Exploring New Words

Widening my vocabulary is something I am often in pursuit of, as a means to aid me in my writing, both academically and in general. After all, there are so many words in existence: why not make a conscious effort to use more of them? So, I set myself a little bit of a task and chose five words that were unfamiliar to me, and composed an example sentence in which they could be used in.

Abubble

[uh-buhb-uh l], adjective.

Definition:  characterised by intense enthusiasm or activity, or bubbling, as while cooking or boiling.

Example Sentence: Abubble with pride, the young athlete stepped onto the podium.

Instauration

[in-staw-rey-shuh n], noun.

Definition: renewal; restoration; renovation; repair or, an act of instituting something i.e an establishment.

Example Sentence: The instauration of the printing press by Gutenberg in the 15th -century can be seen as revolutionary, as it enabled books to be produced on a much wider scale.

Imbue

[im-byoo], verb.

(used with object), imbued, imbuing.

Definition: to impregnate or inspire, as with feelings, opinions, etc or, to saturate or impregnate with moisture, colour, etc.

Example Sentence: You would think a mystery of such complexity would imbue the detective with motivation to begin solving the crime, but something else was evidently of higher importance.

Ineffable

[in-ef-uh-buh l], adjective.

Definition: incapable of being expressed or described in words or, not to be spoken because of its sacredness.

Example Sentence: As it was ineffable in nature, The Book of Eastwatch was kept securely hidden.

Constellate

[kon-stuh-leyt], verb.

(used with or without object), constellated, constellating.

Definition: to cluster together, as stars in a constellation.

Example: Suddenly all her thoughts constellated together like the greatest epiphany she could have ever imagined.

 

 Thank you for reading!

 

All definitions were taken from Dictionary.com, however, all example sentences are of my own creation.

Bookish Ramblings & My Latest Reads

As a student, it is not always easy to find a lot of time to read the books that are on my ever-growing to-be-read pile. If I’m not reading something out of choice, it will normally be something associated with an essay that I’m undergoing for my course at university. This often includes academic based books which I’ve scanned the library for and thereafter embellished with many a post-it note, enabling me to keep track of quotes and ideas to integrate into an essay. While this may seem a rather strenuous task, I have come to realise that academic books have been effective in enhancing my vocabulary in general and rewarded my ability to consolidate ideas more coherently. But this isn’t at all too discredit fiction’s ability to stimulate the mind and illuminate the imagination.

Anyway, as of late, I have read a few books which are;

J.K Rowling’s The Order of the Pheonix

This took me a little longer to read than usual, but it was enjoyable all the same. It was my first time reading it, although I am undeniably a big Harry Potter enthusiast, I had only ever read the first four books. I am more eager to read the next book- The Half-Blood Prince, as it one of my favourite films out of the franchise.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

I have for a few years now been a Sherlock fanatic, discovered through watching the popular BBC series, Sherlock. However, I would say that reading the original stories has certainly expedited my enthusiasm. The Memoirs is the fourth book in the series and is ever filled with short stories of murder, crime and political intrigue. It is also in this book that a certain infamous ‘Napoleon of crime’ appears. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is one of my most favoured writers of fiction, and I can’t recommend his work enough. I am currently reading The Hound of the Baskervilles, the next book in the series at the moment.

Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

Originally, I was looking at some of the short stories from this book as part of my research for an essay I was writing on fairy tales during my most recent semester at university. Carter’s work is mainly gothic in nature, and she most notoriously takes centuries-old fairy tales and gives them a rather grotesque and some would argue post-feminist twist. I wasn’t too found on her style of writing so I probably won’t be rushing to read more of her work. Nonetheless, It was refreshing to read something of a different nature than what I usually would pursue.

Linwood Barclay’s Clouded Vision

My decision to read this short novel is definitely proportionate to my mother’s rather recurrent and arguably non-discreet suggestions. I think she would agree with me on this when I say that Barclay is one of her most admired authors. Now I can’t deny that I was somewhat curious to see what all of the fuss was about, so I read this short story of his to get a taster of his work. The story is basically about a woman who goes missing at the bottom of a lake, and I can’t really say anymore without giving it away. Clouded Vision was fast-paced in nature and was undeniably a gripping read, so I am definitely open to reading more of Barclay’s thrillers.

