University 101: My Top Student Recipes (Part 1)

Jacket Potatoes

Now, I am guessing most of us Brits know what a jacket potato is, and have grown to be accustomed to having it in our daily diets at least once a week. It is an easy and quick to make meal, which is something that every student needs when they have a large amount of work to do, to the point that they visualise the food they are about to stuff their faces (please tell me I'm not the only one that does that). Many people all around the UK call jacket potatoes different things, such as "spud" or "baked potato" but it's all the same... However, others may not know what this amazing meal is, so here's a very bad, possibly photoshopped photograph of what jacket potatoes are...

*here starts my appreciation post for jacket potatoes*
Jacket potatoes are the reason why I am still alive. They've kept me alive through tough nights when the library has been where I was situated for the night. It's like a warm cup of coffee on Monday morning with loads and loads of sugar to make you super hyper and prepared for the day. Going off on another tangent here, yay! Anywayyyyy...
*here ends my appreciation post for jacket potatoes*

Method 1: Microwave

From Raw

Microwaving potatoes can be the easiest and quickest way of making them. You can either microwave potatoes from the ready-made packet (the ones that you just put in the microwave for 5 minutes) or from actual raw potatoes (the ones that you leave in the microwave for around 10-12 minutes).  I have tried my very best to find out what the best ways of making a baked potato are, with some of these ways nearly resulting in me setting fire to the accommodation kitchen... :) (sorry to all those who live close to me)

Most of the time when I am in a rush to get to lectures because I have overslept (regular occurence), I just stick a few either raw or half-made potatoes in the microwave whilst I get all my other stuff together. It's quick and easy, as I also said before ("quick and easy" is a pretty common thing I say throughout this post, please don't judge me, but it's just so I get my point across) and it means that you get some amazingly well cooked potato very quickly. Personally I love microwaving my potatoes.

Here are the steps which I follow when making potatoes!

Step 1: Wash the potatoes and make sure all nasty things are taken off!
Step 2: Dry the potatoes
Step 3: Pierce the potatoes with either a fork or a knife
Step 4: Put in the microwave for around 10-12 minutes and Voila! you have yourself a jacket potato!

Here are some better, probably more detailed recipes for this that I found useful!

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/85337/microwave-baked-potato/
http://www.wikihow.com/Bake-a-Potato-in-the-Microwave

From a store bought packet of microwavable jacket potatoes

I know for sure that sometimes it is a whole lot easier for you to just throw a half made potato in the microwave and have a perfectly made potato in no more than 5 minutes.

If any of you don't know what I am on about, here's an example

However it baffles me how,  they manage to achieve to keep those half-made potatoes fresh? Of course, I know they freeze them and all, but it must be filled with all sorts of preservatives and honestly, I don't want that in my body! So, yes, this is a good alternative if you don't have anything else to eat at all, but I think it's worth the effort of getting actual potatoes from your local campus shop and putting them in the microwave - they may not be as quick to cook, but they are normally better for you and your body.

Method 2: Oven

Putting a potato in the oven can take a day and a half for it to be perfect. I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my jacket potatoes and I like them to be perfectly golden, have the cheese put on perfectly and make sure that the butter is nice and melted over the potato. Too much information, but it's true. I am a perfectionist when it comes to my potatoes (enough obsessing over potatoes)...

Making potatoes in the oven is a task and a half, it means that you have to be very patient because making jacket potatoes in the oven normally takes me around 45-60 minutes meaning that you'd have to start making them wayyyyy before you're intending to eat, meaning that you have to plan and as much as I love organising, I am quite bad at planning meals :(

What I do before I put my potato in the oven I wash it, dry it and pierce it with a fork. That's it. However you do have the option of putting the potato in the microwave for 5-10 minutes and then putting it in the oven if you'd like to save yourself some time.

Well, I hope I haven't bored you too much, but this is something which I was looking for when I initially started looking for easy student dinner recipes! Let me know if you'd like me to write more posts similar to this! :)

Health and Lifestyle Page is Live!

Hey you lovely people! Just to inform you that the health and lifestyle page is now live! Please head over to the second tab on the top right next to the 'Home' tab to have a look for regular posts specifically concerning health and lifestyle!

Musical Wednesday: Current Favourites!

Music is a wonderful thing. Movies are a magical way of escaping reality for a few hours and pushing all the stress and worries to the side. So, I thought (at 12am one night), why don't I just combine the two and pick out my 2-3 favourite movie soundtrack tunes and plop them in here for everyone else to enjoy? Welp, that's what's happening!

