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Death by Dissertation??

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At least once a week I’m faced with a crippling fear and enormous self doubt as the result of trying to work on my dissertation. For someone who’s not done a dissertation before, they may think I’m being dramatic, it’s not that hard, right? Wrong. I honestly thought I was so behind but after meeting up with some fellow third years to work on a group project that they also feel as stressed and confused as I am.

My dissertation, something I so looked forward to, had turned into the bane of my existence. I’m now on my  3rd draft and have so much more to do, before it’s finished next month. I’ll have whole days where I’m like ‘yeah let’s get this done’ and then mornings like today where I just want to sit and cry in my duvet and contemplating printing my dissertation and then setting fire to it, obviously that won’t help but in my sleep deprived state it’s entertaining.

I never thought I’d be this stressed or worked up about a project I’d chosen to do. The last haul is definitely the hardest but I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve been working on the parts I love for a long time and now it’s come to editing and reading more critical theory (ENOUGH ALREADY!). I just keep chanting, one more month, one more month.

It’s weird because I love academics normally, I love to write. Hell, you guys are stuck with my notifications every day! I’m just excited to be done with these and finally start my book and have all my passion and energy do into fiction rather than quotes on Marxist Feminism and the role of women in the 1950s.

For any of you also tackling your dissertations, good luck! For those of you who have completed one, what do you suggest to celebrate when I finally finish!

My First Dyslexic Session

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Way back in first year I discovered that I am in fact, dyslexic, and quite seriously so as my educational psychologist report says. There was a lack of tutors for me to start tutoring when I requested it in first year, I then developed the attitude of ‘well I got this far without it so why bother’ partly to hide my feelings. I wasn’t embarrassed to be dyslexic at all, in fact it made my constant troubles with punctuation, grammar and spelling that have lost me so many marks over the years. All in all I just didn’t want another label and have to answer more questions because people didn’t believe me. I love to read, I have done since I was a little girl, people see Dyslexia as not being able to read or write but that’s not what mine is, it has such a broad spectrum! I guess I just didn’t want another label on me.

Fast Forward to a few weeks ago and I was struggling with my course work I didn’t have anyone to have a read over for me or help me understand what was going on with my work on a regular basis. Some friends would help but it wasn’t fair to keep asking when they had their own assignments to do. I decided to try and get the tutoring again, because otherwise my allowance from the DSA was just sitting there not being used. Because it is run by a different company I quickly got a response and was booked in to see a tutor.

I was nervous, I’m really independent when I work so it was something I’d never done before. I shouldn’t have worried, my new tutor is absolutely lovely and respects the achievements and way of working I have. All my sessions will be lead by me and what I want to cover, while my mentor will suggest things that make my life easier in terms of my writing. You never know, the blog might improve too! So, every week I’ll be taking work with me for us to look at and try to make it better, meaning I’ll hopefully get a better grade.

Fingers crossed!

International Women’s Day 2016

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Happy International Women’s Day you lovely lot! I found this awesome illustration online today and had to share it with you all! On a side note if anyone can let me know who the artist is I’d really appreciate it.  I was supposed to be watching the incredible Caitlin Moran tonight but for a bunch of reasons I’m sat at home instead thinking about what this day means to me.

In the past year I’m lucky enough to have had a huge and brilliant feminist epiphany after spending my whole summer propped up with books for company. I read everything I could get my hands on Caitlin Moran, Lena Dunham, Polly Vernon, Mindy Kaling, Natasha Walter and I still have a pile that I’m slowly adding more and more books. I scoured the internet for Ted Talks and I’ve watched every one I can find.

I’m not claiming I have it right, that I’m a perfect feminist. I know I’m not. I’ve said stupid things before because I wasn’t educated but now I am and I want to join everyone who wants to fight for gender equality all over the world.

We might not have it the easiest and I know I have it easier than a lot of women around the world and we still have a lot to change. That said I feel lucky to be a woman, I feel lucky to be in the company of some incredible fellow females. I feel grateful for the women who made me who I am today, whether that be by bringing me up, teaching me or the words of women who I’ve never met.