Thank you for reading!

I would love to hear any comments or recommendations!

🙂

The Back to University Round Up

So this is going to be more of a chatty post, which I haven’t really done yet on this blog, so here goes…

Moving Out (Again)

Come September the 12th and it was time for me to move back to my university city and into my new house in readiness to start my second year of university. I’m not going to lie, I was nervous about this whole process, even though the first time I’d ever moved out from home was last year, when I started my first year of university. My nerves were becoming more apparent the closer the date came, caused by overthinking (completely normal in the human mind, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying) my living situation, as I was moving into a new house with five other girls, and of only two I knew well, the others I’d briefly met over the previous year. ‘What if it doesn’t work out?’, ‘What if i don’t settle in?’, ‘What if I don’t feel comfortable enough to be myself, or in other words, will I have to constantly restrain my weird self?’ But as usual, I was worrying unnecessarily and creating imaginary situations. I’ve been here just over two weeks now and I am absolutely loving it! I settled in almost instantaneously. I’ve made my room super cosy, and have already started decorating it for my favourite season, Autumn (I will insert pictures). My housemates are all lovely, and I’m already making some great memories with them, one being our weekly Bake Off evenings! I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how nice the house is, it was newly decorated for us moving in and is furnished with canvases, giving it that extra homely feeling.

Here are a few snaps of some details in my room;

 

Back to the Grind

September 19th struck the start of my second year of my university course, beginning with a lecture which i’m actually pretty excited about. For those who don’t know, I’m doing a degree in Media Studies, which is possibly one of the most diverse courses, purely being that a lot of what we study is interdisciplinary, as we often cross over into other schools of thought. For example, Sociology, Psychology, Law, English Literature, and the two more obvious ones; Film Studies and Media Production. Because basically EVERYTHING is mediated in some way in today’s society, meaning most fathomable things you can think of can be, and are, consumed through some form of media. Anyway, getting back to my first lecture of the semester, it was for my module titled Popular Genres, which means we will be studying twelve weeks’ worth of stuff about different genres, including fairy tales, horror, science fiction and children’s literature to name a few. This will include studying these popular genres with reference to the historical and cultural context that they were produced in. I also get to the choice to focus on literature in this module which I am very happy about! I’m currently reading Northern Lights by Philip Pullman as suggested by my lecturer ahead of our session on children’s literature, and I have to say, it’s very good so far. As well as my module on Popular Genres, I am also doing two other modules this semester; Visual Cultures (all about the complicated relationship between and creative usage of words and images) and Issues of Taste (exploring ideas of freedom and taste in relation to society, and in reference to the ever-changing contexts, issues and circumstances that occur over time). It is still only early days of teaching for all of my modules, so I feel like I can’t fully judge them, but this far, they all seem very interesting and I’m certainly eager to learn more about them.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, and I hope I haven’t made you fall asleep by talking about my university course.

If you have any questions about university, or anything else, I am happy to give you some advice!

Don’t hesitate to get in touch 🙂

 

The Three Ws: Bookish Questions

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Taking On A World of Words.

And these three W’s that the title has so ambiguously referenced are three book related questions;

1. What are you currently reading?
2. What did you recently finish reading?
3. What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading:

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I’m not sure how I feel about it thus far, as I only started reading it last night. But it seems pretty gripping. It’s something I’ve had on my TBR pile for a long time so at least i’ve finally got round to it! My mum reckons it is something you definitely have to concentrate on whilst reading it, so I guess no reading it when i’m half asleep!

Recently Finished:

One Day by David Nicholls. I absolutely loved this book! So much so, I’m going as far as to say it’s one of my favourites! I completely fell in love with the two characters, Emma and Dexter who the story is centered around. The book is basically separated into yearly accounts spanning across twenty years on the same day of 15th July. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you give this one a read!

Next read:

So i’ve got three books that I know I want to read in the near future and these include;  The Order of the Pheonix by J.K Rowling, Step Back Into Time by Ali McNamara and Van Gogh’s Ear: The True Story by Bernadette Murphy.  So it’ll be one of them that I will be reading next.

 

 

Thank you for reading! I do enjoy doing these smaller, question and answer style posts but I’ll certainly be writing more in-depth posts like in the style of my Conceptions of Freedom post again soon!

🙂