That's Why Her Hair's So Big...

I have always been a firm believer that a good hair do is pretty much paramount to maintaining personal happiness levels. Partly because of the fact that I went to an all girls school, but mostly because of the fact that my mum is a hairdresser- hair is important.

I've always had a lot of hair. When I was little it was a curse. My hair was think and wavy and knotty and for some reason I spent most of primary school with it in a low ponytail which only further highlighted that my face is was round it was practically a planet. As a grew up it became the thing I loved most about myself. At one point my mum also cut it into a bob, so short she may as well have just sheered it all off and no, she still isn't entirely forgiven (who lets a five year old decide what's good for them?! I'm 21 and I still don't know what's good for me!)

Something about me was braver when it came to my hair- I didn't care what other people thought. I started colouring it at 10 (my mum had brightly coloured hair throughout most of my childhood so she really couldn't have said no) and it went on from there. In Year 9, I was threaten with suspension because the block of red running through my mane did not stick to the 'natural hair colour only' rule my all girls school enforced. Then, at 16, I went from brunette to redhead and never looked back.
It's been blue and yellow and purple, and orange and red and brown and it never scared me. Whilst other parts of my appearance have always seems like an uphill struggle (my skin, my stomach, my inability to have at high gap), I've always been at one with my hair- even if I have been ripping a brush through it and praying I'd wake up with it naturally pin straight (still no such luck).

Now my hair is pink. After a year of doing nothing but excruciatingly question each tiny decision I have made and not knowing myself from one day to the next- I finally feel like I'm being to regain control of me.

Between graduating, booking my trip, starting my internship, and the new hair; I guess I'm starting to see bits of myself I thought I'd lost forever.

So fuck it. Maybe this is narcissistic and shallow as hell, but I don't care. This is an appreciation post for my hair. It makes me feel good about myself and it reminds me to always be a bit braver and a bit bolder. Who knows, maybe if we all started appreciating the parts of ourselves we truly love a little more- loving all the slightly less great bits will become less of a battle.

-xo

The Importance Of Being Blair

Perhaps one of the greatest fictional characters of our generation, Blair Waldorf (from Gossip Girl, just in case you've been under a rock since the dawn of time) is woman who knows what she wants. Yet, her great outfits (not Serena great, but still great) and perfect hair have nothing on the little pearls of wisdom she imparted on us all during the six series that changed life as we know it. They're words to live by from the biggest, baddest bitch around, and if they we're good enough for Blair, they're good enough for me.

'Destiny is for losers. It's just a lame excuse for letting things happen to you instead of making them happen.' - Blair Waldorf

Look me in the eye and tell me that isn't some real talk right there.

So kids, I've pulled a Blair and about a month ago I fobbed off destiny because destiny. Is. For. Losers.

It was a calm Monday morning, the week before I had interviewed for two internships in London and had heard nothing back, having been told I would have heard before the weekend. 'Never mind', I thought to myself, 'I have other plans'. As you all know, I have been saving for my South American adventure since I moved home in June, and thinking that I hadn't got the internship of my dreams, I decided enough was enough. What was supposed to be a follow up planning meeting at the STA Travel in Covent Garden, turned into me spending my savings and booking my flights.

I'm going to south America. On my own. For four months.
Metal? Yes.
Scary? Certainly.
Brave? We'll find out.

Because, and here's the thing, I was always going to find a reason to stay. From a guy, to my dream to career, to my incapability to save money- if I hadn't have just booked it, I'd still be sat here erm-ing and ahh-ing.

London - Rio - Buenos Aires - Santiago - La Paz - Lima - Quito - San José - LA - London.

Naturally, there will be a blog, because I know you'll all be keen to keep up to date on my where abouts and making sure I'm still alive. I'm a weird mixture of excited and petrified but I sort of can't wait to make this dream a reality. I figure you're only 21 and completely free once, wasting this opportunity to travel the world would be criminal. I'm 99.9% sure it'll be the making of me, so long as I can stand the hostels!

