Today’s blog post is a little light-hearted. If you’ve been on Twitter any time over the last 5 years, you may have seen the resurgence of some seemingly ridiculous days of national celebration. I did, however, recently stumble across some that are very wholesome throughout the month of July, and I wanted to share 5 of them with you today with a little help from Google, in the hope that they will make you smile, wherever you are right now.
1. ‘Compliment your mirror day!’, on the 5th July, apparently created by Robert L.Birch (if you’ve heard of them, or know any more about this, let us know in the comments!) As the name suggests, the purpose of this day is to, in essence, take a look at your mirror, and pay yourself lots of compliments, like the wonderful humans you all are.
2. ‘Dog days of summer’, which runs from 3rd
July all the way through to 11th Even if you’re a cat person, I’m sure you can appreciate some cute pictures of dogs – I’ll start. This handsome hound and complete poser is my dog Charlie:
3. ‘Embrace your geekiness day’ (July 13th). For some reason, this day is copywritten, and I have no idea how or why… some people view the term ‘geek’ with a negative connotation. Are they jealous of your knowledge and skills? I certainly think so.
4. ‘Shark awareness week’ (11th July-18th July). This 
one’s a bit less niche – it’s used to raise awareness about sharks from marine biologists and conservationists, mainly to educate people on the importance of sharks to the ecosystems of our world’s oceans. With that being said, here’s some fast facts about sharks you may not know – maybe they’ll prove useful in a future icebreaker question at a group interview – ‘tell us an interesting fact’:
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- Sharks are older than dinosaurs and have been around for 420 million years
- Sharks have special electroreceptor organs which enable them to sense electromagnetic fields and temperature shifts in the ocean
- Shark skin feels like sandpaper and has a similar structure. This is because it helps reduce friction, so the shark can swim faster in water
- When you flip a shark upside down, they go into a complete trance, called tonic immobility, like when someone is st…uck in the middle of an exam.
- Sharks are older than dinosaurs and have been around for 420 million years
5. Up last is take your houseplants for a walk day. 
I have no clue how this is a thing, but I do know that around 99% of my friends at uni had a houseplant (or 10), and around 50% of the plants didn’t survive the first few weeks, so maybe a walk could do them some good! I’m not sure if I’d be able to carry around all of one of my friend’s houseplants though…
And on that note, I hope everyone has a wonderful and creative July, whatever it is you choose to celebrate! Stay tuned for our future blog posts, covering everything from study skills, to events we run at Resilife, and more.
We’d also love to have some students blog for us, whatever your style is – if you’re interested then please reach out to beth.robinson@bristol.ac.uk