I'm feeling 22

So my 22nd birthday is rapidly approaching! Amongst all the uni work I have managed to arrange a lovely weekend involving lots of prosecco, food and afternoon tea. I'm feeling pretty happy that it's at the start of the uni year where I can enjoy myself for the weekend and the work load isn't too much.
Although I am known for leaving things until the last minute so I am determined to push aside my urges for trebles in Newcastle and knuckle down after the celebrations!
I have a table booked at the Silk Room in Newcastle for a meal (review to follow!) From what I've seen and heard it's very nice and fancy! I will be queen for the weekend!
It's made me think about birthdays, how much of a big deal it used to have to be, you'd have to have to best party and you had to invite loaadddss of people (some of which were just invited to make up numbers). I'm surprisingly excited for this birthday, maybe as it's my first with a boyfriend and I'm hoping I get spoilt haha but I'll have the important people there and who doesn't like being centre of attention for a day...or a weekend!
Up-market food and champagne cocktails called for a new outfit, so I'm wearing monochrome; a black bardot top and a white skirt. I've wanted a white skirt for ages and found one that I love and is a really good fit from Missguided.

Black Bardot top: Missguided £4.99 White Chain Skirt: Missguided £19.99
Jewellery: All Primark £1.50-£3
Boots: Fashion Union £32
Studded clutch: Marni £590

You might be thinking "hang on, she's got an outfit for around 60 quid and that bag is £590?!" The bag I actually have is pretty similar to the one in the picture and it got it from Primark a while back for around 6 quid! Pretty big saving! I think £600 is a little steep for bag although if I could afford it I'm sure I would splurge!

I do love a bargain and although I think some things need to be invested in if you want them to be high quality and last the season, for now I'd rather spend my money on boozy bubbles and having a good time!

Happy Birthday to meeeeee!!

You've got time

Running parallel to the theme of 'growing up' in my last post, comes the theme of time. Time moves on, we grow, everything is constantly changing around us with time. 

A contrast that could be considered here is life vs death, death is inevitable in life and as time goes on it gets closer...(how morbid!); our biological clocks are literally ticking away.

Change is a by-product of time. We have physical changes to our bodies, evolution, growth and decay in plants and animals, climate, our economy. 

I've read somewhere that time was a human invention, a way of categorizing change in our lives.

One of my favourite quotes is one by Dr. Seuss: 'How did it get so late so soon?' which I think describes most days for me! 

I will have set out with the greatest of intentions but time goes so quickly and my procrastination levels are so high that the day is over and I have achieved very little.

Although, similarities could be shown within any career: if you are in a monotonous job, your daily achievements could also be very low and your day unfulfilled apart from the promise of cash for your hours.  

This then made me think if death is inevitable, what are we really living for, is it getting the cash from these jobs so that we can have a few holidays a year? Or if we go really deep into it, do we discuss the meaning of life?! When I first considered life vs death I felt this was more a literal term; change in the physical sense, but it could be argued that we aren't really living anyway...

Literal time is shown in clocks, hourglasses and we even use the sun to tell the time. We have certain things to do at hours in the day; we wake up in the morning and sleep in the evening. Different parts of the world are ahead or behind in time and we fly through time zones to reach a destination. 

We know things from the past; past monarchs, inventors, deaths, discoveries, animals and disasters due to records and the trails they've left behind but we know nothing about the future...nothing is certain. 

Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, the list is endless but we can't find the time to fit everything in.

I like the below quote too, as it refers to time as a value. Although it is an inanimate object, it spoken about as tangible and compared to us using it as money.

Time is always used as a metaphor. Time is money. Time is a healer. Time is a gift. There's so many angles to go down! 

Let's hope I have the time to look at everything! 

Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional

I've been looking at the theme of 'growing up' as a starting point for my final year research. This stemmed from an interest in kidswear which led onto children's literature. The books that stood out to me were Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland which both contain this theme. It made me consider the contrasts of wanting to stay young and wanting to grow up, which I think we go through in life constantly. The strains of work and responsibility make us want the simplicity of childhood and that 'ignorance is bliss' feeling where you don't have a care in the world.

On the other hand, being younger than legal age for drinking, doing naughty things and not being old enough to come home when we wanted made us wish we were older.