Instantly my mind went into money saving mode, planning how I could pick up extra hours and be the best waitress ever (I'm a horrible waitress, it's a good thing I can chat to people if I'm being honest) so I could save every single penny possible. It was gonna be great, I was going to save like a demon and have the most amazing four months ever...

24 hours after booking my flights, I get a phone call to say I'm being offered the position of social media intern for one of the UK's biggest charities. Unpaid.
But how could I say no? TELL ME HOW?!
I said yes. I haven't had a day off in four weeks, I'm constantly exhausted, I rush from the centre of London back to Bucks two nights a week to make it to Friday's for a 7pm start, and I work all day Saturday and Sunday; but I love it.

I'm happy, I'm focused, I'm making my dream come true and I'm investing in my future.

It's living proof that Blair was right. You don't need destiny. You just need to get off your arse and make life happen.

-xo

You're a Feminist, Harry!

Unless you've spent most of this week under a rock, or somewhere so remote the internet does not exist, I'm sure you will have all read about, watched and formed your own opinions on Emma Watson's incredible UN Speech.

To many of us of, Watson has always been some what of an idol. Not only did she play the one of the greatest female literary characters of the millennial generation, but she grew up right before our very eyes without going off the rails. She got herself into an Ivy League College (which was probably tougher than getting the role of Hermonie) and has always fallen into the category of female that girls want to be and men want to be with.

As face of new campaign HeForShe, a campaign that promotes the novel idea that, guess what? MALES CAN BE FEMINIST, she eloquently listed for the crowd reasons why she decided to be a feminist. As a female of roughly the same age, not many of them shocked me. Feeling sexualised at far too young an age, being called 'bossy', worrying that sports would make my  body look 'unfeminine' (well alright, that one was less me, who at 15 thought sport was just about the most awful thing on the planet, but I do remember friends of mine worrying that playing so much netball was 'making their boobs weird').
The one that stuck out most to me though, was when she said that at 18, she watched her male companions struggle to communicate their feelings... Because it's true and is probably the biggest thing that all feminist haters seem to over look.

We live in a patriarchal society, we have done for generations and whilst yes, here in the west, in the UK and the US it is better, there are places not so far away from us where things are not better at all. We spend so much time telling girls how over emotional they are that we miss it giving boys a direct message that emotions are not human, they're female and that somehow, that makes them bad.

We live in a society where new father's are expected to get back to work straight away and are somewhat looked down on if, God forbid, they want to work from home to look after their kids whilst their wives/girlfriends return to work to continue where they left off.

Feminism doesn't do that. Patriarchy does.

Patriarchy teaches boys not to cry like a girl/hit like a girl/throw like a girl. Patriarchy teaches your daughters and sons that if she's upset, she's probably over reacting or due on and therefore, wahtever upset probably wasn't that big a deal. It breads insecurity in our own emotions. It teaches girls not to fight back, whilst teaching boys to be the first one to throw a punch, but punching is only disrespectful if you hit a girl. It teaches that mother's make the better parent, even though every single family is different and that can't always be true. It teaches us that men are automatically the monsters, when we all know that women can commit some pretty horrific crimes too.
Patriarchy, not feminism, is what's standing in the way of you, boys. All this time it's been lulling you into a false sense of security that those dirty, bra burning feminists just want to ship you all off to a remote island and leave you there to rot, when really it's been doing all the rotting for you.

So I hope Miss Watson opens some eyes. Having graced multiple sexiest women lists as well as multiple best dressed columns, she's the perfect ambassador for HeForShe. She's asking that we simply start to look at the word 'feminism' as another way of saying 'equality'...

And a little equality never hurt anyone.

The Year of the Viral Nomination

It seems to me that the craze of 2014 has been that of the online nomination. From necknominates (where the only real objective was to see who could down the filthiest looking pint), to the No Make Up Selfie's for Cancer awareness and most recently the ALS/MND Ice Bucket Challenge, people have been quick to get their #donation on.

