Studying Abroad – A Month To Go

In a months’ time I am going to be in Canada right at the start of my time studying abroad. I’m getting to a point where it feels like whilst I now know quite a lot there’s still quite a lot still to find out.

In the past week I found out where I will be living on campus and who I am going to be living with. Knowing where I will be living makes the whole experience feel more real. Now I have a more accurate idea of what it will be like for me when I’m living there. I’ve ended up being assigned the ‘International House’ which I’m pleased with. I think it’s going to be a good experience living with people from around the world. Dealing with culture shock and cultural adjustment will also probably be easier for me if I know that there are other international students around. I am also glad that I have a single room, given my tidiness preferences I didn’t want to have a shared bedroom.

Overall the main emotion I’m feeling at the moment is excitement. I’m excited to get out there and just experience new things. I really enjoy being a student and going abroad almost feels like I’m getting chance to experience being a student for the first time again, except this time will be better as I feel more confident and have learnt more about myself since first year. However there is a little bit of nervousness. Mainly at the moment it’s the things that I am still uncertain about which is making me nervous however that’s something which will resolve itself over time.

I first thought of doing a year abroad back when I applied to uni back in October 2014 so this has been a long time coming, possibly that’s part of why I don’t feel too nervous as that means I have been mentally preparing for it.

It still doesn’t feel like I will be in Canada ready to begin my Study Aboard adventure in a month. However I think I’m ready to go out there and seize the opportunities.

My Doll Rooms So Far…

So for a while I’ve wanted to do a post where I show off all 7 doll rooms that I’ve made so far. Some of these rooms I have written making of posts for previously but others I have never before shared on my blog. The idea for making a doll room in a cereal box came from My Froggy Stuff on YouTube, I have adapted her ideas to great rooms which suit my dolls.

The Forest of Enchantment Living Room

This one was the first one, the one that started it all. This room was partially inspired by the stage show The Forest of Enchantment from Disneyland Paris. That show features Rapunzel, Merida and Pocahontas who are usually displayed in this room. After I bought him Flynn Rider also hangs out in this room. The furniture in this room often varies and gets changed around to create different arrangements for the dolls to be displayed with.

Tiana’s Café

Given how much I love her I was obviously going to make a room of some sort to display Tiana in! I decided a Café would be more economical than a restaurant in terms of space. Later on I considered making Tiana a bakery inspired by The Great British Bake Off, I ultimately decided not to make this but as I’d already made and bought things for the bakery I created a combined café/bakery. The café is a great set for displaying various dolls in, at the moment Anna, Jasmine, Supergirl and the Winter Soldier are having afternoon tea in Tiana’s Café!

Megara’s Greek Villa

I came across a picture of a Greek island from an old calendar of my mum's and realised I could use it as a large window in a doll room. Megara’s Greek Villa was the result. This is one of the more simple rooms I have made but it’s an effective one for displaying Megara. Later on Hercules joined Megara after I found him for a pound in a charity shop.

The Art Gallery

Out of all the rooms I’ve made this is the one which follows a My Froggy Stuff tutorial the closest. The bench means this is a great set for displaying dolls who have unarticulated legs and can’t stand. One of my favourite things about this one is that it can be rearranged to create different spaces. Also the postcards that are on the wall as paintings in the gallery are just blu-tacked on so they can be removed to create different exhibits.

The Disneyland Paris Room

I wrote about how I made this one here and little has changed since I made it. The seating in this room gets changed relatively frequently depending on what is in use. This room has been a good one for displaying various Disney dolls in.

The Bookshop

I wrote about how I made this one here, since I made it I have added another bookcase which was previously in The Forest of Enchantment Living Room. One of my favourite things about the bookshop is that it has a lot of detail without looking cluttered. As you might expect, since I bought Belle the other week she has been in the book shop a lot.

Batgirl’s Batcave

I wrote about how I made this one here a few weeks ago. I’m still very pleased with how this set came out, this has been a great set for just displaying Batgirl.

So that’s it for now. I have plans to make more doll rooms in the future however for now there’s nothing definite in the works. Possible upcoming rooms include a beach hut, a space station based on the Star Tours Ride, a new Avengers HQ, a room for Mulan, a room for Jasmine base on Agrabah Café at Disneyland Paris or some sort of Frozen room. Mostly it depends on what dolls I feel could have their own room and what supplies I have available.

Jodie Whittaker is The New Doctor – My Reaction

As you probably know yesterday the BBC announced that Jodie Whittaker will be playing the 13^th Doctor in the next series of Doctor Who. This announcement has sparked a lot of reaction, debate and conversation online and I thought I should add my voice to this.

