Last week I made the trip from Brighton all the way to Durham to see friends and get back in touch with the city I lived in for three years for university. Compared to some of my trips abroad this probably isn't all that interesting to read (or even write) about, but I've realised how much I enjoy looking back through old blog posts about things I did as it really brings the memories back to life.

I arrived on the Wednesday evening, having got the train up after my 3 hour-long morning seminar, but because I arrived late there wasn't really time to do anything that night except catch up with my friend Jill who I was staying with. On Thursday I slept in while Jill went to a lecture, then met up with her for coffee and scones in Cafedral, one of our favourite cafés. The morning had started out rainy but gradually cleared up so we took the chance to go for a walk along the riverbank. For lunch I met up with another friend at another of my favourite cafés (Leonards) and we chatted for several hours. To be honest I can't really remember where the rest of the afternoon went, but for dinner we cooked vegetarian shepherd's pie and then had a chilled out rest of the evening.

On Friday I spent the morning wandering around the cathedral where I somehow ended up doing a guided tour. Even before I graduated there last summer the cathedral had always been a very special place for me (even though I'm not religious in any sense), and I've always enjoyed learning more about its history and taking in the stained glass windows and other magnificent architecture. At that point the rain returned in a torrential way, so I decided it wasn't worth the effort of walking all the way up to my old college as I had planned. Instead I stopped by the geography department which was oddly nostalgic, and ran into my dissertation supervisor from undergrad. For lunch I met up with Jill again in Whitechurch, a new restaurant that has opened since I left Durham but which is run by the same people as the famous Flat White Kitchen café (another favourite - do you sense a theme?). It was nice but the bar is high for Flat White so I was slightly disappointed, if only by the small portion size and proportionally high price! We then mooched around the shops for a few hours, avoiding the rain, and in the evening my other friend Carys picked me up in her car to go back to her house where I was staying for the next two nights.

On Saturday we headed to Newcastle for a day out. I've always found trips to Newcastle to be very refreshing in terms of getting out of the Durham bubble, so it was nice to recapture that feeling of openness and possibility. First we went to the Literary and Philosophical Society, which is the largest independent library in the UK outside of London. I'd never been there before but it was a lovely experience to just walk around and browse the old books, and I can imagine it would be an amazing quiet place to get some work done. It was also pretty great for instagram opportunities!

For lunch we went to Super Natural, a vegan and vegetarian cafe on Grainger Street. After spending ages deliberating over the extensive menu we eventually all went for burgers which were enormous and very filling but good value for money. Then we wandered around some shops before making our way down to the quayside and across the millennium bridge to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, one of my favourite places in Newcastle. The Baltic is always well worth a trip and no Newcastle day out is complete without it in my opinion. I love that there's always something different to see as the exhibitions are constantly changing. This time the main ones we saw were called 'Digital Citizen - The Precarious Subject' - which spoke to a lot of key concepts in geography such as citizenship, identity, transnationalism and activism - and 'The Age of Love' by Heather Phillipson. The latter was frankly one of the weirdest things I've experienced as it involved lots of psychadelic imagery, random sculptures, smells and textures all set to pounding synth music. By then the sun was setting so we made sure to catch the beautiful lighting over the Tyne from the observation deck.

Finally we headed back to the station for Durham, and had about half an hour before we needed to go out again for my birthday dinner. Stupidly I had forgotten (or rather, not thought it necessary) to book a restaurant table for seven people on Saturday night so it proved a bit tricky to find somewhere to eat, but after a few false starts we eventually found a Mexican place. I'd wanted to find an excuse to see all my friends who are still in Durham so doing a dinner out in honour of my birthday seemed like an obvious way to do it, and it was so nice to see everyone again and catch up with those I hadn't yet seen on my trip.

On Sunday we had a very chilled morning and cooked a delicious vegan brunch before driving to Wharton Park, which I'd somehow never been to before. It was a lovely sunny morning so it was an ideal time to get some fresh air and exercise and made for some stunning views across the city. Then all too soon it was time for me to catch my train and begin the 5 hour journey back to Brighton. Unfortunately due to works on the rail line I had to get a bus replacement part of the way so it ended up being a very fragmented journey but I eventually made it back to my new home in the south.

I'm so glad I decided to make the trip up to Durham, despite the lengthy journey and the sheer expense (the train tickets alone were £100). It definitely confirmed to me that it's a place I'll always identify with and consider as my first UK home, even when the people who shaped my undergraduate experience have moved on.