Of course, doing something silly to raise money for charity is nothing new. It's the foundations on which large scale charitable organistions like Comic Relief are built upon. It doesn't make you a hero, and when the Ice Bucket Challenges first began appearing all over my social media feeds, I was skeptical and prayed no one would drag me into it.
Then I watched a video made by an actual ALS sufferer and my mind started to change.

Anthony Carbajal is 26 and had been diagnosed with ALS. His grandma had it and his mum has it. The disease quite literally deteriorates lives. His video is funny, sad and undeniably eye opening.

Yes, the Ice Bucket Challenge is absolutely ridiculous. In a world where 783 million people do not have access to clean water and 2.5 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation it is obscene that so many of us (myself included) can justify simply wasting more than we usually do. But it serves a purpose, in that very first split second when the icey water hits your body, you are paralised. It is a minuscule glimpse into what day to day life feels like when your brain tells your muscles to do something they simply can't.
This time last year, the MNDA had raised barely a fraction of the money raised since the Ice Bucket Challenge took over our lives, which is pretty impressive. It's good to bring light on illness that need money and more extensive research, because who get's to pick which one is more profitable? (After all, and without meaning to sound like an absolute cynic, the pharmaceutical industry is a multi-billion dollar one).

It's 2014, if it doesn't have a cure yet, we should be looking into it. In the same way that no man, woman, girl or boy should have to walk 6 miles to collect water that could kill them, and people should not still be dying of starvation.

Not all of us can cure fatal illness or end world hunger, I appreciate that. The greatest talent I can offer the world (besides drinking a bottle of Pinot in 30 seconds and touching my nose with my tongue) is my ability to write (and even then, without spell-check it's questionable as whether this is a 'talent'). So I write this to help try and convince those who are still skeptical, and I text to donate because some things are best left to the experts... No one would benefit from me stepping into a laboratory!

ICED55 ( plus the amount you would like to donate) to 70070 to donate to MNDA.
WATER to donate £3 to 70007 to donate to WaterAid.

Anthony Carabajal's video is here.

-xo

Same Bodies, Different Summer...

It happens every year, doesn't it?
April roles around and people are suddenly gripped with that 'shit-it's-almost-summer' panic. Everyone cashes in on it, gyms start advertising their pre-summer discounts, the lady in the red swimsuit starts prancing about in the Special K adverts and copies of NOW! Diet hit the stands. We all vow to eat a bit greener, maybe exercise a bit more...
But usually by the May bank holiday we've forgotten all about our promise because 'fuck it, August is ages away' and before we know it, we're battling Ryanair queues, minus the god-like body we promised ourselves, still happy to simply be tuning out for a week or two.

So why, WHY is that every single year magazines get a kick out of making celebrities look like complete fools for simply being normal on the beach?!

This week's Heat cover

Today is a Tuesday, which means it's Heat Magazine day and (I'll be honest) I love me a bit of Heat. It's sort of a running joke between a few of my friends that the only thing I will ever be qualified for in life is running a magazine just like it. I care too damn much about what Harper Beckham wore to playschool and I'm not ashamed of it*, BUT I can't help but feel sad that every single issue shames at least one person's body (usually a female, but by no means always).

We are in the throws of a national body image crisis. According to a report carried out by the Daily Mail, only 8% of 2000 teenage girls asked were 'happy' with their bodies, and 64% of those under 13 had already been on a diet. I know these facts only reflect the way teenage females feel, but anorexia & other eating disorders have been on the rise in males for years.
Celebrity magazines like Heat appeal to young, most female audiences. Mostly, the pages are filled with images rather than words and issue after issue they send the message that looking anything less than Kim-K-on-her-wedding-day flawless is unacceptable.

This isn't a new argument. It's nothing new that the media is full of hypocritical BS, or that body image, the way we see ourselves and the way we see each other has become a huge business that rakes in millions every year. It's an industry I'd give a kidney to be a part of, but finding a way to use it for good instead of for absolute world domination (because, let's face it, that's what the media really wants) won't be easy.

