Sunday 31 March 2013

EASTER!

Happy Easter everyone! Sorry about the long wait in between posts again, for the millionth time, work has taken priority. But this last week has been as awesome as it has crazily busy!
On Monday I went to a UCAS convention at Reading Uni with college which was quite fun! The English talk I went to was pretty boring, mainly because the lecturer was just dull and because I don't even want to do English, I was just there to take notes for Kate! Reading is actually one of my possible choices for Uni so it was nice being able to look around and see what it's like. I actually really liked it but some of the buildings were a bit boring and dull looking. We then went and spoke to loads of reps from different Universities and got prospectuses which was actually really useful! I had a really good chat with the lady at the stall for UCL which helped me understand what it's like living in London. I think overall I picked up about 15 prospectuses when I only went in for 7!! It's funny how you literally go in and just pick up any that look interesting, even when you have no intentions of going there!

So many!!! There's Exeter, UCL, Reading, Durham, Birmingham, Warwick,
Bournemouth, Leicester, York, Aberystwyth, Edinburgh, Royal Holloway and King's College.

I also ended up going to UCL for a taster day on Wednesday which was amazing. We had loads of lectures which was fantastic and the lecturers were all just brilliant. The building we were in was really nice and splat bang in central London, I walked down to Oxford Street and back in under half an hour! It's definitely helped me judge if it's somewhere I could see myself going, and I really can! I'm honestly so excited because it's also one of the best Unis for my course, so if I get in, it will be so amazing! Just need to get AAB first...

On Thursday, because it was the end of term, me and my family went to watch The Croods. Its been ages since we all went to the cinema together so it was nice having a bit of family time out. It was actually a pretty amazing film, it was so funny! It reminded me of Ice Age a bit at some points and seeing as that's one of my favourite films, there's nothing wrong with that!

I went round a friends house to watch some band films (All Time Low are so funny backstage!) and it was really nice catching up with my secondary school friends because they're awesome! It was a lot of fun just sitting around and eating pizza and chatting whilst awesome music goes on in the background.

Now finally on to today.....EASTER! I love it so much, it's like a chocolate Christmas! Chocolate makes me happy so this is always a good time for me, especially when I need something to keep me going whilst working!

SO MUCH YUMMINESS. yay! And also Crème Eggs, which are my favourites.
Sadly, despite the yummy chocolate, I have to do work, so I'll be back sometime in the next week I assume! Byee!
Jess xx

Sunday 24 March 2013

Birthday birthday birthday!!! Yay!

So it was my birthday on Wednesday and it was just perfect! I got some really lovely presents which were fabulous (pictures to come further down!) and I went out a couple of times!
I went to lunch at Maison Blanc, and it is literally my favourite restaurant/cafe ever. It's a tad expensive but SO worth it. Their cheese and ham crossaint is to die for. I also took away the cutest little Easter bunny cupcake, it was pink and strawberry flavoured and the icing sparkled! It tasted so good!
How adorable is that?! Shame that one of the feet broke in the box!
I also went out to tea with my family at a local (ish) restaurant and that was also fantastic! We go there on special occasions and I decided to have something different from the ribs this time (mainly because it wasn't on the menu), but I had belly pork instead which was divine, and it had some of the best crackling on it that I've had in a long time! 
Even though I knew about quite a few of my presents this year due to me picking out quite a few of them (Crew warehouse sales always have the nicest clothes but you always need to try them on just in case!), they were amazing! The presents I didn't know about were also great, my family and friends know just what to get me!

Navy & white cardigan from le parents, Crew warehouse sale.
Teal cardigan from my grandma, White Stuff.
Fan photo album and white pen from Lauren, Paperchase.
Navy star scarf from parents, Crew warehouse sale.
Fox scarf with button details from grandma, White Stuff.
Navy patterned scarf from Zoe and Cecilie, not sure where from!
Aren't they all gorgeous?!
I love that I got 3 new scarves, even more to add to my rapidly growing collection which makes me rather happy!
My auntie got me this Radley purse and I love it so much, it's unreal! it's made to look like a letter!

Absolutely love the address and the Radley dog on the stamp, so cute!
The stitching on the back is even done to make it look like a letter!
I went out driving at Mercedes Benz world yesterday and it actually went so well, I'm super happy! My provisional still hasn't shown up yet which is annoying but I'm quite glad that I still get to drive around on their road track instead of being on the road with proper drivers; I'd be too scared!
I did my extended project presentation on my birthday too which was so scary...I hate talking in front of people like that, I always mess up or sound really shaky! My teacher said I did pretty well though which is always good!
I got an email this morning (well, Thursday, but I only saw it today!) from the ceramics teacher at college that my pot has been fired! I get to collect it on Tuesday which is awesome!
On Friday, I went to Café Nero with my friend Katie and this guy I've seen around (new friendship acquired!) and she showed me a game called Happy Jump. It's honestly more addicting than Malteasers. It's like Doodle Jump but much more awesome because you're a JELLY. You collect coins to buy items for the jelly, you can even change to cupcakes or ice cream! There's even a Zombie jelly which is just awesome! It's just adorable. You have to avoid flies but the only way to kill them is to eat an apple and zoom through them with your added speed! It's probably going to turn in to my app that I turn to when I get bored! The best part is that it's free!
One of the most addictive games in existence...
Today is one of the few days that I've half taken off as a relaxation day. I did some work this morning when I actually got up...(accidentally missed breakfast because of this...oops!) and now I've had a long shower, taken my nail polish off, eaten some birthday chocolate from my grandma, browsed Pinterest and written a long overdue blog post! I'm going to paint my nails light blue in a bit too, it's either a cute Spring colour or a cold Winter colour so it fits with the stupid English weather at the moment which seems to be fluctuating between the two!