Way back in August of 2014 I did a post about my discovery of the ASMR phenomenon and then the following February I posted about my top five favourite ASMR videos that I'd been listening to. It's been a while since I did an ASMR-related post so lets kick off 2019 with one. Today I wanted to share my current favourite ASMRtists, i.e. people who make ASMR videos on YouTube who I've been absolutely loving lately.

I'll start with a couple of old favourites. I've been watching Hermetic Kitten ASMR since at least 2015 and I really love the old-school low-fi style of her videos which I think are filmed on a webcam. She's a really interesting person and makes a mixture of original types of video. She also speaks so many languages and regularly makes ASMR videos in English, French, Italian and Spanish with a couple of extra languages thrown in occasionally. I speak French and I understand some Spanish so I can access most of her content, but I also enjoy watching ASMR in languages I don't understand because it lets me listen to whispering while doing something else without getting distracted. Next is WhispersRed ASMR aka Emma who I always think of as the mother of ASMR - she has a really soothing motherly manner which never fails to relax me, especially her 'tucking you in' video. Her videos have a really high production value too which means I often get visually-induced tingles.

Some relatively recent discoveries who are now favourites are Gibi ASMR, ASMR Glow and ScottishMurmurs ASMR. I think of Gibi as the queen of roleplays as she has an amazing ability to completely become a character and capture their mannerisms completely, as well as invent her own concepts. One of my favourite ideas of hers is the Hogwarts sorting hat series with different characters introducing you to all of the four houses. Essentially I want her to be my big sister. 

Glow makes amazing trigger videos with super tingly whispering mostly in English but also some French - although I usually want to listen to what she's saying rather than drift off. I like the way she mostly uses a purplish background so I always know when I'm watching one of her videos, and she also always has stunning hair and makeup. Apart from having an incredibly ASMR-inducing Scottish accent, Lauren makes a lot of excellent medical role plays. She also recently made a car role play which I enjoyed a lot. I find her to be a really relaxing person in general but she also has a great sense of humour.

In the past couple of months I've also come across some amazing channels that have become firm favourites. Goodnight Moon is especially well known for her Babblebrook series, which is a number of role plays set in a fantasy world of her own imagination. The care and attention to detail she puts into these videos and especially the sets and props is amazing, it feels like you're watching an actual film or TV show instead of a YouTube video. My favourite video from the series is 'The Nightshade Witch Provides a Curse' which never fails to put me to sleep.

Finally I also want to mention Nature Flight Productions, which is a fairly unconventional channel. She makes incredible sensory-friendly artistic videos with an ethereal, eerie vibe which push the boundaries of what ASMR is and can be. Some of her work feels like it could be part of a Nicole Dollanganger music video or something - I don't necessarily watch it for relaxation in the usual sense but because I'm utterly intrigued by her art.

And those are my current favourite ASMRtists!

I know this is a bit niche and frankly incredibly nerdy of me but I felt a strange urge to document my university essay writing process. Having written two 5000 word essays this Christmas break I am highly fed up with essay writing at the moment but I'm also conscious that 2019 is going to be my last ever year in education so I suppose I'm feeling a bit nostalgic and kind of wanted to have a record of how I do it. Also it might be able to help someone because although you might get some pointers for how to deal with the transition from school to university when it comes to essays, I think they take for granted that you have an understanding of the basic process behind it. Just to be clear, this is only how I do it from the perspective of a geography/politics/international relations student and of course everyone will have slightly different approaches, but mine works for me and might work for you too. 

Think about and analyse the question. Assuming you are either assigned a question or get to pick from a list (and don't have to invent your own), the first step is to sit down and really think about the question. Underline the operative words which tell you what to do (e.g. analyse, compare, discuss, evaluate) and the terms mentioned in the question which you will have to define in your essay (e.g. politics, culture, violence). It's also a good idea to make a list of sub-questions which break the main question down further as this can help you focus on what it's actually asking you to do. It's a good idea to do this as early on as you can as it will be ticking over in the back of your mind while you subconsciously process it over the next few days. Be sure to note down any ideas or prompts which come to you during that time.

