Thoughts of a Psychology Student

Sorry this blog post is so late! (by 'so' late I mean 2 days but still). Hope it doesn't disappoint you as much as the solar eclipse disappointed the entire population of Bath.... (making a pin hole camera is easier said than done...) Book five minutes into your daily schedule now and commit to give that time to someone who needs it. Perhaps your family, a friend, or even more time in prayer. Done :) Read your local newspaper, watch TV or scroll through your Facebook newsfeed. Pray for each item as it appears. I haven't done this yet, but believe it's so important. We often underestimate the power of prayer, especially in affecting issues that we're not directly related to. Pray with shameless audacity. Slip a bar of chocolate into someone’s bag with a note saying ‘#40acts’. Or leave a bar or two in your local library, on a park bench or on the train. This was my most successful act this week. I bought a chocolate bar, put a cute po...

Lent week 3 has potentially been less successful than previous weeks. Nevertheless, here are the acts i've completed this week... Call your grandma, or your grandson, or your teenage cousin. Make a point of reconnecting with someone of a different generation today I did manage to do this act this week, albeit perhaps for different reasons than merely reconnecting. I emailed my entire extended family (... well those who are technologically advanced....) about potential sponsorship for hitchhiking to Paris in April. But I also managed to email my Grandma! I told her about me singing in a concert at the weekend (something she was delighted to hear) and told her I wanted to come and stay with her in May for a couple of nights. She replied pretty pronto (yay for technologically able o.a.ps) telling me that she just read my email on her iPad, sitting on a balcony in Madeira drinking wine and sent me this picture to prove it... alright for some I suppose... Think of a par...

I like to think i've been slightly better at doing my 40acts each day this week..... The bare minimum is to arrive when you say you will. Could you be there a few minutes earlier, though? This act resulted in a rather ridiculous shenanigan this weekend. Facing a prospective hectically busy couple of days, Imogen and I decided to plan out exactly where we needed to be, when we needed to be there and what we needed to bring. Saturday morning was spent at our church women's breakfast, followed by swimming at the leisure centre, and rushing back up to campus for GASP rehearsals  on time  (singing society). When we got to the rehearsal, it seemed no one was there. Upon realising we had got the wrong day we proceeded to stay in a seminar room and meticulously plan out Sunday so that we didn't miss anything.  Come sunday morning, we met with church people to give our breakfast bags on campus, rushed down to town to watch Helen and Maddy run .... but missed th...

So this week I've been a bit crap with doing all my lent things because I've been so damn busy. But here are the ones I have done: "Pick up any litter you spot today and drop it into a bin. (You might want to wear latex gloves or use a litter-picker!) Not going out? Sort out your kitchen so that you can get into the habit of recycling easily." - I did both picking up litter and cleaning up the kitchen this week. (And tried not to complain about the latter....) "It doesn't take much to make someone feel special. A treat through their letterbox or on their desk, or an unexpected compliment, can go a long way." - Weirdly I kinda did this without being prompted to, but I wrote a thank you letter to a particular friend who is just pretty damn great. And it made me feel good too (Y) "Buy Fairtrade today when you stop at the shops for that drink or bar of chocolate. Even better, buy two and give one to a friend." ...

This is just going to be a very short post about what I'm going to be doing this lent I wondered about giving something up; chocolate (too difficult), make up (too risky), facebook (impractical), but nothing really jumped out at me. This morning I spotted something called "40Acts 2015" on Facebook (good job I didn't give it up). Its a collation of 40 reflections and 40 acts of generosity over lent. So I figured I'd follow this.  Each day has either a 5 minute, 10 minute or hour option, depending on how much you want to challenge yourself.  I'm going to try to blog about what I do each day, very short and sweet blogs. I might post every day, but I might do a weekly blog where I write about 7 days worth of generosity instead. I'll play it by ear. So here it is... Day 1: Start a Journal (10 minutes) "Start a journal. Keep a list of all the people you want to bless this lent, and use it to document all the things you lea...

Warning, this blog post is gonna be fairly God focussed - if it's not your cup of tea then I apologise! My blog has plenty of other non-christiany blog posts though so feel free to read those instead... ;) So i'd been worrying recently that my irrational feelings of anxiety that sometimes creep up on me in random social situations were closing doors of opportunity and hindering my experiences. I hated the idea that by talking myself out of going to a meeting, or making the effort to get to know someone i'd only recently met, I may be missing out on an opportunity that arises from engaging in that situation. So I decided to pray about it. (Instinct I suppose) So the first Sunday back after ISB me and Imogen were going to go to church. That morning, I received a text saying she was ill and was going to give it a miss. Considering I'd already said to another friend I'd be there, combined with the late notice, I couldn't very easily talk myself out of g...

Lying in my bed after having laboriously unpacked my two crammed suitcases into my uni room, I am missing inter-semester break already. Whilst many adventures took place during the holiday after exams, one particular highlight was seeing Matilda in the West End in London. Each day, the Cambridge Theatre release 16 £5 tickets per performance for 16 to 25 year olds at 10am. Knowing there would be other students queueing for this brilliant deal, we woke up at 6.30am, got the tube into central London and were queueing outside the box office by 8am. The 2 hours before ticket release were spent doing killer sudokus and making multiple coffee runs. The production was fantastic and it got me thinking about growing up. Roald Dahl's children's books played a huge part in my childhood. The BFG, George's Marvellous Medicine and Matilda were my favourites. It struck me that a recurring theme throughout Dahl's stories is the triumph of children over adults. As a child w...