Exams: The Big Push

I always knew that I would write a post on the final few days before my exams start just because I felt like I wanted, no NEEDED, to get everything out. All my thoughts about revision, exams and everything in between. I feel like it was only yesterday that I wrote about taking my GCSE's, which you can read about in Exams: Stressed or Relaxed?, and now I'm doing my AS Levels. I just cannot believe how quick this last year has gone, its absolutely unbelieveable.

I spent all of yesterday revising for Sociology and so I've decided to have a little bit of a break before I start revising Psychology later on today. My first exam is tomorrow and its only General Studies so I think I should be okay. I'm probably more nervous about doing exams in a different school rather than the actual exam itself. I think its because at my high school I knew what was going to happen, I knew where the room was, where I was going to sit and who was sitting around me. Since I'm doing my A-Levels at a different school, I have no idea what the hell is going on and that really scares me. I've been at that school for 8 months and I don't know where anything is apart from my own classes. What if I get lost? Or can't find my seat?

I have 9 exams in 2 weeks and then another one a fortnight afterwards, and so I probably won't write a post in the next few weeks. I will definitely update you as to how my exams went just because I feel like there are people out there who need some reassurance about the way they work, I know I did and still do.

This is point in the post where I start having heart palpiltations after realising how little revision I've actually done. I think I'm going to start right now so I just wanted to wish everybody good luck in any exams that they're preparing for or any coursework deadlines that they are finishing, whether thats GCSE or A Levels. I know its difficult but YOU CAN DO IT, this is the final push of revision before we're DONE.

You can read my last blog post here: REVIEW: 'You and I' by One Direction

REVIEW: 'You and I' by One Direction

Now usually I am pretty much up to date with pop culture I guess, most of the time because I see it trending on Twitter or because I read magazines and things like that. But this one sort of surprised me for some reason, I mean, when I heard that One Direction had released their new music video, I didn't go and watch it straight away. As you know, I am a big fan of One Direction and so it was pretty odd for me. But when I finally did see it, I liked it.

I am of course talking about 'You and I' by One Direction which was released on VEVO on the 18th of April 2014. That was just over a week ago and its almost got 18 MILLION views. I mean, its absolutely insane, it really is.

The video has a simple kind of idea I guess, it starts off with each of the boys individually morphing into each other as they walk along a pier. I don't actually know what the official technical term is but there was a bit of controversy in the last week or so, because apparently One Direction stole this type of special effect from an Australian boyband. Now I'm not being funny but I've never even heard of them and plus they probably didn't even have any part of directing the video. I mean, come on. By the way, Ben Winston was the director of 'You and I' and I think he did a really good job. He also directed 'Best Song Ever', 'Story of My Life' and 'Midnight Memories'.

You can also read my other One Direction music video reviews below:
REVIEW: Story of My Life
REVIEW: Midnight Memories


Overall, I REALLY like the video, I think they all look really good throughout and I really like the song in general. The instrumental melody sounds great, something about a guitar is just beautiful, it really is. Anyway, they sound really good together and Zayn's high note at the end was just PERFECT. If you haven't heard it then you definitely should. Its an absolute treat to the ears and the EYES. Now if you want to watch the video yourself then click here:

'You and I' by One Direction

Check out my last blog post: April Favourites 2014

April Favourites 2014

The last monthly Favourites I did was in January but I feel that I shouldn't write about things I like unless I'm absolutely sure I LOVE it. I also don't change things a lot and so its very rare that I use new things unless I need to. Some of these things will probably have been in a previous monthly Favourites post so I will link them below if they have. For some reason, I have just bought so much makeup lately and I really don't know why. Oh well.

Makeup Products:

Rimmel London ScandalEyes Rockin' Curves in 003 Extreme Black: I've only recently bought this because my previous mascara ran out. I didn't pick it for any particular reason, if I remember correctly I bought it as half of a 'Two-For-One' offer at Superdrug. I actually really like it, the wand is absolutely MASSIVE and so works perfectly on your top lashes. I don't use it on my lower lashes just because it clumps them together which I don't like. The shape of the wand adds plenty on volume to your lashes which is perfect; it was also relatively cheap as well, £6.99 so I think its a decent product to buy.





