The Academy Awards 2016: My Reactions

Last night’s Oscars ceremony was a three-hour slightly mad event filled with surprises, odd animations and talks about race. (And a hell of a lot of Mad Max: Fury Road.) I’m here to give my reactions and thoughts about the winners…

‘Habitica’ & The Concept of ‘Gamifying’ Life

In my previous post about my bullet journal, I talked about my monthly habits tracker and how I stopped using it after a few days, because I had started using an app called Habitica to track my habits and my to-do list. In this post, I’m going to show you the world of Habitica, how useful it can be to get your life on track and learn new habits, and I’ll also talk about the very modern concept of ‘gamifying’ life: getting motivation to get things done through gameplay.

My Bullet Journal

For a while now I’ve been trying to find the best way to stay organised. Being in my final year of university there are so many things to think about: uni work (both written and practical), events, socialising, money, keeping the house tidy, what I want to do when I graduate, as well as my goals – both short-term and long-term. It all adds up and ends up clogging my brain with so much information that I never want to get anything done.

I’ve tried fancy planners and simple notebooks. The fancy planner is good for when I want to get REALLY creative, but I tend to use it more as a creative journal of my week rather than something I can keep with me as a organisation companion. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I find simple notebooks to be too simple. I realised I needed something that I can be a little creative and imaginative with, but also keep functional and simple rather than being overwhelmed with colour and stickers. The bullet journal does just that. It’s perfect! Read on to find out a bit more about what a bullet journal is, and how I use mine.

Harry Potter & The Cursed Child Script Release & The Wizarding World as Transmedia Storytelling

Since starting university in 2013, a big interest of mine has been audience engagement with media, and ‘transmedia narratives’. According to media and fan culture guru Henry Jenkins (2007):

“Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes it own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story.”

In simpler terms, transmedia storytelling is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats. A perfect example of this is the Harry Potter franchise: this post is inspired by the recent announcement that the full script for the upcoming West End show, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, will be released as a book.