thoughts about life

My Blogging Resolutions

I’m attempting to take part and complete Blogmas again this year. I know the posts during Blogmas are supposed to be Christmas/Holiday related, and mine will have some of those (there’s going to be Christmas film reviews every weekend till Christmas!) but I also take it as a challenge to write and post about anything for 25 days.

So today is going to be about my blogging New Years resolutions. I’ll talk about my film and book-related goals of 2020 in early January, but I thought now was a good idea to talk about my blog, what I like about it, and what I want to improve.

My main blogging resolution is to be better at commenting – both replying to comments I receive and seeking out and commenting on different posts. It can take me weeks and sometimes even months(!) to reply to the comments people leave on my blog and I’m so sorry about that. Sometimes I’m just forgetful. I see the notification and read the comment then think “Oh that’s a lovely thought/question, I must reply to that when I’m not doing X” but then I forget. Then sometimes I leave it so long to reply to a comment it becomes a whole thing like should I actually reply when the person left the comment like a month ago or would that be weird?!

In the end I do reply, or like the comment, because I think every comment deserves a response because someone’s taken the time to leave their thoughts on my post. So, here is where I say sorry to my readers and commenters who I leave hanging for far too long. I will aim to do much better in 2020 and I’m going to set the goal of replying to comments within a week of receiving them. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

I shan’t lie, I’m really bad at the community aspect of blogging. I started my blog for me, to get writing again and to share my thoughts on stuff. I’ve never been great at reading other peoples posts about things. I think part of that is I don’t read reviews of books/films I plan to read/watch before I’ve had a chance to read/watch them. I like to go into a story knowing as little as possible so avoid reviews of the media I know I’m already interested in and am making plans to engage with. When it comes to books/films I haven’t heard of or have no interested in, I don’t mind reading those reviews – because you never know, I could then become interested and seek that book/film out. So if/when I do read these posts, I really should start commenting more, even if it’s just like “Ooh I hadn’t heard of this before but it sounds great! I’ll check it out.”

Other posts out there like wrap ups, favourites lists, or more general posts I do read more often (though again, not often interact with) because that’s where people can share a couple of lines about why they did or didn’t like something without being spoilery and it can be enough to grab my attention. It is becoming clear that I’m quite the spoilerphobe.

I think I’m going to set myself the challenge to comment on just two posts a day, if I do more than that then great but it’s got to be at least two. Like anything in life, it’s habit-forming and I need to break out of this quite insular bubble I’ve got when it comes to blogging.

My final kinda blogging resolution is not to be so hard on myself when I won’t meet self-imposed deadlines or schedules. For the nearly 5 years I’ve been consistently posting on this blog, I’ve said that there will be a film review on Mondays and a book review (or something book-related) on Thursdays. For the most part I stick to this, but it does kinda stress me out when I haven’t finished a book by Thursday, or I haven’t watched many films or one that I want to write about that week to post on Monday.

Towards the end of this year I’ve been missing the odd day and guess what? My blog didn’t self-combust! I like having a schedule because I like the routine and having goals to meet, but I also shouldn’t stress about it so much. I’m sure people aren’t noticing when there’s only one post one week instead of two, and even if they do, they don’t hate me for it or anything.

So, to sum up, my blogging resolutions are:
1. Respond to comments I receive within a week of receiving them
2. Comment on two different blog posts a day
3. Don’t get worried if I miss a self-imposed blogging deadline as this is supposed to be fun!

Quite simple and supposedly easy blogging resolutions that I will hopefully be able to stick to, and in doing so, will make my blogging experience more fun, stress-free and more community focused.

Do you have any blogging resolutions? If so, I’d love to hear them, and I’ll respond within in a week even though it’s not 2020 and my resolutions haven’t official kicked in yet!

Over 500 followers! Thank you!

I have over 500 followers now, in fact it’s very close to 550, and I just wanted to say a quick thank you to all you people out there who’ve clicked that follow button or who just generally read my posts. It means a lot.

I actually passed the 500-follower mark a while ago, maybe a month ago now, but life’s been busy so I haven’t really had the chance to say thanks. Thank you for following, thank you for commenting and sharing and liking my posts. Thank you for coming to my little corner of the internet and sharing your opinions. While I may be slow at replying to comments, I do enjoy reading them and interacting with you all.