Best chocolate ever - thank you Grandma!
I'm going to a UCAS convention at Reading University with college which will be great fun! I get to sit through a talk about English at Uni (no intentions whatsoever of doing that but college forced me to go to one...so I picked the most interesting sounding one) and then one about Oxbridge which should be fun...kind of! I really want to go and talk to the reps of the Unis and get prospectuses though, that will be interesting!

I'm beyond happy that it's the Easter holidays on Friday, it'll be nice not having to wake up super early every day and then revising with a hot chocolate whilst sitting on my bed!
Jess xx

Monday 18 March 2013

A week in the life of Jess

Well this week has been rather hectic to say the least...I'm just glad to be back blogging again! I've missed it!
I've had a crazy amount of work, with exams looming, it's only destined to get worse sadly!
So...as I said on Monday, Friday and Saturday I actually went and did stuff!!
On Friday I went to the Classics open day at Oxford which was amazing! I met up with some friends by accident and ended up spending half of the day with them until I went for a quick tour around the Ashmolean museum. It was completely amazing!! The other people at the open day were so smart though, one guy read Ancient Greek backwards off a gem on display! It was amazing but scary that he could be a potential rival in getting a place at Oxford...
I lost my friends after the museum tour and I hung around with a girl that I met on the tour! Obviously being me, we ended up in the sweet shop!
I went to a lecture about Hercules and how he can be related to various colonies popping up and some events in history and stuff. It was actually pretty cool! And I felt quite proud that I recognised some of the authors of sources and knew something about them!
Oxford is absolutely breathtaking though, the buildings are gorgeous and they have all the shops anyone could ever need! The colleges are spread out over the whole city which is good because you have to actually walk to get to places so you get to see more of Oxford as you move around which is great!
It just looks crazily hard to get in to, and seeing the people I'm up against, it seems my chances of getting in there are dwindling by the second.
On Saturday I had a few girl friends round and I had a movie day/party for my birthday which is on Wednesday!! It was great seeing all of my old school friends again because it's been ages. I love how it always feels like it's only been a day or two since we last saw each other when we meet up, I love them so much! It was nice to see my college friend and outside any school friend got on with the others super well though! Always makes things easier! They got me some fantastic presents too, they know me so well!

The Dan & Phil top is amazing; Katie, you're fantastic!
The Colin the Caterpillar and Percy Pig sweets are from my friend Phoebe,
a reminder of our awesome GCSE Geography lessons!
The Exploding TARDIS mug, mini malteaster bunnies and stickers are from Julia
 who definitely summed me up in 3 presents!!
I love these girls!

My mum's dog walking friends also got me a gorgeous Roman bird pendant and it's just amazing and beautiful and I love it!

How gorgeous is this?!

I got a free today instead of Extended project and my presentation (YAY!) so I went to Boots and took advantage of their 'Buy 2 Barry m nail polishes, get £1 off' deal and bought these beauties! I ended up spending £10.96 which isn't a lot for 4 nail polishes for a fairly decent brand! I'm currently wearing the Gelly nail paint (far right on the pic) and its super shiny and it's gone on pretty well! They're all great colours for when Spring/Summer finally show up so I feel super prepared for then with regards to my nail colours!
I love these, from left to right: Berry, Mint Green, Blue Moon, Prickly Pear

I'm beyond excited that it's my birthday in 2 days, this week feels like it's going to be good; I've already got an A on my last Ancient History essay which I'm super proud of! I think I'm getting the hang of my subjects now!

Anyway, I'm tired so I'm off! Hopefully I'll blog again soon, I've missed this crazy amounts!
Jess xx

Monday 11 March 2013

Whistle while you work...

So, work has taken over my life, I don't have time to do anything but work and I'm still not getting time to revise!! What's that even about?! It doesn't make sense to me!
Luckily, I've been working from my bed so I can get home, slip in to my pjs and sit on my bed doing work until stupidly late hours for a school night. I'm super happy that I have a YouTube playlist of calm songs that I just have on in the background as I do my classics notes so it isn't as bad as it could be!

