I've just finished my final year of university and (spoiler alert) I did pretty well so I thought I would share my realistic tips on managing your workload effectively during your degree. I realise this is quite a boring topic but I really do feel like I've learned a lot from my three years at Durham and I really hope I can help other people to do well at university. This could apply across all courses but probably relates best to social science and humanities as that's what I've studied.

a semi-relevant photo of my desk from last year

1. Get organised and plan ahead

This is possibly The Most Important piece of advice I have, but in a way it's also the most obvious. I'm lucky that being organised comes naturally to me but I really cannot stress the value of knowing what's coming and planning for it. At the beginning of each year it's worth sitting down with all the information about your modules and creating a comprehensive list of when all your assignments are due - stick this somewhere important and never be surprised by a deadline. Then break it down term by term. Often deadlines won't come at nice even intervals allowing you to take them as they come and focus on one thing at a time, they might be grouped together instead. In my first term of third year I had 6 deadlines, 5 of which were in the last 3 weeks of term, so I knew I had to plan ahead and divide the term up into sections: I allocated 10 days for each assignment which worked fairly well - sometimes I finished an essay a day or two early, other times something else (e.g. tutorial work) cropped up so I lost a day or two focusing on that.

This especially applies to reading, which can be extremely time consuming compared to the value you get out of it. Realistically university terms are short and you only have limited time so it's best to work out how to use it efficiently and effectively and minimise time wastage - this is linked to the planning ahead part too. Obviously everyone has their own way of working, but there are certain types of assignment or assessment that generally require different amounts or different kinds of work. For example, if you have an unseen exam you're going to need to rely on memory, so it's a good idea to spend some time (ideally throughout the year and not a couple of weeks before the exam) doing key readings and transforming the information you need to know into bitesize chunks which you can then use for revision purposes, such as flash cards. Or, if your module covers a few different topic areas or blocks and you know you're only going to have to engage with one or two for assessment purposes, focus your reading in the area you're planning to cover and don't bother too much with the ones that you won't be assessed on. Basically, you need to work out what you're ultimately going to need to know, prioritise, and adapt your study approach to match - the aim is to avoid doing irrelevant work or spending time reading things you won't use. I'll admit this is kind of depressing because it turns education into a production line rather than learning for the sake of learning, but realistically you can't do everything so it's important to prioritise.

When you do read, try to read with a clear idea of what you want to get out of it. I developed a couple of reading 'modes' depending on why I was reading the thing. I would either read for detail and try to make notes that summarised all the main information without missing out too much, which is a useful strategy to adopt for key texts which you can pretty much guarantee are going to be useful in assessments and exams later down the line. Alternatively I would read for relevance, mostly when I was planning essays with specific topics and trying to find useful sources and citations. In this case it might not important to grasp the detail or even gist of the text, but more helpful to skim the majority and just focus on a section or strand or argument which is going to help your overall point or argument in your essay. Obviously these two might overlap within a single text, but again it helps to be tactical as this way you don't waste time.

This is especially hard for me because I am definitely a perfectionist in most things, but when it comes to university work I am able to be surprisingly realistic. I know a lot of people who typically end up working through the night the day before an essay is due, and will not submit it until they are completely happy with it. Although you obviously shouldn't hand in half-finished assignments, it's important to keep things in perspective and resist the urge to keep fiddling and over-editing an essay if it's going to deprive you of sleep or time that could be better spent. Again, if it's midnight the night before a deadline and you've only written a fraction of the thing, fair enough and needs must, but once the bulk of it is done tinkering around with it into the small hours of the morning is unlikely to have an effect on the mark you'll get. More generally, try to resist perfectionistic impulses in other areas. University is hard work and you'll have ups and downs, so don't beat yourself up when you don't do as well as you might normally or if you get a 'bad' grade. Also, it's easy to compare yourself to others but try to remain focused on your own progress rather than thinking about other people.

My final tip for managing a university workload successfully is to find out what kind of extra support or services your department offers and use it! Every university and department is different but they will all have a system for deadline extensions, disability allowances, concessions etc. It's always a good idea to find this out in advance so that you know how to proceed if you do find yourself in a situation where you need it. Similarly, take advantage of lecturers' office hours to go and see them if you have a question or would like them to explain something further, and especially if you're struggling. It's so much better to find solutions to problems early on before they develop into bigger issues and they are there to help you! There are also other non-academic members of staff who might be able to help you with various things, so it's worth finding out who has what role and what they might be able to do for you.

