My First Video Blog - 10 Tips to Stay Motivated

I thought I would try something different for this post. This is my first ever video blog (or vlog)! It's a bit cheesy but hopefully you will all really like it. I watched a couple of experts on YouTube for advice and used the family's 20 year old tripod. Sorry about the windy weather and occasional bird noises! I only had one morning to do all the filming and the weather was really changeable! The topic I've chosen is 10 Tips to Stay Motivated! Let me know what you think!!

20 Most Annoying Things About Living With Your Parents

I don't want this to make me sound ungrateful because I'm not; I love my family and I am very privileged to live with my mum. But that doesn't mean that she isn't really annoying sometimes, just like I can be annoying too. A lot of people I know are or have been in a similar situation to me, living with their parents after 3 amazing years of independence at university. If I'm honest I do find it hard living without the freedom I have become accustomed to. I thought the best way to get over how annoying living with parents can be is to make a joke out of it. A couple of people might not connect with some of these but hopefully most of you will! And don't think badly of my mum after reading this, she's the best.


1. You have to continually explain what you are doing today/this week because parents must know where you are every second of the day.


2. You are now the resident IT technician and are expected to solve all mobile/iPad/computer problems - especially relevant now I've started at EE.

3. You have no authority whatsoever. This is not your house. So are you supposed to ask permission for your friends to come over? (Starting to feel 10 years old again?)

4. You will get nagged over and over to do chores. Haven't you tidied your room yet?

5. You have to share the TV. But it's worse than normal because parents always want to watch programmes you have no interest in, like ones with subtitles or whole golf championships from start to finish. It's not your house remember so don't complain.

6. Everything that goes wrong in the house is magically your fault.

7. You have to keep explaining to people that you are 21 and still living with your parents, then endure their look of pity/ridicule.

8. You can not sit around doing nothing without getting hassled. This also means no more lie-ins.

9. When your parents actually have something interesting to go to the house suddenly becomes the most boring place in the world and you find yourself waiting for them to come back.

10. There is never any food you want in the house. This does sound quite spoilt and I have no problem with doing food shopping myself but if I come back from hockey at 9pm and want something to eat all I can find is Ryvita, salad and homemade chutney. That is not a meal!!

11. You have to share the car and/or wait for lifts. This actually doesn't apply to me but I know a lot of people who are in this situation so I thought I'd add it to the list anyway.

12. You will undoubtedly be treated like a child again at some point whether it is being told what options you have for dinner (which is nothing!!) or reminded to brush your teeth. How do parents think we've survived for the last 3 years at university?

13. You are now the fashion guru and approver of all outfit combinations. This could just be me and my mum though.

14. You have no personal space. Your room is no longer your room because it's not your house, remember? So you have to be careful not to leave anything personal lying around.

15. When your parents have friends around you have to be polite and interesting, pretend that you remember them even if you don't and listen to your mum explain to everyone why you haven't got a great job and moved out yet.

16. Even though you are the fashion guru (13) all of your outfits will be judged for practicality and you will lose count of how many times they have suggested you wear/take a coat.

17. You will have to repeat something around 4 times before they begin to remember it. Maybe it's an age thing but parents aren't great at listening.

18. Occasionally you will be asked to house sit/dog sit/cat sit. This could be just for a weekend or it could be a whole week. This means you have to do all the chores and the organising of the family house on your own. Duties include getting up early to let the animals out, feeding animals, walking animals, cleaning house, food shopping, all cooking and washing up, and locking up the house at night. It also means that you can't go out and do what you like because you are supposed to responsible for the house/dog/cat.

19. You will be continually questioned about how many jobs you are applying for, whether you've sent the applications off and why you haven't heard back yet. However when you ask for any help they suddenly lose interest and have no useful advice whatsoever.

20. You feel like you're 17 again. You have just gone from all the freedom your student loan can buy to back where you were before you left. It's like that feeling when you go on an amazing holiday and then come back home and everything goes back to the way it was, but it feels worse because you've had a taste for what's out there.

Obviously there are some great positives about living with your parents, like it saves loads of money, but who wants to read about that. If I've missed anything off the list let me know. I've made it easier to leave comments below.

For people like me who are keen to move out of their family home, don't worry it will happen.

Why Are We All So Addicted To Social Media?

The first thing I do in the morning is check my iPhone for messages, notifications and Snapchats. When I go on holiday my first question is, will there be WiFi? And the thought of a long journey without any phone battery is my idea of a nightmare. Some people probably think that's really sad but in reality most people my age are the same. I barely use my phone for calls or texts anymore. I've just started working in a phone shop and it's not minutes or texts customers ask about, it's data. It's all about the internet. It's about social media. 

There are so many different platforms, each with their own uses and attractions. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Snapchat, Whatsapp, LinkedIn and the list goes on and on. These are just some that I use on a regular basis. In fact I would probably check each of them daily and some more than 5 times a day. An addiction is "the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice" and I wouldn't say it's a stretch to describe my relationship with social media this way. I also wouldn't call my situation unique, in fact I'd probably call it common. The question is, why are we all so addicted to social media?

It's continuous.

It's a bit like those online games we all used to play when we were younger. I'm thinking of FarmVille but there are loads of different variations of the same sort of thing.  Even though you're not always playing, the game keeps going without you. You have to harvest your crops or you will lose the money you spent planting them. If we think even further back, it's a bit like Tamagotchis (although my parents never actually let me have one). You have to keep playing the game to keep your digital pet alive. Social media has a similar enchantment. People are continuously uploading new pictures, statuses, pins, videos etc.. Somehow, masterminds like Mark Zuckerberg have managed to create the feeling that you might miss something if you don't keep checking back. Although the pictures of your old university friends' crazy nights out are still going to be there 3 weeks later, who wants to be the last one to see them? 

Social media makes you feel connected.

It's called social for a reason. It's all about the connections you can make and keep. Social Media's common aim is to bring people together, to share ideas and create networks. Most people have times when they are alone, whether it's once a day, a week or a month.  Some people enjoy this peace and quiet, some don't. With social media, you don't have to be alone. You can spark up conversations with people all around the world. It's this opportunity to communicate with people you don't see regularly in a fun way that has surpassed email or snail mail. Most people like to have lots of friends and social media is an easy way to stay in contact with them all. But you have to keep going back to that site to stay connected. Let's say you meet someone new on a night out, you get introduced by a mutual friend, chat for a while and then go your separate ways. If you know their name, or even if you don't, you could probably find them online by search through your mutual friend's profile. If you send them a friend request on Facebook, you'll have to keep using Facebook to contact them unless you ask for their number or email, which could be a bit too soon, I mean you've only met them once? And that's how social media draws you in. 

Social media gives you freedom.

There are things that are normally socially unacceptable that become okay on social media. I'm not talking about being rude or mean. But stalking through someone's old photos on Facebook is completely fine. You can get away with reading through all of someone's tweets for the last month without anyone knowing what you're doing. There is so much information about people on social media nowadays and that's what makes it so popular. It gives you much more freedom than the real world and you can express yourself in any way you choose. You can be whoever you want to be and say whatever you want to say (as long as it's not offensive). Social media provides the freedom that people crave in life and that freedom is what makes it so likeable and addictive. 

Who can tell what the future has in store for social media or whether in 10 years time we will all have forgotten about Facebook. All I know is, it's pretty addictive right now.