Wait, that actually happens in real life?

So yesterday afternoon took an unexpected turn for the better when I just bumped into a couple of friends in a coffee shop.

Honestly before yesterday I probably would have laughed at the idea that people just happened to meet their friends unexpectedly in coffee shops. It just sounds so cliché! But then yesterday afternoon I’d just been checking out what one of my local charity shops had in, I walked past the coffee shop next door and saw a couple of my friends sat in the window. I popped in to say hi and we ended up chatting for quite a while.

This has got me thinking about how the way that we interact with each other as students is in a lot of ways very strange.

As student’s people rarely seem to go round to each other’s flats or house, why is that? It’s not like we have to ask our parents’ permission to invite a friend over anymore! But even someone like me who’s always struggled a bit socially seemed to have friends over and go over to friends’ houses more often back when we had to ask our parents.

I also think its interesting (and slightly worrying) how so much of our contact and interaction with each other is digital. So often it seems that you only really know what someone has been up to through what they’ve been posting on Facebook.

Another thing that I find quite isolating is that most people seem to mainly socialise on nights out involving drinking. Nothing wrong with enjoying that but it does mean that people (like me) who don’t like alcohol seem to be left out a lot of the time.

That’s just my opinion and experience. Maybe it’s completely different to the general story. But I personally want more meetings in coffee shops with my friends.

My Haul – A Super Haul

I hope you didn’t mind last week’s haul post because I’ve decided to write another one. So what have I bought this week that makes it ‘A Super Haul’? Well keep reading…

First up, Tiger have done it again with the slightly weird miniature item that looks good displayed with dolls. I saw this mini notebook today and realised that it would make a perfect doll sized coffee table book.

I love Snoopy and Peanuts. I have done for years. I couldn’t resist this plushie of Flying Ace Snoopy. Especially with 20% Off.

I’ve completed one of my collections (for now!) this week. I’ve been collecting the DC Superhero Girls action figures and Bumblebee was the last one that I wanted to get from wave 1. But she has also become one of the hardest ones to find. That is until I bought her today for only £6!

Admittedly the TV Guide is not the most exciting thing to buy. But it has Grant Gustin as the Flash on the cover which I find very exciting (I think I’ve mentioned before on here that I really like Grant Gustin) so I was pleased to see him on the TV Guide and had to buy it. I think this is the first time he’s been on the cover of a UK TV Guide.

As with last week I bought two more Red Noses this week. I now have 5 out of the 10 released this year, I think the Chef is my favourite one so far.

The final item from this Saturday’s haul is one that I’ve been trying to find for a while now. I got a 12” Action Figure of the Flash! To my knowledge a version of the Flash in this scale has not been released in the UK for several years and I’ve been trying unsuccessful to find one. Then when I went grocery shopping this morning I found him!

A live-action Aladdin?

Aladdin is the Disney Movie of the Month here on the blog, but other than an initial post I’ve been really bad at following through with any subsequent posts. So here’s a few thoughts on a possible live-action adaptation of Aladdin.

In recent years Disney have decided to go through their extensive back catalogue and adapt much loved movies into new live action reinterpretations. So far Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and The Jungle Book have all had adaptations and in a few months the much anticipated live-action Beauty and the Beast is going to be released. Disney are not stopping there, a live-action Mulan is already well into development and there’s numerous other live-action adaptions on the release schedule. A live-action Aladdin has been confirmed to be happening eventually but precise details are still unclear. In this blog post I am going to be sharing a few ideas about how I think Disney could tackle a live-action Aladdin movie.

Cast Properly

• This is probably the most obvious example which is why I’ve put it first on my list. A live-action Aladdin movie must have a culturally correct cast. Disney have to cast Arabian actors.

Explore Jasmine’s character more

•  Jasmine is an interesting character, she’s clearly unwilling to follow tradition and has a rebellious side. But in terms of character development she doesn’t really get that much in the original movie. That’s something I’d like to see change in a new version of Aladdin.

Don’t try to replicate Robin Williams

• The Genie is one of the most important parts of the original movie and Robin Williams’ performance is iconic. Therefore I think that any attempt at remaking Aladdin should not try to recreate his performance. Instead of the comedic animated Genie I’d want to see a more mysterious and magical Genie who would be more based on the genies from mythology.

Be Epic!

• A live-action Aladdin (probably more so than any other Disney movie) has so much potential to look epic. From the Cave of Wonders, to the sword fights, to the city of Agrabah, to the A Whole New World sequence. Everything about a live-action Aladdin should be looking big, bold and epic.

Reference other Disney movies

• Okay this one’s a little bit of an odd one, but given how many live-action remakes Disney are producing I’d love it if Disney started to connect them up to be set in the same universe. Aladdin and Jasmine teamed up with Hercules to take on Jafar and Hades in an episode of a 1998 animated TV Series, so why not add hints that there’s more heroes and villains out there?

My Haul – First Saturday of 2017

‘My Haul’ videos seem to be pretty popular and so I thought I’d give it a go here on my blog.

Since the first weekend of my first semester of my first year at uni I have gone out at 9AM (when the shops open) to walk around the city centre. Each week I buy an interesting assortment of stuff - sometimes things I’ve been looking for, sometimes things in a store’s sale and sometimes new arrivals in store - this Saturday’s haul is certainly an interesting mix of stuff.

