In case you've missed it, I just finished my final year of university at Durham so I thought it was time for another 'year in review' post. I've done update posts for pretty much every term but I also like to do a more general summary of the year to document my university experience both for me to look back on and for anyone else who might be interested. You can read my reviews of first year and second year here on my blog as well - for continuity I'm dividing this up into sections again: the city, the course, accommodation. Get ready because this is going to be yet another long one...

The city

In third year I lived in a student house in the same area of the city as the previous year so that part of my university experience changed very little. I lived in Gilesgate, which is known among the student population for being quite remote (as in, "We'd better get accommodation sorted for next year if we don't want to end up in Gilesgate") and while it is possible to live very far out my two years living in 'inner Gilesgate' have confirmed that it is definitely still accessible and in fact a really nice part of town. I lived near a Sainsburys local again and within bus/driving distance of a massive Tesco, Aldi, Poundworld and the rest of the main retail park. In terms of transport, I made full use of the bus system again this year thanks to the £1 day tickets.

In general I carried on exploring the city and discovered a couple more nice cafés and shops, but to be honest because it's so small it's easy enough to live in Durham for a year and have got to know literally the whole city. The nice part of that is that the whole place is so familiar, I feel like I've lived there for years and years because I know it so well.

The course

Third year was by far the best year in terms of my course content as I was able to pick all my modules and really specialise in my areas of interest. In addition to the Dissertation (which was a double module) I took two 20 credit modules, 'Power, Politics, Space' and 'Territory and Geopolitics'. Then I took two 10 credit modules in first term ('Race, Nature, Crisis' and 'Neoliberal Life') and two in second term ('Feminist Geographies: Intimacy, Body, State' and 'Spaces of Health and Wellbeing'). Numerically-speaking my best modules were 'Neoliberal Life' and 'Race, Nature, Crisis', which I got 100% and 89% in respectively. I also LOVED the feminist geographies one because it coincided with my academic interests in feminist geopolitics and bodies and violence.

Having said that I enjoyed pretty much all my modules except 'Spaces of Health and Wellbeing', but even then I think it was only because we missed the most interesting lectures due to strike action in February and March. The rest of my modules weren't too badly affected, but there were a smattering of lectures which were cancelled as a result. The strikes were a weird, weird time in the term as it also coincided with the 'Beast from the East' hitting Durham and huge snowdrifts creating travel problems for everyone. I did take the opportunity to join my striking lecturers on the picket lines outside the university and had some really interesting and informative chats - getting to know my lecturers and other academic staff has definitely been a highlight of my last year as the teaching is much smaller-scale.

A significant part of my workload this year was the dissertation, which I wrote on experiences of European and national identity in the EU's European Schools. In my 'second year in review' post I was in the middle of carrying out the fieldwork at my old school, and I finally submitted it at the end of April by which time I'd been thinking about the topic for a year and a half. On the whole I enjoyed the whole process and I didn't have any major setbacks or panicky moments as everything went smoothly. Having said that it was a huge relief to be able to hand it in and have done with it - especially as I received a grade of 94% for it! I was absolutely thrilled that all my hard work had paid off. 

Another highlight related to my course was the fieldtrip to Jerusalem as part of my 'Territory and Geopolitics' module, which you can read about in more detail here. It was an incredibly tiring but very exciting and enjoyable week and I learned a lot from the various tours and talks we attended, as well as from my own research.

On another slightly related note, this year I wasn't able to continue with my French modules as in third year the Geography department don't allow us to take modules from other departments. This meant this was the first year since I was 5 years old that I haven't studied French in some capacity, and while I missed it a bit it was also quite nice not to think about it! But I have definitely noticed my vocabulary shrinking already from lack of practice so it might be time to pick it back up again next year. I did however take a term's worth of classes in Arabic, which weren't credit-bearing but just evening classes that I paid for. It was a really interesting language to study - although we barely got started in the short amount of time - but it was almost more interesting to begin learning a language from scratch as I hadn't done that for years.

