Thoughts of a Psychology Student

It's been 72 hours since the attacks in Paris, and I have to say, I can't remember the last time I experienced an event so emotionally and mentally draining without being a physical part of it. Cycling in the gym last night, I was positioned right in front of the BBC news channel TV, which showed scenes of the Paris terror on a loop for a solid 40 minutes. I do not want to watch the footage that captured the moment the explosion went off outside the stadium anymore. I do not want to watch the video of someone clinging to the edge of a second floor window whilst innocent citizens clamber over bodies that were shot down outside the arts theatre. I do not wan t to read about the names of the terrorists that attacked Paris. I want to remember the #PorteOuverte hashtag offering safety to all those seeking refuge in the aftermath. I want to consider the taxi drivers who turned off all their meters to give lifts to citizens who were out in the open. I want to lis...

Newspapers. News Broadcasts. Radio. They all talk of it. This disease. This danger, advancing. We see them coming. Across the sea. How dare they? They're invading our space, seeking our benefits. Two worlds are colliding; the clean and the unclean. They're here to muddy our pure waters. They want in on our society, a culture of safety and prosperity. How dare they? We have to protect our own interests. We are under threat. Asylum seekers? As if. They should be admitted to one. Here they come, marching across Europe Making the comfortable uncomfortable. How dare they? There they linger, in pitiful camps. Tarpaulin shelters and gravel playgrounds. They are rife with scabies and gangrene. Boatloads of them on the horizon, What idiot believes that the water is safer than the land? They're wasting coastguards' time. How dare they? There are bodies now. Hundreds of them. Decomposing in lorries. Bei...

If I am correct, you should be revising. But yet you are procrastinating, by not only scrolling through social media feeds, but by clicking on my blogpost link. And i'm glad you did. Because I'm about to recommend you watch a particular documentary... think of it as another revision break. The documentary in question is called " The Stranger on the Bridge " (hence the blog post title...) and if i'm honest, I only watched it because I'd seen Steph + Dom and Leon + June react to it on Gogglebox, which may well be the best show on TV to date (besides the actual documentary of course)... The programme is a depiction of a true story. It documents Jonny Benjamin's quest to find the man who talked him out of jumping off waterloo bridge in 2008 in a suicide attempt. And inevitably, this emotionally charged, moving documentary made me cry enough to want to write a blog post on it. Without giving away too much, the beginning of the documentary shows Jonny ...

Disclaimer: I am not a political expert. I am a student. And the following post is my opinion. After trying and failing to stay up last night to watch the polls come in on BBC news, I woke up this morning and, like so many others, was pretty stunned by the results of yesterday's election. Contrary to predictions, and claims that this was going to be the closest election in history, one hour ago, the Conservatives were confirmed to have achieved a majority in parliament. Not only has David Cameron won a second term as Prime Minister, but Nigel Farage, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have also resigned, indicating the scale of defeat that is being felt in their respective parties... (not that I'm remotely bothered that UKIP failed to influence most of the UK...) So I suppose now the focus turns to Cameron, and his party, and what we can all expect in the next 5 years. I am lucky enough to have been brought up in an environment where I have never experienced poverty, or been ...

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...