My picture-heavy bullet journal set-up

A while ago I read a post from Lily Pebbles in which she said she had started a bullet journal, and since then I did a whole load of research on what it was and how to make one of your own, and for a while I didn't want to make one because I'm the sort of person who starts journals and planners and never carries on with them, but I think this time will be different..

The notebook I am using is an A5 squared Moleskine, which is was bloody expensive but I absolutely adore it and organising my life was something I wanted to invest in. I did have to research first whether Moleskine was vegan as I thought it was literally mole's skin, but I assure you it's not - I'm sure everyone else knew that but I'm stupid.

Firstly, I have an index - this is the core to the bullet journal, numbering your pages so you can refer back to them.

Following that, I have a key - again, another key (forgive the pun) to the bullet journal so you can clearly see what everything you've written means. I've also put a few post-it notes here so I can easily access some if I'm on the go and want to make a little note - I like using post-it notes to write little notes to myself that aren't important enough to make tasks out of but something I need to see.

After that, I have a page dedicated to questioning authority, the great thing about the bullet journal is you can be as creative as you want and just have filler pages like that where you can just do what you want, and I just happened to have some sheep stickers so it's nice to flick past that everyday and be reminded to question authority.

Then, I have a few lists I want to complete of 'albums to listen to before you die', 'books everyone should read', and 'greatest films of all time' because whilst I think I'm fairly cultural in terms of the art world, I definitely feel I should explore more and it's nice to have an easy to find list to refer to.

Next, I have about 30 pages with pictures of me and my friends, because I tend to forget I have friends and that people actually don't mind spending time with me sometimes, so I like having photos of me with them so if I do get into that bad headspace, I can try and dismiss it. Continuing with that theme, I have a page with a couple of photos of my family, and also a page dedicated to Owen Jones and when I met him, and when he tweeted me afterwards, because both of those events really made my life if not my 2016 at least.

After that is a double page spread dedicated to my favourite film of all time - Harold and Maude. There are so many amazing quotes in this film, and I'm not putting this at all lightly but this film has saved my life on multiple occasions. A lot of people put a page of inspirational quotes in their bullet journals, but I cringe when I see things like 'you can do it!' so I think this is as close as I'll ever get with that.

Finally, we get onto the actual organising kinda bit. So I've only been doing this since the beginning of March, but I have a rapid log page for March so I can put a few events and tasks in that need to get done that month, then I have daily spreads (at the moment, it seems to be 2/3 on a page because I keep migrating tasks - I am getting there with the organising promise!).

That is my bullet journal as it stands currently, I feel like this definitely won't last me the year but I'm loving doing it at the moment so I will probably continue it and buy another Moleskine once this one finishes! If you want to see more updates, I'm probably going to do these on my Tumblr which you can follow here.

Why Angela Davis is my political fave

For as long as I can remember, I have been proud to call myself a feminist. My Mum's a devout feminist and has never told me to afraid of the word 'feminism'. That being said, until the past year or two, I didn't feel wholeheartedly connected to the issues mainstream (white) feminism talks about.

Of course, I knew things like 'free the nipple' and letting girls wear short skirts and show their shoulders in school without being sexualised by male teachers were important issues, but I didn't feel like this mainstream feminism was particularly useful when it came to other forms of oppression. I didn't feel like this feminism was inclusive of other intersections, it became more and more obvious to me that this type of feminism didn't really fight for those who are oppressed because of their race or those who are oppressed because of their class. Becoming invested in 'SJW Twitter' definitely helped here and opened my eyes to the reality of white feminism and to the prospect of intersectional feminism. In short, white feminism is a branch of feminism focused on the struggles of primarily white and privileged women, this is basically liberal feminism which is centered around western ideals and liberalism doesn't really help the movement on a mass scale (but that's a topic for a different time). Intersectional feminism is a branch of feminism that encompasses all intersections because it claims that oppressive institutions are all intertwined, so the obvious one is sexism, but it also takes into account racism, classism, transphobia, homophobia, biphobia, ableism - you name an oppressive -ism and intersectional feminism is against that.

This is a picture of one of the walls in my Uni house - me and my housemate Megan adore Angela and wanted to order a poster of her, and then we received two in the post (at no extra charge) so we have two posters right next to each other, yep we cool.

