50 things about me

So I've been watching a lot of YouTubers doing this tag recently, and as I've slightly neglected you in the last few weeks, I feel I owe you something decent. So here you go: 50 things about me!

1. I lived in 5 different houses in three different towns before I moved, when I was 10, to where I am now.
2. I was born in London, and I was registered, in Lambeth, on Christmas Eve.
3. It took me a long time to decide whether I wanted to do Biology or History for A-level, and it took until my first history lesson to realise that I made the right choice.
4. When I was about nine, I went through a phase of winning loads of magazine competitions, but unfortunately, that has been and gone.
5. My little sister is nearly thirteen, although she looks about nine.
6. I am 5'11" - taller than my mum!
7. I only discovered Nerdfighteria and the wider joys of YouTube in the summer of 2013.
8. I was planning on going to Summer in the City this year with my friends, but it appears that it sold out without telling anybody, so that plan's gone down the drain.
9. I did gymnastics for four years, but I was never good enough to be allowed to compete - I did the "rec group" once a week just for fun.
10. I have a tendency to fangirl A LOT (so it's probably a good thing I'm not going to SitC!)
11. I have mocks on Wednesday and Thursday :(
12. When I was younger, we used to have to dress up on World Book Day, and I have dressed up as Mildred Hubble from The Worst Witch, Clarice Bean, and Yvaine from Stardust to name a few.
13. I have a VERY sweet tooth.
14. I can easily spend an entire afternoon reading.
15. I can read VERY fast.
16. I was one of the first in my class to learn to read, and I skipped out two shelves because I could already read the books easily.
17. After that, I became the school's youngest "Free Reader" - I could read books for older children (shock horror!)
18. I read the sixth Harry Potter book when I was 7.
19. The first concert I ever went to was Lostprophets, which, in light of recent events, I'm not so proud of.
20. The last concert I went to was Kasabian.
21. I have a slight obsession with pens, notebooks and stationery in general.
22. When I was in year nine, I made a silver necklace for my DT GCSE, and I wore it for every single one of my GCSE exams from 2011-2013, AND on results day, to bring me luck. It worked :)
23. I am afraid of spiders, doctors, dentists and pain.
24. I'm also scared of speaking in front of people, but I'm dealing with that.
25. (Half way there!) I am a grammar Nazi :L
26. I've always been quite low in the social standing at school, purely because I read and am quite clever.
27. When I did my History coursework in year 11, I listened to ONLY Coldplay in each writing session (6 hours' worth) and there are now some Coldplay songs that I associate with castles.
28. In the whole of GCSE, I never got lower than a B grade.
29. I am part of many many fandoms.
30. Macarons from Ladurée in Covent Garden are some of the nicest things I have ever eaten.
31. I like to be tidy, but I don't dislike untidiness.
32. I'm slightly OCD when it comes to page layout and tables/grids and things like that.
33. I am appalling at art and drawing.
34. I work as a waitress/coffee maker at a café in my town.
35. I am addicted to the Internet.
36. I never wear make-up.
37. I play in a steel band called "Panem" at my school.
38. At the moment, I'm reading The Mortal Instruments, and I'm about to start City of Glass.
39. My favourite colour is red.
40. I wear a daffodil on my coat because Marie Curie Cancer Care looked after my Opa before he died in 2012.
41. I've taken taster classes in Ballroom, Latin and Flamenco dancing.
42. The other day, I wrote "2012" in my German book instead of "2014".
43. I never wanted to learn Spanish, but after a couple of lessons with a fantastic teacher, I was hooked.
44. I learn three foreign languages: French, Spanish and German.
45. Last summer, I did five days of work experience in the MFL department at school and loved it.
46. I'm an introvert.
47. I enjoy baking, but I never have enough time nowadays.
48. My guilty television pleasure is Waterloo Road.
49. Next summer, I hope to spend three weeks Interrailing around Europe with my friends to celebrate the end of A-levels before going to university.
50. I still have my two favourite toys from when I was little, named Rabbit and Piggy. Rabbit has had several ear transplants and full facial reconstructive surgery.

So there you go, now you know a little bit more about the person behind the words, as it were. I hope you enjoyed it and will carry on reading!

P.S. Don't forget to check out the new blog that I've started with my friend Jenni: makestwoofus.blogspot.com :)

New blog!

Ok, so I'm sorry I neglected you, dear readers (if there are any of you who aren't spambots), but I've been really busy: I have mocks this week and a coursework deadline that I'm sort of already behind on. So I thought I'd just check in today, and let you know that I have something new and exciting that I'm working on with my friend Jenni (you can see her blog in the "About Me" section). We've started a joint blog and will be posting on alternate weeks about things in the news and current affairs that we find interesting. I've already posted about same-sex marriage and languages lessons in schools. You can find us at makestwoofus.blogspot.com, so please come and read what we post!

