Hello there! Quick apology for the lack of posts recently but the joy and frivolity of having Easter holidays has somewhat taken over my life and after seeing numerous members of my friends family etc I finally have some time to do my favourite past time (besides playing Sims 3 and eating soup.) - blogging!

So really, a bit of a catch up post on the most recent happenings. I spent the weekend in Cheltenham with my boyfriend, where I was reunited with my favourite chain restaurant Nando's (I am a modern cliche template and after being in Cornwall where there are NO popular chain restaurants besides Pizza Express and Prezzo I was pretty delighted) and we went exploring a little bit. During my Cheltenham adventures, we stumbled accross a vintage book shop which was any bookworm's dream. It was a heaven for those who are book inclined and history inclined too, because when I was digging around in there we managed to find three stacks of National Geographic magazines that date back as far as the late '50s. This probably sounds somewhat mundane to you but let me shatter the illusion and tell you that I was absolutely beside myself with excitement. Amidst my rummaging I found lots of old advertising from the '60s, mainly Coca Cola adverts and Kelloggs and cameras (as shown below),

as well as finding the 1963 edition which was dedicated to J.F Kennedy's funeral. Pardon the phrase, but it was history porn at its very best (for those of you who don't know what it is, if you're a history enthusiast you may wish to go to: http://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn).  Not only that, but the finicky and fussy side of me was aesthetically pleased to see bookshelves dedicated to Penguin books based on the colour of their spines. Not as cool, of course, but still made for a good picture.

 

 And to end this post on my Cheltenham adventures, a quick stroll to the park made for smiles the whole walk home as I came across the most beautiful blossoming trees. SPRING IS HERE. I could not be more excited to see more flowers bloom and with it, the arrival of summer.

On being dual nationality in England.

Hello bloggers and people of the internet... bit of a controversial topic today, but I want to cover it because it's something I have lived with my whole life, and something that I will live with as long as I live in this country. Most people reading this will probably think, "you're European, how bad can it be?" and this is not a pity post in any way, nor is it propaganda of any sort. I just want to share my experiences as a non Englishman in England in the west country, which obviously differs from other parts.

To add a bit of context to this post, I am a dual national of both England and Sweden. I was born in England, but have never felt like I belonged here. This is for a multiple of reasons, some personal and others I think a lot of people experience throughout their lives. But one of the main reasons for this is despite half of my heritage being English (my mother's family), it is almost impossible for me to do any kind of banking, signing up to anything, etc. My Student Finance University application was made immeasurably difficult due to my father's Swedish nationality. Where most people from my school simply had to get their parents to sign and help them through their application, I had to translate several documents of tax papers and prove my identity and home address (despite having lived here since I was four years old) twice as much as my fellow students.

To contribute to that problem, opening a bank account was equally if not more difficult. Having a Swedish passport has done me no favours in this country, not only does it receive a slight frown on arrival in the country but it is automatically dismissed by banks as valid id without THREE different documents for proof of address. I ask you, is that necessary for somebody who has lived here over 15 years, even having gone through the English education system? I don't think so.

But these are problems that have occurred in the later part of my life. I don't think I have met many people who haven't at least at one point asked me if I like Swedish meatballs or if I can say something to them in Swedish. This isn't much of a problem for me, I am incredibly proud of my heritage - on both sides - but this does grow to be very tiresome. Understandably, people are curious. They want to know things. But what DOES annoy me, and sadly this happens a lot, is when people are blatantly ignorant. A great deal of people I know couldn't even point out Sweden on a map yet manage to berate me on how high the suicide rate is there - which FYI is a myth, and has been proved wrong because of the differing legal opinions on what constitutes suicide but that's another story.

Another more comical "side effect" if you like of being Swedish is that the minute people know, they quite often start singing Abba. As if that's the best thing to come out of Sweden. But again, ignorantly, many people have no idea that a plethora of everyday things are in fact Swedish inventions, such as the seatbelt, Celsius, dynamite, TetraPak, and the list goes on...

So just to sum up, being a dual national is not always the most enjoyable experience in England. When you aren't being made fun of you're often trying hard to prove you aren't trying to blight England with your presence... but ultimately,  I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm very proud to be both English and Swedish, and identify more as a Swede - yes I can be reserved, like the cold and definitely like meatballs. But just as a side note, no my house is not made from Ikea items. I wish.

Some ramblings to update

Happy New Year people of the internet! This is a bit of a rambling post but bare with me, it's a little bit of everything and more so hopefully after I've got the rambling and catch up post out of the way I can go back to posting slightly more interesting things.

