Planning my summer break is always a fun one for me. I love making plans to better myself and my career prospects while my studies have died down and I have a lot of free time. For the past few years, I have taken on shifts at my various part-time jobs and got together some savings for the following academic year. However, this year I decided to mix it up a bit! I have a list of parts of my life that I want to work on and I have already made plans for all of them.

It's back! My weekly diary posts are starting up again after some time off! I feel like since I stopped writing these I've felt less aware of what I've accomplished each week and less motivated to do anything! Time for some changes around here! Ready to join me?

Monday

• It's a bank holiday, which means having to pick up an extra shift at my retail job. I was given the afternoon shift, which meant having some time before work to do some assignment writing! 
• I did a lot of my uni work from bed before hopping in the shower and getting ready for work. 
• It's such a hot day today so I managed to find a skirt which was appropriate for work and I picked up an iced coffee on my way in. Gotta get that caffeine! 
• Nothing much to report from work, it was too warm and pretty busy. When it came to closing time, I was super tired and sat out in Picadilly Gardens for a while before heading home on the bus. 
• Not the most interesting day to kickstart my PYT posts again but that's just the way these things go!

Tuesday

• I got up at a fairly reasonable time today and went to uni to get some assignment writing done. This is after I took some product blog pics in my pyjamas for the post since the lighting was coming through my window beautifully and I use my bed for the backdrop of a lot of my pics since I don't have a lot of space in my student room. 
• Before I started my assignment in uni, I finalised a blog post and spent some time promoting it and scheduling some tweets before getting on with the work! 
• I left uni a bit earlier than planned and had to skip an event I was really excited for because I started to feel unwell and just wanted to get home and have a lie-down. 
• I spent the evening preparing for the internship interview which I have tomorrow. I am so hopeful for this interview since it's the summer internship which I have felt most drawn to out of all the internships I have looked at. Since I want to go into marketing after my degree, it is the perfect opportunity and I want it so badly. It's also paid which means that if I get it then I can definitely afford all my rent over the summer and also get some savings together! Fingers crossed!

Wednesday

• I got up, showered and got dressed up for my internship interview. It was so nerve-racking and I had trouble finding the building where the interview was held. Typical me! When I got to the interview, I realised that I had met one of the two interviewers before and she immediately recognised. I felt like I really clicked with both the interviewers and we got along well. They were both so friendly and it really put me at ease! I felt like we were on the same page about everything we discussed and I even showed them some of my previous relevant work. I may have blundered a few times in the interview but I think it went better than I had expected! 

• I immediately met with some friends in uni, ate a wonderful toastie and got some more of my work done! We all decided to hop on the bus and head into town for a bit of chill time. 
• I picked up some lovely goodies from Primark, Monki, Home Sense and Lush before we headed home. 
• I lit a lavender and sage candle which I had bought from Home Sense and it really filled my room with a calming aroma. I managed to get a lot of my work done this evening. Enough to lead me to believe that I will finish my two last assignments of the year by tomorrow evening! 
• I read a bit of How To Stop Time by Matt Haig in bed and now I'm ready to turn the lights out and get a good night's sleep!

Thursday

• Another day of going to uni early to get work done! 
• While I was writing my assignment, I received a phone call to tell me that I have got the internship which I interviewed for yesterday!! I'm so excited! It means that I can afford my rent this summer and that I can get some great experience in marketing! 
• I managed to get loads of work done in uni and also attended a seminar where my group work project was displayed! All in all, a productive time in uni! 
• I then headed home with a friend to catch up on Riverdale, which was so good! We were yelling at the screen! 
• I finished both of my last assignments of the year and got into bed at a decent time!

Friday

• I submitted my final two assignments after a quick proofread!! 
• It's payday which means a trip to Wetherspoons with the workmates. We got there fairly early for food and had a couple of drinks into the evening. I have not laughed this much in so long! We had such a good time!
• While I was in town to meet my friends, I managed to pick up a few essentials from Lush to restock my shelf.
• That's about it really, I was super tired after this week so I headed home early and I am so ready to sleep!  

Saturday

• Not the most exciting day! 
• I cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms before getting ready and going to work for the afternoon/evening shift. 
• I got home at a reasonable time and I just finished watching a documentary so it's time for bed!

Sunday

• Today was a bit more interesting than yesterday! I worked the early shift so I had the afternoon free after work! 