So how does Angela Davis come into this? Angela Davis is one of the most famous intersectional feminists there are, just a month ago she said in an interview that feminism involves 'embracing but moving beyond gender'. In the 1960s, Angela Davis was a member of the Black Panthers, leader of the Communist Party in the USA, as well as being a member of the Che-Lumumba Club which was the all-black branch of the Communist Party. Being a part of groups like these meant she was not silent on classism or racism. She was (and still is) outspoken about classism and racism in the Suffrage movement, which we're told liberated all women when actually WOC were exploited by white women to push forward the movement. She's also spoken out about sexism in the Civil Rights movement and other socialist movements which resulted in the oppression of women being pushed to the sideline. Angela Davis also emphasizes the importance of women's rights being looked at globally in order for women to form 'a united, multiracial, antimonopoly women’s movement in order to aid oppressed women throughout the world'. 

I largely base my feminism on the likes of people like Angela Davis, people who are unapologetically anti-Capitalist (for a while, I was scared to say that I agreed with a lot of communist/anarchist ideals because you automatically get shunned as a fascist apologist - again, this is another topic for another blog post) and people who include POC, most importantly black people (again, colourism - different topic that I shan't go into detail about now), and encompass all of these issues into their feminism - this is the basis of my feminism, and as it is Women's History Month, I'd like to thank Angela Davis for being a big figure in helping me further my feminism, so thank you Angela - you tha real MVP.

Coconut oil - more than just a meme?

If you've been on the internet long enough, I'm sure you will have seen the coconut oil memes (exhibit A) but does coconut oil deserve the holy grail title it's been given? I take my memes seriously and have had coconut oil recommended for my type of hair for a long time so I thought I'd buy a £2.50 tub from Aldi just to give it a go (mans isn't going to spend £10 on a tub, all about that Aldi life).

The verdict is... it's pretty darn good! The first time I used it, though, I made the mistake of using it as my conditioner in the shower which in turn made my hair very crispy the day after, after a few of days of ridiculous crispiness it did go down and was just soft and textured, but I thought I'd mention this as something to bear in mind. I now put it on before washing my hair so I let it sink in a bit and then remove it with shampoo, then condition as usual, and this means my hair is textured and soft by the next day. I also like to use coconut oil to give my hair more volume by rubbing it in at the roots and teasing my hair a bit with my fingers.

So it works pretty well on my hair, but I had also heard it worked as a good makeup remover so I thought I'd test this out too, and I have to say, again, it works really well! It dissolves the makeup and then I wipe it off with a cotton pad, and if I'm feeling lazy I'll just leave my face after that because the oil residue does enough to moisturise my face, but otherwise I'll go and carry on with my makeup routine and do another couple of cleanses. I quite like this because it means I'm not really using chemicals or parabens or any of that nasty stuff on my skin and I think it's good to give your skin a break from all of that once in a while. Furthermore, since using coconut oil when removing my eye makeup, I've noticed my eyelashes have grown quite a lot. I'm not sure whether it's just coincidence but they just seem to be growing a lot faster than they used to, which is a plus.

Overall, coconut oil is definitely worth the hype in my opinion, and I only tried out a couple of its uses. I probably wouldn't go for the expensive tubs though when it's so inexpensive in Aldi, but each to their own!

Have you tried coconut oil?

Self-care, no cringe included

I usually take self-care tips with a pinch of salt, I know using a bath bomb isn't going to magically make me feel joyful and emerge with a newfound respect and appreciation for life. To me, at the core of it, self care is doing the stuff you should be doing anyway but you may have forgotten to do it while your mind is feeling dark and foggy. For me, this means taking a shower, taking the rubbish out of my room, changing my clothes, brushing my teeth, etc. etc. etc. - all very basic things, but when I'm in a dark spot these everyday, mundane tasks become near to impossible and it takes a lot of effort for me to do them.

The past couple of weeks for me have been quite focused on self-care, the past few weeks have been busy and eventful, and not necessarily stressful but they have left me feeling a bit overwhelmed and trapped. So I did a big tidy of my room, I changed my bed sheets, I've been trying to eat throughout the day, I've tried drinking more water, I've been more organised with my Uni work, and to top off everything I went for a long walk by myself with my music and The Hunger Games (finally finished reading it, found a really lovely spot overlooking Brighton with a pond and everythang), and I'm not feeling overwhelmed with everything anymore, I'm at a good point where everything's chilled and I feel in control.

I'm not sure what point I wanted to put across here, but I think self care is important and I hope you're all taking care of yourself. Whether it be the basic things that you may be finding difficult to do, or whether it be the cutesy Tumblr-esque self care things (which I appreciate too, I'm not at all dismissing those methods!). I know I've never made self-care a priority, but it has majorly improved my mental health recently taking myself more into consideration so I just wanted to remind you all to take good care of yourselves in a non-patronising, non-cringey kind of way. Take it easy, you've got this.

