Don't walk under a ladder or...

Now here in the UK you must have been living under a rock your whole life if you haven't heard the expression 'touch wood'. It's a way of counteracting 'bad luck' or 'jinxing' something and often happens after someone has said something such as 'It hasn't rained in a while... touch wood' and then they proceed to actually find some wood/their own head for the comical value, to knock with their hand :') Anyway I thought about these common superstitions and odd bits of human life and decided to write this blog post on some little superstitious ideas and beliefs. I for one would like to say I am an avid believer in Karma, what goes around comes around so to speak. I find it is incredibly useful to believe in Karma when you're in dire situations if someone has conducted them, someone who will later bring around 'bad karma' on themselves. I recently had a situation occur which was not my fault in any way and I would say that believing that nothing good would come out of the situation for the other people involved really helped me get through it. It was a tough time for me and I felt wronged as it was a situation which really affected me but was brought on by someone I was very close to and it was hurtful. Because of this I also began to think about how Karma couldn't possibly be real because bad things happen to good people all the time, death, illness, debt... The list goes on. However I did come to the conclusion that I only believed in 'every action has an equal and opposite reaction' and if you are a good person and do many good things, you will reap the rewards of that in a positive way, but if a disaster happens to you then it is natural, it was always going to happen. Even if you were a terrible terrible person, I would never wish death and illness upon your family, only an event to the same magnitude that you had provoked on someone else, but never on their innocent family member. So yes my beliefs may be all good and true for me until something upsets the balance and I no longer believe in the idea of 'Karma', but right now it's useful to think about balance. 

Now that all that's out the way I also want to talk about medical and physical ideas of balance that I have recently learnt and used a lot of this year. Earlier this year, around 9 months ago, I was diagnosed with a medical condition called 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome'. I'm not going to go into it as it's rather boring and pretty much the most pointless illness ever :') Don't worry, I'm far past the worst of it, I'm merely bringing it up as there is no cure but during my worst part of it I tried out different methods of hopefully lessening the symptoms. I did a lot of research online and found out that CFS could actually be helped by the ancient art of 'acupuncture'. For those of you that don't know what acupuncture is, it is where a trained acupuncturist basically puts little needles into certain parts of your body to disrupt the energy flow onto the correct path. I had around 5 or 6 sessions of acupuncture over a period of a few weeks, each time the distance between the sessions getting longer, and each time I was there I asked my acupuncturist Lisa many questions about the art of acupuncture. She was very informative and I would definitely recommend her if anyone reading this actually lived near me :') Unfortunately as that was several months ago now, I couldn't tell you everything she told me but if you're interested then feel free to google it :)

Anyway, there is a lot of superstition about acupuncture and its 'nonsense', 'how could needles heal anyone?' I choose firmly to believe it has great effects on the human body as one of the major problems of CFS is the very low energy and extreme fatigue you have to cope with solidly and as acupuncture is to generate the flow of energy around your body, I found it extremely beneficial to my health and found myself 'craving' more, haha that sounds weird... But yes it really did help, and in fact my acupuncturist also suffers with bouts of CFS and used to work in engineering before being an acupuncture patient herself and deciding to switch careers and help other people. I chose to bring this up as a lot of my friends were like 'hmmm Em, I don't think it's going to do any good, they're just needles... I couldn't do it.' which of course was extremely helpful... but ACTUALLY it doesn't hurt that much as the needles are incredibly fine and pretty bendy as well! Even though a lot of my friends didn't believe in the 'voodoo' of acupuncture, I swear it benefited me greatly, even if it was purely because I believed in it. I had it all through my GCSE's as I could barely revise.

