Shoe Shopping

I always thought shopping for going out shoes was meant to be fun. Turns out, it is almost impossible when you are our age. Nearly all the shoes in the shops are completely flat, have very high heels/wedges that I can't walk in or have very pointy fronts that make the shoes hurt like crazy. After you have eliminated all of those ones, you don't have much left. Also, the sizes in some of the cheaper shops like New Look are very inconsistent. In some of their shoes, a six was tight on me but in others I was a five. In BHS, there was a pair of fives that fitted but in another style, a four was too big. I have never had this trouble before, but then I was always buying flat, casual pumps. In the end, I ended up with a nice (but very overpriced) pair of low wedge sandals from Clarks:

Someone needs to create a range of affordable, modern shoes designed for teens that are comfortable to wear, have low to medium heals and look good. If someone brought out a range like that it would make shopping trips like the one I had last weekend much easier. At the moment, though, shoes like that are very hard to find.

You Tube and You Tubers!

I love You Tube. It is entertaining and useful. I use it for two things: lyric videos and watching Dan Howell (On danisnotonfire). Dan and Phil are my favourite You Tubers. I love their videos, especially Dan's. Yes, ok, they are a little bit mad and awkward but that is what makes them funny. This is the link to his channel. Before you click on this link TURN THE VOLUME DOWN if there are parents in the near vicinity. On some devices, their channel trailer starts playing immediately and Phil says some interesting things to "get your attention"!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGjylN-4QCpn8XJ1uY-UOgA

My favourite of their most recent videos is probably the one where they do the blindfolded make up. I think I might try this on my next sleepover (although possibly minus the mascara and eyeliner!). Watch this next clip to see why boys don't do make up!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0S_2C0llk0

Also, Dan and Phil are bringing out a book. I am going to buy one but it does not come out until October. Do you like Dan and Phil? Or do you watch different You Tubers? Tell me in the comments.

1000 page views.

Hello all. Last night, I reached 1000 page views! I am really excited as when I first started doing this I never thought I would have so many readers. Also, I never realised I would get people from so many different countries viewing my blog. I have now had people from the US, Ireland, Germany, France, Brazil, Canada, Spain, Finland and Indonesia as well as lots from the UK. Thank you to all of you for reading my posts and supporting me with this. Although I have plenty of views, I am still quite short on comments. I would like all of you who read this to write either what you think of the blog or what you would like to see posts about in the future.

1D Disaster

Everyone is making such a big deal out of Zane leaving. So 1D have become a group of 4, it's hardly important news. At least they are still around. I hate to think what would happen if they broke up. There would be girls crying for weeks all over the country. The ironic thing is that he left for a normal life and has got the most publicity he has ever had. It's hard to be a normal 22 year old when everyone is begging you to come back.

 
I'm not convinced that is the real reason for him leaving actually. Apparently, he has already started working on solo material, which is not what you do if you left because you needed a rest. Meanwhile, others are using it as a excuse for staying off work. Employers are annoyed because people are phoning in to say they are so upset they need time off work. They're adults! People need to grow up about this. What do you think of the latest 1D drama? Are you sad to see him go or are you glad there is one less of them!

Up For Uni

Up For Uni is Portsmouth University's way of getting young people interested in Uni. They have a website, a magazine and experience days. They also come to schools, particularly in year 6. I get their magazine and have recently been looking at their website. There are some really good articles on there, some directly Uni-related, some that are about a more general topic. Most of them are in the magazine though, but there are a few new ones. Here is the link:

http://upforuni.org.uk/

I'm not sure if I want to go to university or not. It sound like a lot of fun and if I want to be a designer I will need to go. However, there are other things I want to do where a degree is not compulsory and I am not sure if I like it enough to go if I don't have to. It delays your life for 3 years and I think I might want to start working sooner. However, if I do go, I quite like the idea of taking a gap year and maybe go travelling. What do you think of Uni? Do you want to go or are you more reluctant?

Georgia Is Amazing!

I love the Georgia Nicolson Books! They are a series by Louise Rennison about a teenage girl called Georgia. She is about 14 at the beginning of the series but there are 10 books in the series so she is a few years older by the end. They are soooo funny! Georgia has a little sister called Libby and a wild cat called Angus which are so hilarious they make me laugh out loud. Also, her and her ace gang are very badly behaved at school, usually using German lessons as make-up sessions. Outside of school  you find out about all her boy troubles. I still don't know whether she ends up with Robbie, Dave the Laugh or Masimo as I have not read the whole series yet. I would definitely recommend these books to any teenage girl. The film is good too, although it is not as funny.

