My first football game experience - Aston Villa vs. Sunderland (6-1)

On the 29th April 2013 I experienced going to my first football game!

Ever since I moved to Birmingham last year, me and my friends have said that we HAVE to go and watch Villa play as we walk or drive past the stadium every day. 

I'm not a huge football fan... I'll watch it if it's on and join in with whatever team the majority are supporting, but I have no clue about Premier Leagues and other leagues and who is in what. Plus, I think everyone should go to a football game at least once in their life, even if their not a fan, because the experience so good!

Waiting for the game to start

We were seated in the Upper Holte end, therefore we had a good overall view of the pitch. We sat down about 40 minutes before the game started so we were able to have a look around, take some photos, learn the rules... (!) and start to get excited! Both teams were warming up so that was also fun to watch. 

The game started at 20:00, and the stadium went wild as Aston Villa ran out of the tunnel and took their places on the pitch. I was already over excited and started to pick up the chants and songs that the Villa supporters were singing... often laughing my head off at what they were saying before joining in....

Not long in to the game, Villa scored! Now... I expected everyone to cheer loudly, a few hands in the air, maybe a high five to a friend. But no. Every Villa supporter was on their feet, jumping in the air, screaming, shouting, cheering, hugging anybody around them. So obviously we joined in...

After the excitement died down, the Villa suporters were hyped up at the fact we were ahead so early in the game, and it became clear that we were in the rowdy end of the stadium. Sunderland was next to score making it 1-1, and everyone in the stadium booed them... which I felt a bit mean for at first but then I remembered how much they get paid for kicking a ball around so joined in ;)

Aston Villa stadium

Before half time, Villa scored twice more bringing the score to 3-1! Every time they scored, the whole stadium (minus the Sunderland supporters) erupted with cheers and jumped up and down!

The second half began and so did the songs. Vile names were sung at the Sunderland manager, fingers pointed, and other random chants, that we slowly began to (unfortunately) pick up. However, we all found it hilarious and it got us even more excitable for when Villa scored again twice!

With the score at 5-1 to Aston Villa, our rowdy lot were chanting "we want six" and after about 10 minutes, we got six! 6-1 to Villa and everybody was screaming, shouting, cheering, jumping, and we even had a group hug with the guys in front who looked like they were almost in tears of joy!

My first experience at a football match was definitely one I'll never forget. The actual game was great, and there were loads of goals which made it a lot more interesting, especially as "our team" won. Looking back, the whole thing was so funny. I always comment on how 'in to the game' guys get when they watch football, but actually, I'll have to admit that being there amongst that many people who have so much passion for the team really makes you get involved and join in with the enthusiasm

Let me know if you were at the game if you've been to any similar!

Gemma x

Portfolio website

As part of our university media course, we had to make a portfolio website showcasing our skills and work experience. I'm not great with technology but I actually found this quite a fun assignment to do!

I used the website creator Wix, something that I would advise anyone wanting to make a website to use. It was so easy to pick up and allowed me to make anything I wanted on the site, including pictures, shapes, text and using lots of colours to make my website stand out.

Here's a link to my website if you would like to have a look...

http://gemmabrownmedia.wix.com/gemmabrown

As you can see, I chose to use lots of pictures of myself doing work experience as I felt this made it look more interesting and would make it more appealing for employers. This way, they didn't necessarily have to read all the ramble I had written about myself! and they could look at the pictures to see exactly what I had done :)

Have a look around and let me know what you think!
If you've also made anything similar, post it in the comments box and I'll have a look at yours too :) 

Gemma x

HeartFM - Race for Life

Earlier today I worked with Heart FM and Cancer Research to promote the up and coming events, Race for Life. 

There are over 230 fundraising events around the UK in which women and girls, from six years old and up, can take part by running, walking, skipping or however else around a 5k or 10k course all to raise money for Cancer Research UK.

Today I worked as a Heart Angel in the Watford Harlequin Shopping Centre where, along with a team from Cancer Research, we raised awareness about the events and encouraged the public to get involved. This could be by taking part in Race for Life, supporting a loved one who is taking part, or even just donating a bit of extra change towards the charity. 

We handed out flags and balloons to children as well as sign up forms and flyers to women to try and get as many people signing up as possible. There were also some cheerleaders from Hertstoppers Cheerleading Club who performed the Cancer Slam dance every 15 minutes. The Cancer Slam is the dance that will be performed as part of the warm up at every Race for Life event around the UK, so if you're participating, get practicing so you can join in the fun on the day!

I really enjoyed working with the Cancer Research team and raising awareness for such a good cause. I took part in Race for Life last year and not only was it great fun, it was also a really good way to exercise and also raise money for Cancer Research; a charity that is close to a lot of people's hearts.