And those are my tips for surviving your degree! Obviously there are loads more aspects to completing a university degree and I've just focused on the very academic angle here, but I think that if your uni work is going well other things are easier to deal with on the whole.

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Now that uni is basically over I've been spending a lot of time just lounging around reading books, watching films and of course watching a lot of YouTube. But let's be real, I watch YouTube even when I'm super busy with uni work - it's just part of my daily routine and has been for a long time now. I love being able to watch snippets of other people's lives and marvel at the creativity and hard work that goes into video-making, whether that's follow-me-around vlogs, sit-down videos or more poetic montages. However, while my YouTube addiction has been growing for several years now the people I'm interested in watching have changed A LOT over that time and I'm always looking for new and exciting channels to subscribe to. 

On that note I thought I'd share some creators whose work I've been loving recently.

I discovered Annabel's channel about a year ago and frankly I'm obsessed with her videos. The production quality is so high and watching her monthly vlogs is like dipping my toes into a glorious little brightly-coloured world of holidays, thrift shops, romantic picnics and artwork. She's an arts student at Rhode Island School of Design and I think she's just finished her second year there. She has a really interesting personality and goofs around a lot in her videos, which is so refreshing and funny to watch. In general she makes a mixture of content, from the more standard format of travel vlogs and favourites videos to more abstract unique videos of her just chatting or painting or both. As you might imagine, she also has an extremely aesthetic instagram!

While I appreciate high quality artsy videos I sometimes get nostalgic for a good old-fashioned sit-down video, and that's where Zannah's channel comes in. She's a smaller YouTuber and doesn't have a huge number of videos, but everything of hers I've watched so far is so interesting and articulate, covering a range of topics from identity to mental health. Her videos tend to be short but they're some of my favourites to watch, like tiny pale gems. She's currently on a gap year so she's been vlogging her travels too which is really interesting.  She's a very nostalgic, thoughtful person and to be honest I feel like we would get along really well.

This is a bit of a rogue favourite and I honestly can't remember how I came across this channel (something's telling me via John and Hank Green?) but I do know that it's one of the most informative channels I'm subscribed to! Caitlin Doughty is a practicing mortician who makes videos mostly about death, bodies and other delightfully morbid topics. She has a number of ongoing series such as 'Morbid Mysteries' and 'Iconic Corpse', but also does some vlogs and other videos with titles like 'What happens to a body during embalming?' or 'Making your Death Plan!'. Why would you want to watch that, I hear you ask? Well, I definitely have a morbid side but honestly this is the kind of information you wouldn't find elsewhere, and definitely not presented with Caitlin's insider knowledge and wicked sense of humour.

I found Harmony's channel relatively recently but I fell in love with her videos and her unique sense of style. She's a practising witch so a lot of her videos tend to be about her craft, Wicca, spirituality and meditation, but she also makes videos about unsolved mysteries/murders and her own experiences of paranormal activity and hauntings. Again, the latter aspects appeal to my morbid side but I've always been interested in Wicca and witchcraft as well so it's fascinating to learn more about it. Her videos are also really aesthetically pleasing and her makeup skills are incredible.

Jack is a English literature student at Durham, which (if you didn't know) is also where I've just completed my undergraduate degree. Again, I'm not sure how/when I found his channel, but I didn't include him in my 'Durham creators' post I did last July because I wasn't aware of him at the time so it was definitely this academic year. He's a study YouTuber who also has a very swish blog and makes a mixture of videos, from helpful study advice to funny sketches. My favourites of his videos are probably vlogs from around Durham because even though I've lived here for 3 years it's so interesting to see it on a screen filmed from the perspective of a fellow student, especially one at a different college. He also just seems like an all-round nice guy and reminds me a bit of my little brother!

And that's it for now! I'm subscribed to a lot of channels but these are my current favourites. If you're looking for recommendations I'd also throw out there: Conan Gray, Evan Edinger, Hannah Witton, Hi I'm Mimi and Lucy Moon.

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Today I'm going to share with you how I go about organising all my notes and other work for university and explain my process for filing information. I worked out this system at the beginning of my first year and it's really worked well for me over the course of my degree, enabling me to find things easily and keep all the important information in one place and readily accessible. Of course there are many different ways you can organise your work and this might not be for you, but I hope it will give you some ideas of how you might approach it, especially if you're just starting at uni.