So what if Kate Moss had a fag whilst lying around on her yacht off the coast of Ibiza or if Ferne's bikini bottoms don't fit properly... have you got any idea how hard it is to find bikini bottoms that don't sag the minute you step out of the water? DO YOU? No, tabloid magazine, I don't think you do.

Treat your bodies right & love the one you've got, folks. Change it if you want to, if it'll be better for your health or just make you happier in general, but it's the only one you'll ever have. The thought of spending the rest of my life having some piece of paper tell me mine isn't good enough makes me rather glum.

Mind you, I'm the kind of girl that spends an hour in the gym just so I can eat cake for lunch... but that's me and despite the fact that none of us will probably ever be 100% sure about our bikini bodies, I'm starting to think that mine could be worse... You know... Maybe.

So, if the media could just let us all go on holiday without making us feel like beached whales, that'd be really, really nice of them.

- xo

*Ok, so I am a little bit ashamed of my Harper Beckham fixation. Sorry.

Post-Grad Drams (I mean Dreams)

A funny thing happened about a month ago...
I graduated.
I popped on my hat and gown and successfully walked across the stage without falling arse over tit to shake the Dean's hand. I took lots of photo's with my parents and friends, had a lovely meal and then dragged my parents to everyone's fave student bar and got myself so drunk I vommed in the loos of the first class Virgin carriage coming back down south the next day.
Oh yes my friends, I did it.
Success.

Of course, reality soon set back in and I realised the bar job I got myself when I first moved back home wasn't actually for me, so I handed in my notice and got myself my dream job instead...

I'm going to be a waitress at TGI Friday's.

I know, I know, it's another hospitality job and don't I already have one of those?! Shouldn't I be looking for an ACTUAL job?! Doesn't the MMU website have loads of amazing graduate jobs I can be applying for?! But, it's TGI Friday's and I am me. It's a pretty decent combination when you think about it and I have always wanted to work in one, stupid as that may sound.
When I was younger, my parents told me that back in the day if you wanted to work at TGI Friday's instead of interviewing you, they auditioned you, which naturally, struck a chord with me. I have always had a love for theatre and drama, shocking news to absolutely no one, so the idea that I may one day have to audition for a job excited me (especially since I was about 8, and had no idea what an actual interview would feel like).
I figure what could be better than working somewhere that will, hopefully, be a fun environment, in an industry I have huge soft spot for, earning money to make my dream trip come true?
I'm 21, if I start my cooperate life now, I'll never leave. I know what I'm like, and currently I want to do everything all at once. I want to have a fun job and save money and see the world but I also want my dream career and a flat in the city (Manchester or London, no where else is really in the running) and drinks in nice bars and expensive shoes. In true Hayley style, I want to run before I can walk.
I talk to people in their mid-late twenties and can't help but feel a little bit envious. They've been there, done it, and are now actual human beings with plans and life goals who appear to have their shit together... Most of them insist that they are still just as clueless as they were at 21 though, so maybe the true trick to making it through your twenties is simply to make it look like you're making it through your twenties.

My savings account is looking healthier than it has done in a while, so whilst I miss city life and find myself longing for access to 24 hours Dominos Pizza (you know, just in case) and desperate to be able to go for drinks without having to drive, I know that it'll be worth it when I'm learning to Samba in Sao Paolo and learning to surf in Costa Rica.

-xo

From Manchester, With Love

"You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.” - Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran

So, that's it, my friends. Three years, one degree and countless hangovers later, my time in Manchester, for now at least, has come to an end. It's a strange sort of feeling. On one hand I am in complete denial about the fact that I am moving back in with my parents after three years of living on my own; but on the other hand, I feel as though, at long last, the world is my oyster.

It's been a pretty special journey. I've experienced more than I thought humanly possible and I am, in no way, shape or form, the same girl that practically sprinted up the M6 on A Level Results Day. It's been hectic and crazy and messy and wonderful and painful and liberating; and I am proud to say that I have not a single regret.