First off, it is far too early to be judging what the new Doctor is like. We haven’t seen her in an episode yet. We haven’t even seen what her costume is going to be. We really don’t know what she is going to be like. This immediate knee jerk reaction to dismiss the new Doctor happens every single time. I remember the near total dismissal when Matt Smith was cast and now he is regarded as one of the best Doctors. I think everyone who has already written her off – whatever their reason - needs to give her a chance first.

I have seen some reactions that seem to think because we’ve had Rey in Star Wars and Wonder Woman has had a movie that we don’t need any more women in sci-fi/fantasy. This just completely misses the point. The number of men compared to the number of women in sci-fi/fantasy is still vastly unequal. It would be nice if we could get to a point where women in sci-fi/fantasy are just seen as characters rather than female characters however part of that coming about is through choices being made like casting a female Doctor.

The Doctor being female is definitely going to change the dynamic of the show. But that’s not a bad thing. Change has always been at the core of Doctor Who. Whoever was cast as the 13^th Doctor was going to change the dynamic of the series. The grandfatherly 1^st Doctor has a completely different dynamic to the cool 10^th Doctor. Doctor Who never stays exactly the same and introducing the first female Doctor is just another change.

Sadly Doctor Who has been in a weak position lately. Whatever your opinion is on the 12^th Doctor, Clara Oswald, Bill Potts and the past few series it is hard to deny that the show is in a precarious position. Ratings have been declining and main stream appeal has been lost. Christmas 2016 was the first one since 2005 were none of the major high street stores listed Doctor Who toys in their Christmas gift guides. There’s not really many younger viewers becoming Whovians at the moment.  Before the announcement yesterday I had assumed that the BBC would see a female Doctor as too big a risk given the uncertainty around the show’s future. However the BBC seem to have decided that right now is the time to take a bit of a risk and finally cast a female Doctor. It was possibly a casting decision that was motivated by a want to get people talking about the show again which it certainly has done! I hope for the sake of the shows future that this is a risk that will pay off in terms of support for the series.

Also I’d like to see how River Song will react to learning that her husband is now her wife. River’s story was nicely concluded in The Husbands of River Song. However I would be really interested to watch Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor meeting her wife, Professor River Song.

Right now it is too early to say if Series 11 of Doctor Who will be good and if Jodie Whitaker is going to be good as the 13^th Doctor. A lot is going to depend on who her companion (or companions) are, what her stories are like, how her Doctor is going to be written and what monsters is she going to be fighting. However I have faith that Doctor Who is about to enter a new era that will end up being a very highly regarded and much loved era.

My Haul – A Disney Car Boot Sale

This morning I went to a local car boot sale and I find some interesting things there. All of the things I found today are Disney related items and I thought they were interesting enough to share in another haul post.

One stall had these Funko Disney Princess Mystery Minis. They had already been opened so I was able to choose I bought which is good because I usually avoid buying blind boxes like these for fear of ending up with a character who I don’t want. Usually these retail for around £6 - £8 each, I paid just £3 for the three of them! I am thrilled that I managed to get Tiana because – as you probably already know – she is my absolute favouriteDisney Princess.

On another stall I was able to get two Pixar plushies for £4! I had a very similar Woody to this one when I was younger so I had to get him. I love Toy Story but I don’t currently have a Woody in my collection so I decided to buy him. The Flik was hidden at the bottom of a box, as you also probably know I love A Bugs Life it was one of my favourites when I was younger. I might have bought a Flik a few weeks back but this one is different as he’s a bit smaller and has poseable antennae.

Finally I added another doll to my collection. I found this Belle for 50p on the same stall that I bought the Funko Disney Princess Mystery Minis from. I’ve only recently been on the lookout for a Belle doll and I didn’t think I was going to find her so quickly! She’s one of the swim dolls hence the unusual outfit, I actually already have Tiana in this collection of Mattel dolls (she was the one who started my doll collection). They’re definitely fairly basic ‘economy dolls’ but these ones are great to make outfits for, as can be seen with Tiana in the picture above.

So that’s my Disney car boot haul, I’m really pleased with these finds. I’ve added some interesting items to my collection and all of them for a very reasonable price.

Studying Abroad is Starting to Become Real

I’ve talked before about how I am going to be studying abroad in Canada during the 2017/18 academic year, but it now feels like it is starting to become real.

Honestly, there’s still part of me that thinks it’s like a year off until I go. It’s all just come around so quickly from the first meetings with my uni’s Study Abroad office when they were explain how the process of applying and being allocated a place works. But I now have my plane ticket to fly out and I will be going out there in under two months. I am honestly really not that nervous all things considered.

