Concrete City

Concrete City

You might think London is a concrete city, but I am proud to say I found a pond thing to boat in.

In the news of other things I am proud of, I won a writing competition that took me to London in the first place. What with me wanting to be a writer and all, that was an inspiration boost that reminded me people can make a living from writing. (With the speed I have been blogging at recently, I would not expect to even raise the funds needed to buy multipack underwear.) So, it's taken a while for me to manifest the enthusiasm, but I am rollin' with the punches again.

Sometimes people give out sheets with grades on and it's rather like a Christmas in the middle of the year, dependant on you being bad or good (so be good for goodness sake!🎶)- I must've been on the straight and narrow for the most part. Celebrations all around! Another exam I worked on was called English Speaking Board (ESB), which aims to develop communication skills and to improve speeches, recitals and other such things. For the first year in the four I have worked on ESB, I reached a pass with Distinction. Originally, I had considered just relaxing instead of working on something so stressful, but I have no regrets now. I was so happy! Admittedly, a little smug for ending on a high, but I shall allow myself the luxury just this once...

One more educational summer update- I became a limited edition Reading Activist, only for the summer of 2014, to date. The experience has already proved useful, what with all the different activities I helped with; the people I have met;  and the experience and confidence it gave me.
I hope you all had a great summer, and thanks for reading! Comment with something you were proud of this summer, or just something you really enjoyed. :)
Love, E.R x

Writing About Writer's Block

I've had a few pieces important to me to be completed this week- what you are reading being one. Naturally, I developed a writer's block. Now, it is the first time in a while I remember having this. (Touch wood, it doesn't make a reoccurrence for a while, either!) When they come, though, I am painfully aware of their presence. If I am not writing, I am daydreaming about scenarios I would like to write about, new worlds I would like to create. Even a musical, but that is not to be spoken about. Ever. However, I had a few tips at my disposal on how to overcome writer's block...

1) Stop writing. Submit what you have written early, and label it a draft. Go back to it later, with a new opinion and a fresh head. Don't force yourself to write.

2) Do you write pen to paper? If so, try typing for a while. If you type, write with pen and paper. The change may prompt a new burst of energy.

3) Do not worry. Generally, forgetting about it may give your brain a chance to breathe. This could well lead to a new idea popping up when you least expect it.

4) Which reminds me, keep a notepad (with a pen and torch) by your bed. That moment of least expectation could well be 11:45pm, plus, jotted down dreams can be fun to read in the morning! (See said musical.)

5) Eat some fruit, because it probably sets a few happy endorphins racing in your body, thus enlightening your heart, soul and creative channels. Yes, I did make most of that up, but I reckon it could work.

Disclaimer: I cannot guarantee any of the above will work, but I had fun testing them out. (#5 has yet to be trialled.)
Thank you for reading,chupa chups! E.R :) x

2014

I haven't really made a resolution this year. In general, resolutions are about banning yourself from doing something. Don't eat junk food. Don't put weight on. Don't spend time with *insert name* because they're a negative person/ your ex/ just that really frustrating type of person to hang out with. When all is drunkenly said and done, with the best of intentions, over a toast to the New Year, what are you really left with? A craving for your favourite junk food. An obsessive measuring of weight that ruins everything, from meals out, to ordinary days. Lonely nights in with nobody to talk to, driving yourself insane. That's not a good new year. This year, I have only tried to stop myself from doing one thing- do not regret. Other than that, I have resolved to DO more things. I will meet up with true friends more. I will make new friends. I will eat healthier, so bits of junk food are part of a balanced diet. (Or you can convince yourself it is!) Surely that makes for a better year? However you spend it, chupa chup, I hope you can make it the best you can. :)

Thanks for reading. Leave any resolutions in comments please!
ER xx

Palm Oil in Kit Kats

Last week, I read that a high profile company has turned to palm oil to make chocolate healthier. We live in a crazy society, but it just got a little crazier. Several things infuriate me about this situation, and it makes me even more infuriated that for now ‘all’ I can do is blog about it. So! First things first…