That's all for the moment as I should really be writing an essay just now, so keep reading and don't forget to check out my other blog :)

My 2013

My friend Jenni (fromjenniferseyes.blogspot.co.uk) did one of these, so I thought I would too. This year has been one of the most defining years of my life, and while I'm glad it's over, there were some great moments that I don't want to forget.

I think the main thing this year has been the fact that I took my final GCSE exams in May and June. I took fourteen this summer, but we worked it out and overall, since the summer of 2011, I've taken 28 sit-down-in-the-hall exams, as well as 5 orals, a whole day practical dance exam and countless mocks and pieces of coursework. But it all paid off when my results came in in August (the 22nd - a date I'll never forget), and they were better than I could have hoped for.

However, during these incredibly stressful few months, there were some fun points too. I had my last day of teaching on 21st May, when we all got our shirts signed and then had a really lovely leavers' assembly, which loads of the teachers came to, and we sang and laughed and cried and it was very emotional. However, this was right in the middle of exams, so we couldn't dwell on it for long.

After exams though, we had Prom, where we could dwell on leaving all we liked :) It was an amazing evening, where we all chatted and danced and cried (but only a bit!) We all got dressed up in pretty dresses and it was really good fun.

The day after prom, I started a week of work experience in the languages department at school, which was really good fun and so interesting, but attracted a lot of strange looks from teachers in other departments which all said "but I thought you'd left?!?" I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it confirmed what I want to do with my life: I want to teach languages.

Having worked out that makes what comes next easier: I started sixth form in September, and aside form making some fantastic new friends, I've really enjoyed my subjects, although at times I've found things hard. But the future looks bright, and I've decided on a course: French and Spanish with Linguistics (or as close to that as I can find), and the search for universities has begun, so I'd expect some posts about that in the coming months!

Thank you for reading this blog for the past few months since I've set it up, and as one of my new year's resolutions is to post more, I hopefully won't be as neglectful as I have been recently ;). Happy 2014!

Birthday and Christmas Book Haul!

I'm back! I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas (or if you don't celebrate it, a very nice holiday/family-seeing time), and I hope that everyone has a very happy 2014. 

I can't remember whether I said or not, but my birthday was at the beginning of December, and I turned 17 - and I got a lot of books. I also got loads for Christmas last week, so I thought I'd combine them and do a gift-book haul. It's a long one, I'm afraid...

1. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. I haven't read this before, although I've seen the film (with Emma Watson in), and so for a while I've wanted to read the book because I really enjoyed the film. It's about a boy who's going through a rough patch, and how he survives high school.

2. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers. A couple of months ago, I asked on Twitter for more classics to read, and this is one of the ones that came up quite a lot. It's about a deaf-mute called John Singer who becomes the confidant of everyone in his small town, and I thought it sounded really interesting.

3. Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys. Now this one I have read before, and oh how I cried. It's  set in 1941, and is the story of a Lithuanian girl called Lina, and how she is moved from labour camp to labour camp by the Soviet Russians. It's a very moving read which I would recommend to anyone.

4. The Girl Who Fell From The Sky, by Simon Mawes. I wrote about this last week.

5. How Language Works, by David Crystal (Nerd Book #1). This is a book all about language, how it is formed, how languages die, how we perceive speech and dialect and multilingualism, to name just a few. I'm really looking forward to reading this as Linguistics is something that I'm very passionate about and I want to take further.

6. 84 Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff. This true story is a collection of letters between Hanff, in New York, and the booksellers at 84 Charing Cross Road, London. They become firm friends and I'm excited to read it.

7. Vivian Versus the Apocalypse, by Katie Coyle. I discovered this book by watching a video by Sanne Vliegenthart (booksandquills - there's a link under the 'My Favourites' tab), who works for Hot Key Books, the company which published this book, and I immediately wanted to read it. It's about a girl whose parents disappear after a religious rapture, which she doesn't believe in, and how she and the others who are left behind deal with what comes next.

8. The Story of English in 100 Words, by David Crystal (Nerd Book #2). This book tells the story of the English Language, and how it evolved over time, by using 100 words that all represent significant changes in the language's development.

9. The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes), by Alain-Fournier. This is the English translation of a book that I have in the original French, but haven't been able to understand much of - hopefully with the help of this translation, I'll be able to work my way through the French.

10. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce. I'd heard good things about this book, and when I read what it was about, I was intrigued and so I am looking forward to reading it. It's about a man who unexpectedly leaves home, and walks from one end of the country to the other, in order to "save someone else's life."

11. Where Angels Fear To Tread, by E.M. Forster. Again, I've seen the film and wanted to read the book - it's about a widow who embarrasses her late husband's family by running away to Tuscany and  becoming involved with a much younger man.

12. The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien. I felt I had to read this because all my friends are raving about both the book and the film, so I'll be reading this before I see either of the films. I think it's a prequel to Lord Of The Rings...?

13. The Night Rainbow, by Claire King. This is a book about a young girl named Pea growing up in the South of France, whose neighbour Claude may be keeping a secret...