The point of this post was not for 'pity', not that you'd pity someone with CFS as it's pretty boring, but I was supposed to have another acupuncture session today to help with my condition through the winter months, but due to circumstances that's not going ahead :( Acupuncture is fantastic for all sorts of ailments such as chronic pain and even diseases! I would highly recommend it and also other practices such as acupressure. Recently we had a 'health day' in sixth form and due to my CFS I did find the exercise very difficult to do and I did push myself too far... bad Emma :P But we also had a lady come in and talk about Indian Head massages and acupressure. She was a German woman and had been living in England for quite a few years and opened her own practice. She taught us how to perform very relaxing Indian Head massages on others and I can still remember how to do it now! :D It was really good but the oddest thing happened to me... Ordinarily, Indian Head massages are supposed to relax you to the point of near sleep, one girl in our session even fainted, but for me it had the opposite effect as I was already tired! It was the weirdest thing! For once, everyone else was far more tired than I was and I had more energy than I had had in MONTHS which erm, ended up with me sort of being a bit dumb and using LOTS of energy in the next exercise we did and tiring myself out completely, but yeah we won't go into that... nice one. But you get the idea, I'm weird and things that relax other people make me go hyper :') I went and questioned her after the session and she told me that it was probably due to an acupressure point that my friend was disturbing when she was giving me the massage that gives you energy. How odd?!

I am really interested by all of these ancient remedies and I also enjoy doing yoga as I already mentioned I'm a gymnast (not ready to say I'm never going back yet) and so it's a great way of doing gentle exercise and also regulating your breathing which helps with being calm. I used to do yoga every day in order to help with my symptoms and I can honestly say I always felt far more relaxed and content. Perhaps if I had tried it recently I would have been far happier :') 

Sorry that this blog post has been rather long and descriptive but I just felt I would tell the world how I believe in certain things that some people are a little superstitious about. I don't know whether you enjoyed it or not, but perhaps if you read all the way to this point it must mean there is something worth reading! If you have any questions on anything I have mentioned, I don't mind answering them, we are all free to have our own opinions and beliefs. I do hope it was something different and informative for you to read even on this day where everyone is talking about their New Years celebrations! I hope you all have a fantastic night/morning with whatever you are doing :)

Oh and one more thing, I have started a twitter just for my blog which is how most people are viewing this right now at @emziecole7. Feel free to send me links to your blogs and I will definitely check them out and follow them if I can work out how to do so on some of them! So taraa amigos and see you in 2013! <3

(obviously I didn't take this photo so don't sue me! haha :) But that's a type of acupuncture)

Happy Resolutions :)

Bonjournois occasional visitor/s :') I didn't write a post yesterday as I woke up extraordinarily late, 12 noon it was, oops! Then I went out to a family friends' party. I am known for being incredibly lazy it has to be said, I can't lie. However after realizing that it was simply not beneficial for me to sleep in so late when I had lots of revision to be doing as well as attempting to write a blog post and take pictures before I lost all natural light, which gave me just 4 hours, I decided I was not to sleep in after 10 in the morning. I do love my lie ins and as I'm at sixth form every day except for the weekend and I used to coach and train gymnastics every Saturday from 9, I only used to have Sunday to stay in bed, and believe me I used that to my advantage... but now as the christmas holidays are here and I have what feels like endless amount of time, I generally just sleep in all morning, wake up at lunch time and proceed to eat my toast, much to the applause of my family at the arrival of their 'comatose' daughter. Anyway, as much as my sleep pattern is front-page news, I just felt I had to start a blog post somehow and as I have accomplished some, albeit very little, revision, made a card for my best friend's birthday and eaten lunch at the correct time today, I felt I would share that with you. I got up at 11! So that idea sort of went down the drain I know but I was woken at 10, I just found it very difficult to remove my arse from bed :') I have mentioned my laziness before...
But this sort of failure got me thinking about resolutions and new years and just attempted resolutions. I myself have never actually made a new years resolution, forever feeling that I wouldn't stick to it and I just didn't want to. It's not because I don't have any willpower, I mean, I have completed lent two years in a row and not eaten chocolate or crisps for 40 days at a time, but the idea of a new years resolution just never really crossed my mind, I'm unsure what I would do. I know that a lot of people aim to lose weight/go to the gym/ cut down on alcohol/foods that are bad for you. I love exercise and as I have already mentioned I used to do gymnastics, I trained for 6-8 hours a week and coached for 3. I wasn't amazing, I just really really enjoyed it. Unfortunately becoming quite ill meant that I haven't been able to go back to it for 9 months which has been quite distressing as I do miss it so much and it has made me eat far less, I used to eat ridiculous amounts! Anyway, because of that I can't go to the gym and I don't need to cut down on what I eat as I already have done that without thinking it seems :/ Now, I'd be lying if I said I'd never touched alcohol, even though yes I am only 17 (in 5 days) but I think any teenager would be lying or there abouts :') But that doesn't mean I drink to excess as that would be irresponsible on my parents part if they let me consume alcohol every day and many units at a time, but as a teenager I have had my fair share but obviously I don't need to 'cut down'. I think at this age it's a shame if you really have to think that about yourself. So we've established that there's no need for the traditional new years resolutions for me and I guess I could go all out with the 'cornyness' and just say next year I would like to be happier :) I think that's a really nice one that I would love to be able to stick to as this year has had quite a few low points with being quite ill and as I'm hopefully coming to the end of it it would be nice to be far happier as we come into a new, hopefully far more rewarding 2013. It has just been interesting to think about a new year and I will either be at home tomorrow or at a party, I'm hoping the latter ;) 
But yeah, I do love writing on this blog as I'm a bit of an English lover and am currently studying English literature A-level and this blog sort of is like a diary for me (since I have no followers) and it's a chance for me to just be in my own little world (I'm that kind of person, you know, the annoying ones that pull fish faces as they gorm out, yep that's the one) I'd like to say that writing on this is sort of a new years resolution as I started it a mere few days ago and so it might as well be, and it would be great to keep at it and write about new things every day. So this new years, when you're downing the champers and/or seeing relatives and friends, if you do decide to try out a new years resolution then have fun picking one and only do it if it makes you happy or the end result will make you happy, not because it's what everyone else is doing. I'm a bit corny like that and I always try and make others happy, even over my own happiness (there's been a bit'o that this year too :/) So even though I will probably be on here tomorrow, if I'm not, I hope everyone has a fantastic new years eve and a happy happy happy 2013! Take care! <3