In the book, she invents lots of her own words which her and her gang use throughout the series. Some of them are so good I use them myself. Here are some of my favourites:

Boy Entrancers - False Eyelashes
Blodge - Biology
Froggie - French
Geoggers - Geography
Nippy Noodles - It's cold!
Nuddy-pants - Naked
Nunga-nungas - Girl's Breasty business
Frogs'-legs-a-gogo land - France
Pizza-a-gogo land - Italy
Kiwi-a-gogo land - Newzealand
Hamburger-a-gogo land - America

And these need no explaination:-
creativitosity, casualosity,comfortnosity, maturosity, tragicosity,sadnosity and ballisticisimus          

What Is It With Boys?

They act like idiots, they talk another language and they are just generally pains in the backside. And yet we girls spend quite a bit of time trying to impress them. I think part of the problem is that boys develop slower, so they are 2 years less mature than us. They also have a different (often childish) sense of humour to us, particularly with each other. Their own language can be quite different to ours and they can't take our hints. I have made a boy to English dictionary in the hope it will clear these things up.

Boy Says: I'll see you around
Boy means: I want to see you, but don't want to tell you that yet so I am acting cool.

Boy Says: Your hair looks nice.
Boy means: Your hair looks amazing because I would have never noticed otherwise.

Boy Says: Yours is rubbish. I can paint way better than that.
Boy means: Yours is amazing but I don't want to say because my friends might realise that I like you.

My All Time Top Twenty

I have created a list of my favourite songs of all time. I am very interested in your opinion of this list so please comment!

1. A Team                                    Ed Sheeran
2. Lego House                             Ed Sheeran
3. Riptide                                     Vance Joy 
4. Tell The World                        Olly Murs
5. Wild Heart                               The Vamps
6. Teenage Dream                        Katy Perry
7. Last Night                                The Vamps
8. Sing                                          Ed Sheeran
9. Love Drunk                              Little Mix
10. Rather Be                               Clean Bandit
11. Counting Stars                       One Republic
12. Up Town Funk                       Mark Ronsen
13. Happy                                     Pharrell Williams
14.  Move                                     Little Mix
15. Classic                                    MKTO
16. We Are Who We Are             Little Mix
17. Who'd Have Known               Lilly Allen
18. Anywhere Else                       Olly Murs
19. Somewhere Only We Know   Lilly Allen
20. Burn                                        Ellie Goulding

Eclipse

We were supposed to see the eclipse at school today. We were all handed out glasses and lined up on the field. Every centimetre of sky was covered by thick, grey cloud. It did get a bit dark and cold, but apart from that, nothing. Very disappointing. The annoying thing was, 3 hours later there were no clouds and all you could see was a blue sky and bright sunshine. Apparently, some people went up in a plane so they could go above the clouds and see it properly. Until I am old enough to do that instead of going to school, I will have to satisfy myself with this type of eclipse:















Did you see the eclipse, or was it too cloudy for you too?

Big Bang!

Sorry if I don't write much tonight but there is a brilliant TV line up. At the moment, I am watching brand new 2 Broke Girls. However, what I am really excited about is the fact BIG BANG THEORY IS BACK ON! I love that programme, it is sooo funny. It hasn't been on for ages and I really miss it. After that, there is brand new Brooklyn 99, a slightly chaos show about police officers in America. All this is on E4 at the moment and plus 1 later.

Ikea

I love Ikea. They have simple but amazing furniture, all cleverly designed. There is plenty of modern, funky pieces for teenagers as well as imaginative children's stuff and general things for adults. I went there for the first time last year to buy furniture for my bedroom. It is soooo cool! There is an entire floor of show rooms. All their furniture is laid out in room situations. They even have a couple of areas set up like flats. Then, their is a Swedish style restaurant which serves their famous meatballs as well as many other things. I like the soup.

The next floor down is full of little things that you pick up there and then. Most of these are also in the showrooms. They have everything from coat hooks to food containers. The final floor is like a warehouse. All the furniture from the show rooms is flat packed in boxes and you have to go around with a giant trolley and pick everything up. It is definitely and experience! Because of a recent bedroom problem, we are going their at Easter to get me a new wardrobe. I am very excited. Have you been to Ikea? Do you love it as much as me?

