Summer Goals!

I find it at times difficult to manage my time , especially when it comes to exam time I can get  easily distracted by the world around me (but I suppose that's true for most people). I make lists but find it hard to stick to them however this time I am determined to do all of the tasks on my Summer to do list .

So here it is;

1. Make Perfume - As you know following my last blog post I am trying to make Perfume at home using plants and whatever alcohol I find in the house. My dad isn't happy that I've raided his alcohol cabinet. 
2. Paint - I love painting but I haven't had time to do any painting this year since starting University , so I'm going to get those creative juices going. 
3. Read more- I love reading novels but I'm a slow reader and will start multiple books and not finish until a year later. About three years ago I started reading Memoirs of a Geisha ( which is a great book by the way) during that Summer but I didn't finish reading it until a year later when I was on holiday with family and was totally gripped by the story , so much so that I didn't want to leave the hotel balcony where I was sat, much to my parents horror. I did get a bit of a tan though which was a bonus, since usually I have milk bottles for legs. 
4. Review some lecture notes- Yes this is a boring one I'm afraid , but my first year at University went by so fast that I feel that there's so much which I've forgotten that I will need to know for next year , so it has to be done. 
5. Spend time with friends- I haven't seen a few of my friends for a while since being at university and away from home so I plan to spend some valuable time with a couple of close friends. 
6. Exercise and Eat more healthily- yep , this again isn't a very nice one , well the exercise part anyway. I love experimenting with different foods because basically I LOVE food . I LOVE vegetables , meat , fruit .  BUT I also LOVE sweets , chocolate , cakes and Pasta these I have eaten a bit too much of during the past few months because during exam time I get stressed out and eat for comfort , sad I know, but true . 

Well there you have it my goals for the summer, I'm praying that I'll stick to the list this time. Let me know what your Summer goals are .

Love 

X

Sun, Sea, Sand.... and.......Scent

With a bit of time on my hands after finishing my exams and back at home I thought I would try my hand at making some Perfume. I'm not sure how common it is for a student to be making perfume in their summer holidays but it's something I'm prepared to try and not the cheats way this time.Yes I have tried making perfume before but I was nine and it involved me crushing flower petals to a pulp followed by adding a dash of water and a couple of squirts of my mother's favourite perfume "to make it smell nice" I would say . My mother wasn't impressed. 

 

I will have to admit my knowledge of perfumery is very basic , I know that there has to be a base , a core(heart) and a top note , also a little bit about making tinctures to extract scents from flowers , herbs etc that's pretty much it really. I have attempted so far to make a tincture using lavender that was growing in my parent's front garden  and some almond oil I found lurking in a cupboard. Sweet smelling flowers can be scarce with the ever changing weather conditions. Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day , I even managed a stroll on the beach and time to enjoy a lemon top ice cream under the glistening blue sky, but today the weather is far from glorious.

Anyway, enough about the crazy  weather .... back to the perfume! My lavender tincture wasn't very successful I'm afraid , the scent produced from it is very mellow so I'm trying it again , yep I'm not giving up on this one ! I have also made a Rose tincture , using Rose petals (nothing wrong with stating the obvious...) but I'm slightly embarrassed to say that I have done it using vinegar , I couldn't find a drop of Vodka (apparently you can use Vodka for tinctures because of high alcohol content) to use in the whole house and vinegar was the next best available thing . So I'm not sure how that's going to turn out . But it's all part of the perfume making fun I guess; experimentation........experimentation .... experimentation...!  


By the way if anyone can give me some of their valuable perfume making knowledge or really any advice on perfume making it would be much appreciated.Thanks.  

Why? Oh Why?....

Why did I choose Pharmacy ?
I will have to be honest here , a Pharmacy career isn't a path which I have always wanted to take , it was never really a ; "childhood dream". In fact at school I was one of those arty people who loved painting and looked forward to reading books and analysing poems in English class(not saying that Pharmacy restricts your passions to science alone). However I was also a keen scientist , Biology being my favourite , always in awe of the structures of living organisms and how everything worked together to keep them alive and running like the internal mechanics of a wind up clock.




I never thought of myself as being the smartest in the class , because I wasn't the one with the highest grades and I was a nervous wreck when it came to exams, as some of you maybe able to relate to (in fact I think everyone has been a nervous wreck when it comes to exams at some point in their life). Nevertheless I was a trier , I loved answering questions and science practicals even if I wasn't always doing it right, I wasn't "cool" or popular or confident, labelled as a "Geek" in fact.




Anyway, I became more confident in Chemistry later on , and always tried hard as I felt I had to work twice as hard as everyone else to be just as good , I was trying to prove that I could achieve something and that I WAS CONFIDENT . It was my amazing mother who suggested Pharmacy , she saw my love of Chemistry growing and also my love for people  ( mushy I know ..), she recalled times when I was a child designing my own little experiments which consisted of mixing together any available liquid with whatever I found after scouring the garden and eagerly waiting for something amazing to happen.Nothing happened. I wasn't fully convinced by her reasoning but with my new found confidence for all things Chemistry I thought it was worth at least a careers office visit.


After some work experience in a local Pharmacy ( which led to a Saturday job) , a few more encouraging speeches from my mother and an increasing interest in the origins of drugs I was ready to enter a career in Pharmacy .




After just finishing first year as a Pharmacy undergrad I am nervously awaiting for exam results. It has been very different to what I expected and felt out of my depths much of the time( sometimes still do actually)  you may have felt or are feeling the same, no matter what you are studying.