Rimmel London Stay Matte Power in 001 Transparent: I LOVE this power. It is my makeup saviour, it really is. I use this every single day to 'set' my concealer and T-zone, and only really briefly on the rest of my face. It just takes away the shine which I absolutely hate. I also think it softens your foundation, especially if you use liquid which I do, and makes your skin look FLAWLESS. I chose Transparent because I wasn't sure how the other ones would transfer onto my skin, so if you have trouble getting the right correct foundation or concealer, then I would suggest this one. At only £3.99, its an absolute perfect product and I would recommend it to anyone. And it was the other half of the 'Two-For-One' on Rimmel London products so BARGAIN.




Maybelline Fit Me Concealer in Deep 35: I have needed a new concealer for so long that this was literally the only reason why I went into Superdrug (I wasn't expecting to get distracted by mascara or powder, oops!). This one was pretty much the only one that I saw and so I didn't know what colour to get. I can never fit the right shade of anything and so I just guessed. The concealer matches my foundation which doesn't help because my foundation is a bit too dark, the joys eh. Anyway, instead of buying a new concealer, I just added 2 pumps of my mom's foundation into it to make it lighter so it was perfect.


Maybelline New York Eyestudio Lasting Drama Gel Eyeliner 24H in 01 Black: I have mentioned this in my November Favourites before but since then I did switch to another eyeliner. However, I am firmly back onto this one because it is just the BEST one I have ever used and I know I say that about a lot of things but I really mean it. Its just perfect. Its the perfect formula which produces a beautiful black line and I love it. You can read about it my November Favourites.




Hair Products:

Umberto Giannini Overnight Beauty Moisture Balm: I love this product, I think someone gave me it as part of a gift set or something because I know I've had it for so long. I use it the day after I've washed my hair just because I think it gives the best results. I put it all over my hair, then put some simple plaits in it and leave it overnight. This way just makes my hair feel so much better and so much softer. Another thing that I've noticed as well is that it locks my curls in a lot nicer so I think this is a really good product.

Feel free to check out my last blog post: Why do I write this blog?

Why do I write this blog?

Blogging is something that I really enjoy doing. Even though I haven't been doing it for long, almost a year now, I do like having control over something I've created by myself. There's something about being able to explain everything that's been going on in your head, that absolutely fascinated me. And that's the thing with blogs, they can be exactly the way you want them to be. You can make them about cooking or fashion, sports or gardening, makeup or lifestyle, or just a random mix of things like I do.



I always just sit on my bed when I write,
just because its the most comfortable

I like having the freedom to just sit down for 20 minutes to an hour, depending on the type of post, and just WRITE. I usually start with a topic that's been on my mind for a few days, or a new product I want to review, and then I just start. I don't really have to think about what I say because it all just comes out. I'll often stop and re-read things over to make sure they make sense but apart from that, I don't really filter myself because why should I? To me, this is my own little diary. Each post is a brief look into my world. My experiences. My life. And as I'm getting more experienced with it, you can see the change in my writing style from when I started. I'm confident with the way that I write and how to publish posts and things, even if I don't know how to follow other peoples blogs. But that's why I like doing this, because I'm learning. Every post documents a tiny part of the blogging world that I'm beginning to understand more and more each time. I know I'm inconsistent but trust me when I say that my little creation is always on the brain.
 

There are so many times where me and my friends have conversations and I realise that it would be the perfect blog post yet I never actually commit and write it. I do sometimes write posts but won't publish them if I don't feel like they're good enough. Its just about trying to make this the BEST that I can actually make it. And if you take anything from this, it should be that whatever you fancy like doing, there's always somewhere where you can start. Try it.

Feel free to check out my last post: World's WORST Teacher

World's WORST Teacher

Since I started my A-Levels at a different place to where I've spent the last 5 years of high school, I had to meet new teachers in September and learn different teaching styles. Now altogether, I have 9 teachers (2 for each subject plus one General Studies teacher) and I can safely say that 8 of them are amazing. I completely trust their ability in teaching me and feel that any failures that I have at the end of the year will be my fault, and my fault alone. Apart from Statistics.

