So where do you see yourself after university?

Today I managed to avoid attending a 'goal mapping' workshop held by my university, where I'm guessing they encourage you to map out your life goals. If that isn't the case then I suggest they consider renaming it because otherwise that's very misleading.

My main man, Troy, gets it. Also, is this where my obsession with boys in v-necks started?

Goal mapping? GOAL. MAPPING?! I can't even envision where I'm going to be next Tuesday, let alone in five years time. Who needs a life plan when you're able to function each day by doing laundry when you run out of underwear, can live off pasta and strange concoctions of things you find in your fridge until you can motivate yourself into going to the supermarket and watch videos of Jennifer Lawrence on Youtube when you're feeling sad. Fear not, university lecturers, I've got this. No I will not uncross my fingers.

And excuse me, but I've just weathered my way through three weeks of "So what year of university are you in now? THIRD YEAR?! Gosh, well hasn't that gone fast, I thought you were only in your second year! So what is it that you hope to do after?". This is usually where I seize up and contemplate faking a choking fit so I can avoid answering. Instead I have to force a small laugh and say "hopefully find a job". You'd think that would satisfy them but no, for some reason every single person remotely related to me feels the need to ask "do you have any idea where you'd like to work?". Well obviously not! If I can't choose which scented candle I want to buy next, how do you expect me to know where I want to work for the rest of my life? And then all of a sudden it's totally unacceptable to reply "well, somewhere that'll pay me money!". The truth is dropped. Cue end of conversation. Cue me wiping my brow with my jumper sleeve where numerous beads of sweat have appeared. Exit stage left.

Just this morning I was sitting absentmindedly in bed enjoying my breakfast and 'Elders React to Anaconda' (hilare video, please watch it), when I began choking on my Shredded Wheat. I'm talking full on, eyes streaming, can't breath, retching, pain, agony, certain death, choking. And all I could think was "I knew the coco-pop craving I woke up with was telling me something". Listen to your heart, kids, otherwise you'll choke. Apparently. (I am going to be the world's best mother, I know).

Still, I found it highly ironic that I woke up being all like, "ain't nobody got time for life spoilers, ride the waves, go with the flow, always wear clean underwear, life is what you make it!!!!!" and then I basically nearly died. Just a normal day, really.

The truth is, I know exactly where I want to be in the end. In a gorge country house with a thousand Yankee candles burning all at once, a custom made coffee syrup storage-cupboard in my kitchen and the Ferrari I drove in 2013 sitting in my driveway. JK Rowling will release a new series of books about a far more interesting Potter who took the advertising/PR/social media world by storm and finally dyed her hair a majestic golden-honey colour. I will be content in my life because I will have eventually worn down my husband into agreeing to re-enact the 'gotta go my own way' scene from High School Musical 2. My children will think I am the best thing since the iPad 12 and my dog will do this dance whenever I come home from work. Life will be swell.

Please ignore the fact that this was the house used in the most upsetting film ever, Marley & Me

Of course, I am well aware that the goal mapping session today was probably just about the next five years, and I've thought of that too. In the near future I will *whispers* be a graduate, crippled under student loan debt (around thirty-three grands worth), I'll be back living with my parents and begging for a job at any opportunity. I will have split-ends that can be seen from space and I'll still rock out to One Direction's latest album when I'm alone in my car - causing thirteen-year-old's to stare at and then judge me (this legitimately happened to me last weekend). Now if that image doesn't excite you, then I don't know what will.

Happy 2015, everyone; time to shake what your mumma gave you!
~ Eleanor xo

What to do when someone completely ruins your entire university career

Some people may've spent their day helping the world move one step closer to curing cancer, some may've learnt about how the world came about, I however, at the ripe old age of 20, learnt that my lip genuinely quivers when I try to stop myself from crying. Who's winning here? Probably not me.

I swear this time I am not being dramatic. This is not like the time I turned my phone off for three days to avoid telling someone that I didn't "feel the same way", or that time I was unable to get out of bed because the aftermath of finishing reading the Twilight books and facing up to the crippling reality that I would never find a sparkly vampire who would rather die than be without me, was all too much. This time I am in super serious existential trouble.

The kind of trouble that makes you want to call your mum and sob down the phone to her for a while, before realising that perhaps you should've opened with the line: "I'm about to start crying, but it's not because I'm pregnant". But I digress, for I have found myself in a completely unforeseen predicament (that does not involve a pregnancy). Upon meeting my new dissertation supervisor for the first time, I was told that the way I write does not flow, and needs a lot of work. Ok, so this may not seem like a big deal, but for me, the world ended. I instantly felt like throwing up and crying all at the same time - kind of like a drunk first year who's still having the time of their life because they have not had their life's work crapped on.

It was extremely difficult not to do this while I was still in her office

I'm trying to describe this in a way that is not pompously egotistical, which I'm realising now is kind of difficult, but the simplest way to put it is like this: in school, some people excel in sports, some excel in music, I somehow, was rather gifted at writing essays. It's like a party trick but more boring. Throughout school, college and about 60% of university I was led to believe I could write essays; just last week I was told that academically, I write 'really very well'. And considering this new supervisor was reading the same piece of work, I have to question what happened. Did my choice of words insult her? She circled the word 'sound' rather vigorously which makes me wonder if there's something deeper going on. I also noticed (while concentrating on a spot on her desk so as to try to stop myself projectile vomiting), that there were no personal touches - is this woman even who she says she is? Is she an impostor who showed up to stomp on the dreams of final year students who are only just starting to figure things out?

I am insinuating nothing...

Who can be sure? But she definitely doesn't think I can write. Or I can, but it makes absolutely no sense when I do. And it would appear that I have attached so much of my self worth onto the knowledge that I can write, that I now feel as though my life purpose has been struck from me. Kind of like how Troy felt in High School Musical 3 when Gabriella went off to Standford without him. *Starts humming the tune of 'Right Here, Right Now'*. Obviously, he fixed that by stalking her to her college and dancing with her under a tree, but I don't think that would work in quite the same way for me.

When life tragedies such as these occur, I find immense comfort in the words Katy Perry spoke to me (and about twenty-thousand other people) this past summer: "whatever you're going through, just know that Katy Perry goes through crap too".

But for real you guys, I am dealing with this just fine.
~ Eleanor xo