First things first, the main program I use is Microsoft OneNote. It's basically a note-taking program which allows you to type or handwrite notes and insert all kinds of media including photos, videos, drawing, screen clippings, spreadsheets, voice notes and so on. There's a huge amount you can do with OneNote as you can share files and work on a document together, and obviously it works on both desktop and mobile devices. I only use the version for Windows 10 which came with my Microsoft Office suite, and I mostly use it for text-based information so in that sense I probably don't use it at its full capacity. However, it's still really useful and flexible and works perfectly for me. Also, I have all my notebooks synced to OneDrive so I can be sure I'll never lose my work.

In this post I'm going to be giving you an overview of how I keep my notebooks organised and then showing you in more detail how I set everything out within a single module. If you're not familiar with OneNote or if yours looks different to mine, the hierarchy I use is as follows: at the highest level we have notebooks (on the left), which are divided into sections (the tabs along the top) which are divided into pages and subpages (along the right hand side).

As you can see, down the left hand side of the screen I have all my notebooks. I have a notebook for each module, and you can see the modules I took in third year here. If I scroll down I have the rest of the modules I've taken at uni in previous years which I like to have to hand in case I ever need to refer back to something or check a past reading list. You'll notice I like to colour-code my modules, and I use the same colours for things like colouring in my timetable. I also have a personal notebook, a general uni notebook (which we're in right now) and a notebook for reading notes. I'll just go through these quickly first.

My uni notebook doesn't have a lot of information in it (you can pretty much see the organisation in the above screenshot) but I use it for organising general stuff about my degree that doesn't fall into specific modules. For example, I have tables of all my deadlines, feedback, my to-do list and other admin-type things. I also have a French module I took in second year as a section within this notebook because I only used OneNote to organise my exam revision and I didn't think it needed a whole notebook.

My reading notebook is where I keep all my notes from every single thing I have ever read for uni. In this notebook the sections correspond to modules, which are colour-coded to match the notebooks for each of those modules. This (below) is a quick look at the section for my Feminist Geographies module from second term of third year. As you can see by looking at the right hand column, I have my readings organised by what I read them for, so for example lectures, workshops, tutorials, formative assignment, summative assignment and exams. This paper I've selected here was a lecture reading (in fact my only lecture reading for that module, whoops!). Each page (or subpage) has all my notes for that reading and is organised in the same way: title of the paper/book chapter across the top in the title space, the reference for that reading in a column down the side (so that I know exactly what I read and I can easily copy it into an essay bibliography if needed) and the main body of notes in the main section. As this was a lecture reading I was reading for detail and background rather than relevance to an essay so my notes are very detailed. In general I like to write in full sentences or phrases rather than just key words as it means I'll find it easier to understand what it was about if I refer back to my notes in the future.

Here's another look at my reading notes for a different module called Neoliberal Life. This module was mostly workshop based so I have the pages organised into readings I did for each workshop (it was a LOT let me tell you), with a couple of more general ones at the top.

Now lets look at how I structure one of my module notebooks. This module was called Power, Politics and Space and it was a year-long 20 credit module. It was divided into three blocks of lectures (Citizenship, Migration and Labour; Geographies of Violence; and Colonialism, Political Violence and Uneven Development), which is why I've got three sections at the top. Within every module notebook I always have a 'General' section where I keep important information for that module, so in this case you can see I have my notes from the revision lecture and revision workshop (which didn't fall under any of the blocks) and then my own notes from planning my formative and summative essays as well as the exam.

This is what the first lecture from the section for the block called 'Citizenship, Migration and Labour' looks like. (I've blanked out the names and contact details of my lecturers just FYI). As you can see, down the right hand side I've got all the lectures for this block in chronological order, and each with a subpage of readings for that lecture. The readings are usually given to us as a list in a Word document on our online learning system at the beginning of the year, so I make sure I copy and paste that information into the relevant subpage for that module as soon as it becomes available. The layout for these lecture pages is quite similar to my reading notes pages: I put the number and title of the lecture in the title space, then the date of the lecture on the left, and the main body is the actual lecture material.

