Feline Chic

Universities are institutions built on diversity, encouraging their students to attend from all around the world, to study a variety of subjects from medicine to history and even further into modern degrees such as brewing, hospitality and floristry. This diversity has bred a new group within society which utilise technology more, pay attention to world affairs more; to build friendships and relationships bursting with personalities so vastly different but with essentially similar ambitions and ideologies. And just because university is associated with learning and intellect or knowledge does not mean that these growing institutions do not also stimulate another form of diversity, one often going unacknowledged: fashion and style.

Now I really want to address a social topic quite close to home. This social construct of the slut…  Yes, a rather strange topic which is becoming more and more of a public debate due to the overuse of the label in everyday instances. But when one considers the complexity of what makes someone a slut, of why women are labelled as such and how society receives such a label it becomes a very interesting analysis. So I’m pretty much going to break it down in my interpretation. 

If university has taught me one thing recently it is that I was terribly naive in my expectations of the people I would meet and become friends with. It is the people I have not shared similar life experiences with which I am now creating new memories. In fact two of my closest friends in Edinburgh didn't grow up in Britain, looked beyond the borders of the UK for education and have lived in ways I had only seen on films. Crazy right?

Some have dubbed it a rather disastrous year, full of surprises and controversy and pain. Me? I can see where those people are coming from, but my 2016 was full of love, and adventure and learning. From every day in college to every summer road trip and the big move that will likely shape my life for good. 2016 brought into my life people I would be heartbroken to lose, it showed me places I will never forget and made me look into myself when I was struggling most to find strength. Come with me through a chronology of the past year:

So, I'm back. It's been a year, I know, a busy long and chaotic year. In the time that I have been MIA a lot of things in my life have changed and I myself have changed. Well I mean firstly I only fricking moved to EDINBURGH...SCOTLAND... Before that though, I had the most exceptional summer of my life, but I'll come onto that later on. Yes, leaving Yorkshire was one of the hardest things I will ever have to do. But there's a very reasonable excuse for this move, I got into university, after hours of hard revision and days of stagnant anticipation over summer. Therefore for the past three months I have been settling into the student life, acclimatising to Scottish weather and learning I am not the best at making friends. Small Changes have also happened: I got new glasses, new job, a giant champagne glass is in my possession , you probably know these sort of changes. Here it is then, my returning notice. Look forward to loads of things coming in the next few month...

So, for my birthday last month I got a book I've been coveting a while and never actually being able to get my hands on. How to be Parisian, wherever you are is a much admired, greatly intriguing handbook on just what it says: how to be a Parisian. Holding cooking secrets, skin  savvy ideas and a multitude of suggestions to live and love by.

Another year ended, another holiday season passes and once again we're all left a little chubbier, a little dazed and for the most part hungover. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Actually, it's rather a nostalgic, satisfied feeling. My head may have pounded and New Years Eve returns to us all in disjointed flashbacks, the sight of another sprout ignites a hatred and chocolates are flowing from every cupboard; but that's what the holiday season is, it is once a year when time seems irrelevant, TV becomes the favourite member of the family and that little muffin top forming is truly welcome (as long as it disappears by January 20th right?) This year particularly I have felt the festivities more than ever before. Perhaps as the years go by I become more active in the holiday events, maybe it's the people I'm with or the fact that Prosecco has never been such a prominent part of December; but the holiday season of 2015 has been great. And here's m...