Summer Photography

So summer has pretty much finished, I have had 2 months of fun and adventures and now I have started my first proper job as a customer assistant!  I have been wanting to sort through all my photos from the summer and pick some to share with you on my blog for a little summary of summer in visual form, hope you enjoy.

These photos were all taken on either my iphone (6) or my Nikon D3300 (DSLR).

There were just some of the photos I took over the last couple of months.  I hope everyone had a brilliant summer and that autumn will bring more memories! 

Georgie

xx

Advice for Sixth Formers

As you all know, I have just finished my two years of Sixth Form and A Levels.  So I decided I will pass on my advice and any tips I picked up from the experience which I believe will help and are essential for reducing the stress of A Levels.

Everyone knows that A Levels are the hardest 2 years you will probably go through in your educational life.  But take this fact seriously, don't go into the process thinking it'll be a breeze because you're only doing 4 subjects and be prepared for the stress levels to shoot upwards and the sleep patterns to mess up drastically.  Of course, be excited about this new chapter where you get to pick the subjects you want to learn more about, but it is just a massive step from what you are normally used to in secondary school.

Right let's get on with the actual advice and tips on how to survive sixth form because that's what you have came here for;

1. Organisation is key

When I had my first assembly as a Sixth Former and my form tutor/parent evening (thing) all I heard was to be organised.  Now I thought of myself of being an organised person before A Levels, I love creating lists and keeping on top of things to reduce stress so I just kept at what I was doing.  But because of the fast pace of learning in sixth form I didn't adapt my organisation skills to it quick enough.

Tip: actually write down your homework and the due date for it.  I was a culprit of not doing this, especially in the second year, however towards the end of my sixth form life I found a brilliant homework organiser app for my phone called 'The Homework App' where you can add in your different classes, timetable and also your homework.  You can prioritise any homework you want over others and you can set an alarm to remind you that it is due in soon.  Now I wished I found this app before the last month of my sixth form life as I just couldn't be bothered to write down my homework in my homework diary as the teacher tended to say the homework as we were packing up, whereas my phone was always to hand so I definitely recommend looking into something like this if you are like me.

2. Use your frees wisely!

Now because you are only doing four subjects in your first year (only haha!!!) you get free periods.  Now you tend to make loads of friends in your frees and this is were your "I'm going to get my life back on track" attitude starts to fall apart.  Of course give yourself a break, especially if you've just had double philosophy and you are about to have double maths or something but don't do nothing.  You can find someone in your classes and ask them for help, work together on the homework or just go to a quite corner, plug your earphones in and get your life on track like you said you would.  I tended to chat with my mates 90% and do notes 10% of the time because I just couldn't work in that environment, so whenever I could, I would go home in my frees to be able to work on notes or essays.

3. Ask for help!

A Levels are lot more face passed in the learning section than GCSE's were so that will probably be the biggest change you will notice.  There's no re-going over something, so if you don't get it the first time ask your teacher or ask a friend, otherwise you'll get to the 50 mark essay homework and you won't have a clue what you are doing. (totally not writing from experience or anything...)

4. Coping with the stress and pressure

 
Everyone copes with stress and pressure in different ways, I cope by listening to music, doing exercise or watching something on YouTube or Netflix oh and of course a nice relaxing lush bath.  But you will need to take some time out for yourself, don't overwork yourself, keep persevering on something but if you don't understand something and you are getting frustrated take some time out of the zone and go for a walk or watch an episode of Friends and then come back to it.

5. Revision

After Christmas you will feel the pressure of exams coming up, yes they are about 5-6 months away but mocks will either be just round the corner or just done.  You will need to figure out when you should start revising, whether that's after the Easter holidays, in February, whatever you think is best.  Are you one of those people who like to start early and do a couple of hours a day or are you one to start a little later than others and do loads a day?  You will know this from your GCSE exams and mocks, tailor your revision to you, if someone else has started revising and you haven't don't fret, you know what you are doing and that's all that matters.

~

I hope you found this advice somewhat helpful, I'm sorry this blog post has been long but I just wanted to get across some advice and tips of surviving the most difficult two years of education of your life so far!

Georgie
xx

My Gap Year Bucketlist

So I am pretty (100%) sure that I have mentioned the fact I am having a gap year on this blog before.  I decided to take my summer holidays as if it was a normal summer holidays after A Levels and my actual gap year to start in September.

This blog post is to remind myself that I need to keep my mind straight and not just waste this year because I may not get the chance to do whatever I want (with the little money I have) for a whole year again.  It will allow me to aim for something when I have no proper structure or schedule for the first time in my life and I am responsible for everything I do.