In the past three years I have found that best friends come in all shapes and sizes. They are the people you get drunk with at 6am and spill your heart out to. You meet them whilst working 14 hour shifts, for crappy money and little recognition. They are the people who surprise you by being there when you least expect. They live right under you and they live miles away. They are the people you call with your broken heart, and the people who call you with theirs. They teach you that families are not always related by blood. Sometimes they are there forever and sometimes they are only there for a short while. I got so lucky. I am leaving not having made any friends but having created a family. My own messy, non judgemental, beautiful family.

I spent a lot of 2013 with a group of people who showed me a whole new meaning to the word 'family', and although they are no longer a part of my day to day life, I hope they never stop showing people that meaning, it was pretty special to be part of. I spent nine months working in a bar with the messiest, most ridiculous and sometimes most disgusting group of boys a girl could wish for. But they believed in me in a way that I often struggled to see for myself and I will never be able to tell them how much that meant. I've cleaned up the vomit of drunks with girls I will have in my life forever. Girls who will go off to be, no doubt, leaders of entire empires, putting Queen Bey to shame, and I know I'll be able to pop round with a bottle of wine at 2am and they'll always have room for me. I have spent three years battling a crazy, disorganised department bonding with some of the world's most talented and creative individuals. They've single headedly got me through crappy units, nasty tutors, mental tutors and my SODDING dissertation. They've got me drunk by 3pm on a Friday afternoon and have joined me in celebrating exams they didn't even sit. They are the brightest of the bunch and they're my friends; I'm not even sure how it's possible.

I have lived, for the past three years, with a group of women I would be insulting to merely call 'my friends'. Nah, them bitches is my sisters. They'll be on my hen do and at my wedding. At my 25th and at my 50th. We have battled everything from drunken spats, to broken hearts and even the scariest of diseases, and I admire them in a way I don't think they'll ever understand.

Equally, I don't think I could have been prepared for just how much you learn outside of the lecture hall. I have learnt that be it in a bar or in an office- if you love the people you work with (as I always did) you never really do a days work. I have learnt that you have to know when to cut your losses, life is hard enough without working at friendships that are actually toxic.

I have learnt that it really is ok if you fuck up, you just gotta pick yourself up, learn the lesson and move on.

I have learnt that falling in love is the easiest thing in the world and I have learnt that I can love as easily as breathing. But I have also learnt that I have my limits. I learnt that two people merely loving each other doesn't always put them on the same page. I have learnt that sometimes the love doesn't go but the relationship has to come to an end anyway, simply because it’s no longer working, and that you've just got to be thankful you got out before it got truly sour because there isn't always a bad guy.

 I have learnt that appreciating what you have is so much more important that crying over what you don't. I have learnt, finally after years of education, that if you actually dedicate yourself to your work, your mark will reflect that. I have learnt to be less afraid. I have learnt that sometimes life makes no sense, but I've also learnt that everything happens for a reason. I have learnt that what you have planned for life, life doesn't always have planned for you- you've just got to go with it. And I have learnt that sometimes you've just got to pull an Elsa and 'Let It Go'.

I have grown. I am not the girl I was three years ago, 18 months ago, six months ago or six weeks ago. I have made the most amazing memories, ticked a lot of crazy shit off my bucketlist, met people I never dreamt of meeting and lost people I never dreamed of loosing.

It's been the best three years, with the best people and even though the last six months have been tough in just about every possible way, all they've really done is made me tougher. I wouldn't change a single thing.

Years from now I'm going to look back on the night I dressed up as pumpkin for Halloween and walked home at 6am through the dusky streets of Manchester still in costume and laugh a laugh that starts in my belly and pours out of me.

I'll never be able to say thank you enough to every, single person I've met along the way, but I thank each of them with every inch of me. If the rest of my life chapters are like this one, I am going to live the greatest life I could possibly ask for.

-xo