Here I am

It's so great to be home, it has been quite a first term at uni! After an enormous and ongoing dilemma involving only myself (as strange as that sounds), I have decided to keep going as it is all pretty fab overall. The course is fantastic so far, the place is lovely and I have friends, so I'm just going to keep going, at least for this academic year.

We have our usual crazy Christmas tree (it looks even more wild this year, I swear...) with many presents building up underneath. It's our youngest doggy's first Christmas, so there'll even be a couple of little presents under the tree for both him and the other dog. :) (I saw a Christmas card the other day; specifically to give to a dog... yeah, I wouldn't go that far!) There were some fantastic deals in the Black Friday sales, so I managed to get some really special gifts for "next to nowt", as my mum would say. Perfect!

I have started wrapping, and whilst I've bought a couple of sheets of new wrapping-paper, there's lots I possess which have been used before: instead of throwing them away, I've held onto the nice bits and will reuse them. Okay, I'm a [PROUD] tree-hugger, there is no denying that, but take a moment to think about it if you don't already: as well as less energy being used (as the paper isn't recycled or whatever after only one use), it saves money too. I've also kept a few of those paper bags which gifts are sometimes placed into when you buy presents in shops, and I intend to have a go at using the paper for giftwrapping. (Ahhh, I also have these cute Christmas stickers, from Paperchase, to stick onto the 'gift wrap' too!)

(*Pondering* Perhaps I'll talk a bit about consumerism in a later post... it's an interesting idea we've looked at in Sociology which I'd always taken for granted, I think.)

Anywho, bringing this to a close, I wish to blog a little over the next three weeks. However (alas), what I wish myself to do and what I actually do is an extremely different matter. We shall see. Farewell for now!

Changes

Change is something which I have been thinking about a lot recently. Results day is approaching. I begin university in just over a month. College has finished. Youth orchestra is nearly over for me.

Some changes are quite gradual, such as development of one's personal style, a musical crescendo or perhaps even illnesses of some of the patients who I have worked with at my local hospice; some of these people have illnesses which have developed over years.

I've known people with depression to talk about the mental illness as something that has crept up on them too: you just sort of get on with doing what you 'should' be doing as part of your everyday life. Endeavouring to not feel depressed, or to not show signs of being depressed. I guess it's inevitable that changes are (always?) revealed sooner or later, whether it's regarding a physical illness like cancer or a mental illness like an anxiety disorder, for example.

Other changes feel more sudden, like when leaving school. At the click of your fingers it's just... over. Is it just me, or is there that feeling that while you're actually there, it feels like there's ages until school will finish forever? It's almost like the day you finish will never come... until you actually get there!

There's not particularly a point I want to make here, I'm just trying to create a beginning to this blog by having a little ponder. Welcome to the world of Innocent Owl on Blogspot, by the way! :p