I have a system for organising the actual lecture material too. When the PowerPoint slides are uploaded to our online learning system before the lecture I download them, go through them and copy the information as plain text into a page within OneNote. It's not actually as laborious as it sounds as you can usually do it all in one go by choosing 'outline view' and then highlighting all the text, but I like to go through it all just in case to make sure my stripped-down version is an accurate representation of what's on the lecture slides. This is useful for three reasons: firstly, it means I familiarise myself with the content before the lecture so I have an idea of what it's going to be about; secondly, I have all the lecture material easily accessible with a click of my mouse rather than having to find and open a whole PowerPoint document every time I want to check something in a lecture; thirdly, it means I can take notes directly into the lecture material rather than writing it in the notes box under the slides in PowerPoint, which is what I've seen a lot of people do. This means I'm able to add in notes exactly where they're meant to be and even expand on points as the lecturer goes through them. I always add in my own notes that I take during lectures in a different colour, so I can be sure which bits of information were originally in the lecture material and which I've added in. You can see an example of this below:

And that's basically it! Some modules have a slightly different organisation depending on how they're structured, for instance for term-long modules which aren't divided into lecture blocks the sections at the top are just 'lectures', 'tutorial', 'seminars' or whatever is relevant to that module. Sometimes we don't get given reading lists for each individual lecture but for the module as a whole, so in that case I'll put the whole list in a page under the 'General' section of that module. But that's essentially my system, which I adapt slightly as needed.

I hope this was helpful in some way. As a quick disclaimer, if it wasn't already clear from this post I am an organisation fiend and I absolutely love sorting things out, colour-coding information and creating elaborate systems - so if that isn't your thing, don't worry! This is just the way I've chosen to do it and all I can say is it's worked for me, so I hope it might be helpful for someone else too.

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Every year when exams roll around I find myself procrastinating revision by looking through various shopping websites where I inevitably end up buying myself things as either motivation to revise or a reward for having revised. This year my exams were fairly manageable as two of them were 'seen' (meaning we got the question in advance) but even so I did a little bit of what I call procrasti-buying on Amazon, so I thought I might as well do a quick haul.

The first thing I got was this DVD about David Lynch, aka the creative genius behind my favourite TV series of all time, Twin Peaks. This is a documentary about Lynch's early years and the events that shaped his career and is also narrated by Lynch himself. I've read his book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness and Creativity and it was really fascinating so I can't wait to watch this to get another glimpse into his mind.

I also got this book, A is for Arsenic: the Poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Markup. I am a huge fan of Agatha Christie's stories and I'm on a mission to collect all her books (I'm about halfway so far) so this is perfect for me. I also have quite a morbid mind so the idea of learning about poisons appealed quite a lot.

Next I got this book Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana Del Rey and Sylvia Plath, which I've had my eye on for ages! I actually bought this the day of my dissertation submission, which was also the day it came out in the UK. It's an anthology of stories by various writers who were all inspired by Lana or Sylvia Plath, two of my absolute favourite artists of all time. I'm not sure how directly inspired the stories will be but I couldn't not get this. I'm also in love with the style of the cover, it's so cool!

I also got four (!) seasons of Mad Men, which I've been wanting to watch for a while. I already have at least three other boxsets which I need to get through but nope, I decided I needed this as well. To be fair, it was secondhand so it was only a couple of quid which is really excellent for four seasons. I'm excited to watch it!

And last but not least, I got this little stuffed bee. Hear me out on this one, OK? My university library is called the Bill Bryson Library, which everyone shortens to 'Billy B'. As a result of this, the library mascot is a bee, which the library staff have called Billy Bee - they often post photos to the library social media of Billy Bee doing various things. I saw one of the pics and really wanted my own, so I found the exact same one on Amazon. It was smaller than I expected but I still love my Billy Bee, and since I already have a college stash teddy from my college I thought it would be cute to have a little cuddly memento of the library when I leave Durham.

And that's everything I got!

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Last Friday I had my last exam of third year, which was also the last assessment of third year, which was also the last year of uni - which means I am essentially done with uni. To be honest I am still processing all this. I can't quite believe that my time at Durham has nearly come to an end, and that soon I won't be able to call this little city in the north home anymore (although I think a part of me will always consider it home in some way). 

My last post was about the week I spent in Jerusalem on a uni research fieldtrip over Easter and since I got back from that trip I literally have not stopped. First I had the entire analysis section of my dissertation to write more or less from scratch, which took the two weeks until I travelled back up to Durham for the final time. Then when I got back I had an essay to write, then I put the finishing touches to and finally submitted my dissertation (see pic below), after which I had an 8-page research report from the Jerusalem trip to write. As soon as that was handed in it was straight into revision for my three exams, two of which were luckily 'seen' which means we got the questions two weeks in advance and had time to basically plan and memorise them before actually writing them under exam conditions. The thing I've struggled most with around uni exams in the past has definitely been the fear of the unknown and the infinite amount of information it's possible to learn in preparation for the questions which are impossible to guess, so it helped enormously to have the questions in advance. I'm also fairly good at just straight up memorising information so that part of it wasn't a problem for me either. The one unseen exam out of the three was potentially the worst exam of the education so far, but it's only a small part of one module which is a small part of the whole two years of assessment so I can honestly say I'm really not that bothered about it.