Happy International Women’s Day to all you Wonder Women out there!

Remembering the good.

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If you haven’t guessed already I love pictures like the one above. I love words and slogans and nice backgrounds. I guess it’s because sometimes I don’t have the image that says what I want to say or sometimes I don’t have the words to say how I feel. It’s because of that I use Pinterest a lot because sometimes the words I need are already there. I don’t use the quote I picked today because I think I’m this brave, strong person. I’ve always said I’ve simply got on with my life the best I can.

I’ve thought a lot about the accident in the past few days, about my spine. This isn’t because I’ve had a lot of time on my hands, more because I’ve been in pain again and there’s nothing more frustrating. When my doctors say the scans look normal and my physio says there’s not much he can do and yet I’m still in pain a lot of the time. When I’m in the awkward part where I still can’t walk too far or stand up for long periods of time and have to explain that I’m recovering from a spine injury. When I have to call venues and explain why I need a seat and they have to decide if I’m ‘disabled enough’, because I’m not officially registered as disabled but at the same time I’m still struggling so much. Don’t get me wrong I do not want another label at all, but sometimes it’s what other people want so I can get the help I need at concert venues for example.

So while I was feeling pretty down about this yesterday, I had a conversation with Ali about how I was feeling and why. He reminded me that while the accident was shitty, awful and did change a lot of my life, a lot of positives came out of it too. I was reminded of these again when I went to see Joe tonight.

  • I’ve got a new appreciation for my body when it’s healthy
  • I’ve gotten better at taking me time and not doing things I don’t want to do
  • I’ve learnt a lot about friendship
  • I’ve got a much better relationship with food, portion sizes and exercise
  • I met Alice, who has come to be a great friend and support to me, I would never have set foot in a gym if it wasn’t for the accident
  • My relationships gotten stronger
  • I have a new sense of understanding when it comes to physical disabilities
  • I got a job I love that I might not have applied for if I hadn’t been spending so much time online when I couldn’t move
  • I got a lot of reading done
  • As a result of the reading I finally embraced feminism and found a new passion

There’s a lot there and I think, as with anything that changes your life when you don’t expect it, there’s a lot to deal with. Sometimes I forget all the positives because I’m just having a down day, that’s all. I worried about writing tonight’s blog because I have had people in the past saying I think too much about my spine, that it takes over my life. Then I shook the thought off because of COURSE breaking your spine is going to have a huge impact on your life, it changes everything for at least the first year – two years after it happens. I no longer care about the ignorant or negative people who don’t try and understand or make throwaway comments because my spine and how I handle it is a part of my life. The good, the bad and the ugly.

STRESS and what you can do about it

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Today I woke up early with butterflies in my tummy to go to my doctors appointment. I’ve been so nervous about getting these test results back after being ill on and off for the past month.  The good news is that it’s none of the things they were testing for like Crohn’s, Celiac disease, Diabetes and general bowel disease. The not so good news is that my body isn’t dealing well with the stress that I’ve been under and it’s made me sick. I read somewhere once that we shouldn’t talk about stress, that it was a very british thing to say when we are and we shouldn’t do it. I thought about that for a long time and I think it’s part of the reason I don’t like telling people I’m stressed, I don’t want to seem like I’m whinging.

After hearing from the doctor what being stressed is doing to my health though (and this isn’t the first time), I realised this IS something that needs to be spoken about. Especially with students, I’m in my final year at university and the stress is unbelievable. There is so much pressure to do well, work out what I want to do, find jobs, apply for jobs,  socialise, enjoy all the ‘lasts’, apply for postgrad schemes. On top of all that I have my spine stuff and my mental health. As my mentor said to me, it’s no wonder that I’m getting stressed out at the moment.

