Fair-Weather Friends .v. Life-Suckers

Friendships

Friendships are one of the most challenging, rewarding and crucial things in any woman's life. From a young age they dictate how we feel - from teenage bitch fights to calls made to your best friend at 3am after a tragic break up from boyfriend-of-the-week. Now that we're older (unfortunately) and wiser (OK, debatable), our friendships have normally settled down a bit. There isn't half as much backstabbing, and any gossiping done is usually not about each other, but about acceptable third parties ie. the work bitch or Robert Pattinson. 

Fair-Weather Friends and Life-Suckers

That's not to say friendships have got any easier. Oh no, they're just as confusing as always. Now, everyone knows that being a fair-weather friend is not acceptable. We can't just hang around with our mate when they're the life and soul of the party, but ditch them as soon as they're having a bad day. It's a given really and I know very few people who fall into this category. However, there is a new category emerging: The Fair-Weather Phobe - other wise know as life-suckers. These friends are never bad people, but their fuel is negative emotion. If you're not moaning about something they're not happy and as soon as you have anything positive to say, they either end the conversation or try and rain on your parade. 

Laugh With Them!

We're all prone to that ugly emotion of jealousy, especially when we're feeling down ourselves. When you've just been made redundant your friend's promotion is that little bit harder to celebrate (besides, you can't afford the champagne). But if consoling our friend during a bad time is second nature to most of us, then why shouldn't we do the same when they're going through a great period of their lives? It's a vital duty and providing a celebratory hug and glass of wine should become just as natural as providing the Kleenex and Ben & Jerry's. Plus, smiling is infectious and will make you feel better about yourself. It's a win-win situation!

My week at Bliss

So the last few days have been pretty crazy...crazy and amazing! And they've gone way too fast for my liking!

After transcribing interviews for the first 2 days, I finally got to move on to what I've been most excited about doing: some writing!

My first task was to do the website's love horoscopes for the next week...Never have I used the words "crush" and "fit lad" so many times! Check the horoscopes on the mybliss website http://www.mybliss.co.uk/ next week, written by yours truly (I may have been a little biased and made sure my sign, Taurus, has a particularly lucky week...).

Next, Bliss intern Alisha asked me to write a few questions for an interview she is doing tomorrow, with new singing show The Voice's judges and presenters! The Voice is already huge in America and the UK version will be hitting our screens on BBC1 next month.

The lovely Holly Willoughby and Reggie Yates will be hosting and the judging panel will be made up of Jessie J, will.i.am, The Script frontman Danny O'Donoghue and Tom Jones. With stars like that on the show, you can imagine it wasn't hard to think of questions! Pretty crazy to think that Jessie J might be answering questions written by me!

One huge advantage of a week at Bliss is being the first to hear about exciting new beauty products, music and book releases. There are constantly packages containing exciting new goodies landing on the desks - we even got sent some of the new kitkat flavours to try (Lent? What's lent?!)

Today I was asked to write a couple of reviews for some new music for the mybliss website. One of the new music videos was cool new dance tune Back Foot by HeavyFeet and Nate James. Check it out here: (the intro on the website was totes written by me)

http://www.mybliss.co.uk/tunein/music

So tomorrow is my last day at Bliss (boo!). I'll have to make sure I make the most of it!

Love,

Anna .x.

Interviews with JLS and One D? All in a day's work...

So I was lucky enough to bag a work placement at Bliss magazine, which is not only amazing fun, but also a great opportunity and a fab start to trying to make it in the world of magazine journalism. Naturally, the first thing I had to do was blog about my first day here at Bliss...

Yesterday I travelled down to Tunbridge Wells, where the Bliss head offices are and after a coach journey and 2 trains, I finally arrived at the little hotel, my home for the week.

Staying here alone for the week meant my first challenge was going out for dinner alone. This involved awkwardly trying to act like I was 'on business' and not like I'd been stood up, by taking a book and obsessively checking my blackberry...After I'd eaten (3 x faster than usual) I decided to get a good night's sleep in prep for day one!

After a hearty breakfast of blueberry muffins, I scaled the huuuuge hill which leads up to the Bliss offices, feeling slightly nervous. Luckily I was greeted by the very friendly senior writer, Lucy, who showed me where everything is and where all the back copies of magazines are kept. I even got made a cup of tea! Definitely had been anticipating that that would be my task all week!