Accommodation

Although I had the option of moving back into college, I'd enjoyed the independence of 'living out' in second year and wanted to live in a student house again in my final year. For various reasons I wasn't living with my housemates from second year again so at the end of first term last year I found a new group and we signed for a house. As I explained in this post we were a bit of an unexpected group but in the end we worked really well together and we had a lot of fun house nights in and days out, especially in the period after exams. We made a vegan Christmas dinner, watched a lot of Black Mirror, made a picnic, went to Edinburgh for the day, had some meals out and house dinners in, went on a fully college bar crawl, had parties, went to formals and a summer ball, did a couple of Newcastle trips and many, many Tesco food shops! Overall it's just been a lovely lovely year and they all made it extra special.

I grew to love the house itself too, despite the extremely thin walls, the temporary slug problem in the kitchen, the boiler breaking, water coming through the living room ceiling, water coming through the window frame, the bathroom light breaking, the tiny kitchen and the hoover that didn't really work - phew! Honestly though it was a typical student house so quite different to my house in second year but much more homely and I liked my room better too. 

Overall this has definitely been the best year of my university experience at Durham, due to a combination of really falling in love with Durham, my course being absolutely fascinating, achieving high marks and living with people I loved! I'm well aware that Durham as an establishment is flawed (one look at the plan for expansion and building approximately a thousand new colleges in a short space of time confirms that), but as this is a review I'm going to give my university experience and course a solid 9.5/10 because nothing is ever perfect but it was pretty close. I'm not going to get too emotional here because I've already done that to an extent in my graduation post, but I'll end with something the chancellor said during my congregation ceremony which has stuck with me: "You've been a part of Durham and now Durham is a part of you."

x

Last week I visited my friend on her year abroad in Seville (blog post on that coming soon!). We did some sightseeing at the weekend but it was extremely hot which made walking around a lot during the day quite uncomfortable and tiring and generally a very sweaty time. Hence why on the last couple of days we also did plenty of shopping as the stores were all beautifully air-conditioned and we were able to make our way down the main shopping street zig-zagging in and out of the shops - which of course meant I bought a few things.

First I got a few bits in Bershka, including this rainbow top with a tie front for €7.99. It's just really simple and easy to wear with denim shorts or jeans, I feel like a cool kid when I wear it. I've also christened it my 'Brighton top' because of the rainbow - I have a feeling I'll get plenty of opportunities to wear it when I move there for my Masters in September!

Also from Bershka I got this lip print top with the same tie front (also for €7.99) because I thought it was a really interesting print. I haven't seen anything else like it around and there's something about it that makes me think of high fashion??

I'm a sucker for anything gingham so I had to get this little black and white playsuit which was €14.99 (reduced from €22.99). This is an XS but the straps are still a bit too long so I'm planning to readjust them myself and I think it will be really pretty with some sandals and a brightly coloured bag.

In H&M I bought these patterned trousers for €3.99 (reduced from €9.99!). I'm a big fan of loose cotton-y trousers as I tend to just wear them casually around the house instead of leggings if I'm planning to stay at home all day. These ones are quite busy but will be nice with just a plain tank top or crop top.

Finally I got this simple black strappy top with a feather pattern, which was €4.99 (reduced from €9.99). I have a few of these H&M tops in different patterns which I wear all the time so whenever I'm there I check to see if they have any new colours or styles.

And that's everything I got!

Looking back at all my previous published posts I realise that I haven't been particularly consistent in celebrating my blogging milestones - for some reason I posted about my second and third anniversaries and not first and fourth - but as of today it's been a whole five years since I created this blog and published my first ever post! I think five is a pretty special number (it's half a decade after all) and of all the years to commemorate it's an important one, so I'm going to share with you five things I love about blogging which have kept me coming back to it over the years.

1. Having total creative freedom

I love that I can literally post about whatever I want, from advice to hauls to just life updates, I think I've covered a good range of posts in my time and I really like being able to change it up as and when I feel like it.

2. The friendships I've made

Back in the early days of my blog I was still active in the Stardoll community and quite a few people from there used to follow me here and leave lovely comments - if you remember those days you're an OG! Even since then there have been a few people who I've become internet friends with purely through blogging, and I even met up with someone once (hi Rhona, I doubt you still read my blog but how's it going?).

When I get into a blogging groove I love to plan out my posts for the foreseeable future and make extravagant lists of everything I want to write up and publish. If you know me you'll know I love organising so I suppose this is my way to extend that into my little corner of the internet. Of course, things get in the way and my ideas don't always come to fruition, but I still get a kick out of list-making and imagining what my blog could be like if I really invested my time and effort into it non-stop!

