Pancakes and Policing

Hello dear readers, how are you doing today? A couple of days ago, as recommended by one of our policing lecturers last semester, a few of my friends and I had lunch at the Pancake Parlour (mmm delicious!) and visited the Victoria Police Museum. We have been wanting to go for months now, but the museum isn't open on weekends, and all our classes clashed throughout the week, so this trip has been a long while coming! The museum itself was a little hard to find and it was absolutely freezing cold outside, but it was well worth the trek.

Here is a list of some of the highlights of the museum:

• Seeing the Russell St bombing car and reading more about it. We went over this case briefly last semester, but it was interesting to learn about it in more detail.
• Learning about the second bombing that happened only a few months after the famous Russell St bombing.
• Seeing a 19th Century vampire slaying kit (yes, really! It had a wooden stake, some sort of vampire poison, silver bullets, and a gun, amongst other supplies).
• Seeing some old crime scene photos from the 1920s-1940s. These photos were rather beautiful in a sad sort of way.
• Getting to see a model of a head, with all the traits of phrenology written all over it. If you don't know, phrenology is a pseudo-science which examines the shape of a person's skull, and how this relates to their personality and traits. We learnt a bit about phrenology in my forensics class last year, and it was interesting to see how it was mapped out in person.

If you are ever in the area, or live in Melbourne and in need of something to do, I would really recommend that you pay this museum a visit. You can find their website here, so definitely go check it out if it sounds like something you would be interested in doing.

Let me know if you've ever been to a similar sort of museum, and how you found that. Have a lovely day!

An Afternoon Drive

I remember the first time I wanted to go for a ride in a classic car - it was when my friend and I would carpool to school in primary school. The street we'd park the car in before walking up to school had a classic car parked in one of the driveways. My friend and I adored that car, always talked about getting ones of our own, and driving everywhere in them, although our plans were (obviously) never followed through. Of course, I've been able to sit in vintage cars in museums since then, but I have never actually been for a ride in one, until today that is.

This beautiful car belongs to one of my dad's friends, and he has been restoring it for several years now. Today he brought it round to our house and took me out for a short drive - something I've been wanting to do for only the last 12 years of my life! It was kinda scary to begin with, because these cars have no airbags and no seatbelts, but once you start to relax, it becomes fun to feel the wind whipping your hair around, and to smell that classic car smell.

My trip in this car today has rekindled my little dream of owning one of these cars one day, so I'm going to have to start saving now! (although I should probably learn how to drive first...).

I wish you all a happy rest of your week, thanks for reading!

What I'm Reading This Winter

Hello dear readers, how are you all feeling today? I've been having a pretty good holiday so far - been shopping, went to see the Minions movie with my friend, been working on getting my etsy store up and running, and have been thinking up ideas for Camp NaNoWriMo in July. All in all, it's actually been pretty busy. And in other news, I'm excited for tomorrow because I'm going out for a lovely birthday lunch with a friend!

Anyway, I can't say enough how great it is to be on holidays until August. University is really tough, but you've got to admit, it makes up for it with all the breaks we get! Over the semester, I find that I don't get a lot of time for recreational reading. The books I want to read for my own enjoyment get pushed back by mountains of journal articles and textbooks, so these holidays I'm going to try and focus a good amount of my time off to progressing through my reading list. The three things currently at the top of this list are...

1. A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

I have been meaning to read this books for YEARS now, but it's just one of those things I've never gotten around to.

2. The July/August issue of Frankie

Who doesn't love Frankie?!

3. The Miniaturist, by Jessie Burton

This is a book my mum got me a couple of months ago. I have already started reading it, and it's pretty good so far, but I plan to finish it over these holidays.

As you can see, even Storm is interested in reading with me! Let me know what books/reading material you would recommend, or what books you are reading at the moment!

