BESA HOLIDAY SURVIVAL GUIDE (PART ONE)

Believe it or not, conversation is still a thing.

A few days into your extended holiday and we’re guessing that you’re probably already wondering what you should do with all the time you have on your hands. Right?

So, we therefore present to you, the BESA Holiday Survival Guide. Why do you need such a thing? Because if our original rhetorical question is correct, you’ve probably already given up on social media (like we have, mostly) because your feed is inundated with the ‘sickness that cannot be named’. It cannot be named purely since we’re sure you’re sick (see what we did there?) of seeing it everywhere. And it is everywhere. Like literally, and figuratively, depending on who you speak to. So, we’ll mention other things that should not be named, like Voldemort. NOOOOO!!

Yup, that just happened (and was a Harry Potter reference. Look it up kids.)

But we digress…

Note: If you’re not bored at home already and have plenty that you’re keeping yourself occupied with and are by no means in need of this Survival Guide, then there’s literally no point in you reading this any further. No, like seriously, you can go now.

Still here? Great! Your life is about change drastically (and so is your interweb speed).

1. Go back through our BESA Instagram feed.

Now, we know what you’re thinking, we’ve just told you that we’re giving social media a break and now we’re telling you to go onto social media. Huh? There’s method to our madness, we promise.

You should go onto our Instagram because our feed is delightful (even if we do say so ourselves). Our feed is fun, light-hearted and filled with sugar, spice and all things nice – it’s an injection of positivity, a plethora of crazy antics (yes, we’ve used the word plethora in a blog post again because it’s just so much fun to say), and a lot of ‘good feels’…in fact it has all the feels.

We encourage you to look back at the ‘BESA Man reviews’ (Episode 6 from last year’s 12 Days of BESA open day promotions) as it is one of our most viewed Instagram videos of all time - 1,825!

Here’s a handy link to follow.

View this post on Instagram

2. Talk to each other.

Yip, believe it or not, that says talk to each other. Conversation is still a thing. Connecting with those around you is still a thing. Here’s a thing:

‘Day 7 of quarantine without sport to watch. Had to speak to my wife all week. She seems nice.’

Talk amongst yourselves. Here, we’ll give you some topics:

• Politics

(No, not that)

• What was the last funny video you saw?

(BESA Man Reviews - nudge, nudge, wink, wink)

• What are you obsessed with?

(Music. Doesn’t a well-chosen track just make it all better?)

• What’s your favourite way to waste time?

(PlayStation! No, not Xbox)

• If you had intro music, what song would it be and why?

(Rocky Theme Tune? Staying Alive by the Bee Gees?)

For more awesome conversation starters, follow this link:

3. Play tiddlywinks

What’s tiddlywinks you ask? Tsk-tsk. According to Google Dictionary (because let’s be honest, nobody uses an actual dictionary anymore), tiddlywinks is ‘a game in which small plastic counters are flicked into a central receptacle by being pressed on the edge with a larger counter.’

It’s hours of fun, and how some of us got through the 90s. Just kidding. We had Mario Brothers for that.

4. Watch reruns of Friends

Now, if you haven’t heard of the TV series Friends, you’ve most probably been living under a rock your whole life because it’s made a recent come back in pop-culture (think literally everything you can buy at Typo). But it actually never left. This show really did get some of us through the Nineties. It also got us through the ‘naughties’. And the ‘Teens’. Also, now. It’s getting us through now.

But over the years, it’s brought us some absolute quotable gems. Like, Ross’s, “Pivot!”, Monica’s, “Seven, seven, seven!” & “I knnnooooow!” and Joe’s “How ya doin’?”. And don’t even get us started on the comedic brilliance of Chandler Bing.

The best part? You most likely have the DVD boxset (or know someone who does) which means you can binge watch a whole season in one-day. Sounds like winning to us!

5. Read

Yes. Give up Tik-Tok and pull out a book. And no, not a book on a Kindle or a tablet, nope, pull out an actual physical book – one that has words on pages and stuff. Why? Because of the smell. The smell of a book must be one of the finest smells in the world…along, of course, with ‘freshly-mowed-lawn’, ‘just-stopped-raining’, ‘out-of-the-oven-doughnuts’ and ‘brewed-Ethiopian-coffee’.

(Those all sound like jellybean flavours actually)

Looking for a great young-adult series to read? Try the six-book series called Gone by Michael Grant - about a group of kids in a dystopian town called Perdido Beach, where everybody over the age of fifteen suddenly and inexplicably disappears. It’s a page turning thriller!

Side note: (because this is how we learn stuff).

According to www.vocabulary.com. dystopian. “Utopian” describes a society that’s conceived to be perfect. Dystopian is the exact opposite - it describes an imaginary society that is as dehumanising and as unpleasant as possible.

Of course, we do realise the irony of suggesting a book that you do not necessarily have and cannot necessarily go out and buy because of reasons. So, get it on Kindle and keep a physical book nearby to sniff every now and then. Problem solved.

6. Do some schoolwork

Perhaps ‘schoolwork’ ought to have been the number one thing on this list. Nope. Not today. But it is number six because, unfortunately, as nice as a little extended break is, there’s always something to do on the school front, whether it be revision, assignments, research or catching up anything that you might have missed, you should at least dedicate some of your time to it.

But do the other five things first.

And finally…(for Part One of this Survival Guide anyway)

Go outside, in your own garden of course, lie down, look up at the clouds, then use your imagination to find different shapes like poodles, ninjas, lions and battle ships. Just use sunglasses and beware the mosquitoes. Good chat.

Until Part Two, please stay safe and look after each other.