Manchester is not exactly a city of love and let's be honest, nightclubs are not exactly places to go to find love. Like Ed Sheeran sings "the club isn't the best place to find a lover" etc etc. So this isn't a story about love so don't get your hopes up. I say "romance" in the loosest term possible.

There's a nightclub in Manchester called Factory. Sweaty and hot, there are three floors of charts, indie and the proper bass line house music that only idiots spend four hours in the middle of the night listening to. As sophisticated and slightly drunk (I say slightly also in the loosest term possible) adult students, we spent three hours on the indie floor, as can be expected. Also as the know-it-alls we are, we decided hanging out near the door to the floor would be the best idea ever. I also say this heavily loaded with sarcasm. We did this in another nightclub too, and another a few nights later. Still we hadn't learned our lesson. All I can say is, never ever decide to dance enthusiastically to Town Called Malice near the door of a nightclub. Drunk teenagers young adults are aggressive when you're in their way.

Something you should definitely know about me before I continue is that in general, I fall in love with people on a daily basis. We're talking maybe five to eight people, boys and girls, at any random points throughout the day. They could be walking down the street or sitting opposite me on the bus and I'll just fall in love with something about them - their hair, their eyes, their outfit, their entire aesthetic...you get the idea. I don't mean it in a creepy way, I just have extremely intense feelings towards someone for the thirty seconds they're opposite me, and then as soon as they've gone, it's over and the feelings melt away with the person, most likely never to be seen again. So you can imagine how I get when I've had a few glasses of wine. Not only do I fall in love with many people in a nightclub, I make it extremely obvious in a way that my sober self definitely does not. I also fall in love with ten times as many people, because, and if anyone's ever heard the phrase "beer goggles" you'll know exactly what I mean, people often seem prettier than they are in the dark and when you've had a bit to drink.

So you can imagine the scene. This guy with his group of friends come up to my group of friends and they start dancing with us. 

"He's cute," I think to myself. "In a sort of 2000s emo way." No part of this felt wrong to me.

He starts putting his hands on my waist and I go along with it even though this close I'm beginning to realise he smells a bit, mostly of body odour and beer which I'm sure every other guy in there smelled of too, but it was slightly overpowering in a very unattractive way.

"What university are you at?!" he shouts in my ear. It sounds aggressive but if you've ever tried to have a conversation with someone in a nightclub you'll know that it's damn near impossible. Hence why the club isn't the best place to find a lover.

"Manchester Metropolitan!" I shout back to him. He smiles and nods, asserting the fact that he is at the same university as me. He asks me what I study, I answer English because English and Creative Writing is way too long and complicated for someone to understand through nightclub shouts. I don't remember what he said he studied.

We dance a bit longer, I'm getting happy because one of my favourite songs, Come On Eileen, had just started playing. The guy is smiling at me and laughing and still has his hands on my waist. I think back to it now and they were extremely sweaty.

Then he leans in again and says, "I'm not going to force anything but if you want to - you know."

Everyone knows what you know means. So I did. I accepted his offer of you know and leaned up to press my lips against his. I don't really remember it much except that it was kind of wet and there were a lot of teeth. And that's how my first snog in Manchester went. A simple offer of you know. 

He leans down after another song (at least, I thought it was only a song - apparently me and my "friend" were going at it for three. That's a long time). 

"Do you want to come back to mine tonight?"

The ever fateful question. The offer of you know and more. I didn't make a decision there and then. 

"My dad's coming really early tomorrow morning, I don't think so!" I shout back. It's not a lie - my dad is due at mine at 9:30 the next morning.

He shrugs and smiles. "I'll come to yours then!" He seems keen, I thought to myself.

Me being me, the first thing that popped into my head was contraception. I haven't quite got around to getting any condoms yet because honestly I'm too awkward to, and I'm not on the Pill because the side effects scare me too much. And I am super paranoid about STDs anyway so the only contraception I'll be using is condoms, thank you very much.

"That's okay!" He began shouting back. Immediately I started saying no way Hozay, I am not doing it and relying on your pull out game. "I've got some with me!" he continued. 

Alarm bells started ringing even more vigorously. What guy carries condoms on a night out with him who ISN'T expecting to take a girl back with them?! So obviously, there was nothing about me, I was just the first girl to take an interest in him and he only really wanted one thing out of it all.

