The Random Ramblings of Lauren

I am a fighter. Every day, I fight little battles. Battles against prejudice, battles against ignorance, battles against pressures, battles against judgement, battles against habits, battles against other people. But mostly, I fight battles against myself. And those, my friends, are the biggest battles of all. Because you see, can never win a battle against yourself. No matter what the outcome, a part of you will always feel disappointed. Even if you fight to do what you think is right, it might not be what you want. Or you fight for what you want, even if you know it's not exactly right. In other words, a part of you will always lose. And here lies my problem... I hate to lose. I fight against myself, and yet I know whatever the outcome I won't be completely happy. Because I am a fighter. And I fight to win. But how can you win a battle against yourself? In the battle between what you want and what you need, how can you ever come out on top? How can you ...

We live in a society of prejudice. The world has become a place where judgement, disapproval, hate and discrimination choke the air like smog. It fills our lungs and seeps into our skin, infecting our minds and blinding us to the consequences of our actions. We are surrounded by prejudice, and many of us are too ignorant to notice it.  The problem is that ignorance, f ear, anger and self-righteousness fester and grow into attitudes of prejudice. Even worse, these attitudes can spread like wildfire amongst certain individuals that are too afraid to have their own opinion, for fear of it being considered wrong. People become sheep, following blindly into a lifestyle that refuses to accept anything that they cannot understand. And the more people that follow, the more people follow them, and so on. It doesn't matter if it's something trivial, such as differences in taste or style, or something more fundamental like a differing religion, race or sexuality. If something is d...

Well hello there! As I currently type this, I am sat on an uncomfortably stuffy coach, crawling along the bustling streets of Ho Chi Minh City. It's a scorching Sunday evening here and what was supposed to be my last day (Day 5) here in Saigon.. That's now changed a little, but more on that later! My plans for today involved an amazing full tour, which unfortunately meant my day began this morning with, and is now ending with, a two hour crowded bus ride. Right now the air is thick and dizzying, and the smell of sweat is unavoidable, circulated by the feeble and shuddering fan system. To distract from the increasing feeling of claustrophobia and exhaustion, I thought it would be nice to start an update post on yesterday / today. DAY 4: The day began with a trip back to the police station, this time with a lovely girl from the Hotel, in order to report our belongings as stolen and get a police report for insurance purposes. Frustratingly, it takes 2-3 days to pr...

Hello world! So it's day three of my wonderful little adventure around S.E.A (if you don't know about it, read my previous post!), and so far I've spent all the time in Saigon. I completely love it here, the city is truly alive with activity, the streets buzz with the energy of its citizens and the buildings tower with opportunity. I definitely feel at home here. But alas, here's what I've been up to! DAY 1: I finally arrived in Saigon after an exhausting 25 hours on planes and in airports! It was 9PM here and I was completely wiped-out, but desperate to get out and explore! So, after finding the Hotel, hastily showering and getting ready, I headed out to the liveliest part of the city. Here, I met a lovely bicycle taxi man who took me up to an English speaking bar which served food all night - great for me as I had avoided plane food all day! The meal only cost 65,000 Vietnamese Dong, which is around £2 GBP. As well as this, all the bars on this strip served beer...

Hello fellow readers! Sooooo .. I'm in Asia! This month, I am going to be away exploring and touring some of the most beautiful and exciting sights across south east of Asia. And, this time round, I was keen to share my experience with you! (Since I failed to do so on my previous tour in April - Apologies!) So I set off from Manchester on Tuesday, stopping off for a one day layover at Dubai before Arriving at my first destination - Saigon, Vietnam.  Now it's Thursday, and my first full day here in Ho Chi Minh city. My current plan is to stay here for five days, experience all I can of the city lifestyle, and then spend three days traveling the Vietnamese Mekong Delta by boat. This side to Vietnam is much more rural and naturally beautiful, so I want to see as much as it as possible whilst touring the rivers. This includes stops and stays at My Tho, Ben Tre, Cai Be, Can Tho and Chau Doc. From there, it's a hop over the border into Cambodia! Starting down s...

Hello bloggersphere! If any of you saw my last post, and are currently expecting this to be my tell-all insight to the disaster zone that is my life, then I'm sorry. But it's not. I will get round to growing a pair and posting it, I promise! But in the mean time, I wanted to share a recent revelation... Because I've realised I have this pretty huge character flaw, and it's one that is proving rather detrimental. For you see, I'm incapable of comprehending the true hopelessness or impossibility of a situation. Allow me to elaborate... When I was a child, my amazing and inspiring father insisted that there was nothing in the world I couldn't achieve, if only I wanted it enough. In fact, it was encouraged and enforced as a mindset so often, that before long it became a game. Young, naïve Lauren would try and think of ridiculous, insane and impossible scenarios, and my dad would respond by hypothesising ways to mak...

Hello there, world wide web... So it's the last day of August, and I didn't want to ruin my current streak of monthly Blog updates! But, in truth, the thing I need to talk about is without a doubt the hardest thing I will ever have to write about. So much has changed since my last post to you all. The girl who wrote of falling foolishly in love less than a month ago, feels a whole world away from the girl writing to you now. A few things need to be said, need to be cleared up, and I need to be as open as I can about what's in my head. Because that way, maybe I can stop letting it consume my thoughts and move on from torturing myself with what-if's. Maybe I can give myself a shred of hope of getting back to myself. And so, something as meaningful and close to the heart as I aim to share with you all, takes time. And tissues! I promise that something is coming. Hopefully it'll be worth the wait, and you can be entertained by the iro...