University Through Photos

Needless to say I've written loads of posts on this blog over the years (although less so recently haha) and I did contemplate writing a long rambled post about my time at the University of Reading, however in this case I think a string of photos might do it more justice and be a little bit less cringey. Obviously this isn't comprehensive, but it covers most of the highlights.

So here it is, from beginning to end, three of the best years of my life.

(2013 - 2016)

First Year:

Freshers Fortnight

Halloween

Props

 Pitcher and Piano

Pancake Day

The Lake

Reading's Campus will always be my fave

Skype calls

Summer Ballin'

Second Year:

When I went to see Becky and Melissa in Surrey

Shout out to the Oracle

The Christmas Fair on Campus

Cafe Yolk is still the BEST for breakfast

Afternoon Tea with Kirstie and Fran

The time me and Kirstie made an amazing lasagne! 

When Becky came to visit

Day out in London with Fran

Second year contained A LOT of reading and probably too many kinder buenos...

When Melz came to visit

Third Year:

Fall Out Boy with Fran

Kirstie's Birthday

Some of my Student Ambassador pals at one of the many visit days

Third year consisted of writing mind boggling philosophy essays about paradoxes...

Philosophy Social with my Philosophy girls

That time my article got published in the Uni Newspaper...

The endless three hour English seminars at 9am

Christmas Meal with the housemates

Unionnnn

Third year also consisted of watching LOADS of TV with these two

Afternoon Tea with some of my faves

Crystal Growing Antics 

Union for my 21st

Wagamama's with Melz

Harris Gardens with these two

Adele at the O2

The great moment when you finish your dissertation after months of work

Finishing my last ever university exam

End of exams = drinking too much Pimms

Miller and Carter celebratory meal

Unionnnnn

Pizza is bae and I ate way too much of it over the 3 years hahah

My last ever lecture - Richard Swinburne

Grad Ballin'

Daisy Chains

The library a.k.a. my second home...

But after feeling like this many a time during the 3 years:

and this...

I graduated with a first and I still can't quite believe it...

I'll forever be thankful to all of the people I met during the course of my degree: my lecturers, dissertation supervisor, personal tutor, housemates, course friends, people I worked with and last but not least - all the amazing friends I've made along the way. 

I'll miss university and Reading so much, but it's time for new adventures now! 

Onwards and upwards, who knows where I'll end up, but I'm just gonna go with it.

Laura.

Song: Can't Hold Us by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

Aims of 2016

Each year I compile a list of things I want to do/achieve/complete in the year ahead - rather than just having one resolution; so although it's a little late, I have a new list of aims for 2016.

But firstly, lets see how many of last year's I completed:
I didn't manage to complete a couple of them, these included driving on the motorway (I still haven't got a car) and posting at least twice a month on my blog (university has been hectic this year). However I did manage to do most of the others - this year I made a conscious effort to try and be more confident, be a little less cautious and not let opportunities pass me by but I'll probably continue some of these forward to work on them further this year too. Academically, I managed to get a 1st for my second year of university, so I achieved my aim of getting at least a 2.1. As many of you know if you follow me on any form of social media, I (amazingly) managed to complete my aim to 'get work experience at a publishing company' in 2015 too! There were a couple of other general ones about staying in touch with friends/family which I think I've been quite good at, despite the difficulties of time/work/etc sometimes.

So, my aims for 2016:

- Get at least a 2.1 in my degree overall
- Finish my dissertation EARLY and be happy with it
- Drive again after uni (and drive on the motorway if possible)
- Travel to at least two places I've never been before
- Stay in contact with friends from home & friends from university after graduation
- Get a job and/or more work experience
- Continue to be more confident, take up any good opportunities and be less cautious
- Post at least ONCE a month on my blog even if it's only a short one
- Take more photos
- Start swimming again

I may add to this as the year progresses if I think of anything else.
Good luck to anyone who has set themselves aims or resolutions for this year, I hope you achieve them!

Laura.