A couple of weeks ago I spent a week in and around Jerusalem on a university fieldtrip. The module the trip was part of is called Territory & Geopolitics and it basically functioned as an opportunity to apply the theoretical material we had spent the year learning in lectures. It was an incredibly packed but fascinating and hugely enjoyable week, which I'm documenting here so make sure I don't forget anything! Be prepared for a long read...

View over Silwan from the City of David

My friend Alice and I got the train down from Durham to London on Sunday and checked into a hotel near Luton airport as our flight was leaving early Monday morning and it was impossible to make the whole trip in time on the day. We got to the hotel in the afternoon and spent most of the rest of the day watching a three-part documentary about Jerusalem that I got on DVD for Christmas to get us in the mood - it certainly worked and we got super excited about the trip! The next morning we took a bus to the airport and met up with the rest of our group. We pretty much spent the whole day travelling as the flight was nearly 5 hours and there's a two hour time difference between Israel and the UK, so we only arrived at the hotel in the evening. The hotel was located exactly between East and West Jerusalem and turned out to be really handy for getting just about anywhere.

Day 1

On the first proper day of the trip we did a coach tour of the West Bank. The first stop was in Beit El, an Israeli settlement where we met a guy living there who told us his life story and how he came to live in Israel, as well as his vision for the future of Israel-Palestine. It was interesting but as he was the first speaker we'd heard it was hard to make any critical judgments straight away. He also took us on a brief hike of the surrounding hill areas and pointed out some religious sites that apparently appear in the Bible.

The final stop of the day was another Israeli settlement, Dolev. Originally we were a bit confused as to why we were stopping as it was already dark, but it turned out that we were actually visiting our lecturer's brother's house and meeting his family. It was slightly weird because all his nephews and nieces were there and it was a bit of a family reunion with all 34 of us students just sitting there but it was actually really nice, and his sister-in-law had prepared some snacks for us all. After that we piled back on the coach and headed back to the hotel for dinner and an early night after a tiring day!

Day 2

On the second day we did a guided walking tour of the Old City and visited the major religious sites, including the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was one of the hottest days of the week and for a lot of it we were walking, sitting or standing in the sun, but because we were going to the religious sites we also had to dress modestly which meant covering our legs and arms. Our guide talked a lot at every stop and we all took a lot of notes, but most of it was related to the history of the sites and their relevance to Biblical history which was all interesting background information but the detail wasn't vital to our geopolitical perspectives. As an atheist I think I potentially lacked a genuine appreciation of the holiness of the sites, but I did my best to try to understand the meaning of each one and how they fitted into Jerusalem's story. I did however appreciate the beautiful architecture of the buildings, especially the stunning Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was a fascinating building full of nooks and crannies and rooms leading off at unexpected angles. Before we went in we sat in an open area surrounded by buildings near the Ethiopian church in the Christian quarter, and it was only when we were standing in the Holy Sepulchre that we realised the small domed building we'd been sitting next to - which had looked like some kind of shrine - was actually the domed roof of one of the main chambers and we had been sitting on top of the Church! After the tour we wandered around the Jewish quarter and Muslim quarter, where we had lunch in one of the souks and had some free time to browse the various stalls.

Day 3

On the third day we visited a range of sites but the main theme was archaeology. The first stop was across the road from the hotel which actually formed the green line which divided the city from 1948 to 1967 and which the light rail now runs along. At this point I managed to smash my knee into a fence at full force and ended up spending most of the next couple of days hobbling along at the back of the group, which wasn't ideal. We then walked to Mamilla Cemetery, which is a Palestinian cemetery near the Old City that has largely been constructed over with a park, erasing the evidence of the historic Palestinian presence in the area. Here we met with an archaeologist who became our guide for the rest of the day and took us around the City of David, one of the most extensively excavated sites in the world where findings from particular historical eras are used to justify the Israeli presence in the area today. The City is now mostly a tourist site, and people come from all over the world to see 'where it all began' and are even able to taken part in the excavations themselves.

Day 4

The fourth day was the last day of tours and site visits. We took the light rail to Mount Herzl and spent the morning going round Yad Vashem, Israeli's official memorial to victims of the Holocaust. The tour was more of a 'counter-tour' as it was led by our lecturer rather than an official guide and he presented a much more critical geopolitics take on it that was highly relevant to our course. We also walked around Israel's national military cemetery at the top of Mount Herzl. Despite the hot weather it was a sobering morning still really interesting.