So, firstly, New Years Resolutions. I have kept my three New Years Resolutions from last year as I feel I lost sight of them somewhat along with the crazy journey that occurred, and although they are not extremely complex I am already struggling.

1.) Be more organised - I have always been a very disorganized person. My room looks something along the lines of a bomb explosion scene in a bad action movie and I have no sense of writing things down. It's a habit I have had throughout my whole life, much to my parents disdain. (To make matters more humorous, my father is ex navy and I'm sure you can imagine how much he loves disorganisation.) The amount of report cards I had throughout my entire school career with "BE MORE ORGANISED" in block capitals is more than I'd like to mention... so I want to change that, at least a tiny bit, if only to make life a little easier for myself.

2.) Drink more water - I will confess, I go through stages of being very health conscious and I succeed for a few months and as soon as I see a bit of progress fall back to old habits. I want to conquer this one though, as there are just way too many benefits of drinking more water to waste time consuming sugary drinks when I may as well eat blocks of sugar (which again, incidentally is something I still do. Never leave sugar cubes lying around as I will eat them. Shameful I know.)

3.) Be on time - You could argue this comes under being more organised, but er...I'm always late. I could blame it on a lot of things but I confess it is usually due to laziness or the transport system of Britain. Both are in need of desperate alteration.


So there we have my New Years resolutions, and I will maybe update you all on how they are going if that is not too tedious a topic in the future. In further news, I've recently received two very good  marks back from my lecturers at university, and of course my motivation has sky rocketed due to this. Nothing spurs me on more than success, I'm not someone to be motivated by failure. Needless to say, one cannot succeed all the time but when I do, it makes me adamant to succeed again.

RE: Your thigh gap isn't good enough

Hello blog readers, merry Christmas to you all - I can't believe I'm blogging about this on Christmas eve (which incidentally is the day I celebrate Christmas because I am Swedish) but  this had to be addressed immediately as this landed in my inbox from Cassie.

You may or may not know that I'm an avid reader of health and fitness blogs, and one of the perfect bloggers I am pretty much obsessed with is Cassie Ho of blogilates from Youtube. Combining the internet and fitness was pretty much a godsend for me as I would probably never have been inspired to do anything about my health or fitness had I not stumbled across fitspo blogs. HOWEVER. This email basically was sent by Cassie to all of her followers following comments made on her instagram about her thigh gap.

The thigh gap is such an exhausted topic that I won't go into my personal opinion on it, apart from to say that I majorly sit on the fence regarding such matters. I will however say, I understand the fascination with the thigh gap. I am from the magical and mysterious place of Tumblr, and I am ready to admit one of the first things I look at when passing other girls is often the thighs. It's instinct to me. As somebody who strove incredibly hard to achieve the thigh gap, and partially succeeded, it did not surprise me that such a debate has arisen surrounding it.

What people, especially young girls, need to understand, is that the thigh gap will not be as easily achieved if you work out like crazy and starve yourself. You are building up your muscles, not losing fat if you are doing resistance training and toning etc. You will achieve that thigh gap if your body is suited towards that body type, which includes your stature and your muscle build as well as your hip placement.

But I also want to point out that achieving the thigh gap is not an achievement at all. I "achieved" the thigh gap through months of misery and incredibly unhappy times limiting myself to less than a quarter of the recommended calorie intake spending the majority of my time miserable. I wasn't happier when I was thin as I didn't see I'd lost weight until someone said something about it negatively i.e friends and family who told me I looked "worse". That hurt. But they were right.
A friend at the time sat beside me and said "You don't look thin. You look ill." And that is not what I wanted to hear. I felt ugly and ashamed of myself, but she was right. I did look unwell. There was nothing beautiful about my grey pudgy skin or my over announced bones, and there was definitely nothing beautiful about the floods of tears that occurred every day at 3am when I felt overwhelmed by it all.

The meaning of this post isn't to be preachy, it's not to say I'm 100% right but from my own experience - the thigh gap shouldn't have a place on your fitness journey. Your hipbones, collarbones, ribs etc are not measurements of your beauty. The undeniable fact is that the picture you have in your head about how you should look is probably the most evil image you will encounter. It is that "should be" that eats away at you bit by bit. The "image" me was photoshopped and more tanned and fitter and happier, but reality me wasn't the same girl in the photos. "Anna's lost a lot of weight" and my friends telling me about things boys had said about me - compliments - merely encouraged me to continue with my struggle.