"It'd also be my first time!" I decided to pull out the virginity card. I made up my mind as soon as he said he had condoms with him. Anything to get away from him now. Again not a lie. Then, I noticed a girl we'd been hanging out with that night needed someone to go outside for a cigarette with her, so obviously, I needed an excuse (my desperation was at a point where I was about to text my flatmate to come up with a great excuse for me to leave) so outside I went with her, telling the guy I'd be back. I wouldn't. Not to him anyway. 

But what do you know, friends, he followed us outside. Under the pretence of having a cigarette too, obviously. And let me tell you - I didn't realise quite how unattractive I found him until I saw him under a street light and slightly more sober than I had been. 

But by that point it was too late - my lipstick was already on his mouth, my friends were questioning my choices and Come On Eileen now had an entirely new memory attached to it. And now my sober mind was going through everything wrong. His hands were sweaty on my bare skin, his stupid stubble was way too rough on my lips and his breath smelled of awfully cheap stale nightclub beer. I noticed his earring, one of those weird stretcher things, and I wanted to ask had it hurt to have it done but somehow it did not seem like the right moment.

The day after I went on the anti-Brexit march with my dad and sister and we didn't mention the guy. I didn't mention him at all. However, I spent the Sunday night at a friend's house and the guy was brought up.

"What were you thinking?" he laughed to me. "That emo fringe and - "

"The stretcher!!" I laughed back, not even being able to believe myself. "At least it wasn't for very long, I guess."

"Not very long?" he raised an eyebrow at me. "You were full on going for it for about three songs, every time we looked over you were still at it."

I buried my face in my hands, absolutely mortified.

He hasn't been mentioned since.

Thank. God.

*

So friends, there is my first romance in Manchester. You can understand why I say it's romance in the loosest term possible. 

Have you ever made any terrible mistakes while you've been out and tipsy?! Let me know in the comments below!

Emilia xx

#StopBrexitManchester | Why I Went And Why It's Important

Hello friends from my small uni kitchen where I'm waiting for my chicken to finish defrosting while my flatmate makes paella and beef wellington for dinner and my other flatmate is doing a crossword. This isn't a post about uni life so far, however much I know you must be gagging for a post about it (of course.), it's actually about a pretty significant event that happened yesterday here in Manchester.

I'm not going to get on my political soapbox and preach about why we should have remained in the EU or anything, nor am I going to complain and whine because that's clearly not going to help anything.

However, I am going to tell you why I went on this march and why I think it's so important to have marches and protests like this, even after an outcome has been reached.

For those who don't know, me and my dad run a pretty small anti-Brexit Twitter campaign called Brits Against Brexit, so we firstly used the march as a bit of a marketing strategy, because obviously who wouldn't right?! Obviously the main reason we went on the march was because we are all anti-Brexit but it's so much more than that. 

While tweeting from Brits Against Brexit using #stopbrexitmanchester we came across many replies telling us we won't make any difference, what's done is done and there's nothing we can do about it now, it was decided by a democratic referendum and so on and so on. Chances are we won't change the decision of the government, but I do just want to address this idea of a democratic referendum.

While the actual referendum itself (as in, the question asked, the ballot paper and the voting procedure) was as democratic as they come, it was the months building up to the referendum that was so undemocratic. You see, if we really think about it, the entire Leave campaign was built on lies and scaremongering, we all saw the nonsense about £350 million going to the NHS if we left?! But I digress, I'm sure we all heard the complaints when the results came through. The main reason for me that the referendum was undemocratic was because I was not allowed to vote. And I don't mean me personally, I mean the entire 16-17 year old population of the UK. 

In my personal opinion, and in the opinions of many others, we should have been able to vote in that referendum as we are the ones that the outcome will affect directly, and as my father pointed out yesterday, the effects will be happening when we are of age. The reason I marched yesterday was because my future was taken away from me and I didn't have a choice about that, and to me that is as undemocratic as it comes. The reason we weren't allowed to vote? They were scared of us. Young people who are interested in politics have a voice and we have very loud voices. Yes, a some of us would have voted Leave if our parents were, or just because they don't care, but also the majority of us cared more than the 65+ population did. We weren't thinking of the 'good old days when we weren't in the EU', we were thinking of the bad new days when we aren't in the EU. That majority of us were loud and we were yesterday and we will always be. 