On Learning Dutch

My family on my father's side are all from the Netherlands, and for the last few years I have been really wanting to learn Dutch, but just haven't truly summoned the courage until recently. When we lived in the UK, we visited Holland several times, and I don't remember a lot of what we got up to, but the memories I do have are fond ones - going to the cheese market in Gouda, visiting historic sites, eating sooo many Stroopwafels and Speculaas... I would really love to be able to go back again someday, and be able to speak the language as well.

Resources I am using to learn Dutch:

• Duo Lingo - a lot of you probably know about this site already, but in case you don't, you can go on, create an account, and learn a whole variety of languages for free! I'm currently using it for Dutch and German.
• Future Learn - I'm currently taking part in a (free) 3 week Dutch course, which has been really helping out my speaking skills. It's not quite the same as being able to learn face-to-face, but it's giving me a good start, especially on pronunciation and day-to-day language skills.
• Quizlet - This place is a lifesaver for learning vocabulary! Whether you make your own flashcards, or search for sets that others have made, it has had great benefits for me.

Of course, there are many other resources you can use, the ones I listed are simply the ones I have found to be the most useful, informative, and easy to use.

Now, I'll be honest with you - after learning German for 6+ years, trying to learn Dutch is very hard, and I get the two languages mixed up A LOT! As one might imagine, this does admittedly, lead to some rather awkward situations. However, I also find the similarities between the two languages to be helpful, and I think that already knowing so much German helped me learn words and grammar faster as well.

I have such a great passion for learning languages, and although my schedule is going to be busy next semester with university, my friend and I are looking to do a class or two in Auslan (Australian Sign Language). So, we'll see how that turns out, and hopefully it will be much harder to mix up with the other languages I'm taking!

Apologies for the shorter post today, I've been a little short on time recently what with studying for exams and all, but my last exam is this wednesday, so things will be back to normal soon!

How I Was Productive On My Day Off

This week is one I have been dreading since the start of semester - the week of the statistics midterm. It's not that I don't enjoy statistics, because, as surprising as it may sound, I do I really like analysing things and finding out what's significant and what's not, what I don't enjoy is the 4 tedious hours of class every week, the exam, and the midterm test. Our test goes for 2 hours and for this test we are using the oh-so-lovely-and-simple SPSS (that one was sarcasm) (previously our tests have only been paper-based, and assignments were SPSS based). However, in saying all of that there is something good that comes of of statistics midterm week - no stats lecture!, which for me means I get an extra day off!

After an hour of getting up and procrastinating I decided to tackle my to do list for the day (note: my bullet journal in the photo below is looking much improved since I first started it). 

Despite the cold weather, I simply wasn't in the mood for tea today, so I decided to prepare myself some strawberry water in this cute little jar cup I got a few days ago (actually I got a whole set, but the others are currently storing stationery on my shelves). I know the whole putting-fruit-and-veggies-in-water thing has been a really big thing lately, but it's not as overrated as you might think. Until the start of this year, for me, it had become one of those things that you mean to try out someday, but never do. But one day I watched my friend drinking some one day and got jealous at how delicious it looked, so I made some for myself when I got home that night, and haven't looked back since!

I spent the morning working on my essay for sports psychology (and finally reached the word count!), took a break for lunch, and then came back to my desk to get my readings for the week done.

I successfully ticked everything in my bullet journal off for today, which I'm really happy with. I'm going to try and force myself to take the evening off doing study, and just relax a bit, play some games, maybe watch a few episodes of Dance Academy or Young Dracula (hehehe). I must say I'm rather proud of my efforts today, and I hope this post has inspired you at least a little to make good use of your days off.

Cake Decorating

Ever since my friend and I were in year 12 together way back in 2013, we have wanted to open a bakery together. In our form group at school we made cakes for everyone's birthdays, and decorated them all individually. Looking back now, some of the cakes probably looked rather average, but you have to start somewhere right? Recently I have been getting back into using fondant to decorate my cakes and when I was over in New Zealand over easter this year my aunt taught me a whole heap of new fondant and cake-making skills.

The image below is of a selection of the tools I use to decorate the fondant cakes. The rolling pin and the pink knife were presents for my mother's birthday, and everything else has been a really worthwhile investment.