Song: Can't Hold Us by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Goodbye 2015

The New Year is almost upon us, which means it's also time for my last blog post of the year. Crazily it will be the 6th consecutive year that I've written one of these on this blog!

Twenty fifteen was definitely a busy and eventful year.

I'll go into 2016 grateful for all the new people I've met and become friends with during this year and for all the old friends who've stuck around; whilst also remembering those who sadly didn't make it through to twenty sixteen. This year I made a conscious decision to say yes to more opportunities and to try to maintain a positive outlook. It's meant that I've done new things, met new people, and generally just worried less about stupid things. Keeping level headed and not stressing too much definitely makes getting stuff done so much easier and it will be something I'll try and continue into next year too. It's true that sometimes pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is worth doing - regardless of what the outcome may be.

It's difficult to sum up an entire year in a few sentences so I thought I'd include some photos from 2015. As always, thank you to all the people who've made this year a good one and helped me through any of the not so great parts. I honestly couldn't hope to know better people!

Who knows what 2016 will bring, but here's hoping it'll be a good one!

I'll be writing more about what I actually did this year, plus my aims for 2016 in my next post!

But until then, Happy New Year guys.

Much love,

Laura.

Song: Drag Me Down by One Direction 

Priorities & Christmas

So, I think it's pretty safe to say that I've neglected my blog over the past few months. The notorious third year of university has been crazy busy already and I'm only one term in... I guess writing blog posts dropped down my list of priorities - but of course, here I am again, typing away late at night filling the blank space with my rambley posts.

I know university is important, and that I have a lot of reading and dissertation work to do. But now is the only real break I've got before I finish my final exams in the summer and graduate; and let's be real, a degree only gets you so far in life. So despite everything I 'need' to do  I'm taking this opportunity to catch up with the people I haven't seen in months - pretty sure I wouldn't be where I am now if it wasn't for my friends and family.

I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and makes time to see the people they care about.
As always I'll be doing an end of 2015 post and my new list of goals for 2016 in the New Year, so those will be up soon.

But most importantly, Merry Christmas guys!

Laura.

Song: Christmas in the Air by Scouting For Girls

Don't Settle

"You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle…
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

- Steve Jobs

This quote really resonated with me because recently I've become increasingly aware of how temporary things can be: people, situations, relationships of any kind and so on. But it isn't always a bad thing, oddly the fact that so many things are temporary can be comforting. Experience is made up of moments and it therefore means that the bad ones will pass eventually. 

I'm determined to do all the things I want to do in my life, get the job I want and make the most of the current moment rather than overthink ones that haven't even happened yet. I won't settle on second best in regard to any aspect of my life even if it might be the easier option, because everybody deserves to be happy and I reckon that's worth waiting for. 

Keep going, don't settle.

Laura.

Song: Shut Up and Dance by Walk The Moon

Goodbye Grandad Skelton

Sadly my Grandad passed away today.
I wanted to write this blog post, not to dwell on death and sadness, but instead to remember the happy moments and to celebrate his life. He was a great person: kind, generous, highly intelligent (one of the first in my family to go to university) and he had a wonderful subtle sense of humour which he never lost despite the circumstances.

When I was younger, even though he was retired, he continued to help teach design technology classes at schools around Harpenden. He'd design mini projects for them to construct and whenever me and my sisters went to my grandparent's house - we would test out his ideas and make the little models. Although most of the children he helped probably won't remember him by name, it makes me happy that some of them might remember the man that used to visit their school and help them with their design projects. In the garden my Grandad even had a little work shop and I have fond memories spending time in there making random things like key-rings and jewellery out of bits and pieces he had lying around.

Another thing me and my sisters would always do with Grandad when we visited was go to a small park close to my grandparent's house. We'd pretend we were fire fighters and that the climbing frame was a burning building, of course Grandad would always join in with our imaginary games and we'd 'save him' from the flames...

