PALS DAY OUT IN YORK

Yesterday my bezzo pal and ex-housemate (waaaa the ex makes me so sad) Beth came up to my glorious North and met me in York. Even though it's only an hour away, I definitely don't go often enough because it's such a lovely city!

FIVE YEAR DIARY

It's not really something a lot of people know, but I've kept a diary for the last two and a half years. Well not exactly. I use this one, the one line a day, five year diary.

MORE FORMS

Don't let anyone tell you anything different; the year abroad is the year of the form. SO MANY FORMS.
Our Study Abroad office just sent me another four to fill out - an arrival form, a departure form, an address form and (the most exciting) the ERASMUS+ Grant Bank form. They're all pretty straightforward which is a godsend after the nightmare of some of the others. I have a Spanish one to fill out for on campus insurance but I'm waiting a while to do that. My brain is not in the mood for a Spanish form right now.

OH UEA IS WONDERFUL

I'll just say it. I miss UEA. 
I'm really sad that I won't get to study at UEA until September 2015 but hopefully UA will live up to our magnificent concrete jungle (where dreams are made of, there's nothing you can't dooooo).

MY TOP 10 FILMS

I know this is meant to be my year abroad/travel blog thing but I'd also like it to be my proper blog which isn't just social justice and beyoncé reblogs on Tumblr. I've decided to start this 'series' of my 'top 10' favourite things, starting with films. Hopefully I can make it to 10! I plan to do albums, books, tv shows and then other sorts of things, maybe my top 10 favourite places/restaurants in Alicante or things like that to incorporate it into my YA theme. Who knows, I'll probably not even get round to my top albums. ANWAY enough rambling, onto the actual post!

BBC TOP 100 BOOK CHALLENGE

I've always wanted to complete the BBC top 100 book challenge so I thought I'd mark my progress on here. So far I've read 14 which is pathetic. I'm hoping to up that to 20 before it gets to 2015.

161 PLAYLIST

One bad thing about a year abroad is it will inevitably tear you apart from your uni friends who don't study languages. My housemates of second year will be continuing to live together for third year while I'm away and when I get back they will have graduated meaning we never get to live together ever again :(

YOUTUBE

Sometimes I forget not a lot of people watch YouTube. I don't mean like not going on to search for music and stuff but actually repeatedly watching certain people. Over the last few years, YouTube has grown so big and it's definitely a business now. Most of the people I watch are signed to a management company and make big money for their videos. They take sponsorship deals and are paid to make appearances at events and have people paying (and queueing for hours on end) to meet them. A lot have a certain schedule they stick to and have names for their 'fandom'. They have merchandise and apps and millions upon millions of subscribers. It's not a surprise that to many they are the future of entertainment.

COKE ADDICTION

No, not that kind of coke. If you know me you'll know I'm not really an alcohol drinker but I have always loved Coca Cola. How much I drank it was okay until I went to uni and had total freedom and had nobody to stop me. So I usually had at least one bottle a day. That's at least £1 a day! At the shop on my uni campus it was actually cheaper to buy the 1.25 litre bottle rather than the standard (500ml? I don't know) bottle. It meant I used to go through coke like my flatmates went through Tesco everyday value vodka. 

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

I feel like New York is the place everyone wants to visit; I've never heard anyone say they're not curious to see it or have bad things to say after being there. It's always been one of my dreams to go there but at the minute my desire to go there is on par with how much I'd like to hire Robbie Williams for a private concert in my garden (for those interested on buying me a present, he recently played at a wedding for €3m). It could be because I've watched 'Casse-tête Chinois' four days in a row and rewatched all six seasons of Gossip Girl in the last month, both of which are set (and filmed) in the Big Apple. Maybe it's because I sang 'New York, New York' with Robbie Williams three times in June. Maybe it's because it looks like one of the most beautiful and interesting places on the entire planet.

SIX WEEKS TO GO

I am already awful at updating this blog. Maybe I'll be better when I'm actually in Spain!
Anyway, as the title suggests, it's six weeks until I'm off to the Costa Blanca for at least ten months. Madness.