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And so the big day came. I was soooo ready, I did my research, prepared my answers to potential questions, I wasn't caught off guard or anything. HR had still not got in touch with me to tell me the details of the interview (who/what/where) on Monday and the my sentence was approaching fast. On Tuesday morning, the day before, I decided to email the woman who turned out to be my interviewer to ask her the details since HR had not bothered. I then went to the library did some more reading, writing everything I could of that would make me ready. Wednesday morning, my stomach is aching. I've never stressed out for anything, my stomach has never given up on me before anything important so I don't understand. I certainly don't feel stressed and know I won't do until the actual interview. I have a healthy breakfast after a good night's rest, no tea as I don't want to have to go to the toilet when I get there, everything is ready including me. Time to go. I arrive...

"Get a life", the new app that allows you to live on your smartphone; from clothes to food, set your preferences and it will take decisions for you. You can go to the park, take a nap, meet people, all that from your bed! Not really, I made it up, stop looking for it on the Play Store, just throw your phone away and get a real life. Who said "Life is what happens to you while you're on your smartphone" again? I don't remember but it could never be more true than now. In recent years, many people have developed this awful habit of sharing every detail of their life on facebook or other social networking website, their every location on foursquare, their every meal on instagram and their latest prank on vine. More sadly though, others have developed the habit of reading all these statuses, looking at all these pictures and checking where their distant cousin to whom they never speak had lunch. Most smartphone-possessing-youth couldn't go through a day...

The first time can be so daunting sometimes. There are plenty of tips and info out there on the internet though, it makes it a little easier. The thoughts turn into nightmares, what if I suck at it? What if they think I'm lame? What if I'm so stressed out I throw up during it? What if they have bad breath I can't concentrate on anything else? Your friends try to reassure you about it, "You'll do just fine", "You're awesome, I know you can do this", etc. And it does pump your ego up, but at the end of the day, being too self-confident isn't always a good thing especially if it doesn't go as planned, then the trip back to reality can hurt. So it is important not to get your hopes up too much. At 23 years old I have finally got my first formal job interview. It is next week and I am already preparing. At first, I got the email and felt really happy, excited and pretty satisfied with myself. Then came the realisation that, first of, alth...

All these years of pioneering, hiding earphones in my sleeves during taxiing, take-off and landing to be able to listen to my music, reading my kindle away from the flight attendants' gaze, illegally playing on my phone (while on flight mode), have finally paid off. I am probably the cause for this: European aviation regulators have approved the use of certain personal electronic devices during taxiing, take-off and landing. They saw me and finally saw it isn't dangerous! Joy to the world! It will probably be allowed before Christmas to play Angry Birds and read your latest cheesy novel while they tell you how you have to put on your own oxygen mask prior to helping your child. No more hiding! The US is embarrassing itself by  blocking the publication of Chilcot's inquiry . The report is on how Britain went to war with Iraq and includes the Blair-Bush correspondence. David Cameron will probably end up following the US decision. Yet another lie to the people. What about ...

Today I didn't buy the newspaper, shame on me. But I still read the Indyand the Guardian online so I can tell you that: Hawaii has legalised gay marriage last night, making it the 15th state in the USA to allow gay couples to say YES to one another. YAY!! That's cool. Meanwhile in North Dakota this guy, Craig Cobb is trying to found this all white town in Leith. The guy is a self proclaimed white supremacist, he was told yesterday on live TV that his heritage is 14% Sub-Saharan African (He had previously agreed to taking a DNA test on the same show). That made me chuckle, I have to say. I wonder how the guy feels about himself now, will he attempt to amputate 14% of his body? Will he die from self loathing and shame hidden in a corner of his house? More seriously though, the confirmed dead numbers are increasing in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan pretty much destroyed the country . A lot of country are supplying help and donating emergency funds. Both the UN and ...

You may or may not know that I have been volunteering at a drop-in for the homeless and under-privileged for a little more than a year now. What we do is pretty simple, we serve food, play board games and have a chat with these people; we basically give them a safe environment where they can socialise without the fear of being judged. I absolutely love it, I have met some very interesting people with very interesting, though sometimes sad, stories. In the time that I have known these people I have come to realise that a lot of them are veterans like Seth (not his real name) who has served in Iraq and Iran and is now homeless. Seth's health is deteriorating at an alarming rate and I haven't seen him in more than a month leaving me worried and perplex about what might have happened to him. Last time I heard of him, Seth had been arrested for begging. Seth like many other men and women has risked his life for his country. We may not all agree with these wars but the fact that ...

We've all heard about the budget cuts and the increase in tuition fees... Since September 2012 students at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) pay £9000 per year here (Almost triple what we, students who started prior to that, pay), a fact I can more or less accept since the money has to come from somewhere... So what does the university do? UCLan installs screens at the door of every classroom to show timetables, what was wrong with our old paper timetables? Nothing. It changes the whole attendance monitoring system by installing new magnetic scanners at the door of every classroom. What was wrong with the little scanners teachers had? Nothing. Today, four gigantic ice sculptures were put around campus. Who benefits from that? Certainly not me. I really hope our tuition money ins't funding these ice sculptures... All this money UCLan spends on unnecessary stuff could fund so many brilliant projects, internships, and just stuff students would actually benefit ...

So the French have been arguing for a law that's soon going to be voted about "marriage for everyone" which would basically legalise gay marriage and adoption by gay couples (in the same law) in France. There have been demos and marches from both sides, the funniest ones being the Catholics performing strange choreographies in various French cities to promote the fact a child needs one mother and one father. Personally  I think this argument is really offending. These people have clearly not thought of the thousands of single parents giving their children a loving home and an education. They also haven't thought of the thousands of children who have already been brought up by gay parents in France, children whose parents had to travel to other countries (mostly Belgium) to legally get a child as a gay couple. I don't get why France is so up-tight. Their moto?"Freedom, Equality, Fraternity". It just doesn't make sense. France is the country of the ...

I randomly came accross the BBC reality tv show "The World's Strictest Parents" the other day on youtbe so I watched a few episodes. The story line is simple: in each episode, two British "problem" teenagers are sent to very strict families over the world for one week. The chosen teenagers a first shown back home with their family and then they meet at the airport where they leave from to get to their final destinations. I watched a couple of episodes in which the teenagers go to American cities and one in which they go to South Africa. In all the episodes I have watched so far, the host families are of Christian faith, some are more involved in their religious communities than others but they basically all gave blessings before family meals versus the British teenagers who don't appear to be religious except for a couple who are Muslim but do not practice their faith (they drink, smoke, don't go to mosque etc.). So this makes me wonder, is the BBC ...

Anyone who knows me will know my Hebrew's approximate, I need people to articulate and speak slowly to me if they want to be some hope that I will understand. But people who don't know me like for example complete strangers in the streets, don't. So every time I start what I think is gonna be a fairly easy conversation like ask for direction in Hebrew or basic info, it often results in me getting the first couple of sentences and then wondering what that huge monologue is for. So I was coming back from Efrat, a settlement in the West Bank where I did an interview. First I had to go back to Jerusalem and take a bus Tel Aviv as there were no more directs to Holon at this time of the night. I arrive in Tel Aviv at the Central Bus Station and get out on Levinsky street where my next bus' stop is. Of course Levinsky is a big street so I ask a man where the 89 to Holon stops. He tells me that it's not here and that I need to go back inside the station and that he will ta...