It scares me that past me probably would have thought the same as these girls - but my message to these girls who posted those comments on Instagram to Cassie is - don't let the thigh gap define you. It won't change your life drastically. You won't feel any more beautiful. Your body is not something that needs drastically changing merely for appearances. Be healthy for the body that you deserve, not the one you want to look like. What matters is that your body functions healthily and well, not that other people appreciate it for image wise.

"All this technology is making us anti-social"
Well as if we haven't all heard this at least once in our lives. I realise this topic has already been covered by countless journalists, but that doesn't mean that there isn't room for just one more - and I have a slightly different take on this to those that I have read around the subject.

It's not abnormal to hate change. This photo is powerful and resembles everything I love about the 20th century. This photograph is a catalyst for questions. Why do we choose to hone in on the fact that they aren't speaking to each other during the time this photo was taken? It is not the technology's fault that these people aren't speaking, rather, the people are genuinely interested in what they are reading and are therefore so immersed that they feel no need to converse.

Needless to say, it is also very possible that immediately after this photo was taken, one or two may have turned to each other to comment on what they had just read, but more to the point: what are they reading? We assume it is all the same newspaper, that they are all of the same background, class etc. These people are all on different journeys, literally speaking, and every single one of these people reading something that a journalist has documented for them will interpret their words differently.

This is a time when reading a newspaper was the equivalent of reading news on your iPad or smart phone, and simply because the form in which we do so has changed, we jump to the conclusion that it is a bad thing. This photo is proof that anti social doesn't exist. This is just a different time of socialising. The readers are socialising with the journalists in part, they are reading and accepting or denying the information they are provided with, which they can then share with the other people they meet after they get off the train, on the train or indeed in several years.

If buildings could speak, what stories would they tell?

I have always been interested in architecture. If I had been better at maths, and believe me I'd love to have been, I would have pursued a career into it without hesitation, apart from maybe interior design. However, my path led me elsewhere - into journalism - and it recently occurred to me, why not incorporate the two?

The granny in me loves nothing more than a night in with cups of tea and Grand Designs. It is my guilty pleasure, and upon reflection I don't feel that guilty about it. Buildings fascinate me. I understand that to a lot of people, a mere construction of wood and concrete isn't anything to fuss about, but to me, buildings are catalysts for conversation and the closest thing we have to a time machine.

This interest is embedded in my blood. My own home in Sweden was built in 1904, by a man named Oskar Svensson. My house was the first to be built on the street, and when my dad bought it in the 1980's, many of the tools and objects of the house were left in and around the garden. So as well as living in this wonderfully historic house, built during the First World War by a normal craftsman with a wife and two children, my family and I can share a part of their history.

To this day, the large vat in which the wife used to wash clothes with the local lake water sits beside the north facing balcony, which we now use as a plant pot. Both the workshed and the outhouse toilet were left up until a few years ago, until my father embarked on his own addition to this place.

For my fourteenth birthday, I was lucky enough to receive the best present I know of. My father renovated the work shed in my garden to be a bedroom for me. He did this almost single-handedly, with my brother and a few of his friends to help insulate and lay floorboards etc. The best part? The single glazed windows originally placed by Oskar remain. Single. Glazing. In Sweden. And due to my father's expertise in insulating well and skillfully, I rarely so much as shiver.

My bedroom was a combination of a workshed and outhouse, and I like to think romantically about how Oskar slaved away at building our dining table, liquor cupboard, even our staircase - when in reality along side that he and his family used one half of my bedroom - for other purposes.

But most interesting of all is how Oskar himself planned to heat the main house. Situated in the corner of my kitchen, is an original 1901 stove which has the ability to heat the entire house. Oskar's wife must have cooked several thousand meals every day, every season. But how did they keep the food cold? Simply put, the staircase in wintertime ranges anywhere from 0 degrees to -10. This was Oskar's family fridge freezer, where they kept food all wintertime to keep it from going off.

Everything about my home is so carefully planned out, so cleverly done it amazes me that architects today make mistakes that Oskar had already thought out the answers to - in the early 1900's. I am incredibly lucky to have such an abyss of history literally right on my doorstep. Buildings are of such high value with such incredible stories to hear about, if only you lend an ear or two to the stories they can tell.

What's in a name?

So I often get asked why my online blog name is trueatfirstlight... and the answer is actually a lot simpler than you think. When I first started out blogging, my username was always saager2. You can still find me on most things under that name, but when I began to think about privacy away from school friends and classmates, I came up with trueatfirstlight. The title of a book by one of my all time favourite authors, Ernest Hemingway.

This blog post is literary propaganda, and I urge you all to read. And here's why:

I know it's hardly a cool thing to do anymore, people don't crave the paper-cuts and the musty smell of books anymore when they can be doing other things, but books give you a depth of knowledge that cannot be mined anywhere else.