Since I started to collect dolls I’ve been keeping an eye out for mini items that can be used in scale with a doll. This suitcase I got from Tiger is one of those mini items. I think it fits quite well with Pocahontas.

I wanted to get this Doctor Who figure set when it first came out but for one reason or another I never actually got round to buying it. This morning I found it on sale for £4.99 so I finally bought it.

I’ve got a new Itty Bitty! Itty Bitty’s are these fun little plushies of pop culture characters from Hallmark, there are tons of characters available internationally (I love the one of Princess Tiana) but there’s still not been very many of them released in the UK. Iron Man joins the Flash, Captain America and Wonder Woman in my collection.

Finally the 2017 Red Noses are now available! I’ve been collecting the Red Noses for a decade now and I’ve started off my 2017 collection today with the Viking nose and the Dragon nose. There’s definitely going to be more of these over the coming weeks!

If people seem to be interested in my haul then I might make this a weekly blog feature.

Being Back at Uni after Christmas

I have started my Second Semester of my Second Year. In my last post I wrote about my thoughts and feelings to be going back to uni after Christmas, this time I’m writing about my thoughts and feelings now that I’m back.

We broke up for Christmas quite late this year which meant that we returned to Uni midway into January. I’ve found – and sparking to my friends I’m not the only one feeling like this – that coming back after Christmas break when Christmas was so long ago feels very strange.  There’s no Fresher’s Week for second semester and so it’s straight back into seminars and reading. I don’t mind this but it’s certainly disorientating after a four week Christmas break.

One of my favourite parts of starting a new semester is going on a Book Hunt! I enjoy having a list of books that I need to read that semester and walking around the bookshops in the city to buy them all. I know I could just download them all on Kindle but I much prefer having a paper copy to put on my shelf (and I know my mum is strongly agreeing with that sentiment as she’s reading this blog post!)

For some reason it always surprises me just how much I need to buy over the first week. I don’t know why given I’ve come back to uni after a break five times. But every day since I got back on Saturday I have had to go out to get something I need – from another carton of orange juice to shaving cream to pasta. Do any other students find that they’re constantly restocking on stuff when they get back, even if they did a shop on their way back?

On the whole I feel happy to be back and I’ve enjoyed my first few days of my first week of my second semester. It just does feel a little strange to be back!

Back to Uni after Christmas-Break

This is just a quick post to discuss how strange it feels to be going back to Uni after Christmas-Break and another attempt to force myself to blog more regularly. It’s certainly a memorable day to be the last day of the break given we had snow for once this morning…

But these last few days before going back always just feel strange. In some ways it feels like this break has flown by but at the same time it feels like it’s been absolutely ages since I was last at Uni. Christmas alone feels like a long time ago now, doesn’t it?

Writing this post I’m taking a break from packing my bags to go back. I have quite a lot of stuff going back with me but I absolutely need even more cooking utensils, a glue gun and a sewing kit at uni! I do have a tendency to over pack, which makes me slightly nervous about packing for my year abroad in Canada later this year.

But overall going back I feel ready to get back and embrace whatever challenges and surprises are waiting for me over the next few months.

Aladdin – Disney Movie of the Month

Starting off a new regular feature on the blog with Aladdin.

So it’s a new year and for this year I am planning on having a Disney Movie of the Month for every month of the year on this blog. I will watch a Disney movie at the start of each month, then I will post a review/opinion/thoughts piece and then I shall aim to follow up on that with other posts about that movie later on in the month. The first Disney Movie of the Month is Aladdin.

I used to watch Aladdin a lot when I was a kid but then I lost my copy of it on DVD and until recently I hadn’t seen it for about a decade. So when I watched it for the first time in years back in December I was worried that I was going to be disappointed, however I was pleased to find that it’s actually still a really enjoyable movie.

On paper the story might not be the most original, as a Disney fan Aladdin definitely feels like it’s got a lot of familiar moments, but it’s the characters and the sense of humour that runs throughout which really makes this movie work.

Obviously everyone knows the Genie but he really is a funny and likeable character. Robin Williams’ performance is just as enjoyable in 2017 as it was when I watched the movie as a kid.

Jafar might be a villain in the typical ‘mad, bad and evil’ mould but sometimes villains like that are just fun. As people who know me can tell you I think Maleficent is awesome, partially because of the 2014 live action movie but also because all out evil villains are just fun to watch sometimes. And that is certainly the case with Jafar.

Jasmine is also interesting. She might not be as powerful as Elsa, as brave as Merida or as determined as Tiana, but Jasmine is certainly not a passive princess. She’s way more interesting than the likes of Snow White and Cinderella. Also it’s worth pointing out that the fictional kingdom of Agrabah is a Muslim country, thus meaning that Jasmine is a Muslim Disney Princess making her a more progressive character for Disney than she may initially seem.

In conclusions, sometimes I’ve found that Disney movies which everyone seems to love but I’ve not seen in ages/never seemed don’t live up to the hype – like The Little Mermaid for example. However Aladdin did not disappoint me.