1) Shape of You - Ed Sheeran

All I want to do when I hear this song is dance around my room as if I am in Strictly Come Dancing... It is definitely something! All I can say is... enjoy! 

2) Castle on the Hill - Ed Sheeran

Similarly to the previous one, Ed Sheeran has outdone himself majorly. I love both these songs equally and rather than wanting to dance my heart out to this, I basically stand in the middle of my room and sing my heart out.... That is a sight for sore eyes :P

3) Be the One - Dua Lipa

I was in love with this song the minute I listened to it! It's so different from all other songs currently in the Top 40! 

4) Scared to be Lonely - Martin Garrix ft. Dua Lipa

Okay, so I kind of have a little crush on Martin Garrix. I absolutely love his music and probably know every single one of his songs off by heart. This one is just the cherry on top, I was so excited to hear it when it came out and was excited to find out that he hadn't let himself down! Love love love this song and Martin! 

5) Touch - Little Mix

Little Mix never fails to make me love their songs... first it was 'Shout out to my Ex' and now it's 'Touch'... 

Well, hope you enjoyed my little mid-week current music favourites! Hope you're looking forward to some new content soon! 

Diaries and Organisation

I love organising. If you hadn't already noticed, I am slightly organisation-obsessed. I have a diary that I keep with me at all times, with all my lectures written out neatly, all in different, colour coded colours, sometimes with sticky notes and/or stickers. Yep, I know, slightly over the top, but every time someone sees my diary, they want to have a look through it, so I must be doing something right? Or do they just want to find out what my secrets are? Jokes, I don't have many, I'm a bit boring and like cats a little too much... (he is a picture of the perfect organiser for me)

Anywayyy, back to talking about organising myself... From time to time, I become a super organised person, always ready to take on new DIY challenges and accomplish something wonderful. The amount of times that those hopes and dreams never become more than just hopes and dreams is a lot more than the times when my ideas were actually completed to the end. When I complete something that I had started, not only DIY projects but things like a 5km run or that dreaded Sociology essay, I feel like the President of the United States of America or like I had just climbed Mount Everest. I'm sure you all know of 'that amazing feeling' when you hand in your assignments and feel like you can run free with the imaginary horses and then burn all the revision notes while you're making yourself some corn-on-the-cob, it's beautiful. Okay, going on a tangent here, but you know what I mean. I love finishing projects. I love seeing the end result of something which I have spent ages making. However for me, that isn't ever possible unless I use a diary and a very large amount of coloured pens to established what I will be doing next.

Here are my top 3 diary brands, which I researched when I was trying to find my perfect 2017 diary!
*All the websites have been tagged on the main heading! Please go visit them!*

1) Paperchase!

Who doesn't love a bit of Paperchase in their lives? From the animal shaped rubbers to pens of all shapes and sizes, Paperchase never disappoints. Their diaries and notebooks section is what dreams are made of. I have been a proud lover of Paperchase products since Year 11 in High School, which was 4 years ago (I feel so old now). I have had diaries from there 3 years in a row and let's say it's always a struggle to leave that place without purchasing myself a wonderful and pink and sparkly notebook or diary, even though I already have 6 on the go. They diaries are around the £7 mark, give or take a few pounds off! And let's say, they are worth every penny. The current one which I have is from Paperchase! It's a new design that I hadn't seen before which attracted me to it the moment I saw it. It has incredibly cute inspirational quotes on every page and it is so colourful I want to be it. Enough obsessing over my diary for today, but honestly, if you haven't tried the Paperchase diaries, I would say you've been missing out on a lot!

Here is a very old picture of some Paperchase diaries! I chose this one because there is a variety of different designs shown!

2) Rymans

Rymans diaries are a lot less expensive than Paperchase. Their diaries are still the style of Paperchase ones, however they are for those of us on a budget and the not-so-perfectionist-y ones of us! I remember seeing one of their diaries for £1.50 and it was a perfectly good bright pink one. I am, however, a bit picky with my diaries and I like them to be more than one colour, so Rymans isn't really for me. However for those of you not as picky as me, I would say go for it!

Here is an example of what these diaries look like!

3) Erin Condren

Erin Condren planners are a bit of a weird addiction, which includes you decorating your diary every week and then obsessing over it for the next couple of weeks while posting photos of this diary of yours. At least that's what I did. My Erin Condren planner experience was amazing. It made me feel super organised all the time and I had slots for almost everything is the little laptop-style bag which I also got for myself. I had bookmarks, highlighters and all other stationary you can name (which funnily enough I got from Paperchase!)