Days 5 & 6

Saturday and Sunday were our designated research days where we were completely free to work on our group project. My group actually did some fieldwork on the Friday as there was an English-language tour that was perfect for our project but only three of us went on that, myself not included. Our research was into collective memory and memory activism in the abandoned Palestinian village of Lifta located on the north western edge of Jerusalem. Lifta is unique in that it's the only village that wasn't either repopulated or completely razed after 1948 but it now stands pretty much in ruins and is all overgrown. Another important aspect is that since the 2000s there has been a plan to demolish the village, develop the site and build a luxury neighbourhood and hotel in its place. Our research basically involved three separate trips to the site, the tour, a couple of interviews and some informal chats with people we encountered walking around the village or sitting by the spring. I ended up not going there until Sunday which was the final research day but it was so worth the wait! It was such an adventure to explore the buildings and head off down overgrown paths with no idea where it would lead. The rest of the time was mostly spent at the hotel reading, discussing and putting together our presentation. There were 8 groups in total so we basically took over the hotel's conference room with our laptops and ended up working really late - my group went to bed at about 2:30am but some groups got barely 2 hours sleep! The presentation was worth 20% of the module mark though so it was worth putting in the time and effort.

Day 7

On our final day in Jerusalem we had the presentations in the morning which took over 4 hours as they were half an hour long. We were all absolutely shattered from the night before but we pushed through and everyone did a really good job. There were some really interesting projects too, so I did my best to pay attention even though I spent the first half frantically reading over notes for our bit and the second recovering from the experience of public speaking. Then at about 2pm we left the hotel and got on the bus for the airport, stopping along the way for some lunch. We got to Ben Gurion airport in plenty of time for our flight but somehow with the many layers of security and the difficulty of doing anything with a massive group we made it to the plane with relatively little time to spare, really just enough to buy a sandwich and find the gate. We arrived back in the UK at midnight so once again Alice and I stayed in a hotel near the airport and got a train into London the next morning (after the best lie in ever). 

And that's it! I think I've managed to remember all the important details. It really was an amazing week and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go on this trip, even though parts of it were physically and mentally challenging. Now all I've got to do is write up the project field report...

Somehow it's the end of another term, and what's more the final Epiphany term that I'll be spending in Durham. I really have no idea where the time has gone but it's honestly been one of the best terms of my university experience so far so I wanted to capture it here as usual.

One of the highlights of the term was the geography ball which I attended with my friends in early February. It was an absolutely amazing night, from the venue to the meal to the dancing, and it was a really lovely way to round up our three years together - and get lots of photos!

Later in February one of my best friends visited from her year abroad for a few days and we hung out a LOT, just shopping and going to cafés and catching up - even though we'd seen each other fairly recently when I went to visit her in Paris in the New Year! But it was lovely to see her again and show her my little house as she hadn't seen it before.

In terms of my actual degree, things have been going well. In fact, this term I received 100% on two assignments! If you're not familiar with the British university system, there are four grade classifications: 40-49% is a 3rd, 50-59% is a 2:2, 60-69% is a 2:1 and 70%+ is a 1st. It's pretty hard to get over 70% - especially in a social sciences degree when everything is so subjective - but I managed to get full marks on two separate occasions! I don't usually brag about grades but this really was a big deal for me and I'm proud of myself for making such progress over the course of my degree as I definitely wasn't getting those kinds of marks in first year. To be honest when I got the first one I majorly freaked out and nearly cried with happiness because that assignment was worth the whole of the module mark so it's really going to stand me in good stead. The second assignment was actually only formative - meaning that it doesn't contribute to anything - but it was still really nice to have as a confidence boost, especially as I wrote it on The X-Files and feminist geopolitics (aka two of my favourite things).

The other major thing that happened was the series of lecturer strikes which took place at a number of universities around the UK, including Durham. The background reasoning behind the strikes is quite complicated but it is primarily about proposed changes to pension schemes which are likely to hit academics quite hard in the future, but it has expanded to concern the current state of higher education more broadly. On a practical level the strikes meant that I didn't have any lectures, seminars or tutorials for the last 4 weeks of term which was weird as it felt like term ended early, although it did mean I had more time to work on assignments including my dissertation. Having read up on it I personally support the strikes and on a couple of occasions I joined my lecturers on the picket line at the entrance to the main campus and even took in strike-themed cupcakes on one day. I also attended a student-staff solidarity event in Durham Miners' Hall which was incredibly interesting. In the long run, however, the strikes have created a lot of uncertainty for students, especially those in final year such as myself, and all the more so as another round of strikes are planned for next term. This means exams and other assessments are likely to be impacted which *could* affect whether we're able to graduate or not. This level of industrial action within higher education is totally unprecedented so no one is entirely sure what the implications are but I suppose we've just got to trust that some mitigating arrangements will be put in place in time.