The reason my sister marched yesterday is because, post-Brexit, her job prospects in neuroscientific research will be reduced dramatically as most funding for our scientific research comes from the EU. Sure, the funding could come from elsewhere, but how long is that going to take and how much is that funding actually going to be? We leave the EU and we leave scientific research behind. Moreover, those who just say 'well, she can go and work in Europe', well yes of course she could if our right to live and work in the EU wasn't being taken away too!!

We marched for the young people who didn't have a choice and the future scientists who will struggle to find jobs, but we also marched in solidarity with the EU citizens living in the UK and the UK citizens leaving the EU whose futures at home with their loved ones are in jeopardy. We marched with the business owners who will be economically affected by the falling pound and we marched because first and foremost we care a hell of a lot about what's going to happen in the years to come.

I did end up on my political soapbox a little bit there, but it's true and I won't stop going on about it anytime soon so don't expect me to. We may not make any difference to the overall decision but we can at least let the government know how annoyed we are about it!!

Alright, that's me done, so I'm going to leave you with some pictures from the day and this: Bollocks to Brexit.

Emilia xx

For those who don't know, this is Dr Mike Galsworthy, he's a big pro-EU activist in the science world, hence why Jess was so excited to meet him!!

The End Of (Yet Another) Era | Why I Didn't Defer

Greetings my friends, from my bedroom where I am officially typing my last blog post here. At least for a while anyway.

Yep, that's right, tomorrow I move out and on up to the big ol' city of Manchester to start my degree. Shall I tell you how I'm feeling?? I would, but I don't think I can without using a number of expletives which I don't think is particularly appropriate for my audience.

In all honesty, moving out is a terrifying prospect. Today, the day before we go, I'm  feeling really strange, I'm flipping from one mood extreme (can't believe it's happening, I'm so excited to leave and be on my own and independent for a bit!!) to the next (I do not want to leave.) My three best friends left my house about two hours ago and the thought of not seeing them until Christmas is slightly disconcerting.

But on the other hand I'm filled with this overwhelming excitement that honestly cancels out every other negative thought I'm having about the whole process. I've been chatting to my hall mates and course mates for a few weeks now and made good friends with a few of them - my flatmates seem lovely and my actual flat is lovely too. I thought I'd add into this post just my reasons for not deferring in the end as well - for those of you who don't know, my plan when I applied for university was to defer until 2018 and do something makeup-orientated in my year out. However back in June I suddenly realised that actually, I really didn't want to defer. It was for a number of reasons to be honest with you which I will now list:

✨ I hated the thought of seeing all my friends heading off and not going with them because they'd all be moving on while I'd be stuck in my crappy town

✨ it's easier to be excited for a gap year when you actually have plans for it. I did not. I was simply going to bum around for a year.

✨ it's also easier to be excited when you've got a job you actually like doing. No, that's a bit of an exaggeration, some parts of working in a play cafe at a kids activity farm were lovely like the friends I made and the money and the little kids running around everywhere but it's extremely boring and tedious work. The thought of doing that for a whole year was dreadful.

✨ honestly, I picked a degree I love and I did not want to wait a year to start it. I'd miss learning and the stimulation too much. Also, I think I'd get completely out of the habit of learning and working and going back to it would be a struggle for me.

I mean, that's just a few of the reasons why I didn't defer my university entry in the end. Now it's here and it's happening, however, it feels totally natural and totally normal. My grandma said to me yesterday that they were surprised that I deferred in the first place and had a slight inkling that I'd choose not to. Just goes to show that maybe your family really do know you better than you know yourself!! But in all seriousness, I don't regret bringing my entry forward. It's almost got to a point where I can't imagine myself ever wanting to take a year out in the first place!! 

Obviously, university isn't for everyone and that's completely understandable, I'm a huge advocate of just doing what is going to make YOU happy and no one else - I made this choice completely on my own which I don't think I did when I was deferring. If you don't want to go to uni because you want to follow a different career path or just because it's simply not for you - you do you. 

So that concludes this little thrown together post, it's a bit of a shambles but to be honest, that reflects what our entire house looks like right now!