So I did what I always do, I wrote a list of things to help me deal with stress and hopefully some of them can help you too

  • Write things down, what you need to do, things that are worrying you, things to look forward too. Everything is a lot better when you write it down. I usually do it in fun colours.
  • Be honest with the people around you.
  • Learn to say no, when things are too much or you don’t want to do them. Saying no is ok!
  • Listen to your body! That’s probably the most important
  • Find a stress reliever, I always feel better after a workout if my spine would let me I’d be in the gym every day.
  • Try and get a good nights sleep.
  • Whenever you can, be around people who make you feel good!
  • Treat yourself to something you want
  • Allow yourself to be a little selfish.

I plan on doing all of these on my week off to try and recharge my batteries and get ready for the final 6 weeks of lectures (!!).

Let me know what some of your stress busting tips are in the comments.

I’m a Feminist.

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A lot of people may see the title of this post and think, so what? I’ve thought about writing this for a while and put it off for no reason other than I didn’t want to get this wrong. I am publicly declaring I am a feminist and anything I thought or wrote before is now over written. I’ve always been a feminist but I hadn’t always liked or used the word. I’ve been a feminist since I was a little girl where I’d shout GIRL POWER at everyone while wearing girl power temporary tattoos and would play armies at school and take charge. I’ve been a feminist since I got bored of barbie and used to sketch out my own dolls who could do anything and be anything. I’ve been a feminist since I was a passionate and angry teenager and later and excited 17 year old who saw a poster for the feminist society at university. Then something changed. I came to uni and got in an argument with a male feminist about how oppressed and angry I should feel. As a rule I hate being told what I should and shouldn’t do or feel, more people tried to fit me into a mold so I decided I didn’t want to be a feminist if that’s what people expected of me.

For a long time I, like a lot of young women, refused to call myself a feminist. I didn’t like the way the word had ugly connotations of man hating, being angry and not wanting to shave or wear a bra. I hate body hair on any human and I love a good bra. I’d say I was a humanist and other things like that, I got in arguments at uni and a lot of ‘feminists’ made me feel like I had to conform to their way of life. Fast forward to when I broke my spine and had a lot of spare time on my hands and something changed. I picked up a copy of How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran for my Writing Women class and it spoke to me. I suddenly felt like I belonged and I could be a feminist and still be myself.

I read and continue to read every book on feminism and strong women that I could get my hands on. I got more interested in politics and women in an international context. I was happy talking about feminism and debating with others. I wanted to be part of a great group of men and women who wanted positivity and empowerment. I’ve said too many that I feel feminism is something you need to discover for yourself and not just tell people WELL YOU ARE, that just pisses people off. I found, fell in love and embraced feminism. I love women like Roxanne Gay too who question what it means to be a feminist in her book ‘Bad Feminist’, because I don’t think there is one true way of being a feminist.

I’m all for women going out and getting a career but I’m also totally supportive of stay at home Mums. My first female role models who I spent time looking up to were my Mum, my Aunt and my Nanna all three are incredible, powerful, kick ass women and all three were stay at home Mums. I also admire working women too, I’ve learnt a lot from my boyfriend’s Mum, who’s always worked. They’re all different and all deserve to be respected for different things.

I also feel that a woman can do what they like with their bodies. I’m not against glamour modelling or the porn industry. Don’t get me wrong there are issues and that’s a whole new blog post but if women WANT to do that to their bodies then who is anyone else to dictate to them? Because to me feminism is all about having a choice.

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I could go on and say all the things we need to fight and put right in the world gender stereotypes, rape, female education around the world, the children debate, etc. I could write about all the men on Twitter, when I posted about equality, who told me I was wrong that the pay gap was a myth and feminism wasn’t needed anymore. I could apologise for being young and naive when I said I wasn’t a feminist. Really though, I just want to say that I’m a big fan of feminism and other women. I don’t want to get angry and compete with them or knock them for every little thing. I certainly don’t want to stand up and go well women are better and men suck, I love men!