Apart from that it's been another lovely term of living with my lovely housemates. We've had some really great times, from quiet evenings in watching Black Mirror to house meals out and a formal dinner at my college together. It's just such a lovely environment to live in and I've realised how much I'm going to miss them all next year. Speaking of next year, in exactly three months time we'll (hopefully, strikes permitting) be graduating! After that I'll be leaving Durham to do a Masters course somewhere else in the UK - I'm not sure where yet but I have finally submitted my applications and got references sorted so I'm just waiting to hear back from one more before I make a decision.

I have mixed emotions about next term at the moment. On the one hand I can feel the usual stress/sense of impending doom around exams, dissertation deadline and the assignments I have yet to start - so I can't wait for all that to be over and done with. But on the other hand I'm definitely not quite ready for my three years in Durham to come to an end and to say goodbye to all the friends I've made and the places I've come to call home. It's going to be emotional, that's for sure, but luckily I have a whole 5 weeks between my last exam and graduation to make the most of the end of my degree.

The other major thing which I haven't even mentioned here is that I've just got back from a fieldtrip to Jerusalem - there's a whole separate post on that coming soon!

x

The weekend before going back to uni I headed off to Paris to stay with one of my best friends and to take in the sights of a city I've seen countless times on screen but somehow never actually visited despite my many, many visits to France so far. I got the Thalys from Brussels straight into Gare du Nord, which was a surprisingly quick and pleasant journey. The train was what can only be described as swish, and it only took approximately an hour and 20 minutes - the wonders of European inter-city travel!

The first thing we did was head back to my friend's student accommodation where she's been living for the past six months on her year abroad. We only needed to leave my bag but I took the opportunity to take a couple of photos of the stereotypical Parisian rooftops, which I couldn't get enough of throughout the trip.

Then we walked along the Seine past Notre Dame to Shakespeare & Company which I'd been wanting to visit for oh so long. It definitely didn't disappoint and we spent a while browsing the crooked shelves and coming across room after room of books stacked from floor to ceiling, from new titles to old library books. I didn't actually buy anything, mostly because I didn't want to have to carry it for the rest of the day, but also because there was simply too much choice! Looking back the trip felt like a little nod to my blog's time as 'bibliophilia', a reference to my love of books.

After grabbing some lunch in Pret (of all places, our justification for not finding somewhere more authentically French was basically just that we were starving and it was close by), we headed to the Louvre. I hadn't quite anticipated the sheer size of the place - it stretched on and on through room after room so we had to be selective, and ended up mostly just seeing the Mona Lisa and the Napoleon III apartments which were simply stunning.

We then walked along the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe where we trekked all the way to the top and nearly died in the process, collapsing thankfully into some well-placed seats at the top of the steps. The view was amazing, and we spent a while walking around looking at Paris from every  possible angle. By this time it was nearly getting dark so the lights from the Champs-Elysées and the other main streets were all lit up, and of course the rooftops were very aesthetically-pleasing.

Next thing on the list was dinner, and since we were planning to go up the Eiffel Tower at night we walked in that direction and hope to come across a cheap-ish restaurant with vegetarian options along the way. This turned out to be a mistake as we encountered basically none and ended up resorting to Google Maps to find an Italian, which required us to actually walk past the tower (pausing to watch it sparkle on the hour) until we found one. In the end we went to a fairly small place and demolished some amazing pizzas which tasted all the better for having spent best part of an hour walking around beforehand!

The final stop of the day was the Eiffel Tower itself, where we paid to get the lift from the second level right to the top. I'm not too bad with heights but the section of winding stairs between the first and second levels on a cold January evening was not the most stable-feeling experience of my life and I had to grip the handrail tightly to avoid feeling like I was about to fall off. Needless to say we got there with no mishaps and queued for the lift, which was an ear-popping experience in itself as we zoomed up to the top which stands at a staggering 324m high. By now it was completely dark so the streets were lit up like the veins of the city and the view was incredible (unfortunately my camera skills in the freezing cold and dark were less so).

