Things to make you think.

Sainbury's, you disappoint me.

I'm feeling too lazy to even bother writing any opinion crap (there's a first for everything), so here are a few things to make you think if any of you are...well, ya know, not thinking...
'Undercover with the young Conservatives' by Laurie Penny
'Graduate Tax: Stop the bullshit'
'Lady Gaga's sexual revolution sees female stars reach for the leather' by Polly Vernon
'Ed Miliband is right…'
'I'm an atheist but this anti-Catholic rhetoric is making me nervous' by Padraig Reidy
Nice bit of variety for you lovelies :)

Being "girly"

If you're male and you're reading this you probably want to stop in case I bore your face off with crappy girly words. You've been warned.

I've always been slightly obsessed with things that are girly. Not in an "omg everything I own should be pink" kind of way, I'm not insane (and I'm not that big a fan of pink). Instead, my way of being obsessed with girly has been, either really avoiding being girly or, really liking being girly. I've wanted to write this blog for quite a while, mainly because I've always had rather a warped idea of femininity and writing about this sort of thing always helps me. I think it's only in the last 6 months that I've actually sorted my idea of femininity out. I think a lot, I've gathered I'm weird. Shush.

When I was 15 I wore baggy jeans, t-shirts, thick black eye-liner, had a massive emo fringe and wore hoodies with stupid badges on. I was pretty sure my parents either thought I was a lesbian, a social reject or both. Everyone I knew was 'quirky' and I was a proper geek. Femininity was so the last thing I wanted to have, mainly because I thought femininity meant all I wanted to do in life was attract guys and be all "let's paint our nails, giggle and watch rom-coms". Basically, I associated femininity with being ditzy.

When I went to college I met some of the best people, people who wore skirts and dresses. Oh how they saved me. I also met quite a few guys who were very in to the whole "women should be good housewives, look after the children and basically have no lives" idea. Seriously, where was my college, the fucking 1950s? Why didn't I just hit them instead of taking this all on-board and ruining my self-esteem and brain for a good(/stupid) 3 years? Anyway, I was easily influenced and I decided that I hated feminism, and that I totally wanted the 2.4 children, loving husband, and the white picket fence (I'm currently feeling a little sick writing this). Mission: Become More Girly was in operation. I was pretty shit at it to be honest, I'm not into looking really groomed all the time. By the time the end of sixth form appeared I was completely different to 15 year old Sophie. Some people had never seen me in trousers, ever. This was now normal. I was totally on the way to the 1950s, except ya know...I was going to university and all that 'having rights' shit. Pretty good shit, really.

Going to uni meant a few things.
- Being lumbered with feminists.
- Being lumbered with people who thought being a housewife would be boring.
- Being lumbered with girls who were smart AND feminine (clearly freaks).

No matter what age you are, being feminine is something women worry about. I know that I still worry about it, and this is me, a girl with long hair, always painted nails, I do the girliest subject at uni and I wear dresses and skirts everyday. I'm a proper girl (don't take that proper as in people who don't do that aren't girls, that would make you an idiot for reading it that way). However, I do wonder, if I just stopped doing all that would I still be girly? Would I even care? It slightly depresses me, because I'd massively care and I've no idea why. Some feminists make out that wearing make-up and spending time on grooming is just ridiculous, it's another way of keeping women 'down'. I don't think that things that are classed as 'girly' should necessarily be a weakness, why can't we just embrace these things rather than accusing them of being harmful to feminism?

Seriously, I'm all for sharing this girly shit, a lot of men could seriously do with some make-up.

Life.

We broke up. We're back together. Everything is fine.

After the election I was extremely pissed off at everything and anything to do with politics. Mainly for the following reasons;

1. People who had no interest in politics were suddenly bombarding me with their opinions that they formed in the space of 5 minutes.
2. I have no ability to tune out of certain things, the election was one of those things. I also have a great love of Twitter, Facebook etc. and therefore couldn't escape hearing (/reading) the same arguments over and over again.
3. The more I read the more I decided I didn't know what I thought. This got really annoying.

Now it is mid-August. The election was literally months ago and I think, now that the coalition has been in charge for nearly a hundred days, I can finally get back in to reading about politics again. All my friends reading this will either be like "yay, we can chat about this" or "oh god no, she's NEVER going to shut up about political shit". I'm sorry for those of you in the latter group. Just tell me to shush, I promise to try. Being quiet has hardly been one of my strong points though, has it?

So yes, tonight I spent a good three hours reading blogs and catching up on everything (okay, not everything, as that would require more than three hours and probably a lot more tea breaks), but now I'm back in my bubble. My nice safe bubble of political awareness. Which will probably be popped soon enough, there's a copy of Saturday's Daily Mail in the front room, I might just go pop my bubble myself.

Grr.

Surprises and Spontaneity.

I love going places, it doesn't even have to be far, I just like wandering around and soaking up that general "I'm not in my house, woo, I'm so adventurous" feeling. This weekend I travelled down to Oxford for my Gran's 75th Birthday party. It was a complete surprise, as she hates people making a fuss about her, but we did it anyway, clearly we don't care about her hatred of surprise. She seemed happy enough :).

After spending a day and a night in the little place of Fyfield I ventured in to Oxford to get the Oxford Tube to London. £11 for a student single ticket, bargain! I only decided I was going to go to London a couple of days before, I just fancied a mini-trip somewhere. I started reading my new book the day before, it's so funny. Definitely recommend, it's like Horrible History for adults. I went to Lawrence's and saw The Karate Kid, which was surprisingly really good! Had a 1940s-esque dinner and played lots of games on Sporcle before getting a relatively early night, I was so shattered after my millions (/2) early mornings.

Left Lawrence's early afternoon on Monday to meet Hannah at Euston. We planned to get a light lunch and meet Mark in a park, Regent's Park to be exact. I got this sparkling grape & elderflower drink from Pret and it was actually too amazing. I could just drink it forever. Blackpool, why do you not have a Pret?!?! Ridiculous town. You don't have a Wagamama either, I'm basically living in the Stone Age. We chatted and ate in Regent's Park with Mark before he had to bugger off back to North London. Hannah and I ended up walking to Covent Garden, purely to avoid the tube as it was 5.30 and we didn't have a death wish. Had dinner in Wagamama, both Hannah and I ordered all of the same things, EXACTLY, which is slightly embarrassing, but makes it rather easy when it comes to splitting the bill.

Lovely sunny day in Regent's Park <3

I love spontaneous trips.

Inventions.

Sometimes I do things and think "Why has no one ever done this before, it's pure genius?!" I have these moments on a regular basis, only to find out that everybody does them and apparently I'm just way behind. One example that sticks in my head is when I discovered you could use a cotton bud dipped in nail polish remover to get rid of any polish you accidentally got on your skin. I told my friends (I was really excited at my amazing discovery) and I received a look like I'd just told them I went to the toilet all my grown-up self. Turns out everyone does that with their cotton buds.

I will be on Dragons' Den. I WILL.

Even if it's just to hear Duncan Bannatyne say my idea is "ludicrous".

I still think Bannatyne is looking smokin' for his age. Yep, I just said smokin'.

(Has anyone else been watching the new series of Dragon's Den? Is it just me is James Caan being really really weird? I know he had that whole non-dom debate with Duncan Bannatyne, but that can't be the reason for his quietness. Weird man. Look out for his weirdness when you watch it next.)