How Losing My Bullet Journal Was the Best Thing to Happen

I know, I know. It sounds awful, practically unliveable, for my fellow bullet journalers to hear. But it’s a true statement (kind of). I didn’t exactly lose my bullet journal, it was more that I misplaced it for just over a week. I went on holiday to the Peak District and left my beloved notebook behind at home – a sad realisation, but not totally catastrophic.

People from outside the bujo community may not understand this intense panic-upon-realisation feeling evoked from simply leaving a journal somewhere unexpected. You see, this isn’t just a place for doodles – this is where I organise my life and develop my thoughts. The following week was a journey of emotions, not wholly negative, regarding the missing nature of my little orange Leuctturm1917. Allow me to explain.

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Is Veganism Hard? Is it Expensive? And Other Questions…

It’s that time of year again – Veganuary has rolled around, and with more people signing up than ever before, I want to chip in a little. Help out, in whatever way I can. I’ve been vegan for nearly four years now (you can read my full vegan story here) and so I think I have a wise word or two to spill on the topic.

In this post, I thought I’d answer some common questions asked when people first hear about veganism and want to give it a go. This is all based on my personal experience, being vegan in the UK, so my situation may be different to other people’s. I wanted to focus on subjective questions here, so you won’t find health and environment stats in this post. There are plenty of wonderful sources to learn about these things, so I will highlight some of my favourites at the end of the post – if you want to know more about the facts then I advise you give those a browse!

Wtf is a Bujo?! A Beginner’s Guide to Bullet Journaling Basics

The first tentative steps into a new hobby can be uncertain and daunting, sort of like walking down a muddy hill: either your feet might slip and things become a little tedious and overwhelming, or things turn out to be fine and, dare I say, enjoyable. This uncertainty over how things might turn out is a pretty good summary of how I felt entering the crazy and obsessive world of bullet journaling a year ago. January is definitely a time in which many people contemplate trying new things; one such thing you may be considering is bullet journaling. So to make things easier for those of you wondering whether the bujo is that new hobby or not, here’s a condensed beginner’s guide.

Lessons from a Year of Street Photography

There is something powerful about street photography: it captures delicate, tacit moments and immortalises them. It satisfies a bit of that curiosity for the world that sits deep within me. When I think about street photography, it is the connections between people and other people, and people and the world which motivates me to shoot. I love seeing how life happens; how the small, everyday things people do keep the societal cogs turning. I thought it might be interesting to look back over my street photography sessions from 2018 and think about how my approach to snapping photos changed over that time…

2018 Bujo Flip-through: 12 Lessons From My First Year of Bullet Journaling

December marked my twelfth month of using a bullet journal. In the last year, my method and style for creative organisation have changed dramatically; I’ve learnt a lot through this process and thought it could be helpful to list a couple of these lessons for those of you looking to start a bujo in the new year.

January setup post

Start with the bare minimum

To avoid becoming completely overwhelmed in my first month of bullet journaling, I stuck to a one purple pen and a bunch of straight lines to create all my spreads. Yes, it looked a little boring. And nope, I didn’t satisfy the creativity lurking within me. But I did get over the hurdle that is starting something new.

An Anxious Introvert’s Guide to Freshers’ Week (Part 1)

At school I was always the kid hiding a furious blush behind a curtain of hair, desperately hoping not to be noticed. Whenever a teacher threw a question out into the room like a knife-edged boomerang, I became painfully aware of the chair jamming into my spine as I attempted to disappear into the plastic. In short, some school days felt like being led to slaughter (in front of a cheering crowd). So not too pleasant, really.

I’m not saying I hated everything about school, I actually liked plenty of things about it. But I did find it extremely difficult to be part of a group and to interact with people I didn’t already know very well. Understandably, when I left college at 18, I did not want to go to university; I took a bit of time out of education to figure things out and, perhaps naively, hoped I would be able to fully overcome these awful feelings.

6 Hacks to Start Shooting Street Photography for Anxious People

I recently put out a post about shooting street photography, which included several tips and tricks for beginners to get stuck into the art of capturing spontaneous, real moments. Lots of you seemed to enjoy that post, and several people expressed an interest in getting started but feeling anxious about having to shoot on the street with people noticing you. Worry no more, I’ve got you – this is what we’re going to be discussing today.

Now, who would be a good person to turn to for advice on such a subject? A highly socially anxious individual who has a bit of experience with taking photos on the street, I’d assume. Hmm… can you think of anyone? Yeah, that’s right, you’ve come to the right place. If you’ve read my blog before, you’ll definitely have come across content centred around anxiety – even if you weren’t looking for it. I’ve talked before a lot about how standing out in any way at all has given me crippling irrational fear in the past.

6 Things To Consider When Shooting Street Photography

Some of you who have been around on my blog since the start of the year will know that I started getting into manual photography (figuring out all the settings yourself rather than leaving your camera on auto the whole time) back in January. However, I’ve been interested in shooting photos of things that are happening on the streets for quite a while longer than that. I think this interest in street photography stemmed from travelling – coming into contact with ways of life so different to what I experience back home made me want to capture these moments on camera.

I’m still very much learning about shooting photos on the street, but I do feel like I’ve learnt a few things about street photography since I started getting into it. So today, in collaboration with Panasonic, I thought I’d share those tips with you all. I’ve been aware of Panasonic cameras for almost as long as I’ve been interested in photography – my dad has had several different models over the years and has always had great things to say about them. One he doesn’t have yet though is the recently released Lumix mirrorless camera, which is capable of shooting high quality images and videos in 4K. Sounds like it could be a great companion for shooting on the street!

How To Make Friends When Living Abroad

During May I put out a post about how to make friends as a young solo female traveller. As I wrote that post, the word count started edging towards 2000 and I thought that it might be a good idea to break it into two. As the post took shape, it naturally split itself into tips for people travelling from place to place, never staying anywhere for too long, and advice for those attempting to settle somewhere slightly longer-term. The post I published before covered the first of these, whilst this post will focus on the latter.

When I was travelling in 2016, I did a mix of both things: I visited a couple of countries and places for a week or two at a time, and I also lived in Sydney, Australia for around four months. That’s not too much time, but it definitely felt like a different experience to the other places I visited. I got a job there, lived in a house and made a few more friends.

How To Make Budget Travel Plans

One of the main reasons people say they don’t travel is down to money. A lot of people out there will go on to claim that finances are just an excuse, and it is possible to travel with little to no money. While I’m not going to claim that it can’t be done, I am going to say that it does cost something to travel and everyone’s idea of ‘little money’ is different. Effective travel budgeting takes planning and experience to get right and I want to share some of the realistic things I’ve learnt that have saved me cash on the road.

Of course, the best way to truly grab yourself a budget travel deal is through complete flexibility with both time and place. In this ideal world, there’s no restriction on the time you spend away, what month you go abroad, or the destination you visit. Yet, I know this is not the case for most of us. There’s always something to get in the way. So each of the following ideas are adaptable to the amount of flexibility you have, and some will be more helpful for you than others.