I'm in Luton, biatches!

Yeah, you heard me alright! This bird has flown the coop once again back to the land of university! I'm incredibly excited to see what the second year has in store for me... Hopefully it won't be too difficult ;)

It's been amazing to catch up with all of my Luton buddies, especially now the esteemed James (a.k.a. Hamez, Hazza P, Dr. Who... etc. :P) has joined me at the world of Cine! :D my new house is fabulous, although I have to admit, it was rather messy when I first arrived... Thanks, Ben & Kelly! xD But everything was soon fixed, and now I've settled in just fine! :D

I also have two brand new additions to my family - two absolutely gorgeous little Russian Dwarf hamsters! :D here they are, warming up to their new home:



Aren't they just the cutest things ever? The light grey one is called Otis, and the darker one is called Spud, courtesy of my lovely boyfriend! :P

Ugh, I've got work in about three hours. But I'm not complaining really - I'm actually looking forward to spending time with my work buddies! And then the awesomeness that is Rosie Khan is going to stay over at my new place tonight once I'm finished at work! It should be a good laugh! Although, I've failed to tell her that she's banned from drinking coffee while she's here. She's probably going to kill me now, the little caffeine addict that she is! :P mwahaha!

That's all from me for now. I'll keep you updated on my course over the next few weeks! :D yay!

Peace out, fellow freakazoids. <3

Never take life for granted.

That's something I've realised more than ever during the last couple of days.

The world lost a beautiful soul in Catie Glennon this weekend. She was such a bubbly, outgoing and fun person to be around, with so much potential. She was just going into her third year at UoB... such a waste of a young life. Although I wasn't an incredibly close friend of hers, I knew her well - not only did we attend the same university and share friends in common, but we also worked together for a number of months at Cineworld. It's crazy to think that we were often mixed up if people saw us from the back, yet now she's no longer among us. I've got a distinct memory of her from one evening at work - I'd taught Natalie, another fellow colleague, how to make origami cranes. As we made them together whilst sitting behind the box office, Catie and manager Adam Rose came over. After a few strange looks and remarks, we all ended up singing "The Bird is the Word" whilst dancing in true Peter Griffin fashion. The Catie in that particular moment is the Catie I'll always remember. Rest in peace, and I hope you're in a much better place now. xxx

Howdy ho!

Why must I always leave it so long in-between blog posts? Ah wait... that's it. I'm just so forgetful haha! :P
I've just noticed I finally have my first follower... Thank you Becca Taylor! :P it's nice to know someone is reading these, haha. So what's new with me? Well, for a start... I'm no longer a fresher at the University of Bedfordshire! :D I can't believe a whole academic year has passed already! Ok, so it's not as long as a school's academic year, but hey... it still counts! :D I've really enjoyed my first year as a journalist and I hope I continue to enjoy it in the next two years. :) I'm looking forward to going back to Ashford for the summer, but I'm really going to miss my Lutonian buddies from both uni and work! :(
I'm really excited about this weekend, though - I'm going to the Capital FM Summertime Ball with Lewis on Sunday! :D so many artists are playing throughout the day so it's all very exciting! I can't wait :D Speaking of Lewis, I'm waiting for him to arrive in Luton at the minute. He should be here soon... I hope :P
I handed in my last assignment for the year on Tuesday morning, which was a massive burden off of my shoulders to be honest! My sister came up to Luton for a few days to stay over too, which was lovely - we enjoyed our time together! "Who invited you?" :P
Tomorrow is my second to last shift at Cineworld Luton for four whole months :( although I love my buddies back in Ashford's Cineworld, I'm really going to miss the friends I've made up here! They're all so great to work with and so much fun :)
Hmm, I think Lewis should be here within about fifteen minutes. I'd better leave this one here for now :P

Until next time, fellow grammar freaks! ;)

(Although, maybe you aren't grammar freaks. In which case, I've just made myself look like a complete numpty. I'm just going to shut up now. :P)





...love you all ;)

Well well well...

Hasn't it been such a long time since I last blogged eh? Hmm... rather a lot has happened since November to be honest! So here I go. ;)

December came around and we had a little Christmas party here in Flat E. The emphasis being on "little", as not many people actually turned up. Ah well... there was more food for us, so I can't complain! :P Of course, I went back to Ashford for three weeks during the Christmas period, which was lovely - I got to catch up with all my family, friends and old work colleagues! Although I must say, the journey home and the journey back to Luton in January were not at all fun... the heavy snowfall in the UK just happened to occur over BOTH of my travelling dates. Argh! I survived though. Just. ;)

And then we move on to January... ugh, possibly one of the worst months of my life so far! I came down with glandular fever as soon as I got back to Luton and was ill throughout the whole month. I even had to go back home for two weeks while I recovered - consequently, I missed out on quite a bit of university work and ended up having to live on £85 for a whole month due to my absence at work. Boo! :(

Fortunately, I recovered just in time for my 19th birthday, and travelled back to Luton that evening... but not before celebrating a little with my family, of course! :P I received loads of lovely cards and prezzies from everyone, and Lewy got me tickets for a day out in London and to go on the London Eye - something I've always wanted to do but never have done! I can't wait until the summer when we can finally use them! :D thank you everyone! :D

February was really a hectic month by my standards. I had a lot of work to catch up on, and I was in a race to get back to work so I could actually earn some money. Living off £85 for a whole month proved to be extremely difficult, but I managed it! It also occured to me a few weeks ago that I actually really like living in Luton. Sure, the place has its rough edges, but what towns and cities don't? I've got so many great friends here, I love my university course (shorthand and all :P), my work colleagues make my working days fun... I could go on, but I'm not about to sit here and bore you all. :P

One more exciting thing happened this month... I managed to get a house for next year with Ben and Kelly! :D I can't wait to move in, it's really spacious for three people and we've all got double beds... which is something I really miss from home! It also means that I won't have to suffer the damned fire alarm going off at unsavoury hours of the night anymore... YAY :D

Right, I think that's everything covered. Hope to speak to you all again soon! :D

Lauren xx

Festivity in the air!