I also loved talking to the public about the events, as well as taking pictures of them with our Heart frame for the HeartFM website. Even the regular outbreaks of snow couldn't bring down the good mood we were all in!

Have a look on the Cancer Research page or try and learn the Cancer Slam!
Also, sign up for Race for Life and let me know how you do :)

Gemma x

NAIL OBSESSION (a girly post)

For the last year I seem to have had a bit of an obsession with painting my nails and experimenting with nail art. Glitter, colours, patterns... you name it, I LOVE it!
Youtubing 'nail art' is a great way to find loads of amazing ideas. A lot of them definitely need a very steady hand, but most of them are actually pretty easy when you watch the tutorial :) 
Over Christmas, my ten year old cousin spent hours showing me nail art tutorials, which made us want to try out our own...


The picture above is of my nails on Christmas Day 2012... a simple red base coat, with red dots on the thumb and ring finger. We found that making dots with a toothpick gave great results, and also didn't cost a thing as we already had them in the house!

Snowguins?

The second picture (nice and messy as you can see!) were our own creation of penguins/snowmen. Due to a lack of black nail varnish, we couldn't go for the penguins we originally wanted so we sort of created our own funny blob creatures which vaguely resembled snowmen or penguins....

I find painting my nails really relaxing and sort of therapeutic  therefore I find myself painting at least three or four times a week! They chip so easily as well so that is just another excuse to paint them more I guess....

Last night, my housemate and I spent a good few hours (we are so cool) painting our nails and trying out new designs. We used a pencil dipped in white nail varnish instead of toothpicks as we didn't have any handy, however this worked just as well!

I love having multicoloured nails and I think pastel colours work really well!

Glitter is also a great way to make your nails festive or stand out for special occasions 

She showed me a website http://weheartit.com/ which has loads of amazing nail designs that we looked at for ages. I'll definitely be getting some more inspiration from that website in the future



Below are some nail art ideas from the website that I love...

Let me know what you think and post some of your own nail art below!

Gemma x

Life as a student - part 2

It has come to my attention that it has been almost a month since I have posted in my blog. The last month has been very hectic, mainly with working to earn money and working to meet uni deadlines... all in the life of a student

The dreaded deadlines
Like most uni courses, deadlines seem ages away when lecturers read them out at the start of the semester. You casually write them down and think, "ohh that's ages away, I'll do it next week"... then next week turns in to the week after and so on...

In our media course (and probably similarly to a lot of other courses), all the deadlines seem to come at once and fall within a week of each other. So one week you feel like you have nothing to do and casually watch television and laze about, but suddenly you have three assignments due for the next few days. It's easy for people to say "well you should have just started it earlier then," but motivation really doesn't appear when you want it to does it? When you need that one tiny bit of motivation to get you started on an assignment, motivation just says, "NO," and disappears. Last week I tried to find it in a large bag on Minstrels... with no luck I just ended up full up laying on the bed watching television. 

The nerdy bit...
For some reason I actually seem to work better under pressure. When I have one day left until an assignment is due, motivation reappears on a mission and I actually get better results this way. Even though I vow that, "next time I'll start it earlier," it just doesn't happen and I find myself daydreaming or doing something else more interesting instead.

However, my three very large assignments were due within four days of each other, and surprisingly, after a few long days of staring at my laptop screen and some much needed in between nights out, I managed to get them all done and was actually pleased with the end result. 
Some of these assignments included creating an entire online blog based on 'Unhealthy school meals,' writing dissertation proposals (scary!) and also doing a pitch presentation for an idea for a television show. 

Our pitch group - "The Gorgeous Guide"

Thankfully the pitch went really well and our feedback was good, so our smiling faces were still intact after all of our hard work! I also got the 'highly commended' editor award in our online journalism group which I was very pleased about as I put lots of effort in to that assignment as well!

More deadlines
You would think that after that stressful week and a bit that it was all over... but no. The stress is beginning to build once again as deadlines are looming and my diary is filling up with "to do's." Anyone that knows me, knows that 'to do' lists are my life... I can't live without them, however my room seems to be filling up with them at the moment!

At the moment by work load consists of recording people talking about what would encourage them to become student reps for my latest online journalism project, as well as making a portfolio website to represent myself and my skills... something I am finding very challenging as technology is not a strong point of mine!

We're also prepping our final idea for our dissertation which is something I definitely kept putting out of my mind until lecturers went on and on about it. The word 'dissertation' is just scary really... something all uni students dread. However suddenly we have had to come up with an idea and a (sort of) plan for it... third seems to be coming around way too quickly!


Anyway... enough rambling, I'll post again on Saturday or Sunday! Thank you for reading :)

Gemma x