It’s the little things that are making me feel the most nervous. Actually nervous is probably not the right word so much as I am finding certain things weird. Things like getting used to having an academic email address which ends in .ca instead of .co.uk seem really strange to me right now. In terms of cultural adjustment I suspect that when I am out there it’s going to be those little things that get to me more often than the big things do.

In some ways I am sort of seeing this as being similar to going off to university for the first time. I will be living in a new city, I will back in university accommodation and I will be learning in a new place. First year taught me a lot about independent living. Second year taught me a lot about having the self-confidence to do what I want to. I can be a very self-reliant individual which is something I have developed over the course of my first two years at university. I feel like in many ways what I have already experienced has helped to prepare me for going out to live and study in another country on another continent.

I have been told a lot that I need to embrace every opportunity whilst I am out there. To be honest this does sound a bit cliché but it is something that I intend to do. Studying abroad is an amazing opportunity and I know that I am incredibly lucky to have this opportunity so I am going to make the most of it. At the end of the day I will probably never have another opportunity like this so it’s definitely something that I am going to embrace.

I will keep updating this blog as I get closer and closer to going out. I am also going to record what I get up to once I’m in Canada because it is an amazing opportunity. I have been told by my friends and family that they want to keep reading about how it goes on here.

Bargirl’s Batcave – A Doll Room Craft

I’ve made another doll room, this time its Batgirl’s Batcave made for my DC Superhero Girls Batgirl doll. As always with my doll rooms, I was part inspired by My Froggy Stuff on YouTube.

Sometimes a project will just no longer work quite as well as it used to. This was the case with the Superhero Hang Out doll room as since I made that my collection has expanded massively. However rather than just throwing it away I decided to repurpose it into a Batcave for Batgirl. I cut the Avenger’s half of the original room off. I then covered the rough edges with a navy paper to neaten them. I also changed the floor with a dark wood grain paper.

In cutting down the Superhero Hang Out the room had lost some of its size. I took a cereal box and cut one side and one larger piece off it so that I could attach it to the original box and expand that amount of space in the Batcave.

The Batcave is always hidden in plain sight and this was something I wanted to reference in my doll room. I covered the side of the box that would be on the front of the outside with some of the box art from one of my DC Superhero Girl’s dolls. I then added a strip of paper across it and some red paper around it to create a backdrop that should resemble a room with a large window.

Batgirl has always been a techie and so I knew that I needed to make sure she had several computer monitors in her Batcave. I made a printable of various computer screen using images of some of my favourite superheroes – yes, there’s Grant Gustin as the Flash! I glued these screens onto card and cut them out so that they had some depth. I stuck the six screens that I chose to use onto a piece of black card.

With the screens mounted I then decorated the wall that would be on the inside of the Batcave. I used a brown paper for the top section, I covered the bottom section with the same navy paper that I’d edged the other half of the Batcave with to visually link to the two parts together. I then stuck the mounted screens onto the wall. With the inside wall completed finally I could attach the two sides of the Batcave together.

The desk was important to make properly as it is main piece of furniture within this room. I started with a tea box that I marked up with measurements based on the Batgirl doll. I then cut the box based on my markings and reinforced the sides with left over of card. I also hot glued some ice lolly sticks to further strengthen the sides of the desk. Next I covered up all the joins with paper – this helps to neaten the overall appearance but also gives the desk a bit more strength. I kept the legs of the desk white and then used the navy paper that I’d used elsewhere with a yellow trim to cover the top part. I finished off the desk with a piece of card covered in wood grain paper to create a dark wood top to the table.

Before I could finish making and begin begin decorating the Batcave there was one last detail I wanted to add. I hot glued the ring from a bottle into one corner of the box and then pulled a length of black tulle through it. This creates a curtain that adds a little more depth to the Batcave and also gives a touch of black without making the whole appearance of the room too dark.

Now I could move things into the room. The desk fits in well, I used a chair that’s actually a phone holder I found on Amazon to go with the desk and I made a cushion for the chair. I placed some techie items which are actually printables from My Froggy Stuff on the desk along with a few doll accessories.

And that is how I made a Batcave for the DC Superhero Girls Batgirl doll. This was a surprisingly labour intensive project but I am really pleased with how it turned out.

The Princess and the Frog Deserves More

As you probably know The Princess and The Frog is my favourite Disney movie. One of the very first posts on this blog was about how awesome Princess Tiana is. I watched Princess and the Frog again about a week ago and it struck me how this movie deserves so much more than it gets. So here’s some things that I would like to see if Disney ever decide to give Princess and the Frog more attention.