Although films provide us with a visual aid to characters, plot lines etc, there is a need to read. Books allow the brain to absorb information and then process it. Gone are the days when I would dedicate whole afternoons to reading, but when I get the time I can be found at approximately 3am with eyes wide open lost in a book.

Not only do books give you a somewhat more interesting personality, they also set you apart from people who don't. Books are an abyss of knowledge, where you can "plunder the hallowed heights of Troy" or go to Hogwarts with Harry, as cliche as it may seem, reading is a journey which never costs more than ten pounds.

A book is a vessel of humanity, and it should be treated as such. Dog-eared, tattered, warn, yellowed out pages - those are books who have truly lived. The pristine pages of a shelf full of textbooks have nothing on a thumbed through copy of Jane Eyre or even The Bell Jar.

There is a book for everybody. I like to think of reading the same way I think about dating - don't think me weird. If you read a book and you don't like it, doesn't mean you won't read anything ever again. It teaches you what you do or don't like about the book, the author, the writing style etc, so you know what to look for next time. Bad reads are just as important as good reads in making you a successful and mindful person.

10 books I think everyone should read:

1.) The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald:
My all time favourite book, set in the prohibition era in America, the story reveals true insights into personalities, disappointment, history and the dangers of success.

2.) The Catcher In The Rye - J.D Salinger
Another of my all time favourites, though completely different in style, The Catcher In The Rye is a tale of loneliness, finding oneself, aimless travelling... don't give up on this book. Although slow to get stuck into, a worthy piece of literature.

3.) Ham On Rye - Charles Bukowski
A masterpiece by my favourite poet, the almoost biographical story depicts the life of Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's alter ego in his novels. Heartbreaking, subtle and yet scrupulously detailed, this book is an insight to a low life drunk, tramp and heartbroken man burdened with the unease of his upbringing.

4.) Anne Frank's Diary, The Diary Of A Young Girl -  Anne Frank.
Almost self explanatory, if you haven't already, read this book. A scarily personal portrayal of a young girl's thoughts as she hides in Amsterdam under Nazi occupation. Unique, enriching and incredibly heartbreaking, this story needs to be read by all. Besides which, it's extremely quotable.

5.) Private Peaceful - Michael Morpurgo 
Although primarily a children's book, this is the first book I wept my heart out to by Morpurgo. If this book were food, it would be a homemade soup made on a fire. It warms the heart, tears it in two, and then mends it. A tale of family, first world war and love, this story shouldn't be put aside for the mere fact it was intended for a younger audience.

6.) Anna Karinina - Leo Tolstoy
Stealthy, hearty, sometimes irritating, Tolstoy recreates late 19th century Russia as it was for the elite. Adultery, mental illness, false imagery and the like, a story from Tolstoy not to be missed.
*Not reccommended if you have a short attention span, this book makes a very good paperweight as it probably weighs the same as a small child.

7.) To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee 
My second favourite book, and also incidentally the book I studied for my GCSE's, this is a story that changed lives. I mean literally. Not a civil rights book as such, but Lee paints the innocent picture of a childhood in Alabama in 40s. Crime, childhood and innocence put together the puzzle of protagonist Scout's father, Atticus, a lawyer in Maycombe County. This is something everyone should read, if only to understand humanity a little better - and also to smile at how adorable Dill and Scout are.

8.) Lucky - Alice Sebold.
This story kept me up all night. An entirely true story based on the authors life, this story had me writhing with anger and sadness but suspense and relief too. Incredibly explicit but will turn the feminist cogs in anybody, even if they're a little rusty or indeed haven't ever been used. This is a story about justice, not rape.

9.) Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys 
A prequel to Jane Eyre, one of the most popular pieces of literature in Britain, Rhys provides readers with the story of Bertha, the mad women in the attic. Incredible in its venture to reverse prejudices towards white Jamaican women. This book is a must read if you read Jane Eyre - which you should because it's equally good, but this book contests Victorian attitudes - and the notion that readers simply swallow whatever they have read.

10.) Försvunnen  (Vanished Eng. translation) - Liza Marklund
Last but not least, an author from my hometown of Stockholm, Sweden, an ex investigative journalist, Marklund is one of the most well respected authors in Scandinavia. This book, pacy and gripping will keep you up all night if you like Nordic Noir, and tells the raw but frighteningly true story of abusive relationships and women who are forced into hiding. A must read.


So there we are. If there are any books that anybody would like to reccommend to me, I would be more than grateful.

xo