Volunteering and my experience volunteering abroad

Volunteering is a great thing to do and always looks especially impressive on your  CV! 

If you just want a weekend volunteering scheme, every charity shop will give the opportunity for ANYONE to volunteer their time.

This is fab because it not only shows you're a nice person but because you'll be working with intake, outtake, customers and money at the cashier you'll be checking off a lot of boxes when applying for a job so when you go for that interview you can come out doing this:

I volunteered in an Oxfam and at the start it's not great because you're usually working at the back and sorting through everything that gets sent in (trust me some people give away some weird stuff - this one time I found a used toothbrush!-) but once they realise you're capable of more you get to move to the front of the shop and work behind the till. One of the greatest things about working in a charity shop is the conversation you get from the older ladies, especially the ones who like to gossip. If this is something that interests you, head down to your local charity shop (for us ROHO people there is PLENTY to choose from) and volunteer yourself.

Another way to volunteer is rubbish picking in your community and a lot of universities offer this as a volunteer scheme.

this photo is of a group of Northern Londoners joining together for the Interfaith Litter-Picking Social Action Project. If you want to find out anymore about it, here's the link: http://communities.um-uk.org/2009/12/03/1912/

It's not the most elegant of jobs and probably won't get you much experience for your future job but if you do it with friends it can be a lot of fun. If you pick up the rubbish in your local town it also allows you to become more well known among everyone and this will help if you want connections into a local business (believe me ANY kind of connection is better than no connection)

Many schools also offer volunteer placements allowing students to volunteer themselves in working situations, such as nursery teaching, nursing, coaching and if your school or university or local centre offers this GET INVOLVED. I can not emphasise how good it is and how worthwhile it is.

I'm someone who is always busy so for me it's hard to volunteer myself during the week so I decided to volunteer abroad during the summer. It was by far the best experience of my entire life so far and would recommend anyone thinking about it or considering it to stop thinking and book it! I knew I wanted to volunteer as an English teacher. It took me a very long time to scroll through all the different links that came up but by doing this I knew that the company I went with I was completely satisfied with.

I volunteered with a company called SL Volunteers

They are a British based company that allows students and graduates to volunteer in Sri Lanka for five weeks at the minimum in the summer. There are two programmes: the psychology programme and the teaching programme. I signed up for the teaching programme and once I had paid, applied for my visa, had my injections and made sure I had all the correct clothing I was ready to go. I was there for 5 weeks and it was incredible. I can't tell you what a typical day was because each day was different but I varied in teaching English to adults that were very advanced and simply helping them with their pronunciation for interviews and teaching complete beginners that were new to phrases like "my name is". The amount of students in each class also varied but you were never alone in a classroom so if there were too many students which sometimes happened we would split the class into two groups. We stayed with a local Sri Lankan family and there was about 5-7 people staying with each family. It sounds quite intimidating but the family soon become your family and you begin to love them and their cooking. Here's a photo of my Sri Lankan family and I:

I am someone who used to hate spicy food and so was scared of eating the local curries made by the family but they were awesome and now I'm a proper spice lover! Another great thing about the trip was that the company gave you the weekend off which meant that you were allowed to travel round the different areas of Sri Lanka each weekend and many people took an extra week after completing the volunteering because there is so much to see in the country. I got to see and do so much over the summer and have made some life-long friends so like I said before if you're even considering it, DO IT!  Here's a link to the SL Volunteers Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/slvolunteersorganisation?fref=ts
and their website:  http://www.slvolunteers.com/

Here are some photos from my trip:

On top of elephant rock

Sigiriya rock

Galle, Sri Lanka

Last meal in the house

Dressed in traditional saree for a Sri Lankan party

Jet-skiing in Una Watuna, Sri Lanka

THE GANG!

If people are interested I'll post a separate blog with all the essential information a person needs when volunteering abroad and staying with a foreign family :) let me know if you'd like one :)

That's all for now,
Emma
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Money at Uni!

It's that beautiful time of the term when you look at your online bank account and all of a sudden you've got an extra £1000/$800 (depending on where you live) or more in your account and you feel a little bit like this:

But trust me...this feeling will soon turn into:

when you begin to realise that nearly all of that loan will end up covering either your rent, bills or books for your course if your like me and do a degree that revolves around books.