I’m writing this because I felt like it was the right time for me to say. I’ve been thinking about feminism instead of sleeping and looking up more books to add to my collection. I know there are some fantastic women out there who I’ve yet to meet and I also know there are people who will judge me first on being a woman before anything else, but you know what I’m excited. I’m excited that I’m a part of this community and that we live in a time where there are so many people working for equality and hopefully less hatred.

So there you go, I’m a feminist, how about you?

I’m Loving: American Crime Story

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As someone who doesn’t have a hooked up TV in their flat, it’s rare I get excited about TV programmes. Over the last few months I’ve kept seeing reports about the OJ Simpson trial, I knew nothing about it but I knew about the name. Nicole Brown-Simpson was murdered the year I was born, so while I have no memory of the trial being on TV I’d heard it mentioned before. The more I read the more interested I got and of course this was all build up to the new FX show, American Crime Story. This looked like it was going to be a great show.

I read and watched a lot to understand background and know the fact before watching the fiction, I wasn’t disappointed. I cannot wait for next week and the next installment, the acting so far has been incredible and I love the angle. There hasn’t been an overwhelming sense of O.J’s guilty or O.J’s not guilty in the first episode which was a relief. I didn’t want to watch something that was incredibly tainted with one person’s view. The fact that the case focuses on those around the case and how it changed their lives is also brilliant to me. Of course, there has been some criticism of the fact that the Kardashians as children will feature BUT the children of O.J and Marcia Clarke are also featured. Robert Kardashian Sr was O.Js best friend, and Kris Jenner Nicole’,s which means that their lives are going to be explored.

The show was fast paced and from what I’ve read is staying close to fact so far. For someone like me, who’s never had an interest in crime shows before to be so hooked they must have done something right. I cannot wait for the next episode and the next and the next. I know I’m going to be clearing time each week to sit down alone and watch, no matter what’s happening that week.

The show also brings up some big issues. The race element is still incredibly relelvent today, 20 years later which is a sad truth. Why is the US still dealing with racism and police brutality? It’s something that, in my opinion, took away from the heart of the case. Two people died, but this was turned into another race issue. Don’t get me wrong I agree that there were and still are great issues between police and the African-American community but for this hugely famous athlete I don’t think it was the case. We’re also confronted with the issue of domestic violence, something incredibly serious. Whether or not O.J Simpson killed Nicole and Ron Goldman, he did assault her. Domestic violence is something that is never ok, towards a man or a woman and from this terrible and shocking murder hopefully there is room for education about domestic violence.

Overall, I’m very excited about this series. It’s going to be a fascinating look at ‘The Trial of the Century’. I’m already thinking about next week and how the famous chase is going to be shot.

How about you guys? Have any of you been watching? What do you think so far?! I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Passion and finding a job

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As a third year student who graduates soon the question of ‘What are you going to DO?’ is cropping up more and more. I know I’m not the only one who wants to stuff their fingers in their ears and just shout la la la I can’t hear you while running away.

I love Ted Talks because I learn a lot and I realise a lot while watching them. I had a conversation with a friend recently about not knowing what to do after uni and not having one true calling. I’ve said before that I would like to do a Masters degree and a PhD but I know that this might change. I also know that there is a chance I might change my mind, a chance that I won’t get funding (which means it would take 4-6 years part time). There are a lot of things that could happen.

So while I have been applying for a graduate job (!!), looking at the kind of jobs available and thinking about what I want to do. So, I watched this Ted Talk because it looked interesting and I liked what she said. About just taking jobs that seem interesting and see where they go, that’s what I’ve done with my past 2 jobs and I’ve loved them. I’ve seen people doing the job and just like her thought ‘I could do that’ and my passion just grew and grew from there. All because I didn’t wait for this big show and dance of outright passion.

Don’t get me wrong I’m still going to freak out at times, I’m 21 and graduating. There’s a lot of pressure but I’m hoping I can keep this in mind and maybe you can too.

Maybe life’s not fair..