Artist In School

A local artist came into school today. We are doing portraits in art at the moment and he came in to show us some of his paintings. He doesn't paint portraits very often but he was talking more about how he builds up the paintings. He uses acrylic to paint layers on the the canvas. Some of his paintings were brought into school, others he showed us on the whiteboard. At the moment he is in the middle of some paintings because he is getting ready for one of his exhibitions. After an exhibition, he usually sells his paintings on.

I really liked his work. He paints realistically, although a few of his paintings have more of a surreal feel. Most of his work has some kind of writing in it that is to do with the story behind the painting. All his work is very meaningful, every piece has a tale behind it. That's what I love about his work.

Has your school ever had an artist come in? Do you like looking at art? Tell me in your comment.

Wedding!

My cousin is getting married in 3 weeks time! Over the weekend, I went dress shopping. I bought a lemon yellow dress. It's from Warehouse. I love it! I am going to wear that in the day with a blue cardigan and wear my navy blue dress with little white stars on in the evening. I haven't got shoes yet, but I have been looking at a pair of pale blue kitten heel sling backs. Here is a picture of my new dress and the shoes:

 

It can be difficult to know what to wear to weddings when you are a teenager. You don't what to look all childish and little girly but at the same time you don't want to be boring and too grown up. My dress for the day is very smart and formal which is why I plan to change into something more fun in the evening. It means you get the best of both worlds.



Comic Relief

Did you watch Comic Relief on Friday? It was brilliant. They crowned the celebrity bake off winner, showed the first Mr Bean in ages and raised 1 billion pounds for charity! The 3 Yorkshire men Monty Python tribute was very funny and I loved the National Treasure sketch. When it was Cheryl's turn they did an X-factor mickey take. My favourite bits were seeing Claudia pop out of the floor and the Vicar of Dibley Mice Bucket Challenge! I think that could be a new craze, although it will be one I will not take part in. Also, the lovely Dermot danced for 24 hours and they showed a very unusual new 1D tribute band! Here is a clip of the best bits of the evening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXGdqlTk5pU

The Four Fundraisers (Monty Python) Hmm, I wonder why the young people of today don't believe them?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWKL977zovM

Cake Sale

Comic Relief today! I am watching it tonight. Are you? We dressed up at school today. Because it is the 30th anniversary of Red Nose Day, we wore 80s clothes as that was when it all started. We also had a cake sale but that was not for comic relief. It was for the school chickens!!! That was why I didn't post anything yesterday, I was making cakes. I made some with mini eggs on and some that looked like chicken faces. I love decorating cakes. You can be really creative. Here are some ideas for the more artistic among you.



Mine were not this good! Do you like baking and decorating your bakes? Post your photos on the comments.

50 Shades of Grey

I have lost count of how many times this film has been mentioned in the past month. All I know is I'm fed up with it. Ok, so a business man and a young women try out some very inventive uses for rope. Big deal. And yet it is all they are talking about on the radio. One women even dressed her junior school kid up as Christian Grey for world book day, he was sent home. Someone at my school said it was their favourite film in a French speaking exam. People can't get enough of it.

What I don't get is that adults talk about it so much that we know all about it even though we are not allowed to go and watch it for ourselves. When we go on and on about something (Frozen, Facebook, Youtube etc) they don't want to know yet we have to hear all about what they want to talk about. Are you fed up with all the hype about 50 Shades of Grey? Tell me in the comments.

Eye Make-up

At the weekend I went shopping with friends. One of the things I bought were these really brilliant but really cheap Miss Sporty eyeliners. They are only £2.49 in boots! They are called mini me eyeliners because they are quite small. This is a good thing though because it means they fit in your handbag and you don't pay for more than you will ever use. They are twist up crayon style eyeliners and can be used to create thin bold lines or softer looks. They come in a variety of colours. I bought Black Raven and Eucalyptus.

I bought the Eucalyptus one because it matched perfectly with my hoody and another turquoise eyeshadow. I often match bright eyeshadow colours to my clothes although I sometimes wear shell pink for a more natural look. Do you do this? Most of my friends don't but I think it works well if you use it right and I can't be the only one.