The little bit of your money that you have left over is supposed to be for the rest of the term but for most students out there it goes a little like this:

1. loan comes 
2. freshers week hits
3. alcohol happens
4. loan is gone in less than two weeks. 

I'm writing this blog entry as a helpful guide to save your money as much as possible because believe me I know what it's like to be at the point where you're running so low on money that you have to remove the blue bits of the bread because you're refusing to go to the shops...I'm now refusing myself to get to that situation again so here are some tips that I'm going to leave you with:

• If you have an online bank account, check it weekly! I have an online account and never checked it as a sort of fear as to what I was going to witness but trust me it helps, I've prevented myself from going into my overdraft on many occasions because of this easy little tip

• If you have to go out then PRE-DRINK! It's so much cheaper and sometimes ends up being more fun than the actual night because you're with your closest friends and not sweaty

• When you're out don't take your card with you!!! Taking your debit card with you to a club or to your student's union is the worst mistake and nothing's worse than that feeling of waking up the next day realising you bought at least 10 drinks for yourself plus loads for your friends and have no money left for actual food and necessities...your expression will usually be something like this every time "mum" or "dad" appears on your phone:

• Give yourself a weekly budget. If you're someone who likes to spend more money on going out than food consider that and also consider WHERE you live and where you do your weekly shop, a person's weekly budget who lives in Norwich is going to be very different to the weekly shop of a person living in London. 

• Look for the sales! I just bought the most amazing boots in a 50% off sale and know I will wear them all the time.

• Make sure you buy your books before freshers week! This is important and something I stupidly didn't do last year. Trust me, you don't want to be the only person on your first ever seminar without your book! I've definitely learnt from that mistake. 

I hope that my little useful tips help. I will regularly remind you of another useful guide to saving money but for now, I think that's enough. I hope those of you that have returned to work, school or uni are having a great time and if not it's midway through the week so you don't have long till the weekend.

You know where to find me,

Cheerio,

Emma

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P.S An extra little note: for all those twitter lovers out there, I've set myself up on the social site so follow me @ezmaar :)

Nearly back to university

The Christmas holidays are nearly done and that means work is due very very soon. Today was a day for referencing and editing all of my essays...definitely not much fun at all!

This was what I thought I looked like for most of the day:

This is what I actually looked like:

 But it has to be done and as I absolutely hate referencing, I thought I'd share with you some useful tips and websites that helped me out loads:

Useful Tips:

1. If you use a book, website or literally anything (that includes an image off google) make sure you note it down somewhere, this doesn't have to be the full editor, author but literally just scribble down a little memo to remind yourself that you used it to help you.

2. Don't panic! I do this all the time. I always leave referencing to the last minute and end up panicking when really I don't need to, it's just something that needs to get done and so there's not much use in worrying

3. Make sure you know exactly what referencing style your course needs (I use MLA but that might be different to a lot of you out there)

When you're ready to make your footnotes and bibliography here's an excellent site that my friend Emma Peagam shared with me:

http://www.easybib.com/

It's amazing and you can easily choose what type of source it is (website, journal, book, video etc)and  what referencing style you want. I seriously recommend this! 

For those of you with no work load like those of us at university and school, you're very lucky! Well it's a very short one today because I got to get back to my bibliography...such fun!

Stay warm, it's starting to get colder

Emma

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New passport, new places

It's always so exciting when you get something in the post, even if it's just your monthly bill from the bank, when you see that letter or parcel with your name on the front you can't help jump up and down a little well I know I certainly do. I ordered a new passport weeks ago and it only just recently arrived, it's not very interesting and very possibly the least blogged about thing ever but I was genuinely so excited to receive something I did a little celebration dance :)

Now I feel that I've got this I need to jet off to loads of exotic places so I've created a list of places I want to visit by my 21st so that's in a year and a month. Here it is:

Paris

California

Figi

Germany

New Zealand

Hawaii

Morocco

Mexico

Kenya
New York (I've already been but it's my favourite place ever so it was a definite for the list)

If I get to any of these places I'll let you know but that's just been added to my resolutions :) speaking of resolutions as I mentioned in one of my other blogs a main one of mine is to teach myself the piano and it's going really well! Can't do left hand yet but I'm getting the hang of the melodies so I'll keep you updated with that, how is everyone keeping up with their resolutions? 