• A couple of friends and I went to Pizza Hut after work and then to the shops! I stocked up on Pixi Glow Tonic and bought a lovely new bra! 
• Once I got home, I spent the evening catching up on YouTube videos and reading. It's been lovely!

What a busy week! How was your week? x

I miss my weekly diary posts! It felt good to write everything down and put it out there. Like throwing my personal life out there and getting it off my chest and out of my mind! I may start up the Pull Yourself Together posts again soon but for now, I just want to talk about everything significant that's going on at the moment. Full disclosure. Holding nothing back!

Right now in this moment

My chest feels a bit heavy. I'm trying to pick myself up from a down day. I am a fully hormonal and emotional wreck at the moment and I've nearly cried more times than I can count today! I have been suppressing a lot of negative feelings for a while now and I feel like they are spilling over. My counsellor isn't free for a session until the end of the month and I am sick and tired of going to the GP so often lately, even though my GP is lovely and a total angel! I don't know if I want to speak about everything with friends either. We all have so much going on and I don't want to add to their heaps of troubles! The thing is, in the past few months I have become a sharer. I used to bottle everything up but in the past few months, I have done the opposite. I have almost become reliant on sharing everything with others and now that I don't feel like I should do that, it's becoming really hard to keep stable.


University

My grades dropped this semester. No matter how hard I have tried to write excellent assignments, it just hasn't been quite good enough. It's almost making me give up. When I got low, I didn't go to my lectures either, which has caused me to fall completely behind with university when exams are looming overhead. I'm not sure if I can pull everything together in time. I'm trying to go back to the way I was in first year, when I was getting great marks in my assignments and studying with intense motivation, but I am just so tired. It's stressing me out so much that I am smoking again. Not great!

Health

Aside from my mental health, my physical health has also been up and down. I started having fortnightly periods. One week on, one week off, one week on, etc. Yeah, that's not ideal. They were also escalating in severity to the point where they are now as bad as they were in high school, before my prescription period medication and being on the pill. After a few weeks of tests to see what has been up with me lately, I finally got diagnosed with PCOS. I have known that I have this for a few years but in my hometown, my GP never took me seriously when I asked about it. However, my GP here has been so helpful and when I mentioned it and talked through my symptoms, he booked me straight in for an ultrasound. Goodness, PCOS gives me so many answers for things I have been experiencing for years. So many things which have been dismissed when I have tried to talk about them! I have also been super ill for the past week with a sinus infection. Not the greatest of times!

Good things

I realise now that a lot of what I have just written is all doom and gloom. There have been some good things! However, as you may know, memories are emotional things and we tend to remember events better if they evoke very strong emotions. That's why we remember all the bad stuff easier. It's just the way we're wired. However, I'm gonna rack my brains for some good stuff! I managed to go home and see my family a couple of weekends ago! It's my favourite! I saw my grandparents, cousins, parents and my lil teenage brother. I started using OpenLearn again to pick up short courses for free which is fun and interesting! I also got some great blogging opportunities which I loved being a part of, including being sent some lovely goodies from Simply Soaps which are a couple of my new faves! I also just ate the biggest and nicest piece of cake in the world from Manchester Museum. White chocolate and poppyseed cake, what a beauty!


When I was writing the PYT posts weekly, it was easier to keep track of the good stuff going on in my life and it pushed me to get out of bed and do more, so I could blog about it and share the experience. I think it's time to bring those posts back, are you ready?? x

Pull Yourself Together #14 coming Monday 14th May...

Another week, another Pull Yourself Together post! Hope you enjoy! x

Monday

• Today is just a typical Monday! I'm going to uni, doing some work and I have a meeting! I feel a bit crap so I decided to put on some nice makeup and a nice outfit to make myself feel a bit more pulled together!
• I got quite a bit of work done, posted last week's Pull Yourself Together post and now I've got a meeting with some friends i'm doing some peer support work with next academic year!

• The meeting was super productive and we all sorted our roles within the scheme and set some plans in place! I am looking forward to seeing how this all works out! 
• Chloe and I decided to get some food together so we headed over to Wetherspoons for some nice grub!
• After spoons, Chloe and I had a quick trip to Superdrug and then I headed home to do some work before bed!

