Rachel Ellen: lifestyle
Showing posts with label lifestyle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lifestyle. Show all posts

Tuesday, 6 February 2018

18:00

How to respond to an apology

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How to respond to an apology


One of the most important things I learned in the past 5 years is how to respond to an apology, something you may not have even thought about before.

 I had always found it uncomfortable to say "it's ok" when someone apologises, because actually, if they're apologising, usually it is not ok. "It's ok" is now safely reserved for those moments when someone didn't actually need to apologise.

 I learned that I'm much more comfortable responding to an apology by saying "thank you." 

 Thanking someone for apologising, means that you don't have to say it was ok, it's saying "thank you for acknowledging what you said upset/hurt/inconvenienced me, and trying to make it better." 

 It doesn't say you've forgiven them, or that you've accepted what they did but it shows appreciation and it makes it clear that you don't want them to do it again.

 Is this something you've ever thought of before?

 Thanks for reading,

 Rachel xx
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Thursday, 1 February 2018

20:32

A January full of memories

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A January full of memories

February has come around once again. For the past couple of weeks I've seen people complain about how long January has been and how they can't wait for it to be over, and yet I've had an amazing month filled with fun things.

 (I've still been in work on the weekdays, with NHS winter pressures making everything mad and busy, but that hasn't distracted from my weekends)

 I started January celebrating the new year in Edinburgh, the fireworks were great, the city is gorgeous and it was a lovely break away.


The second weekend was my best friends birthday, and though it wasn't a trip away to Scotland it was still fun.

 The third, I graduated from my masters degree. The graduation itself was, of course, exciting, but nothing compared to the excitement of seeing all my uni friends together again and revisiting our favourite pub, The Red Deer.


 The fourth weekend, my friend and I booked a spa hotel in Leeds. It wasn't any occasion, but that made it feel even better that we just treated ourselves because we wanted to. W

AND the fifth weekend (maybe this was a long month) I got to see my uni friends AGAIN and we celebrated Burn's night, hopefully a tradition for many years to come.

I get that this post was very self-indulgent, but that's what I hoped for it to be. An update on me, about all the fantastic things I've had chance to do last month, and a bank of memories. Though social media can be overwhelming at times, the fact I can scroll through any of my profiles and see so many smiling faces is special.

 As the month came to a close though, I got insured on my mums car, I joined a gym and I decided I would do dry February - sometimes real life hits all at once. But, I am excited for what is to come this month, just because I'm not drinking doesn't mean I have to miss out on the fun things I would normally do, I just get to miss out on the hangovers.

 Thanks for reading,

 Rachel xx



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Tuesday, 2 January 2018

21:43

New Years Resolution

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New Years Resolution


Today's post will be about my new years resolution, because what else do you blog about on the 2nd January (apart from the besties birthday - happy birthday Chloe!)

 This year I'm going for an odd one, but I think an important one which I hope everyone will make some kind of effort to join in with.

 This year I want to make less rubbish. I always notice over the Christmas period how much more waste I produce, wrapping paper, packaging, food wrappers, food waste etc. and I think it's time to try and cut down. 

 It's easy to be wasteful, but I think with a few decisions I can start to minimise it. Here are a few things I will start doing and a few things I already do:

 Food packaging is a big one for me, for example Mr Kiplings slices that are individually wrapped produce so much unnecessary waste. I wouldn't buy them as I think you can easily buy something else that has a lot less packaging. But, I also think I need to do this with a lot more food and pay attention to how things are wrapped. Unfortunately/fortunately this might mean buying more of some things (share bags instead of multi-packs - a girl's got to eat)

I already try and use as few plastic bags as possible and this is something I will continue with, even little things like not using a little plastic bag for loose fruit in the supermarket if it's not needed.

 I need to invest in a water bottle and a hot drinks flask rather than buying throw away ones (though I do recycle my plastic bottles)

 Say no to receipts whenever I can, only tiny bits of rubbish but it cuts down the amount of rubbish, and how thick my purse is. 