I tidied my room? Dear Lord...

Alrighty there dearest empty space? How's the clean un-crowded air doin' for ya? hehe I do make myself chuckle, gosh I'm an odd one! Anyway I did some revision today! Yeyyyy! Productive day has been achieved, no matter how little (it was little) the amount of proper revision I have done is. Oopsie. BUT there is no need to fear, tomorrow I hopefully will be meeting a friend and then after that perhaps I will be out of this lazy rut I am in/post-christmas lazy time. I can only hope! Dear lord there is a lot of History in the past :/ I chose a very difficult A-level I'm afraid. 
Not to worry, revision was not the only thing I achieved today besides getting out of bed before midday (I told you I was lazy), I also happened to tidy my room, woohooo! I don't let my room get too messy but I recently redecorated so I find that it's nice to keep things ordered and pretty looking :) So I just rearranged my wardrobe and got rid of a few odd bits cluttering up my bedside table, it was rather satisfying to see the final result actually and I found out I own far too much holiday chocolate and sweets :S

My friend made me these for secret santa :)

Yes they do all look mightily delish but as I've been ill recently I just don't have the appetite for them *sad face* but it shouldn't be too bad because I'll be back to my normal self and scoffing my face soon enough! Too soon if you ask me :') But this blog post is literally me just talking about how I achieved the impossible... a tidy bedroom! So as a result I am just going to pop a few pictures of a few clothes I own that I have purchased/been given recently that I love/gained a great bargain on. It's just a couple of things but I thought it would be cute.

Here's a jumper I absolutely LOVE. It was a christmas present off my dear parents but I chose it about a month ago in my favourite shop, New Look. Yes I know that New Look is rather a boring choice for my favourite shop but it's affordable, great and has the style of clothes that I love! Anyway this jumper is adorable, I can't remember how much it cost but it's a light black with multicoloured speckles and it's quite thick and woolly and loose and just very very warm and snugly :) All in all just lovely and it has cute little elbow patches as well which just add extra detail. The majority of my wardrobe is from New Look, I can't lie :')

 (Yes I am aware I look slightly odd in this photo but my camera was messing about and this ended up being the only semi-decent photo, apologies) 

(This also slightly odd looking photo was taken too with my dysfunctional camera, sorry it's not great quality and I had to take the photos quickly as I was losing natural light. But the top is also below, also not very good quality, next time I shall stop being so lazy and take photos earlier on in the day.)