Monday

• Early start for a morning lecture! It was a pretty dull one but I managed to get some good notes done!
• I went straight to the psych building cafe after the lecture to get some work and admin done! I had a really productive few hours!
• I managed to edit and post last week's Pull Yourself Together post and promote that on social media in between my uni tasks!
• I had a very productive meeting with a friend about setting up a mental health mentor scheme in uni and then met Chloe and took the bus to town

• I picked up some second-hand Xbox games and grabbed some food before heading home for a house movie night!
• We all ordered food and watched Howl's Moving Castle. I had a 20-minute nap in the middle of the film but it was a great night!
• Once the film was over, I headed up to my room and played Arkham Asylum until I was too tired to keep my eyes open

Monday

• Will woke me up at 6am when he left to go to work! I went straight back to sleep, slept through my alarms, and overslept til noon. Not a great start!
• I felt pretty low and so didn't get out of bed for quite a while. I eventually decided to give up on the idea of leaving the house and decided to act as if it was still the morning and that I was just starting the day
• I put in a hair mask and went through some emails to give myself a slow start to the day
• I finally decided to leave my room at about 2pm to put some laundry in the washing machine and shower
• After my shower, I put on some freshly washed pyjamas and changed my bedsheets in an attempt to make my surroundings feel refreshed. However, I ended up just getting back into bed and staring at the ceiling for about an hour. I won't go into the feelings that I was experiencing, they weren't very good though, unfortunately
• I attempted to do a bit of work but ended up giving up and having a little healthy cry
• I got my clothes out of the dryer and ordered a pizza
• Once my flatmates got home, I spent a bit of time with them as they tend to make me feel a lil better! My lovely friend dyed my hair darker while we watched Moana
• I went to bed and binge-watched Black Mirror before bed

Time for another Pull Yourself Together post! I have decided to stick with the bullet point format after some positive feedback and due to how much easier it is to put together!

Monday

• Woke up at 6am because William had to get up for work! Too early, kill me. I couldn't get back to sleep so I did my makeup nice for my first day of semester 2!
• I had a morning Individual Differences lecture and then a Forensic Psychology lecture straight afterwards. I somehow managed to find time to get coffee between them which was such a relief since i'm a caffeine fiend who gets grumpy and headachey when I don't have any coffee. I should probably sort that addiction out but who has the time??
• I went to the cafe in uni for lunch and had a very productive couple of hours! I tend to get so much done there!
• I went to a meeting for some of my volunteering and then grabbed a burrito in the student union for dinner since I had a meeting there afterwards for another project i'm volunteering for.
• My volunteering meeting was super productive and i'm so ready to do more work on this project!
• I went home and straight to bed! I was super tired and needed an early night!

Monday

• Exam!! This afternoon I have my cognition exam and I am absolutely terrified! Despite the amount of work I have done, I feel so unprepared! Spending the morning revising in university before heading over to the exam building
• The exam went fairly well! Going into to town with Chloe for some food (not sure what food yet) and a little bit of shopping! Just picking up a couple of storage baskets for my chest of drawers and bedside table organisation.
• We went into Fred Aldous to look at stationery and I am so proud of myself for not blowing all my money on notebooks, no matter how tempting they were!

• Chloe and I went to The Bagel Shop in Manchester and had the most amazing sundaes! I had a hot cherry pie sundae and she had a mud pie sundae! I am obsessed, the food there is so good and even though I am super full, I really want more! We then popped into Thunder Egg, the Arndale and, of course, Primark! What i'm most excited for though, I bought some books from Waterstones!! I managed to get all the storage baskets I need for organising my drawers later and now i'm about to walk ALL the way home from town. My feet are going to hurt so much!

• Organised my underwear drawers and my desk and now i'm doing some statistics revision. What a rollercoaster of a day! After revision, I am going to have an early night!!

Monday

• First exam this morning! I'm heading over early so I have plenty of time to spare before the exam to read over some last minute notes!
• The exam went pretty well! Heading over to the veggie cafe near campus for some stew for lunch before I head home to revise for tomorrow
• Got home and started revising for tomorrow! Ordering bagels from Bagel Factory because I am CRAVING some good bagels!

Hello!

My exams are about to start (when this gets published it will be the day of my first exam). Because of my busy study schedule and lack of time to keep updating a PYT post as usual, I will be posting about the highlights of my weeks for the next few weeks instead of a full diary post! I still wanted to get the usual scheduled PYT posts up so this is what I have come up with! I know these posts are some of the most enjoyed posts on my blog!

Monday