So my first job was to look through all the day's newspapers and to pick out any relevant stories relating to young people or celebs. The only rule: 'Ignore all of the sport section and the heavy political stories'...No problems, there! 

A few hours into the day, Lucy asked me if I fancied transcribing an interview with none other than JLS boys Marvin and Aston! Unfortunately I didn't get to meet the boys, but I think this would have been a bit too much excitement for day 1! However I did learn some first-hand gossip about the boys, from talk of underwear, to Aston's tattoos.

After a coffee during my lunch break, I returned to finish my JLS interview and was promptly offered the task of transcribing an interview with One Direction's Zayn! 1D are definitely my guilty pleasure and with Zayn being my fave (and also 2 years my junior, but let's ignore that) this was another 'job' I could definitely live with doing! In addition to this, the interview was all about fashion and shopping...who knew Zayn loves to indulge in a bit of retail therapy?

So now I'm back in my hotel room, feeling happy but exhausted. But most of all, I feel safe in the knowledge that this is definitely the career I want! Maybe one day I'll get to do the interviews myself! Watch this space...

Love,

Anna .x.

Singing the V-Day Blues...(warning, traces of bitterness)

There's no denying it...The dreaded 14th of February is drawing much too close for comfort. If you run, it's only a matter of time before you run into the next window display of pink and red kitsch (two colours which clash at ANY time of the year btw.). If you hide, it will only be seconds before you're sought out by the next sickeningly happy couple. In other words; resistance is futile.

Now, I'm not one to usually make a fuss about Valentine's Day. Last year my relationship status was no different to this year (if you hadn't guessed, that's single). However I had a safety blanket of equally single friends. We simply spent the night drinking wine and heading out to dance with some, admittedly not so eligible, bachelors.

This year, I have an alarmingly small amount of fellow singletons on my side. And to add insult to injury, many are in new relationships and still at that vomit-inducing honeymoon stage. But, believe it or not, these are actually the easiest couples to deal with. They may make you want to gag, however a small part of you can't help but enjoy seeing your friend so happy.

No, the worst couples are the ones who claim that Valentine's Day is "No Big Deal". Expect following statements: "It's all about making money, it's so commercialised"/"If you love someone, you don't need an excuse to show that"/"It's just so BORING".

I am not ashamed that I enjoy making these couples suffer a little by unabashedly throwing following idea out there "Oh great, want to do something that day then?". Cue: lots of squirming, shifty eyes and muttered admissions of booked tables at expensive restaurants (too commercialised, eh?).

So, as it seems unlikely that I'll meet the man of my dreams in the space of the next couple of weeks, I have 2, equally depressing, options.

Option number one: Go all Jessical Biel in "Valentine's Day" and throw an "I hate V-Day" party, dress all in black and whack a pinata with a baseball bat. However, this has following implications: my guestlist would be alarmingly small and I am unsure of where one would purchase a pinata. Or a baseball bat, for that matter...

Or, option number two: Spend the day with my cat, in preparation for becoming a spinster with several feline friends. It's all good practice, after all.

Whereas option number 2 is the slightly more appealing one, it might also be nice to have a little human company on the 14th of Feb. So, in a 'wine-bottle-half-full' kind of spirit, I have decided to make the most of it by having a few drinks and giggles with my sister, who is one of my few fellow singletons.

After all, Valentine's Day is about spending time with someone you love, and not strictly with someone of the fit male variety (although fingers crossed for next year...) ;)

Lots of single girl love

Anna x

Christmas Favourites

Christmas time is always a perfect excuse to go shopping (even if you do end up with the odd cheeky buy for yourself...). So I've had plenty of opportunities to browse around and pick out my favourite buys of the season.

One of the best purchases I've made, has to be these cute panda slippers from Accessorize.

I'd had my eye on these for a few weeks and was super excited when I found them in the sale for £9! I must admit, these were a present from me to um...myself, but they would also make a great gift on a budget for a best mate or sister!

Speaking of sisters, I also found a great bargain when searching for her Christmas present. Seeing as she is obsessed with Benefit make up, I headed straight to department store Beales where they were running a 10% off offer (also on lots of other brands).

In the end, I went for Benefit's California Kissin' lipgloss, which has a blue colour in the bottle, but gives a subtle shimmer on the lips. The blue pigment helps to make teeth look whiter and your smile brighter - bonus! This was used on me during a Benefit make-over and I'd already fallen in love with it then, so I knew my sister would love it.