I've also been applying for loads of journalism internships so fingers crossed I get something so I can pursue my dream as a broadcast journalist :) I would literally love to get an internship in London so I'll let you lot know how I get on with it!

That's all for today,

Cheerio,

Emma

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my new satchel

I got a beautiful satchel from my sister for Christmas. It is navy, white and brown and suits me so much!

What do you think? 

It's fake leather but feels real and fits everything I need in. If you ever see me, I will be donning this beauty

Much love,

Emma

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One resolution down...

So one of my resolutions was to learn the piano and I have officially taught myself 'Honey, Honey' from the Mamma Mia soundtrack, that and the Rent music are the only piano books I have so I'm teaching myself through musical theatre :) I'm taking a keyboard back to uni with me so by next year hopefully I'll be able to sing and play at the same time!! I'll upload my progress on here but considering it was my first day today I didn't want to harm your ears :) my other resolutions include: go to the gym more, lose weight, finish my story, write a play, get a job and spend less money on nights out...so far so good!

How is everyone? It's been a while since I've been online but I've had a bunch of tedious essays to write and you all know the drill. 

Anyway I've also started reading thr new Bridget Jones book

I'm a huge Bridget Jones fan and know every line to the first and second film (let's just take a second to appreciate Collin Firth and Hugh Grant fighting in a fountain) but this book seems very different. I'm about a quarter of the way through and I've discovered she's no longer with Mr Darcy and has kids (sorry to spoil but you find both of these out within the first three pages) which I'm shocked by! What happened to Darcy? Part of the reason it makes me sad is simply due to the fact that if they make a film out of this one as they have with the others, Collin Firth won't be in it! But it's easy to read and makes me actually laugh out loud which is hard to do with books- I can cry easily at books but find it hard to actually laugh, not entirely sure why but life goes on. If anyone is considering reading this I would definitely say go ahead, it's an easy read and is perfect for relaxing, Bridget is now older so although the context may not directly relate to the younger audience, the writing remains as funny and unique as the other two books.

Much love,

Emma

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My tops of 2013

Every tv channel or magazine or newspaper seems to be doing the top 10 books, songs, films, shows etc of 2013 so I thought what the hell why not join the phase but instead of doing top 10 I'm just gonna do my top 5...

Top 5 books I read:

1. The Great Gatsby
2. 1984
3. Sense and Sensibility
4. 'Our Class' (it's a play but I'm sure I can still count it in)
5. Before I Die

Top 5 films:

1. Silver Linings Playbook
2. Les Miserables
3. The Great Gatsby
4. Frozen
5. Side Effects

Top 5 songs:

1. Roar
2. 22
3. Pompeii
4. Chocolate
5. Let It Go

Top 5 tv series:

1. New Girl (with nick and Jess together I'm able to look past the bad writing in this season)
2. Girls
3. Glee (the quarterback episode was so sad and emotionally brilliant that it brought the show into the list)
4. The Originals (with the ridiculous storylines in the vampire diaries I much prefer watching klaus)
5. Orange Is the new Black

That's all for now

Cheerio,
Emma
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New Year

It is officially 2014...and in the best of British spirit the weather is awful:

 

So how did everyone spend their New Years? 

I stayed at home with my parents in proper Bridget Jones style and simply drank wine with them. My brother and I created some cool harmonies with his guitar and that was about it...mental I know. But it was a lot of fun, I got to have a bunch of proper conversations that may have been stirred by the alcohol but wouldn't have happened any other way. We live in a suburban area so at midnight were in the middle of the neighbourhood fireworks, I couldn't really see much because there was a tree and I'm really short but it heightened the atmosphere.

So...as with every new year I'm gonna ask the same question you're going to get asked hundreds over times over January: 

What are your New Years resolutions?

Some classic examples are:

Lose weight

Join a gym

Stop dating pricks etc.

Here are mine:

Join a weekly exercise class at the gym

Become a definite size 10 by June

Do work and essays as soon I get them instead of last minute

Get a job

Teach myself the piano

Update blog every day

So you know the drill, just comment or send me a tweet @ezmaar of what your resolutions are I'm always really intrigued

I'm off now,

Cheerio,

Emma

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Steps to feeling happier

So one of the main reasons I wanted to start this blog was to use it as a place to express my thoughts, problems and awkward moments that happen in my life and currently I'm feeling pretty low. I'm sure many of you have felt like this before...you consistently feel incompetent, everyone around you seems better looking, nothing you do is right and you feel whatever you say is the wrong thing...if you've never felt like this then trust me you're either a robot or an incredibly confident and positive person so I applaud you but for the rest of us it's hard.