Iain Duncan Smith doesn't deserve a pat on the back

On the 18th March, Iain Duncan Smith resigned from his post as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the Conservative Party resulting in cries of joy from lefties like myself, but whilst I can relish this moment, I have some opinions. I have seen all over my Twitter timeline and Facebook feed  that Iain Duncan Smith is a good person because he 'stuck to his principles' and resigned his post as he believed that George Osbourne's budget which victimised the disabled was, in his words, 'a compromise too far'. I gots some problems with this, so I'm going to dissect what his little letter said and explain why it is BS.

He opened with:

"I am incredibly proud of the welfare reforms that the Government has delivered over the last five years."

Really, Iain? You're going to say you're 'incredibly proud' of introducing Universal Credit which forces all low paid employees into desperate competition for casual work? You're 'incredibly proud' of the Bedroom Tax which charges the poor if they're given social housing with 'more rooms than they require', despite the fact that there is also a lack of social housing so tenants really don't have much choice in where they live so it's essentially arbitrarily charging the poor, you're proud of that, are you?

"Those reforms have helped to generate record rates of employment and in particular a substantial reduction in workless households."

Hm, are these jobs on zero hour contracts? Y'know those contracts whereby the employer has no obligation to offer work to the employees so the employee can't be certain they'll earn enough money to get through the week? Oh yeah, great job (pun not intended).

"I truly believe that we have made changes that will greatly improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged people in this country and increase their opportunities to thrive."

Is this some sort of sick joke? Just last week, Iain Duncan Smith was in full support of reducing the Employment and Support Allowance meaning that claimants would receive £30 less a week. Claimants include hundreds of thousands of sick and disabled people, such as sufferers of cancer, Parkinson's disease and mental illness - I mean, I could be wrong, these people are pretty disadvantaged and it seems like you're taking away what little opportunity they have to thrive, Iain, but that could just be me. 

"Together, we've made enormous strides towards building a system of social security that gets the balance right between state-help and self-help."

The Tories don't promote state-help, the concept of self-help is fundamental to Conservative ideology - so basically, every man for himself. This is why continually the Tories allow big businesses and bankers to avoid paying their taxes. This is why Iain Duncan Smith, like other Tory MPs, gets away with claiming expenses to buy a £39 breakfast, talk about scroungers, eh? The Tories literally take money from the poor to give other rich people like themselves tax cuts - the reverse Robin Hood effect.

"I am unable to watch passively whilst certain policies are enacted in order to meet the fiscal self-imposed restraints that I believe are more and more perceived as distinctly political rather than in the national economic interest."

Austerity is distinctly political and has been shown not to do much good economically (for a contemporary example, Greece was forced to adhere to strict austerity measures and this resulted in a deeper recession, mass unemployment, the widening of budget deficits, and a rise in debt levels). Austerity is purely ideological warfare used to target the poor and the vulnerable, it's used to restructure the state in a way that benefits the privileged leaving the poor fighting for scraps. However, I don't believe Iain Duncan Smith is against austerity like he seems to be suggesting. Let's not forget that he voted against raising welfare benefits, he voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods to those who can't work because of illness or disability, he voted for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits, he voted against spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people who've been unemployed for a long time, he voted against a banker's bonus tax, he voted against the mansion tax, he voted for reducing corporation tax, he voted for raising tuition fees, and he voted for academy schools - Iain Duncan Smith is not anti-austerity.

"You should be very proud of what this government has done on deficit reduction, corporate competitiveness, education reforms and devolution of power."

Okay right, George Osbourne inherited a debt of £1 trillion. By May 2015, the debt was £1.5 trillion. I'm going to really dumb this down for any conservatives reading, but £1.5 trillion is a bigger number than £1 trillion, have you got that? I know I'll end up just complaining about Capitalism with this claim of improved corporate competitiveness, but I'm just going to say is corporate competitiveness a good thing? Or is it just this capitalist mantra that greed and selfishness should be promoted? The education reforms like academisation of schools has done nothing but divide teachers' unions, pit schools against each other, and generally lower standards of education. For example, academy schools are given more money depending on how many pupils they have which results in overcrowded classrooms and a generally much poorer educational experience. Speaking as someone who went to a High School that became an academy, I did notice the teachers were generally a lot less happier, so much so that nearly the entire science department at my school left! Lastly, devolution of power is not a good thing, this is a neoliberal tactic to bow out of accountability. By devolving powers, the government can easily deny responsibility when they're faced with a backlash - basically, it's their get out of jail free card. So, no Iain, I'm not proud of what this government has done regarding the areas you've mentioned (I'm not proud of anything they've done to be frank, I'm not sure if you can tell) and I don't think you, or anyone else, should be proud either.