Having bought and wrapped all my presents by the start of December (not bragging or anything) I decided it was time to have a little peek at what I might like... I've almost used up the last of my Paco Rabanne, Lady Million perfume and thought it was time for a new scent. Even though I did love Lady Million, I found it slightly heavy for daytime.

After testing a few, I immediately fell in love with the new Chloe perfume and put it straight on the top of my wishlist. Its subtle honey notes are gorgeous and perfect for every day wear. Let's hope Santa is feeling generous...

So with all these gorgeous gifts around, Christmas can well and truly come.

Happy Christmas everyone :) x

Travelling light...

I have 11 days off work starting tomorrow, 6 of which I will actually be spending outside of boring old England. To say I'm excited would be an understatement. However, to say I have packed an appropriate suitcase for 6 days away would be a plain lie.

The holiday is neither particularly long (aforementioned grand total of 6 days) nor particularly exotic (Germany to visit my family), yet somehow I have managed to pack pretty much my entire room. God knows what it will be like when I move out, but that's a whole different story...

So my suitcase includes a top I have worn twice and always think I should probably wear again, yet always end up changing out of. It also includes a pair of heels. Pretty ridiculous when you consider my itenary for the holiday is Christmas shopping with my nan and eating my body weight in Milka chocolate.

So the conclusion is, that like pretty much all other girls, I cannot travel light. Even a weekend away requires enough toiletries to deem a suitcase acceptable and on my last holiday away with the girls, I had to cram a pair of heels into my hand luggage, as my suitcase was already over the weight limit.

Whereas I feel pretty prepared for all situations that might face me in the coming 6 days, I am also very aware that I will probably spend most of my month's wages over there and then find I have nowhere to cram my newly acquired things...Oh well, heels in the hand luggage it is then!

Wish me luck...

Contagion: Review

Hi,

I feel like I've been a terrible blogger lately and would like to apologise for the massive lack of posts. I wish I had some exciting reason for this aforementioned rubbishness, bit basically I've just been working none stop! To make up for this, I'm going to share a movie review with you and hope that all is forgiven!

After much anticipation, I finally managed to go and watch 'Contagion'. Ironically, I had an awful cold the week before last and had to cancel my cinema trip. I am now thanking my lucky stars I did, as I would definitely have freaked everyone out by coughing and spreading my germs in the cinema.

So all that aside, 'Contagion' is a pretty intense film. It's horrific and eery, but in a subtle, 'it could actually happen' way. It's definitelt not a horror film in the traditional sense, so if you were expecting that, you would definitely be disappointed (like the chav who, in a chaming fashion, declared 'that was s**t very loudly as the credits rolled).

I don't want to ruin the story, but the basics are, that a deadly virus emerges and starts to spread across the globe (it doesn't take a genius to realise that from the trailer, so don't think I've dropped a spoiler on you there). As the virus spreads, moral panic breaks out and the world goes a little crazy with fear of death and obsessive self prevention.

'Contagion' covers a broad range of aspects of the situation, which is essentially both its best and worst feature. On the one hand, it's great that all bases are covered, including a very real sense of humans becoming destructive animals in the face of fighting for survival, yet also touching upon government conspiracies and the sheer unfairness of who is prioritised with regard to vaccinations.

Unfortunately, this also means there are about five or six stories going on at the same time and many characters are sidelined and have minimal chances to develop their role. Of course the amazing a-list cast (Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Winslet all star in 'Contagion') play their parts fantastically. However, you don't really get a sense of knowing many of the characters or forming an emotional bond with them.

Out of 5 I would have to sit on the fence a little and give 'Contagion' a 3.5. Whereas it is a clever concept and chillingly realistic, it borders almost slightly into documentary territory with very long and weary explanations about the chemical make up of the virus (you don't really pay £7 for a cinema ticket to a biology lesson). However, there are some moments of fantastic acting and some very clever observations made.

If you want some light movie entertainment on a Saturday night, this is not for you. But if you're willing to sit through some slightly boring sciency parts (or if you're a geek for biology) then you'll be rewarded with a pretty intelligent piece of cinema. And Jude Law's beautiful face, which can only be a bonus.

Just be prepared to freak out a little when anyone coughs/sneezes in the cinema, and to leave with a slight touch of OCD...Pretty sure 'Contagion' will boost hand sanitizer sales back up to the level they were at during pig flu panic! ;)

Enjoy!

Anna x