FREEEDOOMMMMM

I DID IT. Today, this happened

I'm smiling as nobody knows the paper is blank.

I handed in my 4th year research project! the culmination of my 4 years at this university, the product of the last four months of slaving away in labs going crazy from looking at worms, getting repetitive strain injury from doing too many injections and feeling guilty from avoiding so much work.
so naturally all I now want to do is this,

ALL OF THE INTERNETS

WOO IM AN OWL

and generally run around being a crazy person enjoying my freedom, and I fully intend to do that. I had no idea how many things I was missing out on until I was able to book social time with friends again. Do you have any idea how many different things I'm doing this week? I feel like paris hilton or someone from gossip girl, I have a minimum of TWO social events every day. THIS IS AMAZING

however at some point I am probably going to remember that I hate too many social events and end up sitting in my snuggie eating ice cream watching house re-runs.

but we can get to that later

for now

IM GOING TO GO TO SLEEP EARLY BECAUSE I DONT FEEL GUILTY ABOUT NOT WRITING MY DISSERTATION

hell yeah

living it large

Frankles xxx

Reasonable Affirmations

Serious post today so no silly pictures, sorry :(

I was having a conversation with my wonderful flatmate Sinead today and she told me about a wonderful WONDERFUL idea, which I had to share :)

Realistic affirmations.

It's such a great thing for me to do because sometimes I get so wrapped up in the things I haven't achieved or haven't done yet that I forget to account for all the things I do without thinking. Granted most people do these things but some people don't! And its still an achievement that I do them :).

Like paying all my bills on time. I do that. A lot of people don't and a lot of people do, and I am ALLOWED to be proud that I achieved that.

These affirmations also allow you to set more realistic goals with yourself.

Instead of saying amazing yet unachievable things like

"I'm going to do this whole essay in a day!"

"I'm going to cook fresh healthy meals every day!"

"I'm going to go to bed early every night and get up at 7 every morning"

you set yourself completely reasonable tasks, ones that most humans could achieve, and reward yourself for doing them, such as toning down the tasks above like so

"I'm going to FINISH this essay section and then watch TV"

"I will cook myself a healthy meal tonight, but tomorrow I'll have ready meals and bacon."

"I won't set my alarm for 7 and hit the snooze button till 11. I'll set my alarm for 9 and GET OUT OF BED AT 9"

It sounds silly and easy, but by switching out the unreasonable lying to yourself ideals and setting yourself completely achievable goals, you can feel good about doing them and set more rather then just disappointing yourself and doing nothing.

Now to the people who think those things above aren't even goals, get out. get out now. 

I mean I'm glad you have your life together and clean your house every day and have a spotless kitchen but some of us aren't like that. So don't rub our faces in it it makes us feel bad and then we do even less :(

As I am nearing the end of my dissertation hell I have applied these lessons to my own situation. So instead of sitting up into the wee hours of the night worrying that I haven't written 1000 words I can say to myself

"hey, Frankles, you worked really hard today. You reformatted those graphs 3 times when your supervisor kept coming over and saying they weren't good enough. you may not have got the word count you wanted done today but you worked solidly all day so you have done enough. Go home and let this rest till tomorrow. Relax and start fresh and you will work harder"

This is the kind of advice I usually dole out to friends who have deadlines looming and are stressing. 

But its very difficult advice to take yourself. Its difficult to let go and appreciate what you have done rather then being stressed by what you haven't

So there you go, thats my piece for today. I hope I can help someone else struggling with deadlines or stress or unmet expectations, to just sit back and appreciate how much you have done, so you can put what you need to do into perspective

Love

Frankles xxx

Procrastination

Good evening one and all and welcome to a little piece of irony.

I had a very productive day today and rewarded myself with a night off! a night free from graphs and word counts and larvae. I decided that I would blog tonight, for the first time not blogging to avoid work!

And then guess what.

I found myself procrastinating from blogging. . . .

Yeah.

That.

I don't think that I don't enjoy blogging, I think it's more to do with the fact that I CAN'T STOP DOING NOTHING. genuinely I procrastinate so much I get fed up with myself and I still stay exactly where I am.

So i thought to make the night even more ironic, I would stop procrastinating, write my blog on a night when I'm not procrastinating from work and blog about. . . procrastination.

INCEPTION.

I think I have actually started to hate that word, I use it at least 3-4 times per day and it just starts to lose meaning. Kind of like when you were little and said the word bowl over and over again till it sounded like nonsense. Anyway I'm going off topic.

So typical procrastination for me starts like this, Eager eyed Frankles sitting down to do work!

I don't work in my owl onesie it's just what
I'm wearing tonight.

"yay lets do work I'm gonna be super productive and I'm gonna do so much great work lalalalala"

Turn on computer, first page that loads is Facebook.

