Christmas day arrived.

As I've been using this blog to discuss my Christmas plans and excitement towards the big day, it's only right that I do a blog post about it. So, that's exactly what I want to do, because today has been next to perfect.

My Xmas presents, before I destroyed the wrapping

Next to perfect, yet I've barely done anything. I opened presents, had my amazing Christmas dinner, messed around with a few of my presents and then sat in front of the TV for about four hours. But it's been really nice to have a day in with the family, with no stress, no arguments- just how Christmas day should be.

The only problem was, I woke up with the queasy feeling that I was coming down with the flu. Going out in town on Thursday night, when it was near enough -10 outside and walking the majority of the way home, probably contributes to that. As the day has gone on, my head has felt more and more conjested and I've had to drink some vile Beechams Plus, which is next to drinking cat wee in my estimation. But it kind of makes me feel better- for a few seconds anyway.

Anyway, enough with me sounding like a Scrooge, I woke up today at 10 (gone are the days of me jumping out of bed at 7am, waking everyone up) and went downstairs to open my presents. And let me tell you, I got spoilt. Just a few of them presents included a nice Olympus Dictophone for my course, Russel Howard DVD, Inception in a limited edition DVD and some much-needed money. I was really happy with what I got.

But I was made even more happier just lounging about and watching Christmas TV. I have to admit, a lot of it was aweful, but that's what Christmas is about. Bad TV, spending time with the family, eating loads of food and loads of chocolates on top.


So I just want to wish all my readers a very Happy Christmas, and hope that their day has been great!

And now with Christmas out the way...roll on the New Year celebrations!!

Being home.

So it's been a full week since I posted anything on this blog, and that's not necessarily out of choice. Basically, the last few days I've been back in Tamworth for my Christmas holidays and wanted to spend as much time as I possibly could just relaxing or seeing friends/family and not spending it on my computer all the time.That lasted a grand total of five days, and boredom has driven me into doing this post, because I think I could still keep this running.

I came home on Saturday, and since then I've enjoyed my home comforts. I do really miss Stoke-on-Trent and it's strange, because I was looking forward to get away from a few things there, but coming home makes me realise that my life is now over there and the ups and downs come with it too. That's not to say that I believe Tamworth is somewhere I just drop in and out of...despite what my mom moans at me about!!

Our Christmassy living room!

The most amazing thing about being home is seeing friends and family. On Saturday, it was my uncle's 40th birthday party, which was a good laugh. He'd hired out a UB40 Tribute Act and they were amazing, and sounded like the real thing. My mom and dad are massive fans of UB40 and this has resorted into me loving some of their music, so I'll admit that I got up and had a bit of a dance too. My nan and grandad then came round on Sunday for Sunday dinner, so it was lovely to see them, then on Tuesday night I went to my uncles once more to continue his 40th celebrations.

As for friends, I got some really good news over the last week. My friend, Bex, who I've spoken about over here before, gave birth to little baby Jacob, and on Monday I went to see them both with Nat. He was the cutest little thing and I was genuinely really happy for Bex as she seems to be enjoying her role as a mum and also coping really well. Then yesterday, we had loads of snow dumped on us, which resorted in myself going sledging with two of my good friends over here, Lauren and Alex, before going to see Harry Potter. It was a great day out and we had lots to talk about after not seeing each other for around 3 months, so it was totally worth the mile trek in the snow to see them!

But despite all this, I'm still struggling to feel completely at home. I'm missing my housemates, especially Sam who I went to see on Tuesday in Birmingham, so I really appreciate the fact that he's not very far away. I also feel like I've lost a lot of independence by being in my house, and today hasn't been a brilliant day.

However, I really appreciate being here, and it's such a nice break away from university. After all the hard work in semester one, it's just good to see a lot of people and chill out when I can in a lovely warm house. And with a night out on the cards tonight and Christmas only two days away, things can only get better.

Hangover cures.

After three weeks of being virtually teetotal, I decided last night that it was time to stop being a bad student and go on a night out. All my work had been handed in and deadlines had been met, so there was no reason not to, and with Gobble having it's Christmas theme, I was pretty excited.

(c) su-lin

However, excited was not how I felt when I woke up this morning. Because I've realised something- when you haven't drank for a long time, the alcohol hits you harder. And I felt drunk before I even left my house during pre-drinks, which certainly proves that statement.

After waking up, I was hanging bad. My mouth felt like all the moisture had been taken out of it, and my head was throbbing. So I needed a hangover cure, and quick. Having to be out the house at about half 11, I walked past Wrights' pasty shop, with the smell of freshly baked pasties enticing me in.

I chose my usual (a chicken tikka pasty) then when I got home, poured myself a glass of Pepsi with ice cubes. And after eating and drinking, I suddenly felt a hundred times better. Well, that was until I had a nap for three hours and woke up feeling even worse.

So with this, I think it's clear to say that next time I go out on the lash, I know what to have once I wake up. It's just a shame that I'm going home in a few days back to good old Tamworth, where Wright's pasty shops don't exist...

That feeling of freedom.

I am happy to announce to you all one thing: I HAVE COMPLETED ALL OF MY ASSIGNMENTS FOR SEMESTER ONE!