A Sequel

·         The ending of Princess and the Frog neatly tied up Tiana and Naveen’s story however there’s still potential for more from them.

·         Tiana got her restaurant at the end of The Princess and the Frog but what came next? Would her restaurant be a success?

·         Tiana marrying into royalty and Naveen steeping away from his royal status and settling down in New Orleans could create interesting situations for the two of them that could be a source of emotional conflict in a sequel.

A Prequel

·         Generally Disney Prequels have a bad reputation but I think some sort of prequel for the Princess and the Frog could actually be very interesting.

·         At the start of Princess and the Frog we saw that Tiana has been best friends with Charlotte La Bouff since they were both very young. This is friendship between a rich white girl and a black girl in America in the early part of the 20^th Century, which has so much potential to be explored further!

·         Another possible sequel could be more about the villainous Dr. Facilier. Facilier is a voodoo witch doctor that got his powers from his ‘friends on the other side’ and yet throughout the movie he seems to be scared of their power. Usually I don’t think villain origin stories are needed however I think Facilier’s could be fascinating.

TV Series

·         If Tangled can have a TV Series why not Princess and the Frog? Some of the ideas I mentioned for both a prequel and a sequel could be incorporated into a TV Series. There’s more stories to tell about Tiana and Naveen and probably more than just one movie could do justice to.

·         I’d be interested to watch episodes about the day to day adventures of Tiana running her restaurant and more of her friendship with Charlotte. Showing Tiana and Charlotte’s friendship would be interesting as Disney Princesses tend not to have female friends.

·         A TV Series could also be a good way to explore other voodoo threats which might be lurking down in New Orleans. There’s definite potential for villains of the week with new and interesting voodoo powers.

Stage Show

·         The songs are fun and upbeat. There’s lots of scenes that are bright and colourful. Both of these are things that I think would mean that Princess and the Frog would translate well onto the stage.

·         Perhaps the most difficult part of translating Princess and the Frog onto the stage would be the animals and magic from the film, however given Aladdin, The Lion King and Frozen are all already/going to be stage shows I don’t think it would be too difficult for Disney to do.

Live-action Remake

·         The biggest thing a live-action remake could do for Princess and the Frog is have Tiana stay human for longer. A lot of people are (rightly) annoyed that Disney’s first black princess spent half the movie as a frog so that’s something a remake could fix.

·         Some of the aspects I mentioned for a prequel - Tiana’s friendship with Charlotte and Facilier’s ‘friends on the other side’ – could also be developed further in a remake.

·         Disney’s live-action remakes tend to look grand and spectacular. Princess and the Frog is already a very aesthetically pleasing movie and a remake could use that with the movie’s setting of New Orleans.

A Ride

·         Obviously opening Tiana’s restaurant want be the most obvious way to incorporate the film into the Disney Parks however I’d personally like to see a ride as well so that if you didn’t want to have a meal you could still get to experience the film.

·         Disney have already done dark rides based on princess films (like Snow White and The Little Mermaid) before so it wouldn’t be hard to imagine something similar for Princess and the Frog.

·         However I personally would like to see a Splash Mountain style water ride. A water ride feels like a good fit based on the part of the film where Naveen and Tiana travel through the Bayou.

So if it’s not obvious I love Princess and the Frog. It’s a great movie but it’s one that Disney often overlooks in its animated cannon which is such a shame as there’s real potential for more instalments.

My Haul – My Recent Disney Finds

This Haul Post is a little different from my usual ones. As you probably know I love Disney and I love collecting. Recently I have added several interesting Disney items to my collection. None of these items were found in a big haul however I still wanted to share them which is why they are being grouped together in this post.

First up, Merida’s Itty Bitty. I love collecting Itty Bitty’s however the Disney ones still have not been released in the UK. A few weeks back I was browsing stuff on eBay and I just came across a Merida Itty Bitty listed for only £3.99 with free postage! Merida is one of my absolute favourite Disney Princesses and so at that price I just had to add her to my collection.

At an Antiques and Collectors fair this weekend I found two Pocahontas dolls that I bought for just £10! I have done some investigating to figure out where and when they are from.

As far as I can tell from my Googling the mini doll is from a Disney Princess mini doll set that was released exclusively in the Disney Parks a few years back. She’s pictured there with a DC Superhero Girls Batgirl and a Disney Infinity Mulan to give a sense of her size, which is roughly 5” tall.

The other Pocahontas doll is from Mattel and released in 1995. I already have the 2016 Hasbro Pocahontas (pictured with her) but I like this version too. There’s differences – such as the tattoo on her arm – between the two of them. The Mattel Pocahontas is one of the original dolls who was released to coincide with the film. I am fairly sure that the outfit she is wearing is not an original one as I have yet to find any evidence of a Pocahontas doll in that dress.

