip to London that I've now postponed. As much as I do enjoy making lists and all that, I'm just not very good at planning and prefer to do things ex tempore. (Need I mention deciding to move to Leeds and going to uni here less than two weeks before it started [that seems so long ago!] or my Germany-Austria trip a year ago that had a similar timeline..)

 037 Migraine, day 2.

 038 Cream crackers and salami is my favourite thing. Used to eat piles and piles of these at my grandparent's. And the sky was especially lovely on Saturday!

039 Writing letters and eating toast with honey+bananas. I do eat other things than toast, I promise.

night confetti

I actually had these nails ages ago, but it's still my favourite colour combination for winter these days. Nothing too fancy for a lazy Laura, but still a bit more exciting than just one plain colour. I used Barry M's Black on most nails and Berry Cosmo on a few, then adding Wet n Wild's Party of Five Glitters on top. It's like stars or fireworks or confetti in the night sky. (How poetic..) As my nails are not painted at the moment, I might just go and redo them to look like this.

thursday thoughts pt. 42

"You didn't catch my eye right away I won't deny this but once you did, I swear I couldn't look away." Regarding last week's Thursday thought, I'd say I believe more in this than in love at first sight:-) Still not a believer in romantic love, but there's people who just have that something about them that captures you so that you can't stop looking at them or forget them. Whether it's a trait of character, a sweet habit or just plain ridiculously good looks. Or something you can't even quite comprehend yourself, but it still captivates you. I can't remember where I found this quote (so I'm sorry if I've stolen something of yours!), but it's a really beautiful one.

Also, can we appreciate the spider leg eyelashes I've drawn. Haha!

pink

Jumper - Sister's old

Skirt - Self-made

Earrings - Gift from the sister

Isn't this just the easiest thing to wear in winter; jumper and a skirt. As my second semester of the year and last one of life as an undergraduate (fingers crossed!) actually has early mornings, I feel like this will be the kind of boring little outfit everyone will come to see me in. When you study history, 9/10am mornings are quite rare and I've become used to a routine where I might have to be at uni only around 5pm. Still not complaining about these oh-so-very early mornings though, as I genuinely don't have more than 3-4 contact hours per week. So little yet I always find myself doing my reading only the day or night before. So much reading, so little time. Seems like this became a wee post about uni, didn't mean for that to happen. But it's the only thing going on in my life right now and I might as well let you know how uninteresting it is.

P.S. I made the blog pictures bigger, so can you let me know if you think they look alright to you, if they take longer to load or anything? Or if it's even a noticeable change. Much appreciated, you guys!

project 365: 026-032

 026 I spent most of the day watching Holocaust documents. I don't want to say I enjoyed myself as that doesn't sound appropriate, but it wasn't completely miserable. I do love a good documentary, and I love it even more that as a history student I can pretend that this is studying. My Holocaust-filled day was not only because of the memorial day or 70th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation, but also because I'm the biggest Hitchcock fan and found out that the documentary he'd worked on in 1945 was finally available for watching in most places. I really would recommend it, it's called "Holocaust: Night Will Fall". Not that you should watch it because of Hitchcock, but out of respect for the actual people and to remember them and what they had to go through. And to educate yourself if you're an ignorant wee one.

 027 The fact that this day's photo is of my cereal probably tells you how interesting a day I had..

 028 I was only going to take this one to moan about how much I'm struggling with the length of my hair at the moment. Then I ended up taking outfit photos, that I'll try and post later in the week! But really, my hair's in such an awkward growing-out stage and I really don't like it. Over-grown pixie is surely one of the worst hairstyles. It doesn't look that bad in the photo, but it really is such an awkward length. I can pin it all up but there's still a couple of stubborn little strands that enrage me. And if I don't pin it up, it's just worse. Woe is me.

 029 A late nameday card from my mum arrived this week, so I taped in on my wall. I have quite a collection of pretty Moomin cards.. And after the #crazybloggers chat I was going to do my uni reading, until I realized I had printed off the documents of the previous seminar. Honestly don't know how I manage to do these things. Do I even need to mention the time I went to uni only to print off some stuff, came back home and realized I had printed blank paper? Unbelievably smart I am. I still managed to go through all the documents online (I just prefer to have them in paper form so that I can better make notes and highlight things) and had (another) g&t.

 030 A day of studying, blogging and catching up on a few TV shows. (I was also pleased with my matching dress+lipstick.)

 031 I had some little repair-sewing to do!

032 A new month in my Moomin calendar! (Are other people as happy about getting to turn the page of a calendar at the start of each month, or am I just really easily entertained/satisfied?) And I had carbonara and a g&t for tea. This carbonara is one of my favourite things to make and the g&t is slowly becoming a routine in the evening.

How was your week?

i could treat you better but i'm not that smart

 Dress - Dorothy Perkins

Coat - Urban Outfitters

Socks - Topshop

Shoes - New look

Bag - 2nd hand/Dad's old

I'm wearing my gingham dress again! At the moment this is the dress I could live in for weeks. The print, the colours, the shape all make it such an easy and effortless item to throw on and it still looks like I've made an effort. I also like how different it looks depending on which coat I wear, because paired with this blue duffel coat is definitely a different look than with my green army coat. I also like how it's finally been cold enough for it to be weather-appropriate for me to wear this blue coat.

The National Archives have nice little fountains and everything outside, that make me want to go and feed the ducks and swans there. I used to love doing that when I was wee and wish I still took the time to do fun little things like that. But apparently I'm too busy being an adult and staying inside the archives reading about revolutionary propaganda and what not. Feeding the birds would be more fun though, I think! But I still wouldn't feed the pigeons inside the bus station like some crazy lady sitting behind me did last week.

thursday thoughts pt. 41

I do love this quote, it is very sweet. I know you don't want to hear how I don't believe in love at first sight and all that, but even then I can appreciate the sentiment and say that this is a lovely quote. A bit of Shakespeare will never go amiss. Also, if you have been following me on Twitter lately, you might have noticed my wee struggle with mini existential crises, I've just been having a bit of a strange time trying to figure my life out and questioning everything. I suppose I still am. But one of the things that this led to was that I realized I don't believe in romantic love. After that I was even more iffy about posting this quote, but have decided that my non-belief in romantic love and love at first sight don't actually lessen the quote in any way. I think I'll treat romantic love and romance as a genre quite similarly as sci-fi from now on. I can still love and appreciate both.

project 365: 019-025

 019 I'm a bit neurotic when it comes to moisturizing my hands and using hand lotion. I'm not as bad as I used to be about it, but I still need to have some kind of lotion or cream with me at all times. This is what I'm using at the moment.

 020 If you've never eaten raspberries like Amélie, you're maybe doing life wrong. If you've never seen Amélie, you are doing life wrong.

 021 My first day at the archives, hooray!

 022 During my visit to London, I stayed at an airbnb in Kew. It was really lovely and in a fancyish area. They even had wee ponds with Koi fish in them. Surely that is fancy? I don't like them though, they look creepy.

 023 I got home at midnight and although I love being away, travelling and exploring, I also love coming back.

 024 I woke up with a migraine (First one of the year, I think. Surprised that it took 24 days, to be honest.) and spent most of the day trying to sleep it away. As that didn't work out, I finally succumbed and took my pills, so that in a few hours I was able to make my way to the living room and spend the rest of the day reading "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy". And I know reading isn't the best thing for me to do while recovering from a migraine, but I'm stupid like that.

025 Sunday was a lovely lazy day. Read a little more, blogged and got ready to go back to uni. Christmas holiday, where did you go?