Adventures in Strasbourg EYE 2014

For the next few days I'm incredibly proud to be part of the European Youth Event (EYE) being held in Strasbourg. Being part of the select group of young people representing the British Youth Council (BYC) is so exciting.

This evening I got to meet the group from over the UK and we spoke about the goals of the conference and also spoke about our place within the EU. It's going to be exciting to meet nearly 5000 young people from all over Europe tomorrow. I can't wait to be able to see how young people are politically represented in different countries. I also want to know if there are many common issues throughout Europe, and if there are how can we work together to resolve them?

Most of all, we need to increase the voter turnout amongst young people. We need to find out why more than half of the young people in Europe don't engage with elections, especially with the European elections later this month. If certain countries have a better turnout we need to look to them as an example to ensure young people get a fair representation throughout Europe.

BYC are currently leading a campaign which I recommend everyone look at called The League Of Young Voters. This campaign aims to get 1.2 million more young people voting by the end of 2015. Increase the #votepower and the tweet issues important to you.

I'll be arriving for Day 1 of the EYE tomorrow and hopefully we'll see some positive change come from this event!

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

More like "Sadoka Tragica."

When I'm in the middle of projects, particularly in the more stressful periods of the process, I like to take time out to watch some anime that doesn't require too much attention and brain power on my part. This is usually when I fall back on my anime-roots of magical girls such as Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura. Both are fantastic shows which you don't need to think about too much to know what's going on and I find them really fun for relaxing when stressed.

During one my stressful projects I decided to take a break and see what Puella Magi Madoka Magica was all about. I'd seen a lot of imagery about the show the last few months and I finally looked it up to see it was only 12 episodes long. Perfect! Or so I thought.

Magical girl anime shows are fantastic in my opinion. They're a bit of cute fun with charming animal sidekicks, brightly coloured costumes you never get to see in real life, transformation sequences with catchy music and often ridiculously optimistic personalities which are refreshing to see every now and then, especially when stressed with everyday life.

So when this is the primary promotional image for the anime, you would think this would be similar? Bright costumes, animal sidekick, mostly smiling faces...?

This series has taught me to never judge an anime by its promo image.