These two cakes are from when I was over with my aunt. Although I know I still need to work on my writing icing skills (the cake on the left) I'm pretty happy with how it turned out overall.

The cake below is from just after we arrived home and I was teaching my mother and sister how to decorate with fondant. We used all the tools and actually had a lot of fun.

My friend and I are hoping to keep on improving our skills in the hope that one day in amongst our music (her) and psychology (me) work that we will be able to buy some land and set up the bakery we've been dreaming of. And as corny as that all sounds, I'm really looking forward to it!

A Trip to The Shire

I've always loved fantasy stories - they're enchanting, and they take you to a completely different world filled with magic, and fantastical creatures, and beautiful dresses. Last Saturday my family and I were lucky enough to get to visit one such world - Hobbiton, the place where all the Shire scenes from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were filmed. I have been a fan of The Lord of the Rings since my family first moved to Australia 8 years ago, so it was quite an exciting trip to make. In fact, the first time I watched the films was on the 24 hour plane trip over here from London.  It was a really awesome experience, and kinda neat that it was filmed there since my mum grew up in that area.

I've never been on a fantasy film set before, so this trip was truly something different to anything I had ever previously experienced. It makes me really want to get back into acting again!

Keep scrolling for my photo tour of Hobbiton...

The tour begins at Gandalf's Cutting, which is where you see Gandalf and Frodo ride in the cart at the beginning of the first film.

My sister standing outside a Hobbit hole.

The gardeners do a wonderful job of looking after the gardens, and keeping them beautiful for the copious amounts of people who walk through Hobbiton every day.

The Party Tree where Bilbo celebrates his birthday.

My sister and I outside a Hobbit hole.

A stunning view of part of Hobbiton. The building across the other side of the river is the Green Dragon where you can get ciders, beers, and ginger beers. I choose to have a cider, which tasted rather nice.

Bilbo Baggins' home.

The attention to detail was simply spectacular. Every single Hobbit hole is different, and many of them have little outdoor displays as well. The one in the photo above is a cheesemaker Hobbit's home, but there were others as well including bread baking and painting.

Sam's home.

My sister and I.

The Green Dragon.

I hope you enjoyed this photo tour of Hobbiton. I'm not saying anything more on my trip than this because I don't want to spoil every surprise! If you're ever in the area, I would definitely recommend that you visit!

Quick Tips: Fitness When There's No Time

If you're anything like me (and I think a lot of people are) then there are always excuses not to exercise - 'I can't afford the gear', 'I don't have time', 'I don't know how', 'I can't be bothered'. And honestly, those are all excuses I have used in the past. However, I truly believe that where there's a will there's a way, so over the last year or so I have been coming up with little ways of improving my fitness on a day-to-day basis. Now, these are things that you don't need expensive equipment, or clothing for, things you don't always need an hour to complete, because I know from personal experience that they are complete exercise turn-offs. Instead they are fairly uncomplicated activities which can easily be incorporated into your daily routine.

1. Stretch, or do yoga poses when you watch tv.

This has honestly been one of the most advantageous things I have started to do. When you watch tv, generally you're just sitting on the sofa stuffing your face with chips. How about challenging yourself for one week, or one month, and seeing if every time (or most times) you sit down to watch tv, you hop onto the floor and practice your stretching or yoga poses while you watch.

2. Every time you walk past a certain place in your house, do a certain fitness activity.

This is another good trick because it doesn't have to feel like you are doing 'actual' exercise. For example: 'Every time I go into the kitchen I will do 10 star jumps', or 'Every time I walk past the tv I will do 10 wall push ups'.

3. Walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator.

This one is easy! And if you happen to work on the 34th floor of a building, and can't manage 34 flights of stairs (who could?!), then just walk up one, or two, or five. Challenge yourself to walk one extra flight a day.

4. Create a '10 Minute Fitness Program' for yourself.

If you have this written down somewhere easily accessible (eg. the wall above your desk, on the fridge), then you will be more likely to follow through with it. If you are unsure what kind of activities to squeeze into 10 minutes, then have a snoop around on google for some good ideas.