On another note, I uploaded a university Ikea haul the other day, I filmed a fun video with my aforementioned pals and I'm also vlogging the moving process. Not very well, but look out for that on my YouTube channel.

That's all for now. Onwards and up(north)wards. See you in Manchester, pals.

Emilia xx

September Bullet Journal

Hello my darlings!!

Slightly different post today, I don't think I've ever showed you guys my bullet journal! I've only really got into it recently, I used to do a modified version of it which was a little more art journally, but I got given a new Moleskine for my birthday so I thought when August began I'd make a proper go of doing it. I've been watching videos for so long and have been wanting to get started for ages but just never really had the motivation so I spent a few months practising my calligraphy and handwriting and things, and when we went to America I got a bunch of new pens and things so this month is pretty good!

I want to just reiterate that even though you see all these insane bullet journal accounts on Instagram and on YouTube, you literally don't have to do any of this stuff to have a bullet journal, the entire point of it is to organise your life in the way you want to, and honestly having something pretty that I've worked hard on guilt trips me into using it so much so it works well for me, but it is pretty time consuming so really all you need is a notebook and one pen. The entire website and original video can be found here explaining how to do it and I'll link a few of my favourite YouTube and Instagram accounts on the end of the post if you need some more inspo from people who have been doing it longer than me!! So onto my bullet journal...

I chose an autumnal theme for September, some people choose like one thing to do for the month like clouds or waves or flowers or leaves etc, some choose colours to base it around but I like doing more seasonal themes, so September is autumnal, October is going to be Halloween, November winter and December Christmas. That's as far as I've thought though!! So I was thinking rust colours, dark greens, leaves, acorns, pine cones, all that good stuff. My title page basically incorporates all of that, very nice. I'll put an entire list of supplies I use at the end of this post too for those who are interested!

This isn't that interesting or pretty but I thought I'd chuck it in anyway, me and my mum did a MASSIVE uni list on the plane on the way to America and while I plan to do a huge post about my uni shopping list, I thought I'd put it in anyway. It's possibly the messiest list ever but I keep thinking of new things to add to it randomly, the joys of going to uni! The IKEA trip is happening today so expect some more. Might do a haul video if my mum doesn't think it's too weird!!

So onto my calendars. I used to do this personal events list and then a square calendar on the opposite page but I just never used the square one so replaced it instead with my workout schedule. I'm not too keen on the colours of this, I wish I'd used more browns rather than oranges but I kinda went a bit ham haha. I also have my YouTube growth tracker on there too which I love so much, it's so good to see growth when I can actually keep it active!! I also do my monthly goals list but I did cover it up bc they're kinda personal lol. This is a perfect example of why bullet journalling is so good - you can put anything you want into it, and if you don't like it the next month, you can just get rid of it. It's so good.

I think this might be my favourite spread from this entire month. I did a new layout for my mood tracker this month, using this circle instead of a graph. I LOVE this so much, gives me so much more room to be creative and do some doodling. My habit tracker I kept the same because I like colouring in the squares haha. As you can see, I've not been very good at it so far but to be fair to me, I have been in America and flying back and recovering from jetlag but I plan on using these in earnest the beginning of next week, the habit tracker really helps me keep myself accountable and keep myself on track and working on everything. 

Again a spread I LOVE. I do a video ideas and blogposts page every month because it's good to have them all in one place, and a highlights page is so good and so much fun to look back on at the end of the month and remember all the good times. Lil sneak peek into some upcoming videos and posts there too. Any other ideas you have, hit me up.

So this is my first weekly spread, I decided to change it up and do sections instead, because I feel like with uni work coming up life is going to get very busy and I'm going to need much more space to organise myself. The calligraphy is so shaky because it was one of my first times using my new Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen and it's a lot harder than it looks! But, practise makes perfect.

And the last double page spread I've done so far is just my swatch page of my Supertips and my other most used pens. I do love this because it gives me one place to choose a colour to use so it's so useful. Plus it just looks really pretty and I am actually so proud of my calligraphy in this, see I am getting better!!

So that concludes my bullet journal for September! As promised, here's a list of the products I used this month...

♥ Crayola Supertips (for colours and video and blogpost title calligraphy)

♥ Faber Castell Ecco Pigment 0.3mm fineliner

♥ Tombow Fudenosuke calligraphy pen (I have both soft and hard tips but I prefer the soft!)