(c) mherzber

That's right, today at around 2 o'clock this afternoon, my assignments were finalised and printed off. Looking back on this semester (and adding to what I said in this post), the first semester of my second university year has been pretty tough. I think it's mainly because of deadlines getting on top of me, but only because I let it get to that stage.

To sum up this semester, I would use one phrase- all work and barely any play. I haven't really been out partying as much as I'd like, or had much of a night to myself, but I guess I'm here to get a degree and not to drink my life away like I did last year. Plus, some of my assignments have really opened my eyes to what my career will consist of, so they've been worth it.

And it's actually quite upsetting to say that I am now officially half way through my time at university. So far, I've loved every second of it and I can honestly say I never want it to end, no matter how many ups or downs it brings. But I'm really excited for the upcoming semester, and I've still got lots of work to get through.

On that note, I better stop moaning about my workload and just get down to it in the future. But the future can wait, because the rest of this week looks really eventful, starting off with a drunken night out at Christmas Gobble tomorrow night!

Note: If you've been reading this blog since the beginning, you'll know that this blog was done for an assignment and all of my writing has been counted towards the overall mark for said assignment. However, I still plan on running this blog up until the point it drives me crazy- as of yet, I haven't reached that point!

Finishing an exam.

So today was the big day, the day of my internal Law Court Reporting exam. I've mentioned this a few times in recent posts, because before the exam I felt really unprepared and was just a little bit nervous. But this morning at 9am, I walked into the exam ready to write my knowledge away.

A few of my *helpful* mind maps

If you don't know already, studying Journalism at university also requires you to learn the law behind it so you know what/ what not to report. I have a whole module based on this, and although it's beneficial and I have an amazing tutor teaching it to me, it's really confusing also and can be hard to get your head around. Especially if you're like me, where revision involves making mind maps but barely learning them.

It probably didn't help that I had been up until about 2am revising, so a wake up at 8am was probably the worst feeling in the world. But after a cup of coffee and advent calendar chocolate for breakfast (yup, I'm serious), I began feeling more awake. I know what you're probably thinking though- minimal sleep and barely any breakfast, surely that's equivalent to an exam fail?

Well, maybe. Once the exam got under way, I did my usual routine- looked at the questions, panicked, looked at them again, panicked some more and then things began getting clearer and my late night cramming came flooding back to me. Which was lucky, because some questions I feel I may have nailed, but I can never be too sure with these exams.

What made me happy though was putting my pen down after the exam. Sure, I don't know the result and I don't feel I did so well, but I'm just praying that I passed. Because writing that much in an hour and a half has made my hand ache...good job I want to be a journalist then, hey?

Memories of the weekend.

You may have noticed that, yes, I neglected this blog last night and didn't update you on what made me smile. Whether you cared or not is another issue, but suffice to say, last night I was pretty busy and didn't have time to write even a short, crappy blog post. So instead, I'll please your eyes with a long one just to sum up the good weekend I had. That cool? Sweet.

So I told you in my last post that I had loads planned this week, and loads I did. I've travelled all over the country (well if you count Birmingham, Stourbridge and London all over the country that is) but it's been well worth it! My last post also touched on going to the German Christmas Market, so I'll fill you in with details from my weekend in London.

I've been to London quite a few times before, but mainly when I was smaller. I really enjoy the place, because it's a really important city. I know loads of people think 'oh London, watch out, you'll get stabbed' or some other stereotypical comment about it, but when you go down to central London, it's there where you see everything that makes this country what it is when you really begin to appreciate it.

And appreciate it I did, from more than 100 metres in the air. That's right, I went on the London Eye! It wasn't the first time I've been on (I went on the year it opened when I was like 10, and at that point I was too scared to look at the sights) and even though at first I got the nerves because of how high it is, I managed to stand up and look out to the whole of London. It was night time as well when we went on, so London was lit up and you could see for miles.

The London Eye certainly had to be the highlight of the weekend, along with experiencing the...ahem...'lovely' London Underground system in all it's stuffiness. But overall, it was a brilliant weekend, but after travelling back for the last few hours and having an exam tomorrow...I'm sure I will appreciate it much more sitting in my exam at 9 the following morning!

Frankfurt Christmas Market.

Every year, I find myself not only just counting down until Christmas, but also for the huge Frankfurt Christmas Market in Birmingham. I've visited it consecutively for the past four years, and really enjoy it. It's nothing too special, but just the atmosphere of the place gears me up ready for the big day. And with only fifteen days to go, I think it's safe to say I visited the market at a great time.

(c) ell brown

I told you in yesterday's blog post about my busy weekend planned, and the Christmas Market was a big event within that plan. Today, Sam and I managed to force ourselves out of bed at around 10, before getting a train into Birmingham. When there, we met up with Sam's friend, Emma, and two of my friends from home, Nat and Anthony.

Once getting all my Christmas shopping done (bye bye healthy bank balance) around the shops of Birmingham and the Bullring, we went into the market and experienced some of the great things there, mainly the food and drink. We bought lunch from a stall, drank cider from another and bought cake from a nearby bakery store.

It was pretty overwhelming with everything there, and it soon began getting busy. We actually ended up going home at 6pm, so spent a good seven hours out the house. But it looks like I may have gone a bit OTT with spending money...at least I can say it was all done in the joy of Christmas!