"well I'll just check my notifications first, it'll take a few seconds and then I'll get down to work"

15 minutes later. have twitter open as well

"oh god I really should start work now"- carries on looking at twitter, checking webcomics

"well I'll make it half an hour of break and then I'll start work, I still have loads of time"

45 minutes later I'm sitting on stumbleupon

"ohhh man I didn't notice the time! well I'm starting to get hungry now, maybe I'll work for an hour then get lunch"

So I work for maybe 15-20 minutes before deciding I'm too hungry and need lunch. Of course seeing as I'm supposed to be working it cant be a quick sandwich or something from morrisons, oh no. Today is the day I should try out that new recipe I heard off, or have a craving for baked macaroni cheese.

2 hours later after making an elaborate lunch, I'm halfway through an episode of some crappy TV show and decide to finish the episode before starting work.

Then by the time the episodes over I've already gone on the computer as well, and turn on another show without thinking.

this goes on for a few more hours interspersed with a few minutes of me actually working, which end with me getting distracted by the TV or a new facebook notification (which I cant get rid off no matter how hard I try, every device notifies me about facebook! it's maddening!)

Sometimes during this procrastination I am aware of what I'm doing. I could be lying on the sofa, mindlessly clicking the stumble button completely unaware of that or the TV programme thats on, and still, still I don't move, I don't get up and do something, I just lie there, a mindless zombie completely wasting my existence. and THAT is why I hate the word procrastination

it just isn't descriptive enough, I need a word that describes the absolute apathy, the absolute laziness and the inability to do anything else that grasps me when I "procrastinate".

If anyone out there can think of such a word, something that sounds appropriate for a word that makes me disgusted and hate myself for doing it, then please suggest away. In the meantime I will most likely be right here on the sofa, doing bugger all.

Love Frankles

xxx

An evening well spent

HELLO WORLD.
I have been incredibly unproductive these last couple of days. I believe it is due to a combination of me being UTTERLY DEMOTIVATED during the day, when I am at the library or in the lab trying to write my report (20 words total written today, woop woop!).

During the evenings my lack of productivity could be down to something else, something entirely more. . . feathery.

I BOUGHT ONE

Yes. I Frankles made the clever clever decision to purchase an item that distracts me and is incredibly comfy when I am coming up to the most important deadline of my university career

Well done me!!!

or you know maybe not well done as since I got it I have done nothing but make these faces

OOH look im an owl!!

And then put on my other onesie and dance around the house.

you know what im talking about

And then try and waste even more time! example. I tried to style my hair all sexy like to look like this

ooh check out that smoulder. Im so moody and interesting.

But of course had to endure several hours of this before I could manage that

Whats happening how do I even have this much hair?

Oh god this isn't working at all I look like a sad clown hooker.

So all in all I spent 3 hours faffing with my hair and putting onesies on all to take a photo for. . . .

yeah no reason. TIME WELL SPENT I SAY!

                                     

And to top of an evening well spent I trawled the internet and found a few images that made me laugh so hard I fell off the sofa (an incredibly easy feat given the low crotch of the owl onesie tangling up my legs) so I thought I should share them with you. To help make your evening as productive and hard working as mine was.

Enjoy!

Final note from Owl-Frankles.

HOOOOOT!!!

Of course I can fly?

Love Frankles

xxx

Um, yeah . . .

I don't quite understand what happened to me.
I know that I had a weird moment,
Weirder then usual.
but I still dont understand why this happened.
I dont know how else to describe this apart from desperate procrastination and disproving my blog title.
Yeah so. . .

Enjoy I guess?

Love Frankles
xxx

S-s-s-shoooooeees!

Once again Internet friends I am procrastinating, avoiding writing my dissertation like its a drunken leopard and I'm a poor baby antelope that smells like cheesy chips. The topic this time?

Shooooeeeeeessss. But not just any shoes, I'm talking sexy, sultry, shiny things that slip into your dreams at night and fill your mind with images of long legs and clicking floors and other such lustful imaginings. Want to keep me entertained for hours with very minimal effort? direct me to a Christian Louboutin website or shop please, you can rob the house and take whatever you want just put a picture of these in front of me first :)

STOP DROOLING ON YOUR LAPTOP!

So when I started avoiding work it obviously wasn't long before I went in to shoe overdrive. I lost hours just wishing I could own these. I probably wouldn't even wear them, I would just put them in a line and stroke them one by one.

To most people out there this sounds like something I should get committed for. But some one out there will understand, someone will read this and find a kindred spirit, someone else whose happiness can be made with a flash of a red sole or a gentle point of a stiletto. And for those people out there somewhere,  I made you this. . . 