I have also been on the Miss Sporty website and they have this really useful beauty bible.

http://uk.miss-sporty.com/beauty-bible

Maze Runner

A little while ago I saw the film Maze Runner and I have now read the book. It's brilliant! They are both full of action and have very relatable characters. I love Teresa, she is my favourite. I wish I could do the mind reading thing! It would be so useful. Personally, I prefer the book as you know the characters thoughts and you fully understand what it is like to wake up in a maze with no memory of your previous life. It also has more suspense and I can imagine how it would have you guessing about the Creators if unlike me you hadn't already seen the film.

The book and the film are quite similar although there are a few differences. The main one I noticed was the appearance of the Grievers. In the book they are giant slugs with randomly placed metal arms but in the film they are closer to metallic spiders. Also, the layout of the maze is different. However,  both the book and the film are very good and I would recommend them. I cannot wait to read the next in the series as I want to know who the supposed "rescuers" are. It gives the impression they are also part of the Creators at the end of the book, even though they claim to be against them.

Sleepovers

Sorry I didn't post anything yesterday, I was at a friend's sleepover. We watched a couple of films, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part one and the first Johnny English film. I love Johnny English! He is sooo funny! Here is a link to my favourite part of the film. The best bit is in the second half, so bear with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cikZA_WjYZM

We usually watch comedies at sleepovers. Here is my sleepover movie recommendation list:

Johnny English
Despicable Me
Frozen, for a laugh (you must sing!)
Angus, Thongs and perfect Snogging (the books are even funnier)
Men in Black
Harry Potter
Maze Runner

New Option Form

Do you remember that a little while ago I did a couple of posts about options? Well it turns out that those decisions were just the beginning. Last time they just wanted to assess how many people wanted to do each subject so they could design their new and even more ridiculous options form. As well as having compulsory subjects and other rules about your "choices", the subjects are now organised into 4 option blocks that aren't even logical. Some of the more interesting choices have completely disappeared.

You are given a form with 4 boxes. Each contains a combination of languages, humanities and practical subjects. You have to pick one from each box but there are lots of different restrictions about what you can and can't pick. Everybody in my class that I have spoken to, except one, cannot do what they want. I have to chose between Art and Geography and there is nothing I want to do in block C. Are you having option issues? Tell me in the comments.

Cat Island

I reached 700 pageviews today! Thanks to all who have been following me.
I made fruit pie today in Home Ec and got a A+. Am very excited. Also, it is the final episode of Celebrity Bake Off tonight. They should make a whole series, it is so funny! From the funny to the strange, I found this earlier and think you might enjoy it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/31725402

An island full of cats - my paradise! I want to go there when I am older. Some of the stripy ones look like my Bumble! Do you love cats?

Computer Games

Now, I am not really into computer games, but here are some of my favourites. Most of you have probably played more than me so perhaps you can suggest for me to try others in the comments.

Best PC game- Minecraft. It's a simple idea that can be used in a million brilliant ways.
Best X-box/ Wii game- Just dance. I haven't played many of these so I would like to hear any other recommendations you have.
Best Nintendo game- Professor Layton. I know it's hardly action packed but it's clever.
Best Smartphone game- Subway Surfer. It is so addictive and so fun.

Kipling Bags

I love Kipling! The colours, the designs, and of course, the monkeys! I have a bright yellow Kipling handbag at the moment and I love it. Each monkey has it's own special name according to colour. Mine is called Amna. They are all named after Kipling's staff, mainly designers. Here are some of my favourites of their current bags. All of them come in a range of colours, I have picked my favourite here. Do you like Kipling? Which of these is your favourite?


AMIEL £55
This bag is quite large, definitely
big enough to hold all
your essentials.



DEFEA, £75
This is a very practical yet cool bag for
everyday.

SYRO £65
This is very similar in style to my own
bag. I love the colour.

ALENYA £75
This is a bright, colourful bag
for spring. I love the flowered pattern.

Saturday Night Takeaway

Sorry I didn't post anything yesterday, I have been busy. We are having work done to the the house tomorrow and we have been preparing for it this weekend. Yesterday I did manage to watch Saturday Night Takeaway though. The new series started last week and it has been really good.Yesterday, Ant and Dec stared in their very own play and the week before they had Ed Sheeran on. The funniest bit was when they did their "I'm a celebrity, get out of my ear!" sketch. Here is a clip showing that part:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpiZpKEiu-4

The first few in the playlist are from the last couple of episodes, and then it gets on to some more random stuff. The show is on Saturday nights at 7pm, or you can watch in on ITV player over the world wide web(!).