♥ Pilot G-2 0.5mm pen (this is a rollerball gel so much better than fineliners because the tip doesn't wear down and get thicker the more you use it!)

Other products I love are...

♥ Frixion pastel highlighters

♥ Stabilo pastel highlighters

♥ Stabilo pastel fineliners 

♥ Tombow duo brush pens (pastel colours)

Yes, I have a slight addiction to pastels. Please leave me alone.

And also as promised, here's a list of my favourite bullet journal accounts and YouTube channels (some of these are also studygrams, also great for calligraphy inspo and motivation):

♥ AmandaRachLee (honestly my all time favourite)

♥ Miss Louie (also does fab fashion videos)

♥ fridaynightstudies

♥ peachystudies

♥ bonjournal

♥ procrastinate_create

♥ mildlineurs

♥ lauriewrites

Okay I'm done now!! Have fun with the bujo porn, I could spend hours scrolling through Instagram and Pinterest haha! Hope you enjoyed my own bullet journal and maybe got som inspiration from it, I'll do another update at the end of the month so you can see the rest of my weekly spreads and my finished mood/habit trackers which I WILL keep up. I almost need a habit tracker for my habit tracker ffs.

See you soon gals!

Emilia xx

Life Update & A Level Results

Hi everyone!! Just a quickie post from me today, thought I'd update you on goings on and new things and new beginnings happening at the moment!

So the first thing I should address is my A Level results!! You guys know how anxious I was about those damn results so fair to say it was a massive weight lifted off when I logged onto UCAS Track on the 17th August at 7:50am and saw I got my place at Manchester Metropoltian to study English and Creative Writing. The shock was even bigger when my mum and I went into school to collect my results and I far surpassed all expectations - I'm pretty happy with my A*AB I have to say. For someone who was predicted a C in Sociology after March mocks, getting an A* was possibly the biggest middle finger I could have given to my teachers!! I'm kidding - they were both super supportive and while they were both as surprised as I was, they were hugely congratulatory! Had some fun celebrations including a night out to a really shitty club in the town where I live and a lovely dinner with my grandparents and then another family event the day after. A really fun couple of days and still reeling from it to be honest!! Can't wait to head off on the 15th September to Manchester and begin life as an actual adult!! I might do a post about deferring my entry and why I chose not to, so if you're interested in that let me know. And any other A-Level and uni related content you'd like to see, just hit me up.

Another fun thing is that, like I mentioned in my last post, my family and I are currently on holiday in America, my older sister having spent two months out here in upstate New York lifeguarding for Camp America, so we took the opportunity to do a bit of travelling, seeing a different side to the USA than we saw two years ago. It's fair to say that I can see why some Americans never leave America, it's all so different you'd never need to go elsewhere! I'll have more posts about our trip coming up, but hopefully more organised than I recently have been - but I have said this before so we'll see.

not seeing this gal for two months was kind of a long time!

Another exciting thing is that I started a new blog!! Like I mentioned earlier, I'm off to study creative writing at uni and thought it might be time to start self-publishing some of my work - I used to publish it on Wattpad but honestly, it's not the easiest platform to use or grow on, so I've set up a separate blog to share some of my pieces on. It's called Last Mile Home and you can find it here if you're interested in my more creative and imaginative work. I would do it here but some of it is a little NSFW and just doesn't fit the overall lifestyle-y chatty vibe I've got going on on here, which I'm really enjoying at the moment. There's not much on there at the moment but I'm planning on uploading pieces I've already written every other day and when all of that is up I'll try and update twice a week or whenever I write something new!

This brings me onto my next point - I've decided that this academic year I'm really going to try and make a go of my blog and start trying to turn it into a bit more of a brand and a business, so I'm going to start sharing more on what is currently my makeup Instagram account. I feel like I only really show my followers over there one side of me but I have so many other passions like fitness and food and photography and clothes and bullet journalling, rather than just makeup, so I'm going to try and branch out a bit and start getting a bit of variety into my content. It might mean I lose interest and some followers but I just want to start being more myself and keeping my integrity a little more.

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I think that's all I have to update you on for now! When I get back from holiday it'll be a mad rush to prepare for uni but I've got some exciting uni-based content to upload so I'll try my best to update regularly!

Emilia xx