The next day was Sunday (even though it felt like I'd been there for at least a week, it had been such a busy first day!), and we had breakfast at Fragments, a small café in the 11e arrondissement which had what I call 'Flat White vibes', meaning it was similar to my favourite café back in Durham. We both had avocado toast and instagrammed it because we're millennials.

As it was the first Sunday of the month a lot of the national monuments and museums had free entry, which we took advantage of in our trip to the Centre Pompidou, a modern and contemporary art museum which sticks out due to its bizarre industrial architecture. We were pretty exhausted from all the walking at this point so we did a lot of looking at the art in short bursts followed by sitting down for a while! This is a photo of one of my favourite paintings that we saw.

After a quick stop in the gallery's gift shop we grabbed a coffee and a cinnamon roll and walked (more walking!) to the Musée d'Orsay, where we queued for what seemed like ages to get in - I think half of Paris had cottoned onto the free entry thing! Again we decided to be selective as we barely had an hour, so mostly just looked at the Van Goghs, the Impressionists, and the Art Nouveau section. The building itself used to be a train station and so had beautiful architecture.

Then there was just about time to head back to my friend's accommodation to pick up my bag before finding somewhere for dinner near the train station, which ended up being a vegan restaurant/café called 'Juicy & Tasty' where we had some amazing wraps.

Finally I got the train back to Brussels, and that was it for my first trip to Paris!

x

This year my Christmas was a bit different as we spent it at my grandparents' house in England, the first time I've had an 'English Christmas' since about 1998. It was odd not to be in my own home for the festive period but really nice to be spending it with my grandparents who I'm very close to and haven't seen much of this year. We did all our usual Christmas traditions - making a gingerbread house on Christmas Eve, watching Strictly and Doctor Who on Christmas Day, a Christmas Day walk, and a spread of cold meats (/vegetarian options) on Boxing day - but adapted them to their house and the luxury of being able to drive to M&S to pick up various Christmassy accompaniments!

Like last year I thought I'd share some of my the wonderful Christmas gifts I received from family and friends this year without doing a totally comprehensive haul. So here are my top five favourite presents in no particular order:

I'm mildly obsessed with Wes Anderson's films, my favourite by far being The Grand Budapest Hotel. I love the characters and most importantly the gorgeous pastel aesthetics, so this is idea. It's essentially a visual guide to his films, with artworks and photos interspersed with interviews with Anderson himself. I'm going to be honest, it weighs an absolute ton (so much so that it apparently fell out of the box and got lost on its way from Amazon so this one is actually a replacement!) so this isn't one I'll be able to take with me back to uni. It will, however, be an amazing coffee table book in the unlikely eventuality that I ever get myself a house with a coffee table.

The original Twin Peaks is basically my Favourite Thing of All Time and I spent most of the first half of 2017 eagerly anticipating the release of Series 3/The Return, the continuation of the show which was originally broadcast in 1990-91. It was broadcast on a Dutch channel that we get in Belgium so I managed to watch the first eight or so episodes that my Mum recorded between getting back from uni and heading off for my internship in June, but tragically the auto-record failed for the rest of the series so I have had to wait until now to watch all the episodes. Having had a taste of the pure unadulterated Lynchian drama that is The Return I am intrigued and can't wait to get stuck into this (although it might have to wait until I go back to uni as my Mum and I are currently knee-deep in series 4 of The X-Files).

I wasn't lying when I said it was my favourite thing... (other TP-related Christmas presents include two Funko pops, a book and a set of coasters). This vinyl is of the soundtrack to the original series in all its glory. The theme tune alone gives me shivers, but I think my favourite track has to be Laura Palmer's theme or possibly Audrey's Dance. I have been playing this non-stop on my record player since I got it and have only regretfully ruled out the possibility of lugging both of them back with me to uni in my suitcase.

This year I'll be going to Jerusalem for a university field trip as its a major part of one of modules, so my aunt and uncle got me this beautiful 'biography' of the city. It's what I call a weighty tome but the cover is absolutely stunning with the gold accents, I can't wait to learn more about the city and its history before I go in March!

In a departure from tradition here is a favourite Tech Item. This is the Rockbox cube from Fresh n  Rebel and its basically just a standard mini speaker that you can plug into your iPod or phone or whatever, but LOOK HOW ADORABLE IT IS. For scale it is about 6cm x 6cm. As a side note it matches the colour of my earphones exactly. I previously had a similar but much cheaper speaker, which I tend to use a lot because my iPod is only a nano (i.e. with no speakers of its own) and one side of the speakers on my laptop no longer work. So hopefully this will be a great new addition to my DVD watching (read: Twin Peaks marathon) set-up.