Life of Liam

September 6th was the three year anniversary of me moving out of home and beginning my first step into adulthood. In 2014, I moved from Livingston to Glasgow. Not too far away from home, but far enough away that I would begin to understand what is was like to live independently. Timehop  is an app which lets you know what you were doing in previous years each day, based on your social media updates. Seeing my previous posts on social media is nostalgic for me but also an awakening reminder of the person I was when I first moved to Glasgow and how much my life has changed since. Timehop serves as a good and a bad reminder of my past. It often reminds me of past events that I have forgotten about, but the memories of those (often petty) tweets or cringey status updates make laugh. Sometimes, however, Timehop reminds me of the hard times in my life and of some of the people who I have met in my life that perhaps didn't treat me right. More often than not, however, Timehop just make

Note from Liam: an edited version of this post has been included on The Glasgow Guardian's (University of Glasgow student newspaper) website as part of their LGBT History Month 2018 coverage. You can see that post here . 2017 marks 50 years since homosexuality was decriminalised in the United Kingdom (which applied only to England and Wales). Scotland would not legalise homosexuality for another 14 years until 1981. Photo Credit - DrRandomFactor (Wikimedia Commons) 50 years. It really is not a long time at all. 50 years is within my parents' generation, which means that those older than 50 were alive in a time where homosexuals could be legally reprimanded for being themselves. For Scotland, it is only 36 years which is even less time and may include some people of my generation. Although a lot of change and progress has occurred in the past 50 years, I think it would be ludicrous to try and ignore the fact that homophobia still exists in some form in Scotland and need

It is very disheartening to think that, in 2017, white supremacy still exists. In recent days, there was a white supremacist march in Charlottesville (VA, America) which was met with counter protests. Violence broke out and three people have died in total with more injured. It is 2017 and people are still dying because of racism. This is one event which has made the news but there are likely many more white supremacist campaigns going on all the time and we are not aware of it. Some people will argue that they are exercising their right to free speech but, I believe, there is a line. As mentioned in one of my previous posts , free speech is fine until it becomes hate speech and starts inciting violent, offensive, or discriminatory values. The saddest part is that this hatred is arising over something people cannot control - skin colour, the amount of pigment in someone's skin. This hatred is based on ignorant stereotypes and years of oppression on the "other" which have

I have been thinking a lot about social media recently, whilst looking at those around me, and I just cannot ignore how false it all is. I have written about social media before, and will be writing about this topic for my upcoming university dissertation, because it is impossible to ignore. We are living in a real life “Black Mirror” episode. We have become that dystopian society that is described in fictional stories as a warning to us so we do not become mindless robots consumed by technology. We are living our life for social media, for others to see, for the likes and validation. I am guilty of this myself and it is beginning to take its toll on me. This is a topic I feel very strongly about because I see so many around me suffering from different issues and I believe that social media and constant connection to the internet is playing a massive role in these issues. I want to find answers. I want to find explanations. The way people act online compared to real life is very dish

A few days ago, the BBC  revealed  who the new Doctor would be in  Doctor Who . It was announced that Jodie Whittaker would be taking  on the role,  from Peter Capaldi ,  which received a mixture of reviews.  Whittaker’s Doctor will be a very important one as she will be the first woman to play the role. This is a tremendous step for gender equality in the media but left many people wondering why there is a need for the Doctor to be played by a woman when the actor has been male for the show’s history. I can respect this point of view, however, the main point of criticism here would be that the Doctor is an alien who regenerates into a completely new person, so why could that person not be a woman? I am not going to preach on about feminism or woman’s rights because, as a male, I do not feel I can comment or ar gue my poi nt on behalf of women as I can never understand what it feels like to be misrepresented due to being a woman .  As a  minority , however, I understand where

View of the River Clyde Glasgow , Scotland's largest city (though sadly not the capital. Thanks a lot, Edinburgh!). A population of just over 600,000 weird and wonderful people. A city that has so much going on, so much culture, happiness, and beauty. And for me, it's home. This post is quite long and the first part focuses on my experience of living in Glasgow over the past 3 years. The second part discusses my top 3 favourite things about Glasgow, so if you want to skip the nostalgic and personal stuff then scroll about halfway down the post! I moved to Glasgow in September 2014 for University, however, I grew up in Livingston which is under an hour away. So it wasn't a tremendous move, but far away enough from home that I could have my independence - and, of course, still close enough to home that I could visit my parents without trekking the country! Growing up, I had always viewed Glasgow as this strange, big, and scary city. It was certainly rougher than Edin

SPOILER ALERT! This post discusses my experience of playing “Life is Strange” and contains some spoilers as to what happens in the game. If you don’t want to know what happens in the game then don’t read on!! Last week I (finally) downloaded the game series “Life is Strange”. In a nutshell, the game follows the story of Max, who discovers her ability to turn back time after she witnesses the murder of her childhood best friend, Chloe. In the the game, you have the responsibility of making decisions which can have small or large impacts on what happens throughout the game and in the future. The butterfly effect and chaos theory are very strong themes throughout the game which really makes you think about how such small choices or events throughout your life can lead to a chain reaction that results in something very significant. I would rate the game a solid 8/10 with minor improvements being better graphics and animations, and also smoother gameplay. The story of the game was enthr