Refresh your memory. Before you dive into the essay research, it's good to go back to the lecture notes or other course material that relates to the topic and contextualise it in relation to the expectations of the course. This is important because even though you might have your own ideas which spring to mind, they may not align exactly with the way concepts have been used and understood in the specific context of the course. If the module is an elective outside your usual discipline this is even more important! For instance, anthropology might have a particular understanding of 'culture' which might differ from philosophy. By going through lecture notes you might also give yourself some inspiration for where to start, especially if you've made any helpful notes from comments the lecturer may have made about the assignment.

Start gathering resources. The next step is to start making yourself a reading list. To do this I always start from required readings for the lecture/seminar relating to the question, and then look at the recommended reading which is usually a more extensive list. Then put these references into a document (alphabetical order is helpful) and voila, you have the beginnings of a reading list. It's important to note that your reading list is a living document which will evolve over the course of the process as you discover more potentially helpful readings and realise that some which you thought were relevant actually aren't.

Start reading. The golden rule is to start with the readings which are most likely to be relevant, usually those which have been assigned or suggested by the lecturer. These will form the basis for your essay and after that it's about finding your own resources to suit your (eventual) argument which will shape the essay into something more original.

Make a basic plan. Once you've analysed the question and got a decent grasp on the topic, it's time to make a loose plan. I do this when I've read enough to get a sense of the main debates around the subject and formulate my own ideas, which is usually after reading about 4-5 articles or chapters. When I say basic I really mean basic - I don't try to pin down an argument or anything too precise, just make a sketch of the bare bones of the essay based on the information I have.

Read more widely. Having consolidated the base of your knowledge, now is the time to start branching out into other readings connected to the topic which will allow you to develop your ideas. To find those extra resources you can use a number of methods. You can try simply typing key words into your online library catalogue and seeing what comes up, or use Google Scholar. I like to scan the bibliographies of the core readings and copy and paste any interesting-looking citations into my reading list as I go.

Take notes. I have a whole post on how I organise my university notes in OneNote, to see that click here. But it goes without saying that there's no point reading unless you're taking notes, because even if you think you'll be able to remember things after 10 or so articles you're bound to start mixing things up. The key thing is to take notes with the essay question in mind - so if a passage is fascinating in and of itself but completely irrelevant to your plan, don't take notes on it.

Keep updating your reading list as you go. As I said, your reading list will evolve throughout the process as you narrow down your ideas so it's important to keep reviewing it and delete citations that turn out not to be relevant while adding in new finds. Also, tick off which ones you've read.

Keep updating your plan as you go. As you read more and more you'll inevitably be struck by new ideas, concepts and examples which will add to your basic plan. Review this plan when you finish a reading to see how what you've just read fits into what you've already got, but don't worry if you can't see where it will go just yet. Start referencing even at this stage by including the author's name when you add ideas into the plan. At this point I start to plan out individual paragraphs and organise my ideas more precisely, thinking about the connections between them. 

Transfer notes into a Word document. Once I've got to a point where I feel like I've read enough to have a solid idea and a rough argument and I want to start getting things down on paper, I like to open a fresh Word document and paste my plan into it. Then (and this is the time consuming part, as it can take a day or two depending on how much you've read) I meticulously go through all my notes from my reading and copy and paste relevant parts into different sections. Don't worry about being super precise about where you put things as you can always move it around later, but just start to fill the document up. My top tip for this step is to choose a different font colour for each reading, or at least the main texts, as this will help you remember which ideas and phrases belong to which reference later on. I tend to use darker colours as this makes it easier to read, like different shades of navy, green, dark red, brown, orange and purple. Also, I start building my final bibliography at this stage, either in a separate document or at the end of the essay - when I paste the relevant notes from a reading into the main document, at the same time I paste the full citation into the bibliography so I do the reference list as I go along.

Review and assess what you've got. Once I've transferred all the relevant information across, I take some time to review the document and begin piecing things together. At this stage the total word count can be way over what you're actually aiming for (mine is usually double or more) but don't panic! There will be a lot of stuff you just delete straight away or further down the line. This is the stage where you have to hold the whole essay plan in your brain and make changes and adjustments accordingly. It's also a good time to start adding in any key ideas that come to you as you read, or notes to yourself, which I usually do in italics - things like: 'do I really need this section?' and 'make sure to emphasise this properly' and 'kind of contradicts paragraph 4?'.