My teacher is absolutely, positively, without a doubt, the WORST teacher I have ever encountered. I don't think she understands the course well enough herself, let alone confident enough to teach it. I don't think it would feel as bad if we were still at GCSE because as difficult as they are at the time, you can basically blag your way through them. It is definitely NOT the same at A-Level and so we need a teacher who can TEACH and she can't.

If anybody asks her a question, she'll either panic and tell us something that doesn't make sense or she'll just Google the answer. Look, I understand we're in the technological age where we have the advantage of using a wide range of resources to acquire information needed but it's only 2014. We are not yet at a point in history where the use of teachers are obsolete.

She is so bad, its absolutely unbelievable. She once marked my homework and wrote that the "rank was in order not the data" which is true. I did write that the data was order because that's what my notes said. The notes that SHE made us write down, I'll have you know. She's constantly contradicting herself with information, one lesson she'll tell us that we need to know a formula and then the next, she'll say "we don't actually need that one because the exam will use a different one". She gives us equations and makes us do a few questions using that equation, only after we've spent an hour being confused, to say that we didn't really need it because its only one button on the calculator. I mean, what the hell is wrong with that women?

The worst thing is that Statistics  is that it isn't even difficult work, my other Maths teacher asked the smartest boy in my class if he was struggling with Stats and he said he was. My Maths teacher looked absolutely horrified, I don't think he really believed us when we said that she couldn't teach but hearing that boy say how horrible it was must have made him realise. Another thing is that our Stats grade goes together with our Maths A-Level and so all the hard work we do in Core 1 and Core 2 will be for NOTHING. So that's brilliant, I mean really, just fabulous. As if I'm not stressed enough, I have to LEARN Stats.

So I told my mom about it and she officially complained to the Head of Sixth Form at my school. I had a meeting with her and basically all she said was that I should revise myself and keep going to lessons. This doesn't really help because its what I've been doing for months really. It's just frustrating feeling so stupid because I can't even answer one question on Stats, that's how bad it is. I mean, I tried a past paper and almost burst into tears because it just made me so angry that I couldn't do it.

It's awful feeling bad at something when you know you could actually do it. I need to keep trying though, I mean this is my life. I'm not letting that woman's incompetence ruin my chances of passing my A-Levels.

Feel free to check out my last blog post: The Story of the NAKED 2 Palette

The Story of the NAKED 2 Palette

I've been watching makeup videos on YouTube for so long but its only recently that I've tried to replicate certain looks that I like. I've never had any real eye shadow palettes  apart from one my auntie bought me a few years, and so it didn't really bother me until now. I'm not one for intense bold eye shadows and so I thought some sort of Naked palette would be PERFECT for me. That was until I looked online at the website and saw the price... Holy frickin' cow. 

I don't really have a lot of money since I'm a 16 year old with no job (the joys eh), and so the money that I do have, I wasn't prepared to waste on makeup. And it would have been a waste considering I wouldn't have wore eye shadow to school and I really don't have a social life (this is no joke people, its so sad).

Anyway, since the Naked website was a dead end, I decided to look to Amazon for cheaper alternatives. I found one which was a Japanese product I think and so I ordered that one for £13. I knew it was going to take a while to come, about 3 weeks in the end, considering it was being delivered from across the world. I checked Amazon about 2 weeks after it'd been dispatched, and it said that the price of my makeup had been raised to £15 which I wasn't happy about, especially since it wasn't the actual product I wanted.

Anyway, when it came, I opened the box and to my surprise, Amazon had switched that crappy makeup product with the beautiful NAKED 2 palette. I seriously almost cried out of just sheer happiness. It was just brilliant and even better than that, when I looked at the invoice, it only charged me £13 instead of £15 so BARGAIN. Usually NAKED palettes are around the £40 mark and so I was amazingly lucky to be given that one. GOD BLESS.