As a student, the pressures of getting the grades are constant and for me writing is one of my main passions so of course I thought taking my creative writing class would be loads of fun and a doodle so when I had to write a short story or the beginning of a novel over the Christmas break I thought, this might be fun cause you know it's creative so I can write what I want. I spent three days working on it and trying to create the right atmosphere, characters and sense of shock that I wanted the reader to feel. The story is teen fiction and focuses on the struggling life of a tabloid socialite suffering from a mental illness. It is told from the perspective of the hotel receptionist Jack who finds himself getting wound up in the confusing world that Lorna leads. It includes murder, romance and deceit and by the time I had finished I have to admit I was pretty proud so when my family read it and not a single member liked it, it definitely hurt.

I suddenly went into this self conscious mode as I do and felt fatter, dumber everything about me seemed that extra bit worse. I know others will have felt the same.

My cure for feeling better:

• Put some make up on- sounds stupid but it does genuinely work and makes you feel that little bit more confident

• Smile in the mirror - everyone should do this at least once a day

• Sing really loudly - doesn't matter if you're crap, let it all out with your favourite song

• Read a great book! Yes books do exist and they're amazing, go read one and let your mind take you into another realm of your imagination

• Binge watch tv - my go-tos are FRIENDS, GIRLS and just recently Orange is the new Black

• Have a long bath - I'm not usually a bath person but they always seem to work

• Smelly candles - I adore anything that smells good and am a complete sucker for candles so often light them up and it makes me feel that little bit better

• Watch Disney - who doesn't love a bit of Disney? The classics like Snow White or The Little Mermaid will never get old and are great but the newer ones like Tangled are simply AMAZING

• Phone a friend - people seem to use the phone a lot less due to Facebook and Twitter but despite the use for phones now, they were originally intended for talking to another person, so dial your friends digits and have a good old natter

• Glass of wine with mum - this is a top one for me, I'm very close to my mum and both of us love our wine

Hope this helps you and hopefully next time I blog I'll be feeling a little happier

Cheerio,

Emma

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Silver Linings Playbook review

Director: David O' Russell

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence (Oscar winner best actress), Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro

Genre: Romance, Comedy, Drama

Rating: 15/15

Its almost impossible to write a review for David Russell's 'Silver Linings Playbook' without simply repeating "it was AMAZING". Prior to watching the film I had very high expectations of this film what with Lawrence winning an oscar, along with the film winning best screenplay and script and I have to say it deserved every award it got given. The plot follows former substitute teacher, Patrick (Cooper) struggling with bipolar disorder and has just been released from a psychiatric ward due to an unfortunate loss of temper. His determination of going back home stems from trying to win back his fiancée, a work colleague who we learn cheats on him with the actual history teacher. His character becomes involved with widow, Tiffany (Lawrence) known round the neighbourhood for her bad reputation. Cooper and Lawrence work excellently with each other and bounce of the other's energy. In an attempt to win back his love, Tiffany convinces Pat that they must enter a dance competition. She ensures him that the commitment, dedication and physical strength will present itself in the competition. The film was far from predictable with the way it ended and despite knowing that Tiffany and Patrick were obviously going to end up together I was surprised at various moments of the film. It was clever and provided the audience with the perfect combination of laughs, emotional turmoils and sexual tension between Lawrence and Cooper. I am a huge Bradley Cooper fan but I've got to admit that Jennifer Lawrence stole the show with her natural on screen acting; she allowed you to feel sympathy towards her while still knowing that she is occasionally out of order and potentially unstable. I would reccommend this film to absolutely everyone but mostly for those who enjoy watching romantic dramas. 

What's your top film you've seen this week?

