Positivity

Science Museum & The Breakfast Club

Continuing with the bucket list, James and I took a day-trip to the Science Museum and tried out a new place for lunch, The Breakfast Club a few weeks ago.

The best bit about the Science Museum, was without a doubt, its level of interaction! I'm such a big kid. I also love the fact that it's free!

The museum is designed in a way to appeal to both to the adults and the children, offering new knowledge to the old and young. For example, it allows children to understand more about their biology through interactive games, while also providing informative sections on the planet's atmosphere and the consequences of global warming to the older ones!

In the central location of South Kensington, being absolutely free and with something for everyone, this museum is definitely worth a visit. Fun and knowledge combined!

If only the The Breakfast Club raised the bar as high.

After hearing some friends speak so highly of it, and being a pancake lover, I dragged James along to Soho.

After reaching the hipsters meeting room (the cafe) we queued for 40 minutes for a table. Once we were seated, because the cafe was so busy, the waitress could barely give us a minute to explain anything. They were working their butt's off! To top it off, you could hardly enjoy your food as you gazed outside the window and saw a long queue of hungry hipsters!

On the bright side, the cafe was very cost-friendly! I got a delicious smoothie with oats, strawberry, milk, honey, yogurt and banana for only £4! It was both filling and tasty! James grabbed himself a deal breaker with a bacon & egg butty and a black Americano for only £5.70.

The pancakes, however, were another story. Despite being reasonably charged (£6.50) they did not please the taste buds! They came served in a beautifully decorated plate of strawberries and berries, with a generous touch of vanilla cream on top, oh, and soaked in maple syrup. Now I love my sweet food. The sweeter, the better. But this was one touch too much.

The pancakes were drenched in maple syrup and they weren't really "berry" pancakes. They just had a few on the side! So, the only healthy thing about this (the berries) were barely existent. And the heavenly invention of pancakes was severely disfigured in a sickeningly sweet maple syrup.

So, although offering affordable and tasty-sounding food, the Breakfast club was a bit of a let down.

Do you have any recommendations of must places to visit in London?

Gender Inequality

In our generation we take a lot for granted because we didn't see the hard-efforts of our predecessors. For example, equal pay. Women fought for the right to vote with everything they had, and eventually they gained the right to vote from 1918 onwards. Yet, it took another 52 years for women to be recognised in the workforce: until 1970, women across the country (and the world) were being paid less for the same work as men! And yes, this was 43 years ago. But has this mentality of sexism really changed?

A film which brought this to light was Made in Dagenham. Based on true events, it tells the story of the 1968 Ford sewing machinists strikes. Led by Rita O'Grady, alongside the support of her colleagues, this one group of people was able to lead the way to challenge Ford's payment policy and influence government policy.

Despite the introduction of Equal Pay Act 1970, women in some aspects still continue to earn less. 

"Average full-time gross weekly earnings for males increased from £365.70 in 1997 to £539.30 in 2010, while average full-time gross weekly earnings for females increased from £270.90 to £471.80 over this period"

Gender Equality Strategy Statistics: 2011 Update 

However, the film also demonstrates another underlying aspect of sexism. Rita's husband becomes frustrated with the situation (he had lost his job and becomes a stay-at-home-dad). At one point, he exclaimed to Rita how much of a good husband he was because he worked and did not get drunk every night nor hit her. Here, Rita beautifully replied how nothing less ought to be expected from a husband.

Yet, in the 21st century women across the world are still judged on their gender (click here for 10 extreme examples!)

But because the gender inequality gap has reduced, we are no longer as concerned by it. Although it has nearly been 100 years since women were given the right vote, we still live in a society that is gender driven. This is a disadvantage to both men and women in their personal and work lives.

Global Inequality

I find money a funny thing, mainly because technically it is more of an abstract concept than anything else. Since the federal reserve was introduced in the early 20th century, more money has been printed than we have. And really, we work 40 hours a week for a number to be printed onto a piece of paper. You save this money throughout your life, with its value drastically fluctuating as a result of inflation and so forth. When you think about money in these terms, you can also see how when you work, you're really selling your time for imaginary money half the time, so to speak. It's scary when you think about it like this.

But regardless of this unstable nature of money, currency, economy and so forth, money predicts the life we can lead and what opportunities we have. And worse of all, there are thousands and thousands of people who do not have access to this vast amount of wealth, and thus have to remain in poverty.

But why? This short video of 3 minutes highlights how drastic the global wealth inequality is and some of its root causes.

What are your thoughts on this?

You can run, but you can't hide!

I have this terrible tendency of when feeling overwhelmed wanting to run away to an imaginary world, hoping that things will magically sort themselves out. With time, and with much last-minute stress, I have come to realise that is far from the truth.

When I was seven, before moving to the UK, I vividly remember telling my mum how happy I was to be moving away, as in the UK no mean people existed. Little did I know that when I came here, I would encounter just as many challenging, disrespectful and rude people.

But despite the distress it caused me, I realised that everywhere I would go mean people would exist. Not because the world is full of horrible and nasty people, but because I had to learn my lesson. I had to learn to be strong, to face them, to believe in myself. This road was a challenging one, but it taught me a big life lesson (well, two).

First: you can run but you can't hide.
Sure, I ran away from the girl who stole my boyfriend (I was seven and severely distressed by this!) and her nasty comments. But I couldn't hide from every nasty person on this planet. Until I learnt to defend myself, this lesson shaped itself in a variety of people and life experiences. So, no matter how much I ran, the 'problem' followed me.

Second: the problem is always us - not others
When we point one finger at someone, we are pointing three fingers at ourselves. This one took me a long time to digest. How can I be the problem when the other person was disrespectful?

It isn't so much that you are the problem, it is that you gave this person the power to disrespect you. Take this with a pinch of salt. Of course the other person is accountable for their actions, but the effect that they have in your life is decided by you. You have the power to decide whether it upsets you or not.

Each one of us has the 'freedom of choice'. We are free to decide our actions, and equally, we are free to decide how we will react to a problem/situation. The moment we stop blaming others for how we feel, accept the fact we feel that way, the words the other person expresses loose their weight and you can stop running.

So, next time you pretend everything is alright and mask the pain, face it. Every problem has a solution, we just have to decide to accept it (which, obivously means not running away!)

Always easier said than done, of course, but that's with all in life.

A little bit of humour!