#momentsforlife is an end of year feature in which PTL Editors look back on standout moments from the year and recall why they meant and continue to mean so much to us. The idea being to celebrate the highs of the past twelve months and to get all sappy and happy before we take a Christmas break.
We kick things of with our LIFE moments.
Sam Prance, Editor-in-Chief of PTL
It’s been a peculiar year. I’ve moved to France and haven’t spent more than two consecutive weeks at home. Whilst this is quite normal for your average languages student, it doesn’t make it any less, well, weird. In fact, I’ve become quite sentimental. Every time I say bye to my younger brother and sister the three of us end up in tears. Same goes with the boyfriend. Such is the extent of this sentimentality that I find myself crying at things like Steve and Miranda kissing in the rain in Sex and the City. Yeah – that brings on the waterworks. Nevertheless, whenever I do venture home and see the people I hold most dear, it’s kind of magical. When I decided to surprise a friend before she buggered off to America for a year in August I had some of the best giggles of my life. She thought I couldn’t make it, I hid in her shed and what followed were 24 hours of random snuggles. I’ve seen Beyoncé this year but catching up with the homies, reuniting with the boyfriend and getting the rare chance to chill with the famalam top even King B herself.
Hannah Beer, Editor of ART & FASHION
One very cold Saturday in February this year, two of my future flatmates and I donned some nun habits and tried our very hardest to get as far away from London as possible, armed with nothing but a terrible cardboard sign and some rape alarms – all in the name of charity. We weren’t allowed to spend any money or have any premade plans for where we were going, which meant that 14 hours later we found ourselves in the backseat of a Rolls Royce being driven across Europe. After being thrown off of a train in a random town in Austria (at which point we took the habits off), we eventually made it to Verona and Venice, where we found ourselves trapped in a flooded restaurant, from which the waiters had to piggy back us out in their wellies. Despite the 36 hours without sleep and those few ‘are these men murderers’ moments that happened along a dark French motorway at 4am, the experience was one of the best I’ve ever had. It was surreal and exciting and hilarious at every given moment, and what’s more, it gave us the opportunity to pose in front of St Mark’s Cathedral in nuns’ outfits. Risky, but totally worth it for the photo.
Figgy Guyver, Deputy Editor of ART & FASHION
Nostalgia and heat-that-makes-you-lazy are, for me, tied in some sort of unbreakable bond; summers are what stick most prominently in my memory. This past June fits the trend, and it was one of those months that I’ll look back on as defining the whole year. While the majority of the 30 days were spent stressfully learning to teach English in a little language school near Haymarket in Edinburgh, it was the dinners in a new back garden that linger in my mind. One night in particular, around the solstice when it didn’t ever really get dark, there was a ‘pie night’ with three friends, and it was kind of perfect.
Sonia Muhwezi, Editor of LITERATURE
You know how you can tell you’re really growing up? When you go months without seeing your siblings. My sister, Samantha, told me somewhat recently that I tend to be retrospective of a moment even whilst I am living it. I’m the weird person who’s nostalgic for the present. This is never truer than when I’m with my siblings – the Mafia. We’re all separated now, more than we’ve ever been: scattered across the UK, UG and Dubai. We were last together – all of us – in February, and it’s hard to pinpoint one exact shining moment from that time so much as waking up knowing they were around, as they’ve always been. Something as simple as sitting together, each preoccupied with our individual pursuits, or going to the cinema, or celebrating Ard’s birthday in true Mafia fashion. I am never more myself than when I am with them.
Eloise Hendy, Deputy Editor of LITERATURE
It’s a known fact amongst many of my friends that I would like my everyday life to be more like a festival. I mean, why wouldn’t I? When else can you drink beer before breakfast and dance like a fool, with some of your favourite people, to some of your favourite music, while covered in a thick coating of mud and glitter? This year was my second Bestival, with some of the best people I could hope to share a small, smelly tent with for four days. I almost had a little cry whilst watching Wild Beasts, I lost my voice whilst singing along to Chic and I boogied so hard to Outkast (shake it, shake it like a polaroid picture) that my legs ached for two days. Now where can I get a 10 foot high disco ball for my flat…
Hannah Oliver, Editor of FILM, THEATRE & TV
2014’s been a really long year and in many ways a really good year. Trying to divide it up into tiny little pieces and judge one over the other is very hard, in terms of a ‘life’ experience or a ‘moment’ of change. Uni was a mad churning of impromptu drunken nights and too many work shifts than can be justified in the face of trying to do well at degree level, and real life was a bit much. Summer was a wonderful, sluggish detox. I went home, and took on a paper round in the mornings for a month (not kidding). There’s something very precious about the early, early morning, when the sun is rising and it promises to be a long, warm day, and no one is quite awake. I got attuned to daily news, and the pattern of bulletins from newspaper to newspaper over front pages. I live on a hill, and the colours of summer would stretch out all the way to the Shard and Crystal Palace tower, and planes leaving Heathrow. To be up at such a calm, silent time of day, to be able to walk or to sit still, with only yourself, in a quiet morning – I found that hard, and managed eventually. Everyone has to face their own company some time.
Melanie Christie, Deputy Editor of FILM, THEATRE & TV
Now, I’m not the fittest person ever, but finishing my first half marathon did kind of make me feel like some sort of Olympian. In May this year a couple of my friends and I chose to take the plunge and run the Edinburgh Half Marathon for charity, and after much blood, sweat and tears (and quite a few, well quite a lot of blisters), we all crossed the line feeling like gods. The feeling was incredible – the bath, brunch and glass of Baileys at the end weren’t so bad either. It’s definitely motivated me to try and do a full marathon in the future; although how I plan to get my ass in gear for that I don’t know.
Bianca Letele, Editor of MUSIC
‘I’m thankful for my job and Tinder’ was my boyfriend’s admission when going around the Thanksgiving table to an audience of thirty dinner guests (and my flatmate family) when stating what he was grateful for that year. I don’t know why I’ve always been slightly embarrassed about our Tinder-fession when it’s brought someone so wonderful into my life, but I guess I have Tinder to be thankful for too this year.
Nolwenn Davies, Deputy Editor of MUSIC
Sadly our Deputy Editor of MUSIC has been ill recently and is now catching up on about 524 assignments for University. Subsequently she has not been able to contribute to this year’s #momentsforlife. Nols may add her additions once exam season is over or she may just leave her choices to your imagination, whilst she and the rest of us stuff ourselves with food and wine, as is appropriate at this time of year.
The PTL Team
The PTL Team are the collective of professional journalists (bumbling students) behind all that goes on on Prancing Through LIFE. We’re similar in many ways but different in others. To find out more about each of us specifically, head over to our TEAM page: here.
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(Images: Figgy and Nols – taken by Nolwenn Davies, Hannah O – drawn by Hannah O)