Anyway this top was an absolute steal! As you all know Christmas happened just a couple of days ago, yes that lovely day everyone looks forward to that happens just once a year and we all end up eating our weight in food on! Well, the fantastic thing about Christmas is the sales that follow and so on Boxing day, the lovely mother and I got dressed and headed out for what was sure to be a highly successful trip to town. I could not have been more disappointed. I have to say that the sales this year are not as great as I previously remember and so I barely purchased anything! Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise as I do need to save for highly expensive driving lessons, but what I did end up buying consisted of a couple tops, a jumper, a hoody and a lipstick, so really not much for sale day. But the first place that me and mom visited was Primark, good old Primarni!! But I was pleasantly surprised with the sale in primark above anywhere else! Me and mom both ended up walking out with a top each for just three pounds! The one above is mine, it is black with a studded collar and the one my mom purchased was similar but didn't have a studded collar. I have to say that £3 was an absolute bargain and I'm very pleased, even if I just wear it once that's brilliant. 

These are jeans not shorts and I absolutely LOVE them, I purchased them about a month and a half ago and I can't get enough of them, they seem a bit more blue in this photo than they actually are in real life as they're more of a forest green but they're beautiful. They're from New Look of course and you can see the top of them in the first photo I took where I am wearing the black jumper. The only downside is the fact that I can't wear them all the time because of their colour as a lot of colours tend not to go well with them which is such a shame. They're incredibly comfy too. They didn't come with a belt, I'm unsure where I actually got that belt from.

This is the jumper from the first photo.

So there we go, that is what I have to say today, not many pieces of clothing, I simply just wanted to share a few of my little things with the Internet and hopefully one day I won't be the only person reading what I have written. After all that is what I eventually hope to do as a career one day, journalism for magazines, so blogging is fantastic experience! It's just nice to dream. Thanks if you have read, I may be new at this but we all start out at the bottom, cheerio! <3

Hey guys, so here goes the very first post on my blog! WOOOOOOO! I know that I'm just preaching to empty space here but who knows whether that will change in the future, I'd like to think so!  

I seem to have spent an awful lot of time on here today just pondering about life and establishing a pretty blog as well as making a unique header and coming up with a name, time well spent if you think about it :') 

But the problem is the fact that I was supposed to do revision for my history A-level in January and so even though making this blog was fun and hopefully helpful in the future, it was ultimately a bad idea. 

Not saying that blogging is a bad idea, just that perhaps I should have spent more time reading up on Henry VI and his insane wife than on PicMonkey making a header on a very slow laptop.

Yeah that's a point, my laptop is majorly slow. Gahhhh it's slow! To be fair I will have had it 3 years exactly on January 4th, my birthday as I got it for my 14th! You will probably have guessed that that makes me 16 right now and 17 in just 8 days, OHHHEEMMGEEE I am excited about learning to drive!

I get that this is the first post on my blog and all but I'd love to let you (the empty space so far) know how driving goes!

Not quite sure what I'm going to do with this blog, just talk about weird crazy things I think and perhaps some clothes and makeup that I like! Should be fun :) lets see how this thing goes!

I decided just to insert a few quick photos showing what I look like...

Some nice(ish) ones there ;)

Me on Christmas Day in my onesie!

None of these were taken today but they are recent, I didn't take any today because I'm having a lazy day with no make up and bad hair, not the best first impression I'm sure you'd agree! But prepare for possible grotty looking Emma photos in the future...

But here is a photo of the jumper I'm wearing today, it's adorbz! And it was just Primark for £10!

Oh I do know I haven't really fully introduced myself to you (still just empty space) so maybe you should at least know my full name! Emma Nicole Higgins it is and I'm sure as we begin this metaphorical journey into the land of blogging together you will find out much much more about me, I'm an interesting one! 

No doubt I will be back on here tomorrow just in the hope to fill the empty space with my chitter chatter :')

Au revoir mes amis!

<3