Although I'm not as dedicated to the blogging world as I was a few years ago, I still love coming across new and interesting blogs and spending an hour or so delving in and out, trying to get a sense of what the author is like as a person and their interests and general vibe. There are some I still peruse religiously to this day, like 'Ice cream' whispers Clara, Mermaidens and Moon of Paula.

When I've spent a couple of hours writing a blog post, finding photos, uploading them, checking the preview and finally putting the finishing touches, it's SO satisfying to be able to click 'publish' and see my efforts being released to the big wide world!

Last Friday I graduated from Durham University with a First Class Honours degree in Geography (BA). To be honest it hasn't quite set in yet that not only do I have a degree (!!!), but my time in Durham has come to an end. I'm going to do a separate post reviewing my third year but I just wanted to capture my experience of graduation because it was the most magical day and I want to remember it for a long time (as a side note, here's the post I wrote after my school graduation).

When I arrived in Durham in October 2015 as a fresher I had no idea what to expect. I'd visited once before during half-term of my final year of school and I'd liked the university 'campus' part and my college, but if I'm honest what really drew me there was the university's reputation and league table rankings. I suppose it's as good a reason as any to choose a university, and I really didn't know much about Durham as a place. Fast-forward three years and I've fallen in love with its cobbled streets, quaint shopfronts, the cathedral and castle, the marketplace, the riverside, Gilesgate, the local cinema, even North Road. There's something special about Durham; it's a tiny, beautiful, ancient place and in many ways it is very much a university town, but alongside the student life there's also a vibrant regional culture that draws on the proud history of the north east of England. Given the importance of the cathedral to both town and gown alike, as well as its status as a UNESCO World Heritage site, I think it's very fitting that the graduation ceremonies (or congregations, to use the official name) take place in that incredible building on Palace Green.

Once we were inside we walked past the rows of guests to the transepts on either side of the main nave where we waited while the ceremony was opened and the dean of the cathedral and the vice-chancellor of the university both addressed the audience. Then the time came for the conferment of degrees, and we were called up in alphabetical order to shake hands with the chancellor. Unfortunately we didn't receive our actual degrees on the day as they are only posted out later in the summer, but this was sort of the equivalent. Once we'd shaken hands we returned to our seats to wait for all the other degrees to be awarded, including Masters and PhD students. Finally there was a closing speech by the chancellor and then it was all over, lasting about an hour in total.

With the main formalities over, we all headed up to the science site for a reception hosted by the Geography Department outside the main geography building. There were lots of refreshments and canapés and it was still an extremely hot day but it was nice to chat to some people I hadn't seen yet and to catch up with some of my lecturers. As well as just chatting, the head of department also awarded some prizes for academic achievement - and I got a prize! I received the Robin Mills prize for the second-highest first class honours degree in geography, but I also got the highest mark in third year alone. Also, the person who achieved the highest overall mark was on the BSc course, so I can say that I got the highest mark on my course as I was BA. It was a huge honour and I totally hadn't been expecting it, but I was so so pleased! All the recipients of the various prizes (6 or so in total) received a certificate and a cheque, but for some reason the Robin Mills prize also includes a huge trophy which Robin Mills (who was a geography professor and later worked for the UN) donated to the department in 1978. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to keep it, but it has all the names of the people who have been awarded it over the last 40 years engraved on the side so at least I know that I will have left my mark for years to come. I don't usually make a big deal out of my academic achievements in real life or here on my blog, but I am hugely proud of myself for this so I wanted to mention it, especially as it was such a lovely part of my graduation day!

So what are my plans for the future, I hear you ask? Well, in September I will be starting an MA in International Security at the University of Sussex, so I'll be moving to Brighton for a year which I'm hugely excited about. At the beginning of June I went down to view my new student house for next year and visit the campus, and while Durham and Brighton are pretty much polar opposites in every single way I think it'll be a really interesting experience to live somewhere in the south, by the sea and in a much bigger city. After that I'm hoping to get a graduate job in a field related to my degree(s), but that's all to come and for the moment I'm just planning to enjoy the summer!

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.

x

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.

x

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.

x

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!

x

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.