 I'm going to try and use less make-up remover wipes and cotton pads, though I haven't figured out the best way to replace those yet - any advice on how to use toner without a cotton pad is greatly appreciated.

 Don't waste food, make sure not to make way more than I can eat, and don't let things go off in the fridge.
I think, more than anything I just want to have more of an awareness of my impact on the world. If everyone had a bit more thought about what waste they produce, we could cut down massively.

Do you fancy joining me on this new years resolution? Any suggestions on other ways I can cut down?

 Thanks for reading,

 Rachel xx


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Monday, 9 October 2017

20:05

Why I love reading

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Why I love reading


Since finishing my degree, I've not done a whole lot. But one thing I have tried to do more is read and I just wanted to blog about why I love it so much.

 While at uni, doing my undergraduate degree I never really read any books because I always had reading to do for my lectures. The thought: "If you have time to read for fun, you should be reading your uni stuff" and, a large majority of the time I ended up reading neither, isn't that just how life goes?

 Then during my post grad degree, I didn't have a whole lot of time to read, and because I studied magazine journalism I felt I should put a lot more time into reading magazines (somehow managed to watch through every episode of How I Met Your Mother) 

But anyway, the point of this post wasn't to talk about my procrastination of everything.

 I really love reading. I love the time you get to switch off from the world, I love how for those few hours you are somewhere else.

 I love when you speak to someone about the same book, and there's differences of opinion in messages, in appearances, because words allow you to bring your own thought.

 My ultimate favourite thing though, is when you remember any book you've read, you don't remember being sat looking at words on a page. You remember scenes, you remember images, characters, locations, bright and vibrant as though you actually experienced them.

 Credit to the authors for creating those scenes. But also, credit to our imagination, you imagined something that well, that you forgot what was really happening. It sounds way more hardcore than just "reading"

 Reading is really special, and a hobby you can enjoy all by yourself. When I put it on my CV, it's because I really do love to read.

 Let me know any recommendations of books I should read.

 Thanks for reading,

 Rachel xx

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Monday, 18 September 2017

14:59

Unemployed

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Unemployed

Well here it is, the long neglected blog.

 I finished my masters degree last week in a blaze of couch surfing, terrible diet choices and even worse clothing choices. But what a year it's been.

 I won't bore you with me gushing again about how great it was, but as I've said on Twitter, seeing the department talk about new starters kinda hurts.

But now, after a week of not really doing anything, it's time to look for jobs.

 I am officially unemployed, and that's the first time in a while. It didn't really click with me until I was watching X Factor, and I realised if I went on to sing, it would look something like this:

(you may have noticed I don't have photoshop on my own laptop)

 I feel like I've totally missed summer as my degree ran all the way through, but Autumn is everyone's favourite time of year, isn't it? I actually wore a scarf this morning which was really exciting.

 Well right until I realised that it's cold now and I won't be warm again until May.

 Anyway, this was only a quick check in and hopefully this is the start of many more blog posts now that I have a little bit of free time.
Thanks for reading,

 Rachel xx


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Monday, 12 June 2017

16:19

Who would think a Masters is stressful?

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Who would think a Masters is stressful?
Ok, so I knew I hadn't blogged in a while but I hadn't realised my last one was the 27th of April, oops.

 But, I'm still here, hanging around and hasn't a lot happened.

 In my own life, I've made it through the May from hell. I somehow survived through my deadlines. My last one was the 30th May and I'm still not fully recovered from the lack of sleep and lack of decent food. In a four day period I spent 43 hours at uni including an 18 hour day. But, this term I mocked up a whole idea for a brand new magazine and created the website for it, I was tired, delusional but actually so proud of myself.

In the last couple of months I have nearly made it through all 9 seasons of How I Met Your Mother, feelings of achievement and embarrassment. 

 My friend and I have an 88 day snap streak on Snapchat (Tasha I hope we make 100). Potentially my biggest achievement this year, it shows real commitment and I might put it on my CV.

