'A Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess - Review

‘A Clockwork Orange’ is probably one of the titles most people have heard about. Some have seen the movie but how many have read the book? I truly believe that you should always read the book before you watch the movie adaptation. The same goes for the ‘A Clockwork Orange’.

The nadsat language that Burgess has invented can make the book a bit difficult to read. The language is a mixture of Russian loanwords and Cockney rhyming slang. At first I found the nadsat quite annoying but it is very easy to get used to. I think it’s easy enough to understand the meaning of the words from the context and you’ll also find some explanations in the text. I come from Poland and Russian language has quite a lot of similarities to Polish. I have to say that this helped me a lot with understanding the text well. At times I even stop realising I am reading in two different languages. But even if you don’t have that advantage, you will get used to the nadsat words fairly quickly.

I am not going to deny that there is a lot of violence in the book and that it is quite difficult to carry on reading it at times. However the violence is not really what this book is about. There are so many questions that I have raised after finishing this book. Is there such a thing as pure evil? How much does society and upbringing affect our good/bad nature? Is being forced to be good against ones will better than being bad willingly? Does one simply grow out of ‘the fun’ of being violent? Why does one make a choice to stop committing crimes? I could carry on for a while here but I will stop and let you ask the questions yourself when you read it.
The book does not necessarily answer these questions. It forces the reader to ask them. It’s one of those books that I was itching to discuss with someone. I have been asking everyone if they have read it just so I could talk with them about it. But as it turned out, not many people have read it.

I highly recommend this book to everyone. Some say it should be read when you’re young/teenager but I don’t think it matters. Just read it and you will see for yourself what you have been missing.  

 

Day out in London – a little tradition

When I first met Nick we went to London in January for a one day trip. The year after that he got me tickets for ‘We will rock you’ show (I LOVE QUEEN) in London, again January. We didn’t have any major plans this year but decided to keep the tradition going and bought the train tickets to London while they were cheap. I booked the tickets with trainline.com back in December and paid around £30 for both of us which was less than half of the usual price.

When I sit down to plan a little trip like that, first thing I take into consideration is the budget. How much money have we got and what do we want to spend it on. We knew we wanted to go to a Japanese restaurant as this is a part of our tradition (sushi for dinner). Someone recommended ZUMA which is not a cheap place. We have therefore decided to splurge on dinner and keep the day time spending to a minimum.

First we went to Daunts Bookshop in Marylebone High Street. I bought 3 books which cost £23. I know I could have bought them cheaper on Amazon but I like supporting lovely places like these so I didn’t mind paying a bit more.

We stopped at a coffee shop which was so busy that no one noticed that we had our own pack up sandwiches with our pret-a-manger lattes. Saved us money and they tasted better than the shop bought anyway.

Then we headed to the Science museum (free admission). We got confused (as in ‘I got confused) couple of times and jumped on the train going in the wrong direction. That Direct line is so perplexing! We have lost quite a bit of time and walked into the museum at 5pm. This only gave us one hour to explore which was four times less than what you need to see everything in the museum. I definitely need to go back there to see the rest. I purchased a compulsory fridge magnet for £2 and we headed for dinner. (I always buy a fridge magnet from places I visited, I will need a second fridge soon).

Zuma was very busy as expected. We didn’t have a reservation so had to wait for hour and a half at the bar. Waiting was not a problem, we had a chat and a laugh. The problem were these delicious and expensive cocktails they serve. I was being all sensible at first and was only gonna have one or two. But once that alcohol hit I was more like ‘I don’t give a f**k how much they cost, keep ‘em coming’.
The food was absolutely beautiful, although I wish my asparagus salad had more than one asparagus in it. There was a couple that sat next to us who ‘ahed’ at our bowl of sashimi. Nick said to them that we didn’t really know what it was but we are adventurous so ordered it anyway. That’s a great way of showing that we’re not sophisticated nor we are posh.

 

We had a great and fun day. I could never get bored with London.

A day at the Rushton Hall spa

This lovely place is only 10 minutes drive from where I live and I never knew it existed. It was my friend’s birthday on Saturday and she wanted to spend a day in a spa. For £65 we got an all day spa access, one treatment (to choose from a list) and a complimentary drink. I haven’t been to many spa’s an I am not sure if that’s a steep price but I had a lovely relaxing day with my friend so it was definitely worth it.

For a treatment I picked 30 minute REN facial. I never had a facial done before but I have instantaneously became a fan. I have obviously purchased a recommended product from the REN line. I went for Radiance Serum. Is it unreasonable to expect it to make my skin unrecognizably radiant within next two days?

I managed to retrieve few pictures of the hall and the spa from my friend. I am a rubbish blogger and didn’t take any blog expectant photos.

One thing I really enjoyed about the whole thing was how ‘dead’ it was. There was practically no one there, so peaceful and quiet. I am not considering checking out more spas and making it a once a month relaxation trip.

Check out Rushton Hall here.

 

Tenerife mini scrapbook album

Memories are a funny thing. I think they are all there, everything recorded but no, they fade away and so many lovely moments get forgotten.

