Friday 11 July 2014

jersey, velvet and a bit of a catch up

location: Hyde Park, London

purple top dorothy perkins | purple velvet blazer primark | black Joni high waisted jeans topshop (link) | cut out buckle shoes h&m | watch casio via asos (link) | bag dorothy perkins | nails: beauty uk unnamed

So it has been five weeks. Five weeks since I wrote on here, five weeks since I declared my love for England (which I was being serious about by the way, I do love my home country a hella lot). I'm trying not to sound overly cliché when I say this but I feel as if recently, time has seriously been flying by - six months ago, I was counting down the days until I leave for Australia and now it's only ten days away. Not that I'm complaining, of course. I'm so damn excited to go back to my second home and see my family, a majority of whom I have not seen in five years. 

So what has happened in the past five weeks? I visited Harry Potter Studios which were incredible - the post on that is due on here soon. I've never been an absolute fanatic but I loved relating the props to the movies and taking a fair few photos. Taster days at local universities have also been on the cards and my verdict on those are as follows...

Goldsmiths: Great content, but the lecturer was sadly ninety minutes late. However, once she arrived she was really impressive - she seriously knew her stuff. I was  as awkward, shy and quiet as ever, which I'm blaming partly on how it was my first one and the sheer number of new people was a lil' overwhelming. The location is a weird one: despite being in South London (the side of London I live on), the commute was still an hour or so because New Cross is in an awkward area and there were multiple trains and confusing things going on around me. Note to self: wear a woolly cardigan on the London Overground next time because it must have been around 3 degrees in there. Seriously cold.  I'll apply but not prioritise it, if you know what I mean. 3rd or 4th on the list, yet still firmly on there.

City University London: WOW DAMN GOSH DAMN WOW. The facilities were incredible. So modern and up-to-speed. They knew their stuff. They are the place in England to study journalism though. And the location, Islington, was really simple to get to, even if it does require using the dreaded Northern line. Practical and hands on yet still academic at the same time (and the best balance between those two elements out of anywhere I've seen). The people were lovely too. Coincidence, I know. But they were great. Made a few friends ('woah', I imagine you thinking) so here's a lil' shoutout to Rachel, Rachel and Phoebe because you girls were fab. And a number of the boys there were cute too. Always a positive.The place really made me want to get 360 UCAS points (sidenote: an almost impossible feat) and confirmed it for me - I really want to study for a BA in Journalism.

London School of Economics: For the past year I've been umming and ahhing with the concept of Human Geography being a backup if I decided to not study journalism. I applied a few months ago (like I had to for City) and fortunately got a spot on the course and felt all fancy and clever for a bit. I rocked up trying my hardest to come across as a somewhat intellectual human being, taking in how incredible the lecture theatre and new student's union is and (shockingly) happily talking to other people....feeling confident for once. Out of all of the three tasters I went on, the people here were the nicest. Coincidence again, I know. I think it is because this one (and City, I should add) were very interactive whereas Goldsmiths was very sitty downy, learny and teachy. The people I met there were seriously lovely, and some of them quite attractive too. I didn't mind that at all, of course. The content itself was great, because it struck a great balance between being a tour of the place and having actual legit and interesting lectures. However, I won't apply there because a) it was in Geography, which I know I don't want to study since seeing the incredibleness that is Journalism at City and b) they said realistically, there is no point in applying if your predicted grades are not AAA. And in all fairness, mine are far closer to ABB/BBB than that (and quite frankly, I'm still satisfied with that). 

So what else has happened? I managed to catch up with my lovely friend Rhea who I used to go to school with back in Delhi. She visited London last year and since then we really put in effort to stay in contact, and I'm so glad we did. I helped her shop (a useful, transferable skill, in my humble opinion) through my trusty Arcadia staff card and she generously treated me to food and an AA top. the AA top will be basically plastered on me for the rest of time for a number of reasons: it's grey, a colour my wardrobe doesn't quite have enough of (who am I kidding...); has long sleeves which will be great in the perpetual British winters and most importantly, reminds me of a lovely day with a lovely friend of mine. We went to Westfields Stratford, which is probably my favourite place to shop in the UK, so I have nothing against travelling to the complete opposite side of the city to reach it. Even if the London emergency train changes mean that Mum has to drive me to our local underground station and leave me jogging running to catch the tube. Whilst there we bumped into Charlotte, a youtuber/blogger extraordinaire who happened to serve me in one of the shops. I pointed out that I loved her blog and later discovered that we both follow each other on Twitter. It's a small, digital world, eh?

Other than that I have been dragging myself through the last few weeks at sixth form which fortunately finishes next Friday - four and a half more school days, not that I'm counting or anything. I'm off to Aus on the 21st so packing is definitely happening right now and plans whilst in WA are being noted in my diary as I type. On my checklist is to return to Wanneroo Botanical Gardens because their mini golf is Queen and I've been there in my past two Aus visits, in '05 and '09. Additionally I'm hoping to see an AFL match, have a huge barbecue with my family and family friends and get lost in a maze of Tim Tams, Nutri Grain and Milo in Coles. I hit my savings target last week, equivalent to three months worth of work so for once I am financially on fiiiiiiiire and ready to hit Aus (note: Target) hard. After Aus I'm off to Thailand for ten days and will be trying my very hardest to document all of the good stuff throughout the month and elegantly shove it on 'ere. #AUSTHAILIA2014, I'm coming for ya. 

Do let me know what you've been up to these past few weeks and if you managed to read to the bottom of this post essay, thank you. You did good. I like you.

Thalia
xxx

P.S - It has come to my attention that I have said nothing at all about the outfit, which considering fashion/style is a primary focus of this blog I feel I should do a bit more of this. The blazer is a classic Primark sale find that cost all of a fiver...this shocks people every time I mention this fact. The jeans are black Joni's from Topshop which are comfy and sucky-inny but are definitely fading already, which is a bit of a shame. The top is one of the best items of clothing I found in India, simply because over there (circa 2009) they catered for children, up to say the ages of seven or eight, and adults. Needless to say this didn't help when I was twelve/thirteen and trying to shop. The colour is really unusual yet slides into my wardrobe colour palette effortlessly. That was a rather swish sentence but I'm sure you know what I mean. I love a good bit o' purple in my life. Refer to an old post here to understand what I mean. The cut out shoes from H&M look gorgeous but aren't great for walking in for long periods of time because they get a bit tight and uncomfortable but nonetheless they look rather cool. The quote "sacrifices for fashion" conveniently springs to mind. 

P.P.S - I realise the mashup 'Austhailia' sucks and looks a bit too much like my name to use on the regular. I plan on working on that.

P.P.P.S - You may or may not have realised but I fancied a bit of a change so swapped the sidebar to the left. 'To the left, to the left, everything you own in a box to the left....'

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3 comments

  1. Miss you Thalia - when you get back from down under we neeed to catch up. It's going on my list of things to do! I was the same with uni though - I want to study PR but was considering Biology/ecology/environmental science as a back up too. At the end of the day though PR seems like what I want to do. Heading to a uni open day tomorrow, and then some more in Autumn hopefully.
    I'm off school already (smug smile), and am off to Greece next week but hopefully I'll talk to you when we're both back on UK soil?

    Sophie xo

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  2. It's good to see you're back! I've missed reading your blog. Have fun in Australia, you're so luck to be going! xoxo

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  3. Love the shoes, looking very pretty. xx

    Julie
    www.rainingcake.com

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- Thalia

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