5. Get up and walk!

If you are a student, or if you have a desk job, you will find that you spend the majority of your day sitting down. To rectify this, make sure you get up every hour and go for a little walk (obviously not in the middle of a meeting, class, or lecture), but just whenever you've been sitting at your desk for a while. This will help get the blood pumping, and will also help with your concentration, so you can better focus on the task at hand.

So there you have it folks. My quick tips for exercising when there's no time, or when you're just plain lazy like me. I hope you find this useful, and drop me a line if you have any other techniques you use which you'd like to share.

Little Places on the Internet #2

In a few days I am going overseas to visit family for about a week. Life has been pretty busy, getting packed, organising outings, and planning out all the homework I have to do there, but I have a few blog posts queued for the time I am away, so hopefully you won't miss me too much!

Since I've been a little short on time this week I thought I would give you another link roundup. I like doing these, I think they're really great ways to discover new and useful websites that you wouldn't have otherwise known about.

1. A Good Movie to Watch

This one is pretty self explanatory. Don't know what movie you're in the mood to watch? Just hop on over to this website and either pick a recommendation, or choose a mood or genre!

2. Ocearch

I only recently discovered this website and it's rather neat if I do say so myself. It's a shark tracker, which gives you the current locations of sharks which have been tagged, as well as their names, and other information about them.

3. The Sketchbook Project

The Sketchbook Project is a large collection of people's sketchbooks and art books. You can search for something specific, or simply browse through them. Definitely worth checking out if you are ever in need of inspiration.


4. Visual News

This is quite a cool website if you're not one for reading or going onto pages which have a lot of text.


Little Places on the Internet #1

Easter Cooking: Easter Bark

I must admit, until the end of last year I hard never heard of making 'bark' before. When I first came across it I was rather confused, and had to do some googling to find out what exactly it was, and how it's made. From my understanding, bark is traditionally a Christmas treat, but I thought it looked too good to have to wait for another year or so to make, so I decided to try whipping up an Easter themed one! I know my family certainly enjoyed it, so I hope you all do too!

Easter Bark
Ingredients
White chocolate
Mini marshmallows
Mini Easter Eggs
Sprinkles

Method
Step 1. Heat the chocolate in a microwave-safe container in the microwave in 30 second increments, stirring after each one, until the chocolate has melted. Each time your stir, mix the chocolate for a good 20 seconds to ensure that it won't burn when you put it back in. I heated my chocolate in a glass jug, and it took 90 seconds.

Step 2. Stir the mini marshmallows, mini eggs, and some of the sprinkles into the white chocolate. Pour the mixture into a tray or baking dish and place in the fridge until hardened.

Step 3. Cut the bark into edible pieces and serve and keep in the fridge when not eating.

Let me know how you find this recipe!

School Fair

When school finished a few years ago, I thought I would never come back - I was done with my years of schooling, and I would never have to see the walls of the school ever again - I was very excited to not have to go back. However, this was not to be. I think while you're still in school the only thing you want is to get out, but once you leave you almost want to go back. It's normal to you, it's how you've lived for at least 12 years of your life, so it's beyond strange not to be locked into that routine anymore.

Anyway, enough with the nostalgia. Last weekend was my high school's annual community fair day. My sister was performing a couple of pieces on her violin, and I wanted to catch up with some old friends, so I went along for a few hours. My mum and I bidded on a whole bunch of items in the silent auction, and won a bit more than we probably should have, but oh well. The things we won are actually quite nice, and what we don't need will have good lives in the emergency present pile. I didn't manage to snap everything we bought/won, because we opened most things before I remembered to take some photos, but I got what I could.

All the items in the following photos came in the same 'mindfulness hamper', and my sister and I decided to share them with each other, and make our bathroom look pretty.

These are some of the jams and relishes we bought. I'm especially excited to try the tomato relish (big fan over here!).

The remaining images are of an assortment of things from a variety of the different hampers we won at the silent auction.