I'm sure most of us would say that once we became older it wasn't all it was cracked up to be!

I've read a lot of theories on Peter Pan. There are a lot of sinister analyses of the story, but ultimately J.M.Barrie based the characters on his life and his relationships. 

The main theme of the book is that all children must grow up; Wendy goes back to her parents, she can't be like Peter: he is there for her to learn that she needs to go home and accept her responsibilities and she can't stay young forever. Peter is irresponsible and naive and is there to show Wendy and the reader what you cannot be rather than what you can be.  

On the contrary in Alice in Wonderland, Alice literally grows and shrinks with different encounters of food and drinks within the book. Analysis of this shows that growing up is unpredictable and Alice has to deal with being too small or too big in certain situations. 

So alike Peter pan, we are shown that growing up is inevitable and responsibility has to be taken, even if it is a bumpy ride!

I find it really interesting going back to books and films from childhood and rediscovering the adult themes in them that you would never have noticed before. It makes you wonder do we take these themes on subliminally or are they there to be discovered when we are older. (We only realise when we have grown up..oohhh! Think I'm getting too deep into this!)

I like the contrast shown here of staying young vs growing up, which has spurred me on to look at other contrasts and bring this into a fashion sense. I think this would be a nice theme for kidswear too as it is directly linked. 

And on that note I'll wrap this up as I think I've aged writing this post!
My brain hurts.

Feeling pun-derful!

I love puns. I really do find them hilarious. I always have, but seeing a wooden fish sign at a friend's new house saying 'Seas the day' spurred a weekend filled full of pun-derful moments.
I think I have found my (somewhat nerdy) hidden talent.

From the veggie:

To the animal world:

To the rude but informative:

What's not to love!
I am currently trying to find some way to incorporate puns into my final year collection along with cute animals and vegetables, how hard can it be?!
Anyway I better get back to my book about anti-gravity, I just can't put it down!

Running out of time

One thing I have recently taken up is running. For anyone who knows me I DO NOT run!! Well at least I didn't...I also thought I couldn't which I have happily been proved wrong about! Probably the only time I will admit to being wrong...
Anyway there is a reason for all this extra cardio: me and my sister will be doing the Great North Run for the British Heart Foundation at the start of September. I am currently trying to get my head around that it is HALF A MARATHON, 13 MILES, TO THE MOON AND BACK.
To put it simply: I am scared.
Although training hasn't been as much of a arduous task as I had originally thought, it is in under 3 weeks time and I feel slightly unprepared. Mainly due to the fact it took me most of the allotted training time to pluck up the courage to run actually in the outdoors; as beetroot face, major sweating and fear of being seen took over.
I have since conquered my fears, I can be a lone runner but I will always still believe in safety in numbers; I will never understand why people will honk their horns at me whilst I am flailing and red-faced and in no fit state to shout obscenities back. At least pick me up and drive me home.

My original reason for applying for the Great North Run was for saying I'd completed it (pretty impressive sounding for an original non-runner, add to CV, motivational skills oi oi) and also hoping in the process it would increase my fitness, which it has. But the other huge reason is to raise money for the BHF which are a worthy charity that do amazing work for fighting and researching heart disease.
Hopefully I won't need their services after the race though...

Here is their website:
http://www.bhf.org.uk/

And here is my Just Giving page if you're feeling generous:
https://www.justgiving.com/Anna-Richardson3/

Back in business

So you could say I've been a little slow with these posts, but only because time (over half the year already!) has gone so incredibly fast! Moving home from London, seeing in 2014, getting settled back up north and finishing my third year at uni combined with a whole load of other adventures kind of took over for a bit.
I forgot how much I actually love writing and research for my final major project for my fourth year in Newcastle has prompted me to start it up again.
I can't really say it will be informative or helpful to you at all, I'm just hoping my ramblings will kind of help me discover what avenues to go down within my year long project with Fashion Marketing.
This has actually made me look back at the stuff I've been doing over the last 8 months and it's been pretty great and apart from a busy, slightly stressful(!) last term at uni I've had lots of amazing times travelling, exploring and trying new things with some lovely people!
This year has flown by (time flies yada yada!) Well I had been having a lot of fun but now I'm pretty flippin' bored. So I s'pose boredom has spurred my blog writing...I need a hobby asap.