14. Some Kind of Fairy Tale, by Graham Joyce. This is, according to the blurb, about woods and clearings, folk tales and family histories, and I'm really looking forward to reading it.

15. The Isobel Journal, by Isobel Harrop. I was looking through this the other day, and it's so beautiful! A lovely book full of sketches and photos that completely sum up the life of a teenage girl - and she studied English Language A-Level!

16. Wordsmiths and Warriors, by David and Hilary Crystal (Nerd Book #3). This book picks out moments in the history of the English Language that were specific to a certain place, and tells you all about the development and what it means to the town/city/village today.

17. Last, but by no means least... Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey! Need I say more? :)

The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Simon Mawer, among other things.

So although I did babysit last Saturday (the 14th - sorry again), I didn't have abundant free time as I was watching The Paradise and re-reading The Fault in Our Stars, which I reckon are perfectly adequate excuses for not writing.

I did my speech at the dance show.... and I didn't die!! I was petrified before going on, but after that, it was fine! I didn't have much time to think about it after, which probably helped: I had to go on, talk, go off to give Miss the microphone, then come on again and dance. Two days later, I had to talk to my tutor group because I wanted to be a tutor rep (I didn't get it, by the way), and I wasn't scared at all! This can only be a good thing and it means I'm one step closer to becoming a teacher, as overcoming my glossophobia was one big obstacle in the way. Hopefully now I am on the way to eradicating it completely, and this has made me very happy.

One of the books I got for my birthday was called "The Girl Who Fell From The Sky" by Simon Mawer, and this weekend I read it. It didn't take me too long to read, and so it was ideal for whiling away a Saturday afternoon after work. It's about a young woman called (among other things) Marian Sutro, who gets drafted into the SOE to go undercover in France during WWII. She has to do loads of training, including but not limited to shooting a gun and setting up a secret rendez-vous in Bristol. 

Eventually she finds herself parachuting into Southern France, then she travels to Occupied Paris in order to seek out a nuclear physicist who is of great use to the British government and scientific community. It was a fantastic book which I really enjoyed, and would highly recommend to others. One thing I really liked about it was the words, phrases, sentences and even whole conversations in French, which anyone who has read this blog before will realise is something I really like. It appealed not only to my literary nerd nature, but also to my language nerd nature, and I really love books that do that.

That's all I can think of to write for now, and I probably won't write again until the new year, so to all those who celebrate it, Merry Christmas, and to all those who don't, Happy Holidays, and to everyone, have a happy new year, and I'll see you all again in 2014 :)

I am 17!

So again I must apologise for neglecting this blog. Sorry.

But it was my birthday on Friday, and now I am 17! Loads of my friends are getting driving lessons for their birthdays, but I'm not - turns out my parents' cars are the two most expensive to insure for under 24s. Instead, I got.... a Cambridge satchel!! It's a 15", and it's red. I like red. I also got a red spotty purse and lots and lots of books (not complaining). One of my other best gifts was a sheep hottie which I have named Minimoy. I suppose I must now give context: the French name for the film "Arthur and the Invisibles" is "Arthur et des Minimoys", and it took my friend and I a long time to work out the word "Minimoy" when we had to translate a film review. We have since adopted it into our respective idiolects, along with "le wifi", which my French teacher thoroughly hates.

It was our school music concert yesterday evening, and I was performing as part of the second steel band, Panem (formerly Pan O'Chocolat - don't even ask). We played "Hot Hot Hot", and had a really great time, although we had to say goodbye to our old LSP (Leader of Student Progress - Head of Year), as it was his last concert before he leaves to be Head of Music at a new school after Christmas. It was very sad - he was our LSP for five years, from year 7 to 11, and I will miss him enormously, as he was a fantastic influence, and he was very easy to talk to.

In a whirlwind week of performances, it's our school dance show tomorrow, and I will be in two dances, and I'm also being a runner, and I have to introduce one of the dances. To 400+ people. It would be an understatement to say that I am terrified. I haven't done public speaking since year nine (three years ago), and I absolutely hated it. So that'll be fun.

Anyway, au revoir and adiós, and I'll try to update you on the speech on Friday, as I'm babysitting then, and will have (hopefully) abundant free time.

Things

So this week, I have discovered the joys of learning about my ancestry. It turns out that I have a LOT of relatives. Including a third cousin, two years younger than me, who is French.
I have also dropped dance AS as I was finding the workload too heavy, but that has meant that I've had to start General Studies. The only upside I can think of about General Studies is that it might give me some ideas of things to write about on here, although unfortunately I will not be writing my views on the Burqa.

I also have some big news. In February, I am going to Spain for a week's work experience, and we've just found out where we're going - Segovia! I've promised my friend, who isn't going, that I will blog every evening to keep her up to date, so it's up to you lot to hold me to that promise.

In other news, Catching Fire comes out on Thursday, but I don't know when I'm seeing it yet, although when I do see it I will hopefully review it on here. Also: Doctor Who! Not long to wait now for the 50th Anniversary Special!

So yeah... There's some things. Byeee!