I thought I’d use this post to share my plans for my blog, the last time I did this was when I hit 100 followers and my plans haven’t changed much since then to be honest. I’m going to continue to post a film review on Mondays and a book review on Thursdays (I like how it shows off my interests equally and I like the spacing between days) and I think it would be cool to post at least semi-regularly on Saturdays. Though I’m not sure what the topic of those posts would be so we shall see how that goes or how inspiration strikes me. My stats have gone up significantly this year and I’m not sure why that is. Maybe it’s because of my MCU rewatch reviews (that was extra content I was posting every Saturday and I did like how I had more posts on my blog each week) so I could post more Marvel-related stuff – I could talk about some of my favourite characters for days. It’s a thought.

I also wanted to use this post to ask you my dear readers, whether you are old or new, if there’s something you’d like to see me write about or feature here. Do let me know any ideas you might have for posts or if there’s something you’d like my opinion on. I won’t guarantee I’ll do any, or all, of your suggestions, but it would be cool to see people’s thoughts. Also I occasionally take part in Top Ten Tuesday and Top 5 Wednesday and am always keen to hear about similar features, bookish or otherwise, as I think it’s a great way for me to discover new blogs.

Finally, thank you again for following this here blog. I can’t quite fathom how many people follow my blog or visit it every week and from all across the world too. It’s wonderful. I enjoy blogging and don’t plan on stopping any time soon, so I hope you won’t get bored of me.

L is for London

I love London. I went to university at the end of the Metropolitan and Piccadilly line so was less than an hour away from central London for four years. It was great. Even though I’ve always lived about an hour and twenty minutes’ train ride away from London, I never used to go up there that often till I was at Uni. Now some of my best friends live in London so I’m often heading up there to see them for the weekend.

While at Uni I’d go shopping on Oxford Street, head to Westfields for the day, go to see films at the BFI film festival in Leicester Square, and I’d just love to wander around the streets and find new and interesting things. I think my favourite place in and around London (so far) is Soho, I just love wandering those streets and finding cool shops or cafes, though Uxbridge still has a weird yet special place in my heart as it was my home-from-home for four years.

I used to work in London, kind of in between Old Street and Farringdon, and a couple of times there was a tube strike so I’d walk from London Bridge to the office and it was really nice crossing the river, and seeing the everyday parts of the city I wouldn’t normally see when sitting on the tube.

I love doing touristy things in London and I love seeing and doing the stuff only locals know about. I think it’s great living so relatively close to a capital city. I can go to shows in the evenings and still get home, I can go out with friends and then get the last train home. Not to still a phrase from Hannah Montana but living a bit over an hour away from London really is the best of both worlds.

F is for Feminism

I am a feminist. I believe in the equal rights and opportunities for both women and men, it’s something that should be common sense but often isn’t. There can be problems with feminism or with white feminists who tend to forget about women of colour or trans women but I firmly believe that as a movement it will get better as more people become aware of the problems and try to fix them.

I think feminism, and feminists, can be flawed but everyone is still learning and can improve. I love reading feminist literature from different writers to get different peoples points of view to help me inform my own opinion.

I’ve read feminist books like Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay, Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit and Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates and found them all interesting and anger-inducing (because of the injustices and stupid things talked about) and I have a load of other feminist books on my TBR. I think reading and hearing about other people’s experiences helps you grow as a person and become more well-rounded and even excepting of others.

Saying you’re a feminist on the internet can put a bit of a target on your back but I’ve been lucky enough to meet some amazing and likeminded people through it. Sometimes I feel saying you’re a feminist is shorthand for saying you’re an accepting person who wants a better society, or at least that’s my experience so far.

In short, I love being a feminist and I love feminism – especially intersectional feminism.

Alzheimer’s and Me

In three weeks I will be taking part in the Memory Walk in Brighton to raise money for Alzheimer’s Society and to raise awareness for the disease. If you’d like to sponsor me, you can do so here. But this isn’t just a post begging for money, I also wanted to talk about why I’m doing the walk and how Alzheimer’s has been a part of my life for almost ten years.

Dementia is the broad term for a persistent disorder of the mental processes that are caused by brain disease, like Alzheimer’s disease, or a brain injury and that causes memory problems, personality changes and impaired reasoning.

My grandad got diagnosed with dementia when I was fifteen. While there had been various instances that we were all noticing leading up to the diagnosis, when we look back now we can see that things hadn’t been right years before but no doctor or anyone had said there was anything wrong. Looking back, my grandad had a couple of strokes when I was very young, only about six or seven, and when he was in the hospital bed he’d say there was a bird sitting on the end of it or there were rabbits running around the ward. We all found it funny and as he was otherwise fine and had no physical problems from the stroke we all thought nothing of it. Now we think that that might have been a sign of dementia but then we were unaware that such things as dementia and Alzheimer’s even existed.