Revived Book Review (Spoiler Free)

Revived is an engaging story by author Cat Patrick which follows the life of teenager, Daisy West. As with all of Patrick's novels, Revived is about the sort of topic which forces you to think. Could this scenario actually be happening right now?

Daisy is a test subject in a top-secret government program called Revive, named after the drug they are testing, which brings people back to life. The drug only works if administered within several minutes after death, and every time a test subject 'dies' they have to be relocated, and given new identities.

Although Daisy had never formed too serious an attachment to anyone in towns she previously lived in, her latest move to Omaha changes things. She meets her soon-to-be best friend, develops a crush on a cute guy, and enjoys her life in the new town. However, good things don't last forever, and Daisy's seemingly perfect world gets turned upside down through events out of anyone's control. Revived explores the themes of identity, relationships, and the things that can happen to us when these connections get torn apart.

Although criticised by some as being a plain character with little depth, Daisy is three-dimensional, thrust into a life she didn't choose, and forced into making difficult choices, even if they sometimes the route she takes seems like the wrong one. This is what makes her 'real'. In the real world people do not always make good decisions, people act hastily, people mess up. I think Daisy's character reflects this human characteristic well.

Patrick's writing is cohesive, and manages to suitably translate complex themes for the readers. Personally, one of my favourite examples of this surrounds the idea of God and religion. Despite the fact that Daisy has died several times, there is no ultimate conclusion on her behalf of what would happen when she dies for real. Daisy deems religion as being 'unnecessary' to her as she believes that most religious ideas revolve around the idea of life after death, and she has not ever had to worry about dying.

Another religious undertone in Revived is that the mysterious man in charge of Revive is aptly named God as he has the power to 'manipulate life and death'.

Despite all the negativity that occurs in Daisy's life, there are happier moments for her as well. She jokes around with her friends, enjoys designing, decorating, and furnishing her bedroom, and runs a blog with her transgender friend Megan. No matter how much bad there is, Daisy manages to pull herself up, knowing that she'll eventually 'fall back into step' with the world.

Whilst the ending was somewhat predictable, the story still made me feel like crying, and I didn't want to lose hope for Daisy's future. Overall, I found Revived to be a worthwhile read, so I would recommend it to you, if it sounds like the kind of story you would enjoy.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Easter Cooking: Chocolate Nests

The other day I was flipping through some old recipe books in the cupboard, looking for something interesting to make, and stumbled upon these little beauties. When I lived in London, these were made all the time for kids parties, and since I hadn't had the luxury of eating one in about 8 years, I scurried straight into the kitchen to get started.

This has got to be one of the simplest recipes I know, that you almost don't need an actual recipe for it. So - there's no excuse for not giving it a go!

Chocolate Nests
Taken from Usborne's Easter Cooking Book
Ingredients

• One packet of cadbury mini eggs (I don't know if other companies make the equivalent of these)
• 2 tablespoons of golden syrup
• 250g melting chocolate
• 100g cornflakes (or rice bubbles)

Method
Step 1. Melt the chocolate in a large saucepan with a little butter so it doesn't burn as easily.

Step 2. Stir in the golden syrup to the nearly-melted chocolate.

Step 3. Once the chocolate had completely melted, mix in the cornflakes.

Step 4. Place heaped spoonfuls of mixture into muffin cases, shape with your fingers, and press an indent into the middle of each nest. In the indent place 3 of the mini eggs.

Step 5. Place the muffin tray in the fridge and leave to set for about an hour.

I love this recipe simply because it is so easy, and can be quickly whipped up in an emergency. 

Enjoy!

Cat Photography

I don't know if every pet owner feels this way, but I just looove taking photos of our family cat. She's just so darned cute and fluffy that I simply cannot resist! Over the few months that we've had her, I have taken a heck of a lot of photos of her, and I thought I would share some of the better/funnier ones with you today.

Storm absolutely adores watching these kinds of cat videos. She gets confused when the birds fly off the screen though, and will look around the room and behind the computer for them.

"No, I'm not too big for this box!"