Finally, I’ve bought plushies of Flik and Dot from A Bugs Life. I have always liked A Bugs Life and when I was younger I had two soft toys of Dot. At some point I think I got rid of her but recently I wondered if I could find another Dot on eBay. I managed to and bought her at a very reasonable price with a Flik.

Doctor Who – The Doctor Falls Review

This episode simultaneously had the best and the worst of Moffat Doctor Who in it.

I am going to be starting this review by discussing Bill. This was ultimately Bill’s episode and watching it I cared far more about what was going to happen to Bill than anything else in this episode. I believe I have typed this more or less every week but Pearl Mackie delivered a faultless performance. The scenes where Bill struggles with being turned into a Cyberman were really well acted and gave more emotional depth to what could so easily have just been a swept aside shock twist. The final ending for her felt very satisfying. Heather appearing and returning Bill to human form didn’t cheapen Bill’s exit but instead gave her a happily ever after. I liked how it also linked back to her debut in The Pilot. Whilst I am sad that it has turned out that Bill Potts is only a one series companion I feel like that exit was a good one that left the door open for a potential future return. I think Bill Potts should be thought of as one of the all-time best Doctor Who companions, right up there with Rose Tyler and Sarah Jane Smith.

I think John Simm is undoubtedly the worst Master. In my opinion there’s just nothing redeemable about him. I have disliked Missy a lot since her debut in 2014 but I think Michelle Gomez actually gave a decent performance in this episode and made her more likeable. I think it would have been a lot better to have seen Missy sacrificing herself to stop the Cybermen and show just how much she has changed. But ultimately I don’t think either Missy or the Master were actually needed in this episode.

This episode wasn’t just the end for Bill and Missy and the Master, it was also the end for Nardole. I know reaction to Nardole has been mixed but I thought he was a good character. I always enjoy when there’s a team in the TARDIS and Nardole played off Bill and the Doctor well. The addition of Matt Lucas to the craft also brought some more humour to the show which I feel has been much needed since prior to this series. I think Nardole’s exit was a little rushed but it was a good way to send him off.

The Doctor in this episode was simultaneously great and irritating. Capaldi has rarely been able to be the Doctor that he could be but this episode gave us some moments of greatness. I know most people are probably talking about the speech and whilst it was a good moment I think some of the smaller moments in this episode were actually much stronger. Of course the Doctor would make it one of his priorities to ensure that the children were all safe. However I really don’t understand were all this angst and dread about regeneration has come from. Moffat constantly teasing that the Doctor is about to regenerate was just irritating. In my opinion regenerations should be handled like it was in 2005’s The Parting of the Ways. It should be just a regular adventure that when things go too far the Doctor has to regenerate at the end of it.

Another thing that frustrated me was why did we need English countryside on a spaceship? Moffat should have just picked either countryside or spaceship and stuck with it which would have made the story more compact. I’ve found with both parts of this story that the spaceship was not particularly well executed or explained. It was just a plot device which was not needed in a story that did better on its emotional moments.

Why did we need to see the other versions of the Cybermen? They felt like they were there for little more than fan service – or possibly to bulk out the ranks of the Cyberman army by just reusing existing costumes! I think there might have been some explanation as to why there were different generations of Cybermen but if the episode had just focused on the Mondasian Cybermen it probably would have been stronger. I think bring back to the Mondasian Cybermen was a good choice - they look more chilling which was used for eerie dramatic effect. And this story used the way the Cybermen were created as a means of survival to good effect with the Mondsian versions.

The final moment with the sudden appearance of the 1^st Doctor was a good moment to end the episode on. This felt like the type of lead into the Christmas special that I remember from growing up with Doctor Who – like when the Titanic crashed into the TARDIS or when the mysterious bride played by Catherine Tate appeared. It was especially pleasing for big Doctor Who geeks like me that the 1^st Doctor should appear in The Doctor Falls because the 1^st Doctor’s regeneration story was The Tenth Planet which was the previous appearance of the Mondasian Cybermen. I think we should be in for an interesting Christmas special with the 1^st Doctor meeting the 12^th Doctor.

In conclusion, the good parts were really good but The Doctor Falls also had a lot of elements that were just irritating and frustrating. However it was a solid conclusion to what has been a good series of Doctor Who.

I know this review is going up later than usual but I wanted to give myself more time to write a review that did justice to the episode. Obviously that’s it for this series so there won’t be a review next week. However I am planning a piece giving an overall opinion on Series 10 as well as a few more Doctor Who posts.