31. How can I possibly be turning 20 this year?

Hello everyone and a Happy New Year to you all! May 2014 bring you all happiness, good health and success. I hope 2014 has got off to a great start for you. Have any of you made any New Year's Resolutions? Are they the usual ones like lose weight, drink more water, swear less? If any of you have made any unusual resolutions then comment below because I'd love to know! I haven't made any resolutions because I never stick to them! How did you all bring in 2014? Did you attend your local fireworks display or go to/have a party with friends and family? In an ideal world if I didn't have five exams in January, I would have loved to have attended the Harvey Nichols NYE party. The theme was "The Beautiful and the Damned". I was gutted when I found out because it would have been the perfect excuse to buy and wear a flapper dress! :'( Anyway, I decided to relive one of the great moments of 2013 by watching the Wimbledon final on NYE with my Mum, Peggy, Jenny, Arg Miles and Calvin. It's the first time I'd watched it since the actual final in July and the most surprising part is that I still cried when he won it which I hadn't expected because I obviously knew what was going to happen. Now I'm wondering how many times I will have to watch it until I stop crying. I didn't cry for too long however because I was laughing when Andy forgot to hug Judy! Silly Andy :P The London fireworks looked spectacular and I had no idea they had banana flavoured confetti. I bet the banana was the horrible artificial flavour like they have in some of those foam banana sweets.

I am looking forward to 2014 for many reasons this year but there's one thing that scares me and that is the title of this post- I am going to be 20 in July. That sounds disgusting. I can't believe that potentially a quarter of my life has passed (based on average female UK life expectancy) and I feel like I've not done much with it because I've spent almost 85% of it in education. What terrifies me is that I am about to start the most life changing decade of my life. During the next 10 years, I will hopefully graduate, have a job, buy a car, buy a house, get married and have a child(ren) and I'm honestly not ready for all this change.I really want to travel the world in the next decade too. I was watching Sir David Attenborough's documentary on the giant egg and have decided that I want my honeymoon to be in Madagascar :D The transition from teenager/adult has jumped up on me like a kangaroo and nobody warned me.I cannot believe that 10 years ago I was in primary school and my biggest worry was my SATs tests. Well that's a lie, I suppose it was what was happening to my Mum because that's when her Parkinson's symptoms first appeared. On a happier note, I am glad that it's 2014 because this year I am going to see Miranda and Jack Whitehall in March and I might be going to Wimbledon too. Before that though, I will be writing my dissertation on Parkinson's Disease and Deep Brain Stimulation so I need to get stuck into that once these sodding exams are over. Also this summer, I am going to start a vlog and we might be getting the kitchen done which means B&Q trips woo! I am also going to make sure I post on here weekly or at the very least, fortnightly. Hopefully, I might end up buying a car too so that's one thing ticked off my adult to-do list :)

Aside from being an emotional wreck whilst watching a DVD, I have been busy with endocrinolgy and organismal genetics revision and spending lots of quality time with my good friends, Mr Kettle and Mademoiselle Cafetiere. I love tea and I've got two good excuses to drink tea: 1) I'm British, 2) I'm Pakistani and both groups are well known for their love of a good cuppa. It's great for warming my hands up too. My cafetiere also arrived on Monday, I only ordered it from M&S on Saturday night. That's brilliant customer service right there! I volunteered at Oxfam for ~5 months in 2011 and whilst working there, I used to sort out the Fairtrade food. They sold lots of varieties of coffee and Cafe Direct's medium roast was a best seller. I have discovered some gorgeous coffees from Asda's Extra Special range. Left below is the Brazillian coffee freeze dried instant and it's the best instant coffee I've ever had. It is miles better than Kenco and Nescafe and I've been drinking it for almost 2 years. All of our house guests who have tried it always ask me about it too. It just has this full flavour without being too strong or leaving a bitter aftertaste and because it is medium strength, it won't  keep you up all night either unless you have it in the evening that is. On the right we have my new favourite. This is the first ground coffee I've tried at home and it is amazing. Asda's claims of hints of caramel are spot on because this is like having a less naughty Starbucks Caramel Macchiato. It doesn't need any sugar and there's not much need for milk either and I am trying hard to not have more than one mug a day because it is stronger than the freeze dried instant. You can definitely notice the increase in strength because I had two cups on Monday because I was excited to use my new cafetiere and could not sleep until 4am despite having the coffee at midday!

Anyway, I'd better get back to revising the pituitary and adrenal glands and their respective hormones. Hope you all have a great week and to those of you who have made New Year's resolutions, best of luck with them! Take care.

Love,

Mancunian Sheep

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