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When we’re young we get told life isn’t fair and as we grow older we realise this. there are things that we can’t control that we wish we could, illness is one of those things. You can help with some to prevent it or sooth symptoms but there are others you can’t, and mental illness is the same. I’ve learnt a lot in the last few years about myself and the illness that I have. I’ve thrown myself into research to learn more about the science behind it, recent research and theories to try and have a handle on something that I didn’t choose to have.

Ask a group of people with a mental illness and none of them would have asked to have it. It interrupts life and sometimes for some of our friends it takes theirs. I’ve thought a lot recently about this, about health. As much as I try and treat my body right with certain foods and getting fit and healthy I can’t do much for my mind. Sure I can surround myself with positive people and listed to my mind and my body but other than that if I’m having a low there are a lot of times where I have to wait it out, live with my depression or the anxiety attacks I sometimes have.

That said, ask that same group of people if they could flick a switch and it would have never happened and it will never happen again, it would be a much harder decision. Don’t get me wrong, in the last 6-7 years my illness has made my life hell and has taken things away from me, but it’s also given me things too. I’ve had depression since I was a teenager, so I don’t know what it’s like being an adult without it so sometimes I wonder, would I be as empathetic if I’d never had it, would I be as passionate and would I be so grateful for the little things in life. I don’t know. But I do know, because of my illness, that I have the best possible people in my life who pick me up and who know when I need the day or when I need a kick up the ass. Through lows and highs I’ve got great writing ideas or lyrics I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of, I’ve connected with amazing people and can be blissfully happy by the tiniest of things like waking up in the morning and feeling ok and other things too.

Why am I writing this? For a few reasons, one because I didn’t feel so great in my mentoring session today and we talked for a long time about depression, how I feel about it and the fears I have. There is fear, fear that I might go back to a dark place like I was at school but my mentor pointed something out to me. At 15/16 I had no experience, I hadn’t been diagnosed and I didn’t have a good medical team. I didn’t have a lot of information or ways to recognise my feelings and try and combat them before they got too bad, I had unhealthy ways of dealing with my feelings. In the last 3 years especially I’ve done well to get as far as I have and while the fear won’t go away, if I take note I’m in a better position than I was when I was 15/16. I have a voice and I have you guys too, who can cheer me up on Twitter to no end.

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Taken on my 15th birthday, I was happy here and hadn’t really experienced bad depression yet. 

People may call me names like a nut job, loon, or make snide remarks about being unstable and therefore unable. I’m getting to the point where I’m starting not to care and their hate makes me more driven. This illness may never go away but that doesn’t mean people will always be ignorant, which is why I write things like this to educate, to explain. I’ve written before about my story (the short version, maybe one day I’ll write it in detail) before and I’ve always been open on here about my highs and lows. I think it’s important to remember, for anyone who has an illness, that this is just a part of you, it does not define you. 

So no, life might not be fair and there are thousands of people in the world who live with my illness every day, but we aren’t alone. We might feel like it when depression grabs us and drags us under for a few days but at the end of the day there are so many others out there who are at all different stages of their illness and recovery. Don’t be scared of being you.

2016 on chloemetzger.com

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Now that I’ve settled into 2016, back to uni and in some kind of strange routine I can think about what I want to achieve on my blog this year. I’ve just hit 300 daily subscribers and I now have over 1500 followers on Twitter, if that is any of you that are reading now, thank you so much it was a great start to the year. It’s because of that I’ve tried to think of either things I’d like to achieve and do this year. I’ve whittled it down to just 5 things that I’d like to do.

1. Reach 2000 followers on Twitter and at least 100 more subscribers

2. Start a YouTube channel. I have my camera, tripod and some ideas, I’d like to try it and post 1 video a week.

3. Have regular posts, I already have weekly book reviews but I’d like to do a monthly feature on other bloggers and start ‘Sunday Seven’ my 7 top things of the week, which I’m hoping to start next week!

4.  Work on bigger ideas for posts, more in the lifestyle category.

5. Enjoy! I absolutely love writing this blog, it gives me something to focus on and I’ve connected with a lot of people through it. There will be changes and I won’t be a full time student come July but I won’t be stopping!