I'll give you the link for the Amazon page where I got the NAKED 2 palette but first a little DISCLAIMER. There is absolutely no guarantee that you'll get the same product that I did, it might just be luck on my behalf so just bear that in mind. I shall be doing a review in a few weeks time anyway so look out for that as well.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trendy-Shadow-Palette-Eyeshadow-Makeup/dp/B00GXY5G10/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1396792699&sr=8-2&keywords=trendy+aitao

Feel free to check out my last blog post: UPDATE MARCH 2014

 

I would really love if anyone reading my blog could follow me and I will follow anyone back if I understand how to do it. Thanks folks, love Tayla xx

UPDATE MARCH 2014

When 2014 started, I made a promise to myself to post on this blog AT LEAST once a week. And that hasn't really worked out, has it? But I am trying, I really am. Sixth Form has just been so overwhelming I can't even deal with it right now. It's just a constant stream of work that "won't let up" as my Nan would say. To add to that, my Maths class has had to do extra lessons, both an hour at lunchtime and an hour and a half after school, since we're behind. So woop-dee-frickin'-doo.

Now, I've been very focused on trying to complete all of my work, revise and do EXTRA. That's right, I've been doing my wider reading for English, filling out old past papers for Maths and re-writing essays for Sociology. I just think that it'll give me the best chance for my exams which is pretty much the ONLY thing that I'm focused on at the moment.

We were given our exam timetable a few weeks ago and it really just put everything into perspective, I mean, my first exam is in just over 8 weeks. That's right. 8 WEEKS. That's hardly any time at all and I'm starting to get really nervous. I think what makes it worse is that people are literally dropping out of Sixth Form every other week and that scares me. The classes are getting smaller and smaller and tensions are running pretty high. Its hit that point in the year where even teachers are starting to get a little bit stressed: at both those who are working to get the best grades possible and those who are wasting everyone's time, mine included.

Another thing that worries me is that in pretty much all of my subjects (English, Maths, Psychology and Sociology; with General Studies being compulsory), we are so close to finishing the module. There's probably 3 weeks work of actual lessons left before we're done and that means that we'll be doing exam prep in next to no time. Pray for me, folks.

Last blog post: REVIEW: 'The Fault in Our Stars' book by John Green

REVIEW: ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ book by John Green

What can I say about this book that hasn’t been said already? I mean, John Green, you are an absolute genius, you really are. You produced this beautiful love story that just broke my heart, one page at a time. Now I’m not going to explain the plot in intense detail because I know that there are people who haven’t read it (why you haven’t, I have no idea, I highly recommend it); I might just give you my thoughts on ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ as a whole. I’ve wanted to read it for absolutely AGES but have only just bought the book. From the delivery on the Thursday to Sunday morning, I had completed it; I just couldn’t help myself. It’s extremely rare for me to get into a book, let alone finish it in 3 and a half days, and so when I do, I know it’s a fantastic piece of literature. I was desperate to find out how the story evolved and what happened to the characters.
 
Now we are first introduced to Hazel Grace Lancaster, a sixteen year old cancer patient who feels the need to challenge everyone she encounters with some sort of sarcastic comment. That is, until she finds herself at what she calls the 'Cancer Kid Support Group' and meets Augustus Waters: the man who changes her life. Now he doesn't do that in the way that you'd usually expect from the male protagonist, oh no, John Green is way too smart to follow the social conventions of every single book EVER published. No, he makes Augustus the man that every girl wants and you really can't help yourself just falling for him: a man who LOVES Hazel even when she doesn't particularly love herself. And I like that idea: that you can have some sort of vulnerability which seems to separate you from everyone else in the world, until that one person makes you feel special and beautiful because they adore you, regardless of what you might think of as a 'flaw'.

Together, they have this incredibly romantic adventure until everything just comes crashing back down to reality, and suddenly the audience is struck with a wave of emotion, united by their tears of heartbreak. I sat in my room with this book, just crying for these fictional characters, and that's the beauty of this novel. It's why the book became Number 1 New York Times Bestseller. John Green created them not only for us to laugh with, but to cry over as we experience their pain along the way.