I felt a need to write something this evening, so here I am tapping away again to you guys. It's become so cold here in Luton over the past week, so much that I'm actually starting to feel a bit festive! Prematurely for some maybe, but who cares? A friend of mine who's at university in Brighton has already put her Christmas decorations up. Now that's dedication. :P Saying that though, her term finishes a week before mine does... I don't break up until the 18th December! It's slightly annoying, because all my friends will have been home for a week already whilst I'm still here working hard... :( although, it DOES mean I get an extra week to finish off my assignments. I can't say that it won't be useful. :P

I'm really looking forward to going home for Christmas... I get to spend some quality time with my family, friends... and my lovely boyfriend of course! :D I'll be transferring back to Ashford's Cineworld for a few weeks too, which will be nice - it gives me a chance to catch up on all the gossip! :P hehe.

Next week, Ben and I are planning to go out and buy Christmas decorations and put them all up in our kitchen. It's going to be great fun and I can't wait! It's just a shame I've got to get this 2000 word essay done before that... ahh well. I've written essays just as long before! And admittedly, in less than three weeks... ooops. :P

I've become addicted to playing Super Mario Galaxy on my Wii just recently. For those of you who have never played it before, I suggest you go and pick up a copy! That is, if you own a Wii of course... :P but anyway, it's seriously addictive and will have you playing for hours! Well, at least until you get so frustrated with not being able to jump at that crucial moment to get the Star, and turn off your Wii in a mad rage. I haven't done that before... honestly! :P

Until next time folks. ;)

It's been a while...

Good morning fellow bloggers! (Haha, that's me being hopeful. :P)

I know I haven't posted here for a while, and that's due to a number of reasons:

1. I'm always at work... or it certainly seems that way! I'm rather a busy bee. :P
2. I've been ill with sinusitis in the last week, which has sucked :( I'm feeling a lot better now though! :D

...Ok, so I couldn't think of anymore reasons. Dammit xD
So yeah, I've been really ill in the last week! It's been awful to be honest, and I've missed a lot of lectures :( but hey, there's always time for me to catch up. It was only a week's worth! I went home half way through last week and went to see my doctor, who gave me the antibiotics and stuff that I needed.
Aside from my personal life, which has mainly consisted of seeing my boyfriend a LOT (yay! :D), I've started to become very excited about next year... because my favourite music artist, Darren Hayes, has been recording a new album, and it's finished! :D Now he's just got to mix the new album in the new year. Eeeeeee! :D You can watch his vlogs here. I really wish I was going to his New Year's Eve show in London, but being a student and all, I couldn't afford it when the tickets came out... :( typically, since getting my job at Cineworld, I've actually been earning rather a lot and probably would be able to afford it now! Oh well, I expect he'll tour again soon. :D he's simply amazing live!
It's got so cold here in Luton in the last few weeks, to the extent where just wearing my coat over my t-shirt isn't enough! It's kinda irritating having to wear gloves out aswell, especially when you go out to do shopping. Last week Lewis took me to a nearby Tesco (which is too far away to walk back with loads of shopping bags!) and we used the self service tills. Because I still had my gloves on, he managed to put his Clubcard through first and nab the points I'd earned because the touch screen didn't respond to my gloved fingertips. I'll remember that one next time! :P

I think I'll leave it there for today. Hopefully I won't abandon you all for so long this time! (you know, just nicase anyone does actually read this. :P)

Visits from two lots of emergency services in one day? Blimey...

Carrying on from the other day when I told you about the girl who collapsed in my lecture, we had another visit from the emergency services later on... from the fire brigade!

It was about 9.30pm; Lewis (that's my boyfriend, I can't remember if I mentioned his name in my last post) and I were enjoying eachother's company, all snuggled up together... then we got rudely interrupted by the fire alarm sounding! Eurgh, when you're half asleep it doesn't help either, it was so loud... haha. So anyway, off we all trundled down the stairs and we stood outside in the freezing cold for about half an hour... lovely! When the alarm initially went off, Ben (one of my flat-mates) was in his dressing gown, but he quickly got dressed again. I can't blame him really, I don't think I would have liked the embarrasment of being left out on the streets in my dressing gown. :P

So the fire brigade turned up after about 5 minutes and interrogated the top floor (where the smoke was coming from) and discovered that some silly person had obviously left their dinner in the microwave too long - consequently, it had caught fire. After about 20 minutes of smoke-tackling, they emerged with the remains of the microwave in their hands... a burnt-out, smelly black box. Considering we had to buy our own microwaves in here (the university didn't provide them for us) I hope it didn't cost them too much money! Somehow I think the culprit might be paying for the next one... :P

Fire accidents aside, Lewis and I had a lovely evening together, and my cooking was a success! Woohoooo :D I'm going back to Ashford this weekend too, which I'm really looking forward to! :D now I've just got to get through my 4 hours of lectures tomorrow... and my 8 and a half hour shift at work tonight >.< I work at Cineworld, by the way. I don't get the best pay in the world, but I get plenty of work to keep me afloat for the week, so I can't complain! The people who work here in the Luton branch are lovely too, which helps... even though I do miss my Cineworld Ashford friends a lot sometimes! :(

Right, I think it's time for me to go and make some lunch. Catch you guys later! :D