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed over the past ten years is that dementia and Alzheimer’s are words used much more frequently, before my granddad was actually diagnosed doctors just said it was a man getting old.

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Thoughts on… Moving House

I am now technically homeless. Let me explain, yesterday everything was completed on the sale of my family home and we don’t have a property to move into until the middle of April so we’re now staying with family friends till then.

This whole moving house thing has been a bit chaotic and (for my mum at least) pretty stressful. The only time I have moved house before (not counting the four years I was at University so it was just a portion of my stuff moving each year) was when my parents split up when I was nine. When we moved into our new home (the one we’ve now just left) we just had all of mums belongings, my belongings and bedroom furniture, and a dining table, chairs and matching cabinet we got off a family friend. So we basically moved in with a small van. (more…)

Why I Love… My Mum

Today is Mother’s Day in the UK so I thought I’d use this time to talk about why I love my mum so much.

I could be cheesy and say that my mum is my best friend and I suppose in some ways she is. I like to think we are not the super cheesy mother and daughter relationship that’s all over Facebook – I knew a girl from Uni who had that sort of a relationship with her mum and it just would be a bit weird after a while seeing another comment on all Facebook statuses and photos but if that’s how it works for them, fair enough. My mum is friends with me on Facebook mostly because of when I first went to university and it was just a precaution really in case I hadn’t text or phoned or emailed her in a while, she could have a look at Facebook and see when I last posted a status or when photos of when I last went out with my new friends were uploaded. She’s never commented or liked anything and we both worked well with that system of her just be able to check up on me but not really get into in that part of my life. (more…)

Thoughts on… Why Hogwarts Houses are so Important to People

So if you’ve been on social media/the internet this past week you’ll have seen that Pottermore has relaunched and you can get sorted into your House again. The questions are still the same as before, it’s just the pretty graphics that have changed. This has led to some people being a bit shocked/surprised/upset/confused as they have been sorted into a different House to the one they were in previously. That’s what happened to me anyway.

Let me go back to what Hogwarts House I always thought I was. I started reading the books age 9 and I always thought I’d be Ravenclaw. I admit, that a part of that might have come from the fact that Ravenclaw’s main colour was blue and that was my favourite colour, but it also was true because I liked to think I was smart, I loved reading and learning everything about a subject that I was passionate about. As the years went on and there were various “Which Hogwarts House Are You?” quizzes online, pretty much every single time I got Ravenclaw.

Pottermore first launched in 2009 and I never really used it, I just signed up to see what House I’d be in and what wand I got (I can’t even remember what wand I got though I think there was some dragon in it somewhere). I didn’t get a Pottermore account straight away so you could say it was about five years ago that I took the Sorting Quiz. When I took it for the first time I was sorted into Gryffindor and I have to say that did freak me out a bit. Gryffindor’s are “the brave at heart” and are “daring, nerve, and chivalrous” and while they are admirable qualities, they weren’t the ones that I thought really summed me up – for one thing I really didn’t see myself as brave.

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TOP TEN TUESDAY: Top Ten Goals I Have For 2016

Top Ten Tuesday is a feature run by BrokeAndBookish each week – I’m thinking I might not take part every week but just see if a week takes my fancy. It’s the start of a new year! How 2015 has flown by! Now I’m not always the greatest at making and sticking with my resolutions, I think I managed to keep half of my resolutions last year, so let’s see what happens in 2016.

Continue to post at least once a week.
This year I’ve been doing really well with my blog and have posted at least once every week and, when it comes to what I’m posting, that leads me on to my next resolution…

Post at least one review a week.
Now I have been doing this and generally I’ve set it up that on Monday’s there’s a film review and on Thursday’s there’s a book review. If I read/watch a lot there’s sometimes extra reviews not on those dates but I’d like to try and stick to that schedule as long as I’m still reading and watching stuff that I have enough feelings about that I then want to review it.

Continue to read diversely.
In 2015 I did pretty well in reading a whole range of genres and the the authors I read was pretty much a 50/50 split between men and women, with slightly more female author. I’d like to continue doing that and make a conscious effort to read books from authors of colour. You can check out a summary of my reading in 2015 here. (more…)

Elena Square Eyes

Thoughts of a film fan, reader and geek