The Aubrey Rules by Aven Ellis - Recent Recommended Read #4

Can you believe the last book review I published was in January? I haven't read many since then, partly because of time and partly because I don't like to rush books. I did set a book reading goal at the beginning of the year but I soon came to realise this was silly. When I finish a book I like to wait a little while before moving onto the next, I like savouring the story and remembering the characters. This review is about The Aubrey Rules by Aven Ellis, number 1 in the Chicago on Ice series.

Do you like:

• Social media?
• America?
• Hot sports players?

I reckon you'll devour this book as fast as I did then.

Aubrey is a newly graduated social media professional with a rule for everything in her life, from what she eats, her work and even to dating. When she unknowingly bumps into one of the hottest ice hockey players around, she starts to question these strict rules she's made herself as she finds her work and personal life increasingly interlinked.

I'm a sucker for a romantic novel and when social media was thrown into the mix I couldn't resist. It was a brilliant idea to tie that into the book. It's something that most of us and certainly almost all of the books target audience use on a daily *ahem* hourly basis and is a very hot topic at the moment.

STRUGGLING WITH EDUCATION

Just a quick post about something I came to realise today.

I was always of the thought that at university, the 'youngsters' didn't work much and were clueless.

But I was stereotyping and tarring everyone with the same brush.

Whilst I am sure there are a fair share of slackers in uni as a whole, on my course at least, the young uns' are hard workers. They do their reading and they know their stuff. I believe this is partly due to the type of course but I also think that having just left school and still being in the education frame of mind helps greatly. As mature students, there is a mix of those who are working in the way I thought we would and others, who like me, are not doing as much as we could. I'm not disrespecting them or anything and I know they will put the hours in soon when the work builds up.

But as for myself,  I thought that returning to uni as a 28 year old I would be motivated, efficient and just in general work hard. But I guess I didn't think of the effects that being out of education for so long would have. You would think I would be ok. For one, I recently completed a home learning course in sociology. Showing evidence of recent study was a requirement for entry onto this course but it obviously wasn't enough to get my mindset right for full-time education again. Secondly, earlier in the year I worked as an academic support worker at a local university. This meant supporting disabled students and taking notes for them in lectures. We were trained in taking useful, concise and detailed notes. What better prep than that you say? You'd think so wouldn't you, but apparently not.

I'm not being any of the things I thought I would be when returned to education. I turn up to everything but i'm not reading, i'm not making my notes into something useful, i'm not passionate, i'm not doing anything. Being away from education has had a huge effect. When I was working I liked going to my job, doing my hours and going home and switching off. I'm not saying being at uni means you have to work any extra hours than you would at a standard job, but outside of our contact hours i.e. lectures/seminars I struggle to make myself do anymore work. I only have part-time contact hours yet when a lecture has finished i've essentially switched off and don't do anything else ,as I would with a job, and this is not good.

So yeah, being a mature student hasn't meant what I thought it would. Although only 28 (yes only, shhhh) I thought life experience and knowing what actual full-time work was like would make me a better student. I was wrong about that and I was wrong to judge the 18 year olds. Some young uns' are hard workers, some are not and it's exactly the same for us mature students. There are other reasons why i'm not at all motivated but I shan't go into that right now. I'm not sure even I have sifted through it all myself yet.

But essentially what i'm saying is, returning to education is a struggle and I was wrong to judge.

The unseen account of going to the Bloggers Blog Awards

I posted recently about my awesome day at the awards but I’d like to share a few tit-bits about the day that made me a bit wobbly.

Outfit issues – I bought a LOT of black skinny jeans to try on. Obviously the ones I didn’t pick will go back but the ones I decided to wear I thought were the best fitting. WRONG. They were a little loose when I tried them on. As in, if I lost any weight (HA) they would be unsuitable.  But they were the best of the bunch so I ripped of the tags and off I trundled. Stupid things kept falling down though and a lot of awkward jean yanking occurred in public. I managed to tuck my vest top into them which helped but they are definitely going to be altered!

Hair – The realisation that my hair needs a BIG chop. I wore it down to begin with and it looked alright before I left the flat. But it was quite warm there and my hair got bigger and bigger and irritating (its very thick) so up in a bun it went. But I think I look like a bit of a twat in the photos so I need to get it sorted so I can wear it better. I think posing at a better angle might have helped though!

Confidence – It was really nerve-racking at first turning up and seeing everyone squealing at each other in recognition and me like oo this is awkward. I did get stuck in though and just introduced myself (whether people liked it or not). I met the lovely Ana and pairing up really boosts oneself with trying to work the room. But yeah, it was pretty scary for a newbie! BUT I bet even those that I thought looked in their element had the nerves too. You never know what’s being that confidence. Remember that folks.

Do you face any issues when going to events or meeting people? I hear the nerves is a common one!

The Bloggers Blog Awards 2015

This Saturday I did something that younger me would have cried off. I attended the Bloggers Blog Awards in Leeds. The awards were created to celebrate our favourite blogs, as voted by the people that actually read them. I managed to nab a last-minute place and having very recently moved to the surrounding area, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss to meet people IN REAL LIFE. It was also the first blogging event i'd been to, eek.

I was a bit scared but one of the good things about growing older is that you start to care a lot less. So what if I looked like a loser by myself or everyone hated me. Who cares?

Dressed like this I made my way to Lamberts Yard with a couple of bloggers, Rhianna, Joe Heather, whom I latched onto at the train station.  The venue has a clothes shop downstairs and space to hire upstairs. I noticed it even had a DJ booth -  I was all for turning it into a party!

The whole thing was a bit of a blur to be honest, it was busy whirlwind full of amazing bloggers and it was hard to take everything in. Some I recognised, many I didn’t and a few I even worked up the courage to introduce myself to.

There was time to mingle and enter the social media competitions then the awards began. I’ll be honest, when I first read the short-list weeks ago, I hadn’t heard of some of the nominees. But that’s fine, the blogging world is massive now and you’d have to have a heck of a lot of free time to be able to know every.single.person. But I did check them all out and many are now on my ‘save’ list.

I found myself hanging out and sat with three lovely girls, who I didn’t realise at the time, were three of the nominees, Ana, Charlotte and Sam. Ana even got highly commended in her category! It’s strange, I hope they don’t mind me saying, but they seemed just as wide-eyed as me and there’s me expecting all the shortlisted to be all brimming with confidence.

You can read all the winners here and many congratulations to you all, so well deserved girls. The prizes were donated by lots of companies, I was particularly jealous of Jemma’s win of a voucher from Sykes Cotteges and a jewellery tree from Jewellery box. I can’t wait to see what is inside of that!

After a bit more mingling the a.m.a.z.i.n.g raffle was drawn. I didn’t get a picture but there were SO many prizes up for grabs from lovely companies. I won 2 colouring postcard books and a BeeGood skincare set. I’m really pleased with the skincare as some of my usual products are coming to an end so I can’t wait to get stuck into these.

After the event many of us headed to the Black Swan for food and drinks. I don’t think they were expecting *quite* as many of us there but they coped well. I had the pumpkin tortellini with sweet potato fries. The fries were SO GOOD with the dip.

Everyone branched off after that and I caught the train back and watched Bridesmaids on the telly. Great end to a great day.

I’m really glad I went and got to meet people I’d chatted to online and many new faces too including Katy, Dee, Jemma, Sarah, Corinne, Hayley, Kayleigh and the another Sam.

I would like to thank Hayley and Talented Talkers for putting this day together for us all to enjoy, you did great!