Appreciation and Self-Comprehension.

It's that time again, another sentimental blog post is here; Appreciation and Self-Comprehension, what do I mean? Well appreciation in general, but more specifically of those around you and the situations available to you, and then Self-Comprehension; understanding ones own changes and positives, and in some ways their negatives in order to improve. I think it's probably best to start with this idea of a better comprehension of oneself, both are really equally connected anyway! So, as humans I think it's fair to say some of our most common traits are self consciousness and a natural sort of blindness to our own behaviour, good or bad. As natural as these traits are they can be rather destructive if they are continuous, if we allow ourselves to become over self-conscious and not realise the potential or positives within us then we not only manage to destroy ourselves in various different ways, but in turn we can often hurts those we care about because of varying reasons. Some of these reasons could be that we envy them for not being self-conscious (whether they are or not is irrelevant, because we can't see it, and in that state, blindness to oneself and others is way too common) We think that we do not deserve them and that we are insignificant in comparison or that they do not like us and are just hiding it (mainly paranoia, but paranoia is often caused by consciousness). For us to carry on life in a conducive and healthy manner we have to take control of these, we have to make sure we treat those we care about in the best way possible (it made be hard while having all these thoughts and ideas about what they might think of you but the truth is they are the main people that can help you out of it) and this is where self-comprehension comes in.
Once in a while, especially if you're feeling depressed or down in any sense of the word it is important to take a moment to comprehend who you are as a person; whether its negative or positive. I've said before in previous posts that realising the good in yourself; whether its big or small is essential to getting better, and it is but if you do not know how to get better and still are feeling negative about yourself, then you need to work out what it is you do not like, if there is quite a few things then narrow them down to 1 or 2 that you feel are actually a problem. Then it only remains to make sure that the problem is a literal problem that will get in the way of interacting with others or in the way of the rest of your life, then simply find a solution to it; it's not always easy but its necessary, whether it takes you a while or not, I can guarantee it is a fantastic feeling to finally fix it, improving these 'negatives' should be handled in a gradual manner as well, slowly find a way to become better, if you rush into changing yourself you could make yourself worse.
I am becoming aware of the length of this post so I'm going to move quickly onto appreciation, this isn't too long because in all honesty it's not particular hard to explain. Basically, when you're in a bad state such as you may be when self-conscious (it applies to most things but, this is one of the most common things) you can often forget about the help those around you actually give you. For example if someone is in a state whether it is volatile and dangerous or relatively passive and merely just a little sad, simply just having good friends who are there to listen or to just distract you without even knowing it (as is often the case) then it is utterly incredible to getting better. Recognise who is there for you, appreciate their existence, and do not lose them. At the same time do not lose yourself in the process of getting better, understand your qualities and probably one of the most important points, and the one I'm going to end on; Do not fear time, things vary, getting better can take years, and similarly it can take mere days.

Gabrielle Aplin - An Underrated Music Genius

Yet again I found myself struggling to think of something to write about, and yet my mind didn't quite click to the fact my day has been a rather Gabrielle Aplin obsessed day, just working, milling around, endlessly strolling through Facebook and watching vines, all of which with the soundtrack of either Paolo Nutini or Gabrielle Aplin, and as much as I love Paolo Nutini, I have so much musical love for Gabrielle Aplin, right now. Every so often I just sit around listening to music, and enjoying the melodic tone of it, but there are days like today where I can do nothing but focus on the lyrics within a song, and appreciate them to their max, look them up and rejoice/cry over their genius. As much as Gabrielle is able to be appreciated as a musician to purely listen to in the background, I think its undeniable that once you hear just what she is saying you will also become even more obsessed than you may have previously been. Seriously this girl, and any other co-writers she works with have such a fantastic mind, the songs More Than Friends, Please Don't Say You Love Me and Salvation are 3 I especially love, here's just an example of how good these lyrics are;

More Than Friends:

"Let's stay awake for hours, just like we did back then. When you draw pictures on my hand in permanent marker pen. We watch the sun go down, but never fee the end. Cause I know the sun and darkness are more than friends" - The song is called More than Friends and to not mention the title until the description of 'Sun and Darkness' as being more than friends is just so lovely, it's a perfect way to write this kind of song without making overly predictable lyrics or cliche things, the song is beautiful and well written.

Please Don't Say You Love Me:

"Just please don't say you love me, cause I might not say it back, doesn't mean my heart stops skipping when you look at me like that, there's no need to worry when you see just where we're at, just please don't say you love me, cause I might not say it back" - I'm not even sure what I like about this in particular, it's just writing dealt with in a such a smooth manner, that makes even the most masculine butch man break down into a little "aww" even if it's inside hidden underneath...deep deep down underneath.

Salvation:

" I never meant to fall for you but I was buried underneath and all I could see was white, my salvation." - Again I'm not 100% sure what it is about this lyric, but it just seems so slick, this person who has fallen without agenda and can only 'see white' their 'salvation' is just perfect and realistic, compared to other overly flowery and a little fairytale-ish songs.

I guess the point in this blog was A) To have another post this week B) To say how much Gabrielle Aplin so awesome and C) To tell anyone who sees this to go and listen to some darn Gabrielle Aplin!! I have to stress these songs are not the only good ones, I have not found one of her songs that hasn't been good, these were just 3 of my favourites. She is utterly brilliant, and her remake of The Power of Love (Featured on John Lewis) shows just how good she is. Awesome. So good.

Til next time ,y'all.

Moving Out and Homeware Shopping

As I continue this blog if you keep reading you will realise that there are 3 types of shopping I really enjoy; Clothes, Entertainment (Books, Music, DVDs) and Home-ware. As I approach the end of the spring term of my freshers year here at Uni, I'm feeling super excited for moving out of campus accommodation and into a house with 3 of my wonderful current flatmates, as I thought of how we were going to be decorating the place to our own styles I realised....my bedroom here is a mess, and I haven't done much to it...this of course  gave me an excuse to shop for home-ware! So I sat on the sofa and looked up B&Q (As there is a shop about 5 minutes walk from us) and specifically looked at storage towers because it was the best thing for keeping my bedroom tidy and organised, once I worked out the stuff I was looking for, myself and my friend (who will be in the new house) headed out to B&Q. It's fair to say we were in our element, I don't go to shops like this too often because in the simplest terms... I never really have an excuse to... And so we walked around, mouths open at the large selection of awesome looking canvas', gimmicky ornaments, lights, storage units, and general decorative thingamajigs, we once again realised just how excited we were to move out and start decorating the new place. So as not to get overly excited with it all we stuck to our original plans which was to focus more on things we could do with now, so I got myself a nice desk lamp (simple black head and silver body) - Lamp: £6 Bulb: £4, a surprisingly large (tall and wide!) storage tower, very minimalistic and very practical, simple black outer frame and transparent boxes which came to £18, an absolute bargain for the size! and after having a look around Tesco for other different things I got some new Duvet covers and pillowcases (because my previous ones didn't close at the end, so silly!) which rounded in at £8! I got home and instantly went upstairs to put it all in place, tidied my bedroom spotlessly, put posters that had fallen down back up and bish bash bosh my bedroom looks lovely again...needless to say I'm still going to be working out and browsing online for things to buy for moving out.AGAIN needless to say I will be posting non stop pictures and writing....mainly pictures of the new house and decorating.