Therefore I have constructed this list of things I want to do within the next year to ensure I don't to waste it at home doing nothing.

Get a job

I need to get a job to do the activity I want to do the most and have been dreaming of doing for ages now.  I am thinking either a coffee shop/cafe, travel agents, my city's arenas (where concerts and events are held) basically something that I have an interest in really but that's just ideally I literally don't mind anything I just need a job!

Travel

Yeah yeah yeah, everyone travels on their gap year I know but this is what I have been wanting to do for so long, I even want it to be apart of my career when I am older.  I have so many ideas about this that I need to get a job and see what I can afford, for how long and when.

Figure out my university course

Some of you may or may not know the way I am feeling about the degree I have chose to do at uni, at the moment, and through out the past 8-9 months, I am just unsure and think it isn't actual the degree for me.  So I have looked at other courses and I am going to go to the university (which I will be studying at next year) open day to help me.

Apprenticeship or Flight Attendent?

If I don't think university is for me, I am seriously looking into applying to become a flight attendant, or maybe there will be an apprenticeship which I think I would love to do with travel or media.

Be more independent
If I was going to go to univeristy this year I would be moving out and that is what I really want to do, now I'm having a gap year I cannot afford to do that so I want to be more indepenedant in a different way.

Don't be afraid of trying new things

I want to push my boat out a little bit away from my comfort zone, try new things I wouldn't necessarily have and enjoy it!  Take on the opportunities which I am unsure about because it could have turned out to be amazing, but also know my own limit.

Do more of what I love
By this I mean maybe try a course, improve my skills for my favourite hobbies such as photography or make-up and let myself be more creative with ideas.  This will simultaneously let me do more of what I love as well as extending my knowledge of them.

So hopefully this time next year the majority will be done and dusted, if not everything. I want this next year to be the best, I get to shape the year the way it pans out so I have no excuses!

Georgie
xx

Summer in the City Day 2

So day 2 of Summer in the City was just as amazing as day one.  Izzy and I had a lazy morning and didn't get into the ExCel untill 11am to have a brunch.

 We decided the first thing to do was to go the the creative process panel at 12pm which had Jack Howard, Lucy Moon, Niki 'n Sammy and some other YouTubers.  It was great to see their different thought processes into being creative and what environment they prefer to work in.

Inbetween the panel and our meet and greet we got ourselves some face glitter from one of the stalls in the SITC hall and decided to make ourselves look fabulous with blue and sliver glitter on our faces!

We then met up with some other of Izzy's YouTube friends which was lovely!

Our meet and greet was at 4pm to see the beautiful Bethan Leadley aka MuscialBethan.  Izzy and I had met her before at her gig in Birmingham January last year and she was just as lovely.

After meeting Bethan we decided we should get a vegetable samosa for our tea/dinner as we spotted them earlier and Izzy and I have an obbession with samosas so it was a must!  But literally just as we walked back into the hall of SITC with our samosa, just as I predicted, we bumped into a Youtuber we both watch.  Sam King!  So we quickly ate our samosas and had a mint before we said hi and acted all awkward as usual!

Of course I had to bump into a YouTuber I watch in the toilette before SITC ended, how classy!  But I got to meet Becky from BambinoBecky, deffo check her channel out if you haven't already, she is hilarious and so happy.

We decided to just chill at the main stage and watch the different performances including The Midnight Beast and Emma Blackery to end our first SITC experience.

~

I think I can happily say that I will be going back next year and it definitely got me inspired.

Georgie
xx

Summer in the City Day 1

I cannot believe I can actually write this blog post.  It has been so many years of saying to Izzy 'we should really go to SitC one year'  (and vice versa) until we finally did it and I am so glad we went when we did.

We decided to get the best experience out of Summer in the City (SITC) we should go for at least the weekend and stop over in a hotel.  As much as creator day sounded fun, we decided against it as we were doing this weekend on a budget!

Speaking of a weekend in London on a budget we decided that we should get the earliest train down to London on the Saturday morning of our first day of SITC.  As much as we would have loved to have made it easier for ourselves and have gone down the afternoon before, we just didn't have the money to spend  on an extra night in a hotel.

I set my alarm for 5am to give myself an hour to sort out everything, double and triple check I have everything and get ready.  Yet the alarm didn't go off and my mum came into my room at 5:30am (still don't know how she was awake) to wake me up. As I only had half an hour to get myself ready I only had time to do the most basic and tragic makeup look, so excuse my face in the photos!

Other than that our journey down to the ExCel Centre was great considering what happened to us on the tube last time when we were both in London to see Shawn Mendes.  We handed our suitcases to our hotel and we finally could go into the ExCel Centre where SITC was being held.