Reduce, revise and write. It's kind of tricky to put into words my thought process for this step because it's so instinctive and specific to the essay in question, but I basically just go through each paragraph in chronological order and make use of the ideas and direct quotes in the notes I have for that section to put together a paragraph of prose. The idea is that rather than starting from a blank page, I copy, paste, manipulate, rephrase and move around what I already have and combine it with my own words until it resembles a paragraph. I don't have a strict rule but I try to make sure each paragraph has a couple of references in it, or 'is colourful enough', so that I'm not relying on one author too much. I also tend to start with the introduction, as this is where you have to identify the problem, state your thesis/argument and explain how the essay will be structured - so if you have this written out to start with it can be helpful to refer back to as you progress to ensure you don't lose sight of what you're aiming for. On that note, keep referring back to the essay question subquestions you identified to check you're answering them fully.

And that's essentially it, as once you've repeated the last step ad infinitum you should have a fully referenced essay with bibliography. In a way I see the essay-writing process as a jigsaw puzzle because it involves piecing something together, except usually you have to choose your overall picture and create the pieces yourself. I realise this has been mega long but it was a little more difficult to explain my process than I expected, I guess because a lot of is instinctive. Anyway I hope this has helped someone, or at least will be interesting for me to read in a couple of years time when academia is a distant memory.

x

Happy New Year! First of all, I can't believe that this will be my 7th year of blogging - or rather, the 7th year *in which I will blog*, as I started my blog in mid-2013. Anyway. In this post I thought I'd look back on the highs of 2018 as well as assessing how I've done in terms of the goals I had for the year. In the New Years' post I did this time last year I said that 2017 had been pretty great for me, and to be honest 2018 was even better. If you've been following my blog for a while none of this will come as a surprise, but I like the idea of gathering it all together in a single post that I can look back on in the future.

What with graduating from university it's safe to say that 2018 was the Year of the Academics, so here are some of my academic highlights:

(Wow OK, boasting over). And here are some personal ones:

So, how did I do compared to the goals I set out at the beginning of the year?

When it comes to this year, I have been unusually inspired in the resolutions/goals front and I've got quite a few typical resolutions. But rather than just aimlessly stating them I also want to think through how I'm planning to achieve them.

And that's my year in review and the next one planned out!

It's early January which can only mean... No, not a New Years' blog post (although that's in production, my excuse is a single word: essays), instead it's a Christmas haul. The usual disclaimers apply: I'm not trying to boast or show off; this is something I do every year; this isn't intended to be a comprehensive haul but more of a feature of some of my favourite things I received this Christmas which I'd like to share with you.

Probably my favourite thing I got for Christmas is this book, The Illumination of Ursula Flight by Anna-Marie Crowhurst. I started reading it a few days after Christmas and I'm about halfway through so far and I absolutely LOVE it! It's set in the late 1600s and it's totally bringing back my love of historical fiction which I'd lost over the last couple of years. The story itself is about a girl called Ursula growing up in a noble family in the countryside, and how she develops a passion for plays and acting despite being (at the point I've read up to) forced to marry a man her father's age when she's 15. It's narrated in such an interesting way with a lot of authentic language and words like 'yonder', 'ye', 'withal', 'for shame' and 'prate' but it's still easy to follow and work out what it means in context. Besides the story I'm obsessed with the cover, which is just stunning.

The X-Files Event Series DVDs

It's no secret how much I love The X-Files so I was so pleased to receive season 10 on DVD! I'm currently just about to start season 8 so I still have a while longer before I get round to watching it but I am ridiculously excited already.

I don't especially collect Funko Pops (I only have Audrey Horne, Dale Cooper and Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks) but I do think they're a nice thing to have for your favourite TV shows or films, which is why I really wanted a Mulder and Scully. Unfortunately they are no longer in stores but I believe my uncle (who is an eBay whizz) eventually managed to find them on there, which I am so happy about! I'm going to take them back to Brighton with me so they can sit alongside my Twin Peaks figures.

This one was from my best friend in Brighton who knows me oh so well and decided to go for a Brexit theme for my Christmas presents. I've worn this jumper a lot this Christmas and I can confirm it's not only hilarious and politically current, it's mega comfy and warm.

I've had my eye on this book by Yanko Tsvetkov for ages, having come across a few of his maps on various social medias and also perused the website intermittently. Basically he creates maps which depict various regional and global stereotypes, as well as a lot of '________ according to ________' type maps (e.g. Europe according to Donald Trump). As someone who loves maps, satire, humour and has a keen interest in politics this was practically made for me. There's also a decent amount of text preceding the different sections which aims to contextualise the maps somewhat, which is useful to help you follow the more obscure cartographical depictions.