It was however, a bit of a struggle doing all the weekly designs, choosing what theme I will be going for, matching it to the seasons and everything along those lines, it's brilliant. The price of Erin Condren planners is what makes me feel a little sick every time I look them up... and let me just say, they are a ton more expensive than any other diaries which I have ever had and I wouldn't recommend anyone purchase this diary unless they are 100% sure that they will love it until the last page - I am very bad in this respect as sometimes, I just leave my diary for the week and write everything on a post-it note... Not good, I don't recommend it!

However, if you do have an Erin Condren planner, I would strongly recommend you look on Etsy for stickers of all kind, and if you are from the USA, I recommend you look at Elle Fowler's Etsy sticker shop, there are all sorts of beautiful stickers! Press here to be re-directed to her Etsy page!

For this section of the post, I decided, instead of looking through Google Images, I was going to put a screenshot of the webpage - it's so pretty!

Musical Friday: 80's hits!

Who doesn't like a good old Spotify playlist full of 80's hits while getting ready for the day in the morning? No one! I personally am a big fan of 80's music and this week, while revising for exams I re-established my love for 80's music... and I am, yet again, addicted! Music has become a way in which I express myself, express my feelings and even block out all my worries in times when I have been so stressed that thinking about it now, I don't even know how to explain.

This post is going to put 2 of my favourite 80's songs of the week into one feel-good playlist, with more to come next week! I will also include videos from YouTube for you guys to listen! Enjoy!

1) Take on Me - a-ha

I love this song! It just makes me want to dance around the room like there is no tomorrow! Every time I hear this song on the radio, it makes me think of what good the days bring and how I can conquer everything I want to if I just believed in myself. Sometimes, believing in oneself is a bit hard, however songs like this make it a lot easier for me to change my mood from pessimistic to optimistic in seconds!

2) What a Feeling - Irene Cara

So I've listened to this song since I was very little as it was the theme tune to one of my favourite ever reality TV shows - "So You Think You Can Dance". I absolutely loved it's energetic melody and the fact that it tells a story - not a lot of songs nowadays do that and it's really sad that most songs nowadays are highly sexualised, but that's another topic which I am hoping to get the chance to address in the near future, the hopefully not-so-distant future.

The Little Ray of Sunshine Blog

Never Stand By! Speak Up!

This post is linked to a previous post titled "Bullying", so before reading this, please go back and have a quick look at my previous post!

Recently, a few people from the university which I attend decided to set up a campaign called "Never Stand By". When I first saw this campaign, I couldn't be happier that people give their time away to create such amazing things. This campaign mainly focuses on supporting the local community and take action to tackle bullying. Oh, what would I have done to have something like that around at my High School? If you have seen my 'Bullying' post, you would have guessed that I want to try and do my best to stand up for people who are in the same situation as I was.

The main aim of this campaign is to make you aware to step in and give help (it is safe), or step out and get help (if it's unsafe) and empower those close to you to Step Up! Do whatever you can do to create and maintain a safe and supporting environment.

Here are a few websites which I found extremely useful in learning the ways in which you can help someone in trouble.

http://www.bullying.co.uk/anti-bullying-week/wear-blue-campaign/
http://www.antibullyingpro.com/

If you see something, do something, say something. Change the situation! 

Happy New Year!

Guess who's back, back again? Iva's back! Wooo! As you may have gathered I have woken from my slumber, finally. After a whole year's worth of a break from blogging, it's only right that I come back and start posting once a week, as I did previously. I honestly love blogging, getting all the thoughts and ideas which I have on paper (if a computer screen counts as paper..?) and discussing my innermost secretive questions ever for everyone to see. Blogging has always been, for me at least a way of relaxing, getting some time away from work and my everyday busy life as a student. It is really incredibly hard to organise myself when I am trying to juggle 3 different aspects of my life.

Throughout this wonderful year, which I have been looking forward to since January 2016, I am planning on changing a lot of things about this blog. I plan on doing my very best to post as much content as humanly possible while juggling a lot of university assignments, exams and anxieties. I am going to broaden my horizons, start writing more words down, rather than posting photos (I will still include a lot of photos in my posts though!) and try my best to positively influence others with my positivity.

That leads me onto what I wish to change about myself in 2017. I am a very cautious person, thinking of the worst possible scenarios in the first instance and never trusting people entirely until I know that they are trustworthy. I am going to make myself say 'yes!' to more things, such as going out with friends, helping people, going to the gym, waking up early, eating healthily, spending less money on make-up and buying a cat. Okay, the last one may be a little harder to accomplish, but it's on the to-do list!

So here it is, the first post of 2017! I hope it's a good one for all of us!