Emma

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Sales shopping

So it's that wonderful yet extremely stressful time of the year where sales are crazy good, every shop is as crowded as a bunch of fatties trying to all squeeze into a tiny cupboard...not the greatest of similes but it made me smile so it's staying...and everyone seems to wear the exact same panic stricken face whenever they step into a destination with shops. My family decided to brace the slightly nauseating experience of post-Christmas sale shopping and headed to Cabot circus in Bristol. It's a great place to go to for the day but be warned, for some reason the bristolians enjoy the outside and so despite the fact that it's in England, the shopping mall is sort of half outside, half inside meaning that every time you step out of a store you feel as if you've stepped out into the cold again. Luckily for us there were copious amounts of people so it wasn't as cold as it has been on previous occasions. 

Now I'm part of a family of five pretty opinionated people so deciding what and where to eat is always a pretty stressful process. We walked past nandos, cafe rouge, yo sushi, sussing out every menu and scrutinising each one till we finally decided Frankie and Benny's was the best option. If you haven't been there, you should go. It's slightly pricey but think of it as a treat rather than a meal. The restaurant is a mix between TGI Fridays and an upmarket Italian so you can sort of imagine the style of food served and the layout of the restaurant already. I'm guessing you don't want to hear the entirety of my meal but I will say that I recommend either ordering a burger or the Cajun chicken pasta bake both are fabulous.

Moving on from lunch, next came the hard part...SHOPPING.

I usually love shopping but despise shopping for myself because I can never seem to find anything which looks even remotely flattering on me but can always find masses of options for other people. I went off with my sister Katie, a size 6 beauty so it's always a blast shopping with her as I feel like a whale in comparison with my size 12 curvaceous frame. Anyway as most shops had 50% off I was determined to find something...

NOTHING. 

I picked up a bunch of stuff but just ended up putting them back. I'm sure there are plenty of other people in my situation and it sucks. My sister doesn't get it but it's easy for her, she doesn't get self conscious looking at her reflection. I'm quite a confident person and dress well so I am only talking about seeing my bare reflection when I take off my clothes. I read in Cosmo once that in order to have great sex one must appreciate one's own body so should stand naked in front of the mirror at least once a day. No offence to Cosmo, I absolutely love reading your magazines but that's nuts and if it is the truth then I am officially terrible in bed. I am definitely straying from the point here, my point is that likes lot of other people, I find it hard to buy clothes for myself.

My mum knows this.

She is also an expert at the sales so when we all met up she handed me a bright pink House of Fraser bag with a blazer and formal dress in it, both were 70% off and both were beautiful and exactly like me. 

Here's me in the blazer, I tried to do a selfie where you could see most of the blazer but it didn't work so it just looks like a pouty selfie but oh well you're able to see the colour and tartan pattern from it. 

The dress is blue, floor length and has a small gold belt that holds me in at the waist. It went down from £200 to £40!! Like I said, my mum knows the sales. I'm gonna use it as my summer ball dress so when that fateful day comes in June you will all be able to see it and it's beauty.

Going to spend my evening tonight watching silver linings playbook with Jennifer Lawrence because I'm such a raving party girl haha and don't worry I'll make sure to let you know what I thought, but I have very hig expectations because I love Jennifer Lawrence, she and the movie won an oscar and it also has the hottie that is Bradley Cooper in it so here's hoping it doesn't let me down.

Stay safe,

Emma 

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First post

So a blog is always something that has interested me and so I thought why not?

I'm currently an English lit and drama student at royal holloway university. If you haven't heard of it, it's situated on egham hill in between Egham town and Engelfield Green in surrey, about an hour walk or 10 minute car journey to Staines and a half hour train journey to London. So that's where I spend the majority of my time. I'm loving life at university so far, friends, societies, drinking...it's all great. I'm dreading graduating next year because I have no clue what I am going to do with myself, I think I might take a pgce cause I taught in Sri Lanka over the summer and really enjoyed it so that might be something.

Anyway, this blog is basically going to be a (hopefully) useful guide to life; I'll provide you with all my mistakes that you will be able to learn from as well as easy to do recipes, cheap restaurants I go to, shows I see, good films I watch, anything...and once I begin to get a following I will hopefully be able to answer any questions anyone has.

Short generic bio I feel everyone needs to do:
Name: Emma styles
Age: 19
Likes: theatre, musicals, writing, reading, films (both making and watching), dogs, friends and of course my family
Dislikes: insects, rain, crocs and bats (they are basically rats that can fly and get stuck in your hair!!!)

With my first post done, I'm off to bed,

Cheerio,
Emma