 I co-edited in our uni production week, and as a class we created this beauty


Had my end of year party (even though we have another terms worth of work) and felt pretty sad that I won't be spending everyday with these three and everyone else.


Me and my boyfriend celebrated 4 years of being together by going to Liverpool. In all my life of living 45 minutes drive away from Liverpool I had never actually been. But I went, bought a mini Superlambanana, and then went to see the real one. I was super excited, as you can tell.

This weekend, I went to Peace in the Park in Sheffield, ignoring a brief spell of rain it was a really fun day!

Somehow, through all the stress and lack of sleep I really enjoyed the last couple of months and everything I've achieved. I really can't wait to start working in the magazine world, but please can we avoid anymore time in the library?

 Thanks for reading, I'll try to blog again soon and not leave it a month and a half

 Rachel xx



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Thursday, 27 April 2017

16:23

Help people...

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Help people...


In the lead up to the snap elections in June I wanted to write a quick post about helping people.

 When the election was announced I saw people slip very quickly into the attitude of "omg how dare you not vote, educate yourself" but let's break this down.

 Firstly, politics is important, to every single person in the country. BUT, not every political element is crucial to every person, and some of it (a lot of it) is just down right boring.

 But honestly, you really should vote, I'll help you out at the end of this post, bear with me.

 But my problem is when people are urging others to vote, whilst ridiculing them for not knowing enough. And if you don't already know much about politics and how the country works it's hard to find neutral, useful information.

 So really what I'm saying is, if you're someone who knows a little bit of something about how the country works, help people. Encourage questions, offer answers or opinions. If you can't, try and advise on where people can find the information. 

 There's no such thing as a stupid question.

Especially on social media, and please be aware of the age of people on social media.

 I just think it would be really great in this general election if we had a high turn out of voters who are confident in what they've voted for.


I'm not going to tell you what to vote for, but I am going to try and help. Try this quiz, it will take you about 10/15 minutes. It will ask you some questions and how important they are to you. At the end it will give you percentages that show how much you agree with certain political parties. and will break it down even more if you have a click around.

 We all love a quiz and it means you don't have to trawl the web in the same way for the answers you want

 http://uk.isidewith.com/political-quiz?from=NevfZB3me - follow this link to do the quiz and share it with anyone in doubt. 

 Remember to help people and encourage questions, no matter how simple!

 Thanks for reading,

 Rachel xx



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Tuesday, 18 April 2017

12:15

Should there be a maximum voting age?

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Should there be a maximum voting age?
Last year brought two shock election results. Many young people are blaming the over 65s for the way the results have turned out, does this mean they are too old to vote? Read on to find out.

On the 23rd June 2016, I voted for the first time at 22 years of age. I was excited, brimming with hope that my vote would make a difference to my future.

On the 24th June, I woke up to a result that I, the polls, and many politicians didn’t expect. In case you have been living under a rock, that result was for Britain to leave the European Union.

When the polls started feeding through the internet, I was shocked and slightly frustrated to see how different age groups had voted.

In two big elections, last year (Brexit and the US Presidential Election) the over 65s have voted vastly different to the younger generation. In Brexit 75% of 18-24s voted remain, but only 39% of those 65+.

In the US election, only 37% of 18-29s voted for Trump, whereas 53% of the 65+ category voted for him. This has created a lot of doubt in the system.

With people living longer and the baby boomers now between the ages of 52 and 70, the older generation is a growing population. The over 65s are the generation that has the highest turnout of voters and many young people are feeling as though their vote has a lower impact.

Following Brexit, there was a wave of media reports and Tweets complaining about the older generation. Headlines in the press included: “EU Referendum Results: Young ‘Screwed By Older Generations” from the Huffington Post and “How old people have screwed over the younger generations’…” from the Independent.

Some tweets from the public are shown below.





Maximum voting age

The older generation were deemed to be “to blame” for, what is assumed to be the “wrong” decision. This is under the assumption that the younger generation overall voted for the “right” choice.