As we walked through the hallway of the Excel and got to the SITC event where everyone was waiting, we bumped into two of Izzy's YouTube friends (who were lovely) whilst we got our wristbands for the weekend.

It wasn't until just after 11am when we got into the actual halls where the event was held but my gosh was it packed full of fun things to do!  Merch stands were everywhere, small stalls with cute artsy bits you could buy, charity stands, open mic stage in an inflatable dome and best of all there were fun fair rides!

Of course the first thing Izzy and I did after looking around was go on a ride.  It was probably the best £2.50 I have ever spent I loved the ride so much!

sorry Victoria was cropped out but this was the only photo I got of the panel

At 12pm we decided to go to the Fashion and Beauty panel, it was such an interesting panel to go and see as they discussed all the different aspects of beauty and fashion and the different spin and view different people and YouTubers have.

After the panel we went to queue, as true British people love, for our first meet and greet which was Carly Rowena.  Carly is such a fantastic YouTuber who deserves so much more recognition than she does.  She does fitness and health videos, personal videos, weekly vlogs (my fave) and her personality comes across throughout her channel which is what I love in a YouTuber.  Izzy and I even got to be in her weekly vlog which will be up on Thursday at 4:30pm so watch out for us!!!

When it was nearly 4pm we decided to queue for the next meet and greet as I wanted to see Matt DeFreitas from RollUpHills on the open mic acoustic stage at 5:15pm so we were on a somewhat tight schedule.

Our next meet and greet was to meet Victoria from Inthefrow and Roxi from Roxxsaurus and they were so so lovely.  We had a quick chat, they signed my phone case and took a selfie.  These girls are very much more on the beauty and fashion side compared to Carly but just as brilliant.

sorry for such an awful photo but it seems to be by only photo...

We legged it over the the open mic stage and just about caught the end of Harry Seaton's performance, a brilliant musician on YouTube.  I have been loving his EP Self Titled the past month or so which I mentioned in my July Favourites.

Next Matt came on stage and I got to be front row to the stage. I have been watching his channel for 2 and a half years now and his covers and original songs always blow me away so I was so happy to see him live.

We also got to meet both Harry and Matt after their performances and they were such lovely guys and so sweet.

Of course we had to watch the YouTube awards where people received their 100,000 or 1 million play button on stage.   Afterwards I finally managed to find Izzie Naylor, a YouTuber who also does covers who I have been watching for the past 2 and a half years and recently she's been vlogging on a newly created channel of her's (also keep eyes out for that one, ya girl may be in it!).  She was the sweetest person and was so nice to have a little chat to.

Izzy and I ended up queuing up to buy some Evan merch as I wanted the phone case he tweeted about earlier that week but we were waiting till he was on his merch stand and he was!

We finished the day watching Bethan, Dodie and Jack & Dean perform on the main stage to end a long and fun packed day.

~~

Well that was day one of SITC, Izzy has literally just put her vlog of the weekend up so you can watch that here if you want.

Hope you guys enjoyed this blog, even though it is extremely long!  Day two should be up by the end of the week.

Georgie
xx

Getting Our Puppy

So you may know that my parents decided to go forward with the idea of getting a dog from the blog post I wrote back in June.

Tuesday 9th August was the date we got to go up to our breeder's home (who was absolutely amazing btw!), early morning to collect Bobbie.  I'm not sure if I've said before but we settled with the name Bobbie in the end.

Mum has been the most excited for this day for absolutely ages and everyday on our two week holiday in the Netherlands she would check Facebook to see if there were any updates about our pup.

When the day finally arrived we all got into the car to drive the 1 hour 30 minutes to our breeder's house to return with Bobbie.  It was a very weird day, as it still hadn't felt like we were actually getting a puppy but once we got her in our car it finally felt real!

Once we got Bobbie home we let her out in the garden and let her have a sniff around the living room.  As we also have two cats we were careful not to introduce them to each other too early.

We had my Nan, Bompie (aka Grandad) and Aunt round in the afternoon so Bobbie could socialise with more of the family.  The next day my Aunt bought her 8/9 month year old miniature dachshund round which could have gone either way, bad or good. I am pleased to say that it went amazingly well - they both got along so we are going to keep doing it on a more regular basis.

Here's some photos I took of her playing in the garden for one of the first times!

So Bobbie has settled in fairly well the past couple of days, she has encountered our cats, had a couple of car journeys and has seen her 'cousin' puppy!  She is very intrigued with the new and loves a good sniff and look around a new area.

Georgie
xx