Thoughts of a Psychology Student

It's odd how different two english speaking countries can be culturally. This summer I went to Canada (specifically British Columbia) and was taken aback by how different the lifestyle and culture was despite the same mother tongue.  Vancouver is an incredible city. Some call it the city of glass because of its glossy skyscrapers that reflect the often blue skies overhead.  It's urban architecture is juxtaposed beautifully by the majestic mountains that surround the downtown area. And I suppose, given its idyllic postcard-perfect appearance, it should have been no surprise to me that the Canadian culture is, well, altogether more ' friendly ' than British culture. Whilst us Brits boast of medieval castles and Roman baths, (and don't get me wrong, there's a lot to be said about British history), you only have to endure one morning commute across London to understand what I'm alluding to when I say that British people (generally) are such s

Though I haven't posted on here in a while, it has seemed that a topic keeps cropping up in every day happenings so much so that I decided I should write about it. The topic in question is Stories. More precisely, the importance of stories in a literal sense but also as an abstract concept. I suppose this thought process began whilst I was debating whether or not to take a gap year before university. The idea of being able to travel the world in pursuit of so called 'self discovery' has always appealed to me, just as it did to Forster's Lucy Honeychurch and indeed John Green's  Quentin “Q” Jacobsen. But the more I thought about it, the more it  occurred  to me that perhaps this idea of finding out 'who you are' is just an idea found in story books and the first world. For want of a better phrase, self discovery is ultimately a "first world problem". So what does this have to do with stories? Well during a discussion with one of the teache