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Saturday 9 November 2013

My love of the Countryside

Until I was 18 I had always lived in a rural area, always near fields and forests. It is somewhere I always feel at home and somewhere I can happily sit for hours.



When I was 18 I moved away for University into a city and although having everything on my door step is fantastic I always look forward to go home during the holidays and enjoying the green open spaces. It is easy to take the countryside for granted so spending half the year in a city make every trip home feel really special.



I know some people who are intimidated by the open space and lack of people in the countryside but that is the part I love the most. I spent a lot of my teenage years in the outdoors with the Scouts, whether it be camping, hiking  or one of the many other activities we did, that was where I was most happy.



That is why today I thought I would share some picture I took of the Isle of Man, my home and very favourite place.

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Thursday 7 November 2013

NaNoWriMo 2013 | Helpful Websites | Day 7

It’s hard to believe that we are already 7 days into November and after that dodgy start to NaNoWriMo I managed to get back on track for a few days at least.

After getting absolutely soaking wet walking home from my lectures all I really wanted to do was huddle inside all evening so I thought I would be the perfect time so sit down and get lots written. Sadly though I only managed just over 500 words yesterday. I just couldn’t focus, for the past few weeks I have been working flat out trying to get assignments, writing blogs and planning and filming videos. Sometimes I wish I was one of those people who could work flat out for months on end sadly I am not.

I now have three days to get back on track before I am back to lectures on Monday morning so I am hoping to pull it off along with the 2 assignments I have due in next week!

Today I thought I would share with you some websites that have really helped me out so far:
  1.          Write or Die – This is a website which allows you to set a word count aim and a time to write for and then every time you stop writing it plays a really irritating/loud sound until you start writing again. It helps you focus on the task in hand and allows writing to flow without the stop and start of distractions. With this tool I am able to write 2000 in about an hour and a half so I definitely find it useful!


  1.  2.    Coffitivity – This website is amazing. It plays the background noise of a coffee shop, which may sound basic to you but I find that silence can be difficult to work in as I get distracted by objects in my room because my brain gets bored! I have tried working with music on in the background but then I just start singing along and it distracts me. So this is the perfect medium, it drowns out silence, and also the noise of my housemate, but it’s distracting because it is just back ground noise.


Ok so now I have written about those tools it is probably best to go and use them, I am going to go and write now, With my slackness yesterday today is the day I will pass 10 000 words and I am also planning on catching up again over the weekend so wish me luck!

Hope your novel is going well! Good Luck!

x

Monday 4 November 2013

STUDENT ADVICE: Graduate Schemes

As someone who is graduating in June, I will soon need to find myself a proper full time job but, as it is still months away, I thought I would be fine for a while yet. Turns out I was very wrong. One of the best way to enter the world of work is via a graduate scheme especially for a course like mine but I recently found out that you have to apply for most of them before Christmas!

I was very lucky that one of my lecturers made us all aware of that otherwise I would of found myself in April surprised that all of them had closed long ago. This is why I decided to write this post, so that I could make people aware of this!

You can do graduate schemes in all sorts of things like management, marketing, accounting and engineering. They provide you will a great way of entering a new profession straight from university as they give you training you while you work, they understand that you won’t be perfect when you arrive because they work with graduates every year.

Also if you are in you 2nd year at university I have noticed that a lot of the internships are open as well so if you are thinking of taking a placement year you might want to get on it quickly too.

I am speaking form the point of you of an engineering student looking for a job, this may relate to you, it might not but it is worth checking it out so that you don’t miss the boat.

Good Luck!

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Saturday 2 November 2013

NaNoWriMo 2013 | From bad to much much better | Day 2

So it is currently day 2 of NaNoWriMo and today is going well but sadly the same can't be said for yesterday...

So I started the day after 4 and a half hours sleep with friends asleep on my floor. Three of my friends who graduated last year came back to stay for Halloween and as I hadn't seen them for 5 months there was no way I was going to say no! Safe to say by the time they had all left at 4pm I was not in a fit stat to write.  I cobbled together 500 words but it was soon evident that I was not going to write anything worth keep so I gave in and went to bed.

Today, however, has been really rather productive. I got up with much more energy and sat down and wrote 1000 words in 40 minutes, the words came on the most case easily and so after a small break to re-hydrate and give my writing brain a quick rest I was back to it and wrote did the same again!

So now I have 2000 words and am feel much better about the whole thing. Just another 48,000 word to go!

I am of to write some more now so I can get back on schedule and make the 3334 word count but before I do that I thought I would share with you a really night reciepe for those cold writing evenings. It's the perfect leave in the oven dish, it only takes a few ingredients and doesn't take long to prepare, then you can get on with writing while it bakes in the oven.

Potato and Onion Bake topped with Crispy Bacon


  1. Arrange sliced Potatoes and onions in a oven dish in alternate layers seasoning each layer with black pepper.
  2. Add chicken stock up to about half way through the potato/onion layers then back in the oven on a medium heat for about 45 minutes.
  3. Finally add slice of bacon to the top and bake for a further 15 minutes to allow them to go crispy.
I do this dish all the time, no need to weigh out ingredient just choose a dish that suits the number you are feeding (and there appetites) and fill it up.

Hope your writing is going well!

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