 When I buy a chocolate bar, I am purchasing it for the sole reason of I feel like junk food. If I wanted to be healthy, I would be buying foods that advertised themselves as low fat; low calories; and “diet food”. (We all know the “diet food” is for girls, “MAX” for the guys. That’s one for another time and another place, though.) If you go to KFC, McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut; if you eat Cadburys, Thorntons, Milka, Haribo or chocolate biscuits; and if you drink Costas, Starbucks, milkshakes, sodas and energy drinks, you are making a conscious decision to put yourself at risk from these fatty foods- especially if you don’t eat in moderation. (Pizza Hut, for example, sell the almost 3000 calorie cheeseburger-stuffed-crust pizza. It is common sense to accept that this is not healthy.) If you do eat them in moderation,  then it is fine to eat them, because you are probably living a reasonably healthy lifestyle. However, if most people were faced with a so-called “healthier chocolate”, they would eat it, and they would probably eat twice as much. That is the way it works- at least, the way I know I work. Obviously, the chocolate isn’t that healthy, and will probably soon start to produce negative health effects. But hey- you tried- it was advertised as healthy chocolate! Obesity is an unnervingly common in our society, and a challenge to the NHS. I don’t feel advertising healthier chocolates will help the NHS.

My other big problem with this turning chocolate healthy is the product. Palm oil is my main problem. For those of you who don’t know what palm oil is, a brief overview: the African Oil Palm Tree produces a vegetable oil, called palm oil. There is a rise in demand of palm oil for biofuels, but there has been a noticeable demand for this product being in foods. According to GreenPeace, over 70% of palm oil ends up in food. My mother and I have both noticed it in foods from Linda McCartney’s Sausages to a high percentage of food M&S branded foods. Palm oil can be on the ingredients list as “vegetable oil”, because technically it is, amongst several other names. In fact, www.saynotopalmoil.com has a list of the 300 alternative names that can be used for palm oil. So far, all fairly innocent. However, this oil has to be harvested somehow.

 This is where the real problem lies. Every hour (probably the time it took me to type up this blog), in Indonesia and Malaysia only, an area of the rainforest the size of 300 football pitches is cleared to make room for palm oil plantations. Not only is this destroying valuable natural resources, that could hold the rare cure to any number of medical conditions, it is destroying habitats. Orang-utans have since become highly endangered. Understandable, after 90% of their habitat has been destroyed. However, it gets worse. These huge areas of land have to be cleared somehow, and that somehow is through fire. The burning of rainforests is the second biggest contributor to global warming, which is naturally damaging to the planet, without our carbon dioxide emissions. Not only does the soot cause health problems for locals, whose land may have been stolen, or taken through threat, for these plantations. There are animals in these burning forests. Sumatran tiger and rhinoceros, Asian elephant, orangutans, wild ox, barding deer, giant flying squirrel, proboscis monkey, gibbons, langurs, and clouded leopard, to name but a few. If these animals aren’t already endangered, they probably will be soon. All for some oil we never used to use anyway, because it doesn’t seem to do very much for us.

Even if this palm oil does make our chocolate healthier, doesn’t the global warming and pollution counteract that? Those medical resources burning in the rainforest fires are of more use to us than the Kit Kat replacing 0.4 grams of trans-fat with palm oil? I highly doubt that extra 0.4 grams of trans-fat would make much difference to us anyway. 0.4 grams worth of palm oil being harvested, multiplied by the 17.6 billion Kit Kat fingers made every year will probably make a difference. That is just for Kit Kats- palm oil is used in hair products, foodstuffs, make-up…

Kit Kats have made the change because of a government driven pledge, making retailers make our food healthier, theoretically saving NHS millions of pounds in aborted future obesity cases. What happens when the NHS receives global warming related illnesses? Global warming certainly kills. Surely, as said earlier, advertising fast food as healthier will make people eat it more, lulled into a false sense of security?

Please leave thoughts, sympathy notes for endangered animals and opinions in comments. Thank for reading chupa chups! x

Research links:

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5136

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/forests/palm-oil

http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/palm-oil.php#OtherNames

The weekly magazine Notebook’s article (released Sunday 10^th November) on Kit Kat and palm oil

High Expectations slash Penguin Jumper

Please do have high expectations for my blog. It is preferable that you don’t approach my blog with the same wariness a duck-billed platypus might exhibit when faced with evolution, but at the same time, I am just a girl in a penguin jumper. However, feel free to read my blog- I would be honoured. 

My blog will be a pick and mix of both my lifestyle and also of injustices our lifestyle causes, which I would like to bring awareness of. All in all, this blog will be rather patchwork. It is, after all, following the train of my thoughts, the destination of said train being a rather strange place. (Consider riding a dragon/unicorn/dragicorn hybrid into a wardrobe, only to find a desolate land being ruled over by Warlocks and bush babies.) There will be no explicit language, a tint of injustice and a dash of what I hope you might consider to be humour.

Have fun, chupa chups x