I know he is no longer here to read this in person but nevertheless, I want to say a massive thank you to him. I firmly believe that every person in your life influences who you are and what you do. My Grandad's generosity meant that I could afford to go to university, something that I will always be so grateful for and I hope I can carry on helping people like he did. But if there's one thing that Grandad made me realise - it's that even when things get tough the best thing you can do is to stay optimistic and most importantly, never lose your sense of humour.

R.I.P. Grandad, lots of love.

Laura.

Work Experience at Penguin

With the end of university drawing increasingly closer, the prospect of having to find a job and choose a career is something that starts to become reality rather than just a distant thought in the back of your mind (even if you wish it could just remain the latter). So over the Christmas holidays last year I started to email some publishers based in London to try and gain some work experience in publishing. However, although I did receive a range of responses none of them led to anything certain and I decided to focus on my university work and exams for a while because I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. After exams had finished and I'd moved back home for the summer I decided to give it one last shot, there was one publishing house I hadn't yet applied to - Penguin. Unexpectedly, the morning after I sent my application off I received an email offering me two weeks work experience in the publicity department with the Penguin Press imprint. Needless to say I jumped at the opportunity.

Penguin is based at 80 Strand in London; a large, impressive eight storey building that is fronted with an old archway - just what you'd expect really! On my first day I was very nervous as I waited in the Penguin reception for Matt (the publicity assistant) to come and collect me. But I needn't have been nervous because all of the team I worked with where absolutely lovely and very welcoming. I was shown around the building, given my ID pass and told more about the role of the publicity department and what I'd be doing during the two weeks. I'm happy to say that I was kept very busy: sending out books to journalists, cutting out and filing news coverage, writing/editing press releases, putting together material for the department's noticeboard, answering enquires via email and of course some basic admin tasks. I'm sure I've missed some things out, but you get the idea. I also got to sit in the departmental meetings and the larger scale Penguin Press meetings with editorial, marketing and sales which helped give me the bigger picture and an overview of the various stages in publishing.

Before I started work experience I was concerned about commuting to London everyday and whether I'd find an office based job engaging... But by the end of the two weeks I'd got into the routine of travelling too and from London everyday and I was never bored in the office because there was always so much to do - plus publicity involves arranging events with authors beyond the confines of the office which is nice as I thrive being around people. I learnt so much from the people I was working with during my time there and gained some invaluable advice that I hope will help me in the future. The fact that the people at Penguin genuinely love what they do is definitely very infectious, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at Penguin and if I can get a job in publishing after university (particularly in London) I will be absolutely thrilled. On a side note, the Penguin offices are a great environment to work in: bright, airy an filled with piles of books (you'd expect nothing less) and is one of the coolest work spaces I've ever seen! Publicity is a department I'd never considered before and work experience showed me the range of roles there are within publishing beyond editorial - which what most people associate with publishing. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for opportunities in either of these departments. My main advice for anyone wanting to go into publishing would be to remain open minded and if you get offered work experience, make sure you ask lots of questions! I've found that the more you put into these experiences, the more you'll get out of it. Not only did I gain knowledge due to the whole experience, I also gained confidence and independence.

While I was at Penguin somebody said to me: "People who want to work in publishing will always end up working in publishing". Publishing is competitive and difficult to get into but if you're willing to work for it, you'll get there eventually. So, to anybody who is struggling to get some experience or a job in publishing - keep trying! There's certainly an element of luck and timing with these things and persistence pays off in most cases. I'm glad I now have an aim for after I finish my degree because in all honesty university was always the furthest point in my life I'd planned up to and it's comforting to have at least some idea of what I want to do in the future.

P.S. Everyday I walked past a super cute little coffee shop called 'The Fleet Street Press' and one lunch time I decided to treat myself to a homemade brownie and a latte, if you're ever in the area I'd definitely recommend it. I also got some free books during my work experience (perks of working for a publishing company) so thank you Penguin - especially the Penguin Press Publicity team!

If you have any questions feel free to message me.




Laura

Song: Shine by Years & Years


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