I found it extremely fascinating because I have never read anything like this in my entire life, nothing as honest and truthful about what it’s like to live as a cancer patient. To have everyone around you pity you and constantly hover round to make sure you’re ‘OK’. But it doesn’t just focus on that side of the illness; it empathises the fact that we are extremely lucky to be alive, enough luckier when we have people who love us and we love them back. We should be grateful for the opportunity of this crazy thing we call ‘life’, and having had the pleasure of reading ‘The Fault in Our Stars’, I know I am.



You can buy the book HERE.

Check out my last blog post: 'Cupcake' Inspired Nail Art

'Cupcake' Inspired Nail Art

As you know, I do like to paint my nails in different styles and colours, always making sure that they are simple and quick to do because I cannot be bothered to spend hours (and it would take me hours) to perfect my nails. This design is so EASY and I really really like it, this is only the second time I've done it and I've had compliments on them both times so if you want to add a little sparkle then keep on reading.

I was going to do a French Manicure but my nails naturally are really orange for some reason, and its not because of any nail polish that I've worn before because they're always like that. So, I've tried loads of times before to do it but the French Pink doesn't suit my skin tone so I decided to change it up a little bit to suit me.

I started off by putting a white nail polish on my tips and tried to make them as even and straight as possible. Don't worry if you can't get it as neat as you would like because it doesn't really show up as bad using this design. Now I usually do 2 coats just because it looks better when its one solid tone rather than being able to see my nails underneath.

Then I use my Elegant Touch Rapid Dry for Nails just to set it because even though, the colour is just on my tips, I do still manage to smudge them.

I then do 2 coats of the Barry M Pink Iridescent 264, you can get away with one coat if you want but as I mentioned, you can see my oddly orange nails under so I tend to use 2. It also provides that little extra bit of glitter which I like as well. What I have found with this colour is that since its a basically clear nail polish with sparkles in, its not as obvious when it chips and so lasts that little bit longer than ordinary nail polish.

And that's it. You can use the drying spray if you want but I never do since its sort of a waste and the Barry M dries it pretty quickly. Its the easiest nail design EVER, it really is.

Feel free to check out my last blog post: The Mysterious Cupboard

The Mysterious Cupboard

It doesn't matter where you live or who you are, there will be a place in your house that you never open or go in because its just full of clutter. Now of course, it depends on the type of person you are as to how big that place is, but even if you are the tidiest, most organised person, you WILL have one. It might be a drawer, a cupboard or even a room in my case, and you might have multiple of them, I know I do.

A Bratz bag? I was definitely
the height of fashion

Now, at the top of our stairs, we have a room. A small box room, not even big enough for a bed and for as long as I can remember its been full to the brim of 'stuff'. Board games, old TV's, dolls, basically my entire childhood. I've wanted to sort it out for years yet my mom has always said to just "leave it alone". I don't know why she decided to do it this half term, she just did - she's very impulsive, my mother. She bought loads of large plastic containers and vacuum bags, then got to work. I helped her for a few hours but every teddy, toy and tacky trinket turned into a 'lets reminisce about me as a baby' and I just couldn't handle that. I also left because I could sense an argument coming since I wanted to get rid of pretty much everything yet my mom didn't. She kept things that she remembered me playing with, even if I didn't, and chucked things I remembered and she didn't. So I think it was more about her thinking about my childhood rather than it being my memories. I was fine with that I guess, but she said she wanted a 'spring clean' but she hardly got rid of anything.

I think it was sort of symbolic for her though, obviously when she sees me every single day, she doesn't realise that I've grew up. I think she forgets that next year I'll be 18 and I'll be moving out to start my own life. I think that its only just started to become real for her, especially since my family have moved round the corner and so we see my younger cousins all the time. My youngest cousin is just about to turn 1 and so my mom has been enjoying buying him new things, I think she likes spoiling him because I don't want toys anymore and I think she misses that, especially since she never had a boy. She likes buying clothes and stuff for my other cousins as well which I think is cool.

Feel free to check out my last blog post: REVIEW: 'Midnight Memories' by One Direction