That’s a bit of a deep introduction…

In the last few years I have become a ‘memory hoarder’. I keep every little thing that will remind me of nice moments spent with my family and friends. I collect fridge magnets from places I go to, I keep tickets, receipts, post cards and even bring a little bag of sand from the holiday beach. I believe that pictures alone won’t tell the story and sometimes just won’t capture those precious moments. Plus I am not the kind of person that takes pictures of absolutely everything. I hardly ever would take a picture of my meal in a restaurant and when I see a good view, I just take a deep breath and enjoy it, forgetting about the pictures.

Years are passing by and I forget those little things that made me laugh or smile. Those moments when I felt happy. I am now desperately trying to keep those memories somehow. So I started making mini scrapbook albums. The one I am showing you today is the first one I made. It wasn't as easy as it seemed at first! I found myself quickly running out of ideas, wasn’t sure what size pictures to use, didn’t know what colour scheme to go for and all I had to work with were scrapbooking papers. But I am quite pleased with how it came out, I have already learnt from it and know what mistakes not to make next time. I know I will want to make these while the memories are still fresh and add more journaling cards. My aim is to look at these albums few years from now and say 'Oh! I forgot this happend, this was such a funny moment, we had a blast'. You hear what I'm saying? 

Below are my favourite pages from my first mini scrapbooking album.

 

 

A little insight on my experience with Open University

I had very best intentions to write a book review post last week but unfortunately Uni work took priority and blogging got pushed back to the bottom of my list. I have therefore decided to change the plan and write a post about the very reason why I sometimes have to neglect blogging and all other hobbies/social engagements/basic human needs like cooking or sleeping.

Part time studying with Open University.

I’m not going to go into detail as to why I decided to study with OU because this is a story for a whole separate post. Instead I want to give you a little overview of what I’m studying and how time consuming it has been so far.

I am studying towards BSc (Honours) Environmental Science degree. I am on a standard path and I need to earn 360 credits. It takes 6 years of continuous part time studies to earn this many credits. On my path there are three levels of studies which consist of modules to choose from although the choice is very limited. I am currently in the middle of my second year i.e. second module of level one. To be honest I don’t really look for what’s ahead on the path. OU is constantly changing and improving their modules. The level three modules probably won’t exist and will be replaced by different ones by the time I will get to that level.

The good thing about Level 1 modules is that I only need to pass. The results don’t add to the degree scoring. This gave me a good opportunity to get back to studying, working out schedules, planning study time etc. without the pressure of ‘degree score collecting’.

Last year in June I completed my first 60 credit (full year) module called ‘S104 Exploring Science’. This module is considered one of the most demanding and hardest Level 1 modules at Open Uni. I’m not going to lie. It was very time consuming, it was quite hard and there was SO MUCH material from EVERY scientific area you can think of. It starts with a book about Global Warming which introduces basic math needed for studying the module. It then goes through chemistry, physics, quantum physics, biology, geology and astronomy. To pass the module I had to submit 6 written assignments (so called TMAs) and pass an exam covering the whole module.

I passed. And the things I have learnt were amazing. I had some clue about bits and pieces but to know how an aspirin tablet works with body cells on a molecular level is amazing and so fascinating. This is how I know I am studying the right thing. I find it all so fascinating.
My overall examinable score was 63 and overall continuous assessment was 85, I’m very proud of these scores. English is my second language and I finished high school ten years ago with poor results. These scores are a proof that anyone can succeed if they love what they are doing and if they work hard.

Here is a cutout from one of my assignments from ‘Exploring Science’ module. I found a bit with two ‘well dones’ from my tutor for a little bragging purpose ;)

I will write a separate post about the module I am studying this year as it’s very different to this one. I also just realised how long this post is and I’m ought to stop here.

Welcome

Some of you might know that this isn’t my first experience with blogging. I have run ‘My BeautyFul World’ blog since 2011 and decided to close it down few days ago. I won’t go into the details as to why I made this decision but click here if you’re interested.

I named this blog ‘geek is chic’ because quite frankly I am a geek and I am chic (insert lol face).
I have so many interests, ideas, dreams and ambitions that I’d love to share with someone. My friends simply can’t handle the overload of my crazy ramblings about all sorts of random stuff. Hence the blog, it will be an outlet for my thoughts and ideas. I will be posting about my Open Uni experience, crafts, planning and organisation, beauty, food, travel and many more other random things.

I hope all of this won’t be too much and you will enjoy reading about different aspects of my life. I love that some people have one great hobby that they focus on but that’s just not me. I don’t think having interest in many different things from broad spectrum of fields is necessarily a bad thing. We are all different and we’re all have so much to share. I hope it won’t be too much of a clash if one day I post about a lipstick and the other about a cool scientific discovery. I will just have to wait and see how it goes.

Please leave loads of comments for me! I get so excited every time I get a comment. Let me know what works and what doesn’t and if you find the content interesting.

Hope you subscribe and enjoy reading my little blog.