Welcome Back Social Life!

I can tell you something, that exam signified more than the end of Semester 1. It was the end of my isolated life.

That night was a heavy night (I passed out before midnight..) but it was so worth it. Not only was it a night out with the girls, celebrating the end of exam period, it was the first chance all of us could get together and have a massive catch up. It also ended up to be one of my other friends 22nd birthday. He was in the same bar as us, and so I managed to get a drink in with him as well..

The next day was a total write off, unsurprisingly! My head was pounding so much I was wearing sunglasses in bed and still had a headache at 10pm.. However, I did manage to clean the bathroom.. took me a while and a lot of waves of nausea, but I did it!

I went to my dad's for the weekend. I was so nice to have a change of scenery!

Long walks in the country and the bonus of seeing my brother for the whole weekend was exactly what I needed.

I purposefully binged this weekend. I couldn't be bothered with the constant jives from my step-mum, but I now feel enormous, and the radical diet has already started.

I came back up last night to a very full diary!

I am going back to my long distance training on Thursday, so I will be going to the gym about 5 times a week..

As well as lectures starting again, I have the rest of my dissertation to do, a doctors appointment, counselling, hopefully some work? Who knows!

J is cooking tonight, so I've got a house full of my some of my favourite people.

I'm going to the cinema to see Les Mis again tomorrow, which I am so excited about, and R is cooking for all us girls on friday night!

I also have said that as soon as the boys clean the kitchen, I will make a chocolate fudge cake.

I cannot tell you how happy I am. 3 weeks hardly seeing anyone really took its toll.

All is right again in the world!

(well, almost... fighting a small, inconvenient, unnecessary battle in the background..)

The Elements

If any of you follow me on twitter, you would know that I have been bashing 'The Big Freeze' we are in to no end.
However, I feel like I must clear something up. It is not the snow that I have the issue with. Ice is my nemesis.
I know it sounds extreme, but I have an irrational fear of falling (which I am desperately trying to get over), and therefore I find ice quite debilitating. It means that I can't go to the gym.

Moving on...
Snow is magical.
I firmly believe that everyone secretly loves snow.
Waking up, opening your curtains with a drowsy reluctance, to find that the outside world is under a blanket of white is breathtaking. I don't know about you, but it gets my heart beating that little bit faster.
Everything looks beautiful in the snow, glistening with wonder, begging you to break its pristine surface.
For me, it isn't just the look of snow that its special. Its the way it crunches and creeks under foot. It takes me back to being in the Alps, learning to ski, all those years ago. I so crave to go back.

We had 6cm of snow last night, and are expecting more over the next few days. Fresh snow over night means I can venture out the gym without the fear...
On my walk to the gym today I allowed myself to take my time.
Being one of the only ones that had dared to venture out, I was allowed to absorb the fleshly-laid-snow feeling that filled the air. Relishing in the crunching and the creaking underfoot, I walked the whole half hour with a smile on my face.
My route takes me past a series of boutiques, where all the shop owners where on the pavement, clearing the pavement for potencial customers. A quiet sense of community. Seems its not just the holidays that brings people together.

The Bandstand

Even though we apparently have 3 more weeks of this cold weather, I dont really mind that much... as long as there is snow.
There is nothing that can stop the ice from forming, and it will. But I have, and will continue to deal with it as best I can. After all, since the climate is going through one of its many of its cycles, I have a feeling that the cold is going to be a permanent feature of our winters...

P.S. The exam is on Wednesday morning and I get my social life back sitting in the pub on Wednesday afternoon. SO EXCITED!!

When Reality Sinks In

Many of you may not be aware, (although you probably are), but I have been battling with an eating disorder.
I have been for longer than I care to admit, but it has been getting steadily worse since this time last year when I had issues with my grant coming through.
I am seeking counselling about it, amongst other things, but it seems that being able to admit it myself and saying that I want to get better isn't exactly true.
I so want to be able to not worry about the calories in everything I eat, be able to eat all the foods I enjoy (eat pasta again), I dont want to feel like I have to purge if I have a big meal, and not have to justify everything that I put in my mouth by how hard I work in the gym (if I don't go to the gym, I only eat around 750 cals).
However, because I do binge, I am not terribly skinny to look at. I don't have the body that I want yet and so I am inclined to keep at it until I have the flat stomach I so desperately crave.

I have decided to write about this now because of what I have been thinking recently.
If you are reading this in England, you will know that we have now started this 3 week big freeze: Snow, ice and below zero temperatures. I have known about this for about a week and it has been fixated in my brain ever since. If there is ice, it makes it incredibly difficult for me to go to the gym (its a half hour walk and I dont have a car). In my mind, if I cant go to the gym, I can really eat.
In the last week I have gone to the gym 6 times to prepare myself for the fact that I might not be able to go for 3 weeks, and I have not been taking it easy. I have also not been eating very much at all so that when I reduce my quantities even more, my body wont go into complete shock (especially when I have an exam coming up).
As I was walking back from a very intense gym sesh today, and suffering form awful stomach cramps and exhaustion from not sleeping last night, it suddenly hit me that that was the last time I would probably go to the gym before the ice sets in this morning. Sad to say, but I basically broke down.

To everyone who hasn't suffered from an eating disorder, this would seem completely ridiculous and irrational. Really, I know it is too, which is why it shocked me so much.
I know I need to cope with not going to the gym, not just for my health, but for my impending exam.. I so want to do well.

It's so hard to write about and I know that this post has no direction to it, but writing it is proving to me how much I want to overcome it. I want to get better.
I might not be completely ready yet, but I am making a promis to all of you, but mainly to myself, that I will get better.

An Academic Start

I can't really remember much of New Years eve, which is not surprising after how much Crabbies I drank, but I do know that I had a good time!

Since then my life has been somewhat lacking in 'fun activities'. For some reason it was decided that the majority of the deadlines for Semester 1 should be in early January. This meant that I had 3 assignments due for this week, including a draft dissertation.
If this wasn't enough, I have also got an exam in 2 weeks time... Joy.
Luckily I managed to get 2 of the 3 assignments done before Christmas, so it left me with 1200 words and an inconceivable amount of content to learn when I got back.
Having come back up North a week earlier than expected, I have managed to use the time to get the third assignment done and start to revise. This means that this will be the most prepared for an exam I will ever have been in my life (because I wont have started 5 days before the exam like usual)

So unfortunately I have nothing exciting to report, and its not going to get any more exciting either.
It seems that all my friends finish a week before me, rubbing salt into the wound, so I will be working (well, trying to) whilst they are have another 'holiday'!
Grrrrrrr

It has also just hit me that I have to hand my dissertation in on the 7th of March. 2 months from now.
Don't think I need to say any more on that really..

Sorry my life is so boring at the moment. Its not fun for me either. Although, because everyone is working for another week, the library is a very sociable place to be! We are still managing to have a few giggles amongst all the books and stress!

Hope all this revision pays off..