Translation: OMG SHOES!

http://pinterest.com/theshort12/shooooooes/

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do, Stilettos and pumps and sandals. Bows and studs and prints and colours galore! Its everything a shoe lover could want in one web page, and it's only going to get bigger! Yay!

Every shoe image that made me oooh and aaah will get added to this, this collection of "shoe porn" for the real addicts out there :) I don't intend to stop adding to this board any time soon, I enjoy it too much. Although I really should write my dissertation at some point. . . .

Love Frankles

xxx

Lab crazy

As I mentioned before I am graduating this June. That means that at the minute I am deep in the hell known as 4th year research project.

The HORROR!

You can imagine that this is not something I relish doing. Lab work was supposed to be this fun thing where I could pretend to be a real scientist and look at fun coloured chemicals whilst making scientific progress that would change the world!!

ooh test tubes!

ooh beakers!

ooh look I'm all serious about SCIENCE

Eating computer will help me figure it out!

Yeah thats kind of what I thought it would be like. Instead I get this.

Nothing works!

These are the wonderful animals I get to work with. gross

And this is what they look like when they die.

Nothing I do works. Every experiment fails or produces results that makes no sense and most of my day is spent waiting around for cells to incubate or doing repetitive procedures 100 times in a row.

Naturally I get bored, and when I got bored I tried to find things to do with my time. The first thing I did was start making patterns in my Pipette tip boxes. . .

Loveheart!

Casette tape!

Diagonal pattern things!

Spirals!

Yeah I actually got so bored I started to find this interesting. . . I need a life again.

Then I started talking to my worms. I asked them very nicely not to crawl out of the petri dishes, and the ones who valiantly escaped were named Roger and placed in the control group to escape a gruesome death by infection. There is no way to state that fact without sounding like a lunatic; maybe I should get out of the house. . . .

OH WAIT. I cant because after my labs I have to write up all of my experiments in my lab book and do calculations and plan the next day (which normally involves repeating something that failed from the day before) and then by that time I'm too tired and stroppy to do anything but laze on the sofa watching house and shoving my face with oreos.

So yes the life of a dissertation student is hard, but the end is near! and at least on occasion I can escape at the weekend by seeing a friend for coffee, or staying up late to write a blog post (the best form of procrastination I have ever found by the way, I may even blog about procrastination to get really meta)

Now I'm off to go crunch some more numbers for tomorrow, see you next time!

love Frankles

xxx

Brownies

Sometimes when I crave junk food I crave HARD and there are only certain things that will fill that sugary hole in my stomach. Brownies are one of those things, not rubbishy crumbly prepackaged stuff that tastes like slightly sugary dirt, homemade all the way.

I'M SAD
FEED ME  CHOCOLATEY GOODNESS!!

I got this recipe ages ago and every time I make it I put a new spin on it. One time I put big chunks of white chocolate in and they sunk to the bottom and burned slightly, but I loved the burnt chocolatey flavour for some reason! Sometimes I sprinkle mini smarties on the top for crunchyness and once I poured the batter into cupcake cases and put an oreo in the middle of each one. thats something you actually HAVE to do, tastes amazing and you can surprise people with them.

Also. Add peanut butter. Best ingredient in the world ever.

these ones have oreos with peanut butter inside baked into them.
OM NOM NOM NOM NOM

Now the basic recipe I got from a stumbleupon session and I have never been able to find the site again :( I would love to name them though so all credit goes to you! you wonderful anonymous bakers!

Happy baking! love Frankles
xxxxx

Brownie mix recipe

1/2 cup White Sugar
2 tablespoons Butter (unsalted)
2 tablespoons Water
1 cup Semisweet Chocolate Chips
1/2 cup Milk Chocolate Chips
2 Eggs
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2/3 cup All-Purpose Flour
1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt

Step 1 – Add Sugar and water into a sauce pan.  Warm on Med Low heat to start melting the sugar.  As the water heats up add the butter.  Stir so the mixture does not burn.  If it starts to boil large bubble turn down heat.  We want a smooth even heat to melt the sugar but not to get the mixture too hot.  (If it were to get too hot the eggs would cook the instant we added them.)  Remove from the heat.

Step 2 – Slowly add chocolate chips to sugar, water and butter mix.  Stir the chips until they melt.

Step 3 – Add the eggs to the melted chocolate.  Gently stir the mixture until the eggs have mixed well.  Once the eggs have been mixed add the Vanilla Extract.

Step 4- Add the Baking Soda and Salt then stir.  Next add the All-Purpose Flour.  I add half the flour then stir then add the rest.  Gently stir until the brownie batter is brown again..

Step 5 – Pour mixture into a greased 8×8 inch square pan.  Place in a 325 degree preheated oven.  Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until brownies set up.