New Year's Resolutions | 'New Year New Me' Cliche?

Happy new year! 

I feel with the turn of 2015 I should talk about my new year's resolutions. As big of a year as 2014 was, I feel like this will be even bigger. I'll be graduating for one, turning 21 for two. So I thought instead of talking about the past year, I'll talk about what I have planned for 2015 and how I seek to improve myself.

1. Graduating uni with a 2:1 and finding a job
2. SAVING SAVING SAVING MONEY
3. With that comes learning to drive - my dad's really been pushing me to at least do my theory for a couple of years now and I think with the end of school, it'll be the perfect time to dedicate myself to driving
4. Toning up - I've had really bad back pains the past few months so the least I need to be doing is pilates. But I also wanna hit the gym just to tone up and feel better about myself. I used to have very severe body image issues but having lost a lot of weight, that mostly passed, but I still have some days where I just wish I looked different and I feel like if I toned myself up, stopped being so lazy, the amount of times I get those days will decrease
5. That brings me to eating healthy - you guys know I'm vegan but I'm literally the most unhealthy vegan you'll come across. I live off of white rice, potatoes, veggie alternatives e.g. sausages/burgers and biscuits. I really hate vegetables but I feel like I need to teach myself to like them, just because I know I'll be feeling way better physically and I really wanna see the effect it has on my skin.
6. SKIN - now, my skin is pretty okay (mA mA) but I'm still prone to breakouts and I think these could really be eradicated if I buckled up and ate decent food - less eating out and more learning how to cook for myself. Also, skincare routine. I don't believe in putting a dozen products on my face but I really want to find a good moisturiser/oil and face scrub as these are the two main products I use on my face.
7. LEARN HOW TO COOK - I'm the only vegan in my family and I'm a terrible cook, which means my mum makes 80% of my meals and understandably she doesn't always have time to cook something separate for me if she makes a meat-centred meal so that's why I really really need to learn to survive by myself and cook, healthy, tasty vegan meals.
8. Visit at least one new country. When I go away, it's mostly to relatives' houses or family friends', which means either Russia or Holland. But with the end of uni, I really want to go somewhere new for a week or so in the summer, somewhere with lots and lots of sun and be a proper tourist
9. Brushing up on my French - I used to be a massive French enthusiastic and got pretty good grades (I learnt it for 7 years at school) but as everyone knows, once you stop using a language, you start to forget it, which has happened to me with French (and Russian) so that means more French reading, listening and speaking. I also need to brush up on my Russian - Russian is my mother tongue but I do little reading and writing so that's my main focus point - I still have Anna Karenina in Russian dusting up on my bookshelf so I need to pick that up
10. READ MORE BOOKS

I hope you guys perhaps got inspired from these resolutions? Anyways let me know what your resolutions are.

x o x o

N

Advice for Starting Uni

So you guys know I'm halfway through my third year of uni so I thought I'd share some tips to graduating your x amount of years n not looking back on them with regret.

I didn't apply to uni with a specific career in mind, to be honest I only applied because my parents wanted me to go. I didn't have a job or anything so I didn't really have any argument to not go, apart from 'I don't want to'. I picked History because I enjoyed it at A-level. That's literally the only reason. I've never been interested in one specific area. I've loved animals since forever so initially I wanted to base my studies around them. I love geography/landscape etc so I was playing with the idea of environmental studies, geology, whatever. Nah. Ended up picking English Literature only to change my mind last minute to History because I realised that studying literature would make me hate reading forever more.

So, my first advice is think carefully about what subject to study. 
As much as History interests me, I don't have any plans to really use my degree. My options are pretty limited - teacher? No thank you. Historian? No I think uni has made me hate analysing history enough. Archive/museum work? Maybe but I need to do my postgrad for that n honestly I can't bare to be without a full time job any longer, no matter how comfortable I am in education.

Don't move out if you don't feel comfortable with it.
I was still wanting to rebel at 16 so I considered moving into halls for uni. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't. I'm a complete introvert n 95% of people annoy me. Plus you have no idea who you'll end up with, so the chance of ending up with someone who doesn't wash their dishes/clean up after themselves in the bathroom terrified me. Plus I'm just really domestic. I spend a lot of time with my family and at 16 I think I would have made some really stupid choices if I had been given free reign to do as I pleased. Don't worry, you can still have fun n form connections without living with other students.

If you want to party, socialise, actually live the 'uni life', do it in your first year.
Your grades in your first year don't count towards your total so feel free to go wild as long as you're passing your assignments (though even then you can retake them most of the time in the summer). Saying that, I'm not a party animal n I didn't spend the nights of my first year out on the town. I did, however, spend it either in bed watching TV shows or out stuffing my face, when I should have been getting to grips with the jump from A-level style essay writing to undergrad. I was getting 40-50% just out of laziness n not caring what grade I got as long as I passed.

Make use of what your uni offers.
Take time to browse through your libraries. Join societies. Turn up to functions. The last two I honestly regret not doing. I'm really anti-social n can't approach people so I'm actually lucky to have made any friends at all. I never turned up to seminars either, occasionally went to lectures so most of what I learnt came from the books in the library. I just found everything so unhelpful n I realised I learn better when I teach myself n do my own reading.

Start your assignments as soon as you know about them.
Even if an essay is a month away from the due date, get started. You'll be thankful later. Even if you only do some research or write a couple hundred words, getting started is the hardest part so the sooner you do it, the better. If you're having trouble, approach your tutors.That's what they're there for. I'm really proud so asking for help is difficult for me but on the few occasions I did ask, I got the help I needed. At the end of the day, they're on your side. They're not out to fail you. This is probably something I should have realised earlier.

I hope this helped some of you. Everything I've said is from experience and it's something I wish someone had explained to me.

x o x o

N

Introduction Time!!

Hey everyone!

So I guess our first post should be a lil introduction to who's running this blog. We're two girls who have been close friends for years and have decided to put this blog together (Zahra did all the hard work tbh I'm awful with html codes) for you guys to be inspired by ^_^

We're gonna try to keep it as updated as possible with all sorts of stuff - nails, makeup, fashion, food, books, films, politics and much much more!

Name: Nuria

Age: 20

Location: London

Currently: Being a poor student in my last 

year of uni studying history =_=

Loves: Animals, nails, books, food, my bed... >__>

Hey!

I'm Zahra and I'm based in Liverpool, While Nuri is based in London. I moved up north 2 and half years ago. 

As Nuri has already mention, we hope this blog really inspires you. As we are based in two different cities, of different backgrounds, skin type, taste etc. Hopefully theres something for everyone!  

Name: Zahra

Age: 21

Location: Liverpool

Currently: Freelance makeup artist and full-time mummy 

Loves: Malay/Japanese food, makeup (obvs), the arts...urmmm