Song list
40 Mark Strasse - The Shins
Just Be - Paloma Faith
O Children - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (The song used in Harry Potter - DH 1!!)
Down the Drain - Orla Gartland
Moving to New York - The Wombats
World Without You - Hudson Taylor
Fools - Lauren Aquilina
Bones - Lewis Watson
Pompeii (acoustic version) - Bastille
King - Lauren Aquilina
Rings Round Roses - Gabrielle Aplin

So there you have it! Some of my favourite songs at the moment and all good to just do work to as none of them are really get up and dance!
I'll post on later in the week, some things are actually happening at the end of the week so I will finally have some bloggable material! Yay!
Jess xx

Thursday 7 March 2013

Results day...

First of all, I'm sorry I haven't posted in almost a week...my life has become exceedingly boring and so full of work and revision that I don't even have time to do a quick blog post! Sadly, the work load isn't going to be letting up any time soon so the blog posts are going to be a bit less frequent.
I started to make my Roman style pot for extended project on Tuesday and I'm happy that it's going pretty well! I have to finish it tomorrow so that will be fun! It's actually going pretty well so I'm happy at the moment with it.
I also got my grade report back and I'm predicted all Bs and an A in extended project, so crossed fingers I get that!
I got my Biology exam result back from January....I got a D. I'm really disappointed to be honest, I thought I'd actually done well but because I wasn't used to the way the questions worked, even if I knew everything, I still didn't get the marks for what I knew and it's rubbish. I probably lost so many marks for not saying a specific word, or writing something a specific way. I really hate exams for that.
My parents have sorted me out going to a 6 day revision course over Easter to hopefully improve my grade. I really want to get a lot better so I hope it goes well. I'm just so scared that by taking that much time out of my holiday for a subject I'm not taking next year, will I be risking messing up my other subjects that actually matter? It's so horrible to think that I can't re sit so whatever I get in summer is what I'm stuck with.
I hate exams. I wish they would test your knowledge rather than your ability to answer questions how the mark scheme wants it. It's complete crap in my opinion.
Jess xx

Sunday 3 March 2013

Birthday!

It was my brother's birthday today! He's now 15 and insists (as he does every year) that he's now only a year younger than me instead of two!
We went out for lunch which was nice, I had these really yummy ribs and then a hit waffle with honeycomb ice cream. It was bright orange but it was so tasty!
I also drank the can of Mello Yello which made me sad because its so yummy!!
But yeah, it was a good day! I got to see my auntie and uncle again and me & my brother didn't get annoyed at each other even once which was nice ^.^ it was a good day all in all! :)
Jess xx

Saturday 2 March 2013

Mickey and Minnie

I did my classics timed exam practice homework today and afterwards when my hand was hurting, I decided to paint my nails because it gave my hands a rest!
I realised I had red and black so I decided to do Disney style nails and put the Mickey Mouse symbol on some of my nails! For the first time doing a design on my nails for a looooong time, I think they turned out pretty damn good!


I'm pretty proud of these!
Taken on Instagram

Next time I have a decent amount of money, I think I'm going to take a trip to boots and buy some White, Yellow, Grey and probably some more Black nail polish. (my black is enamel and its quite gloopy, not very good for anything apart from dots...shame because it's a good nail polish!)
If I get these colours I'm going to do this design again (It'll be ruined in the next few days because I'm rubbish at making nail polish stay on...) and on the currently plain nails, I'm going to do a yellow bow in the middle and then little white spots on them! Mickey and Minnie nails! I love painting my nails but I haven't really done designs...plus I only have bobby pins and cocktail sticks so I can't do any amazing designs...I can improve with practice though!

It's my brother's birthday tomorrow so that will be fun! We're going out for a meal so I'm excited!
Jess xx


Friday 1 March 2013

Arguments

Just now, I saw one of those generic Facebook statuses, asking for an argument to happen. Within the last 5 minutes, there have already been 15+ comments, including a lot from people not involved in the argument. What I don't understand is why; if people have a problem with someone, why not inbox them or talk face to face so it's at least private instead of being displayed for all to see? Also, why do others feel the need to join in on arguments that have nothing to do with them? It's vaguely acceptable if they're your best friend and you're sticking up for them, but if you aren't particularly good friends with one of the people and are just joining in just to insult someone you don't like, what good does it do really?
I'll admit, I used to get in Facebook fights with people quite a bit about 2 years ago, but I luckily left behind the people and consequently the drama caused by this, and now I'm always happy and rarely argue with any of my friends! I definitely don't do it over a Facebook status. It's petty and pathetic that the person posting the status feels the need to post it, it's like they're looking for back up as they can't talk to the person civilly on their own.
We are grown up enough now to sort out any disputes we have with people away from the sight of others, without the stupid, bitchy comments that have nothing to do with the original point.
I'm less than 5 years away from entering the real world where everything is grown up and you have to deal with rubbish things people say every day! If people my age and older can't deal with their own problems in a way that is mature and not like a 13 year old girl, how are they anywhere near being let loose on the world and with a job?! It's just amazing to think that it's inevitable, and frankly, I'm worried.
Jess xx