Do people really feel as though these democratic rights should be stripped away once you hit a certain age? Harry Taylor 23, a History and Politics graduate said: “To stop and deny people voting based on age, something beyond their control would be an affront to democracy.

“They (the older generation) will vote in far more restrictive ways and arguably less progressive ways compared to a younger generation, and I think that’s led to a lot of cause for older people to be stopped.”

In an exclusive survey of 94 people ran by myself, 16.3% said they thought there should be a maximum voting age, the suggestions of that age ranged from 60-80.

One person said that the maximum voting age should be 65: “because it isn't their future.” However, the average life expectancy in the UK is 81, this would mean some people living for 16 or more years without the ability to vote, so how many years do you have to have left to be deemed to have a future?

Taylor said: “Yes in an ideal world they (the 18-24s) might go and live the entirety of the rest of that parliament where those decisions will be taken, therefore they’ll see the benefit or the downsides whereas somebody who’s 80/70 might not. However that’s based on an ideal world”

If the maximum voting age was 65, should we then also have a maximum candidate age. Hillary Clinton is 69 and Donald Trump is 70, they therefore would not be able to vote. Would younger candidates and younger voters represent the country better, or show lack of experience and knowledge?

Judging by the survey results, the consensus is that there shouldn’t be a maximum age on voting, and after all, isn’t this the result we all expected. “I don’t agree with the older persons voting tendencies, but I think it’s a basic human right to be able to vote,” said one respondent.

The argument that being unable to vote is against our human rights is a common thread that keeps coming up. Producer Stephen Robert Morse shared his view on Twitter.



If this was to happen, who would decide who is “old”, and should therefore, would everyone need do a competence test. We may then only have those with higher education voting, and this does not represent the whole of the British public. To have rules on who is “capable” of voting, would affect our democratic stance.

This maybe is the view of many people, many who complained about the way the generation voted, but would not take away their right to vote. But if it is a basic human right to vote, shouldn’t 16 and 17 year olds be allowed to vote?

Minimum Age

In the poll, people were also asked what they think the minimum voting age should be. 45.7% said that the voting age should remain at 18, whilst 40.4% felt the age should be lowered to 16. Out of those that voted that the age should reduce to 16, 11.6% of those felt there should be a maximum voting age.



If this age group had voted we could have had an entirely different set of results. But with the 18-24 group only having a 36% turnout for Brexit, compared to an 83% turnout of 65+. Would a 16-17-year-old vote make a difference? Surely just a higher turnout could change the results as there was just under 1.3 million difference in the votes.

But are under 18s classed as adults? From 2015, children must stay in full time education until they are 18, many of their decisions need parental consent, for example, marriage and joining the army.

One person surveyed said: “If lowered to 16 I think you would get a lot of immature people voting wrongly and for the wrong reasons” but many people surveyed do not agree and think that 16 year olds are mature enough to vote for our country.

How can people campaign for a younger voting age whilst also excluding such a large proportion of the population?

Age discrimination

With the result of Brexit and the presidential election, many people feel we have taken a step back and have opened our society up to much more discrimination and racism. 
So why are these same people asking for a cut in who can vote.

Some people have said that voters are sulking that the decision hasn’t gone the way they expected and they are looking for someone to blame.

Young people are overwhelmingly looking for someone to blame for the way this election turned out. They feel as though they have been failed by their government and by their own family members.

But wouldn’t we rather live in a democratic society where there is no maximum age to vote, albeit terrible decisions that may be made.

To have an upper age limit on voting is a short-sighted opinion. This would massively cut down the numbers of people voting and would not represent the entire population. It would be disregarding decades of life experience and knowledge.

It is clear from our survey results that the majority of people, in any age group, don’t wish for a maximum voting age. But the divide in voting between the age groups is clear.


Young people looking for someone to blame for elections results should perhaps look towards those who don’t vote. With 64% of 18-24s not turning out to vote in Brexit and 11.7% in our survey (7.4% of those were under 25), the results could have been entirely different with a higher turnout.
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