March - Spring cleaning time?

I'm so glad its finally getting warmer, I usually don't care much about the cold, that is until I get into bed and it feels like I'm climbing into an ice cave. My house is pretty old and my bedroom has two outside walls meaning a find myself trying to get to sleep in sub-zero temperatures.

My room is also pretty much always messy.  And as I'm sure many other teenagers will be aware, despite the fact that your parents never spend ANY TIME in your room - you have to keep it tidy. In my case, I don't care if I have to wade through a foot of discarded clothes/shoes/bags/paper/wrappers/old cups of tea to get to my bed but apparently my mum does.

So I started to tidy up my desk after being nagged since the dawn of time by my mum to do so, and it soon became evident that it had been messy for longer than I realised. I found some really weird crap on that desk - for example I found a lesson timetable for the recorder teacher at my primary school, but neither me nor my siblings actually took recorder lessons, so I have no idea how the document ended up in my possession.

I think it was a sign I need to be tidier and more organised. But hey, I'm a busy lady - and when I'm a billionaire I'll have people to do that for me right? (do not know how I might become a billionaire but I'm working on it)

Valentines

Heeeey everyone, guess who got a valentines this year?

not me.

Probably someone else out there though.
I tried to get my dog to be my valentines, but he didn't seem to get the whole idea of cards/flowers because he's not very romantic. Also because he's a dog.

I hope most of you guys were more lucky in love this year. Although remember that in the end it doesn't really matter - as long as we have the precious internet to distract us.

Mocks are over, back to crapness.

My AS mocks/exams are over, I'm back to regular school and do not have to be revising ALL THE TIME, although to be fair, this is me revising:

                  

And to be fair, my mocks ended a while ago, I'm just a crap blogger...
Being back to school, I have been trying to continue with my new school year resolutions and mainly the ones about being generally cooler and better dressed. This is because I would rather be remembered/seen by the rest of the school like this:

Rather than this (my true form):

Tooth-paste stained hoodie, pyjama bottoms and unicorn slippers.

Unfortunately this doesn't fit in very well with my morning routine.
I am woken by my alarm at 6:45 and lie in a half-dead squinty eyed way until I happen to see that it is 7:15 at which point I might swear, but still don't actually get out of bed for another 5 minutes - leaving very little time for me to look presentable, let alone stylish. And I end up running down the hill to catch my train every freakin' morning.





And having run all the way down to arrive just in time for my train, I arrive as the epitome of grace and glamour:

 Another problem I have with trying to be presentable is nail varnish. Unless I get industrial varnish fused onto my fingers by a welding machine, this is what happens every time I try and wear nail varnish:

All within the space of about 24 hours.

Yeah life is tough.
But it was my birthday on the 29th Jan (woop!) I got an iPhone, and am very in love with it.

I think I love it more than I would a human child....

Have a nice February! Because with my track record, I probably won't post for another month.

Christmas & New Years

Hello all.
I hope everyone had a nice Christmas, mine was very enjoyable apart from we have lost our stockings and instead used pillow cases, which somehow wasn't quite as magical...

Oh well, who am I to complain eh?
This year, instead of going to mass on Christmas morning, we decided to go to midnight mass - mainly because we are all now older and the thought of having to be ready and presentable at 9am (horrific I know) was too harsh to bear. Now, I think we can all agree that one of the best things about Christmas is the sweet-ass carols you get to sing. Even I sing Christmas Carols - and this is a big deal because usually I am far too embarrassed, what with my voice sounding something like this:

It turns out that I didn't need to be embarrassed at all this year, because there was a man in a pew across from us who was doing enough singing for the whole congregation. It seemed that this was the only time in the year that he went to church and was trying to make up for all the hymn singing he missed out on. And not only was he very loud, he was out of tune/key/timing... It was quite something.
And readers, guess whether I kept my composure in a church full of elderly people celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, or whether I laughed so much that I actually wet myself a tiny bit?

I'm sure that you are familiar with the fact that not being allowed to laugh in a situation only makes you laugh harder. Luckily for me, it was only in the last verse of the final carol that really set me off. I had just made eye contact with my little sister when he sung 'YEA!' and we both preceded to implode with laughter. This wasn't such a problem during the carol, but it ended pretty soon after that, and people who have been to church will know it's pretty silent in there. Only stuffing my scarf into my face saved me.

That was the end of mass and I hoped to make a stealthy escape, but saw to my horror that the priest was standing in the doorway shaking everyones hand and wishing them a merry christmas. All I could do was try and do it with as much composure as I could muster.



I think it went well...
Nothing much more to tell about Christmas... Apart from that the Downton Abbey Christmas special annoyed me so much I won't be watching it next season (radical I know)




Also its New Years. Although, I don't think I could care less about New Years. This is how much I care about the date changing:

I do think it's a shame that I am in the countryside with my parents when my friends are all going out and having fun together in London - because I'm pretty sure tonight is gonna go something like this:

Happy New Year Everyone!

Needy dog

I haven't told you much about my dog Reggie in the short time I've been blogging, and lately he has become very needy. He always need to be on my lap when I sit down, and is very pushy about how he wants to sit/lie - this makes it difficult to get a lot of things done. And I am such a sucker for the puppy dog eyes he does that he always gets his way.

 

He is also often damp and smelly from exploring our garden, this along with his snoring usually makes me regret letting him on my lap (especially at mealtimes when he likes to secretly lie across my lap and hope my mum doesn't see and make him get down).

Hope everyone has a nice Christmas! Hopefully I'll have come up with a more interesting post for then...

Istanbul

Okay I haven't blogged for a while, but I'm sure that EVERYONE WILL LIVE. Turns out I'm a busy lady and my services are in high demand.
So in my last post I mentioned how I was going to Istanbul with school, well, it was pretty eventful.
After getting up at an ungodly hour, we arrived at the airport full of energy and ready for action.

At security I had to have my whole bag completely emptied and rubbed with a special little drug testing cloth, (I don't blame them, I look like a real dodgy passenger)

One plane flight later we were there, and as a large group of school girls it took us some time to get through customs and to baggage collection. Once we had finally arrived we were all able to pick up our bags apart from one girl. She didn't have HER bag, but had an identical looking bag that belonged to a mystery person with the last name Cho. Luckily the airport staff were able to catch this Cho character, who turned out to be a tiny asian woman. And peace was restored to our travelling party.
We then met our guide (who really, didn't speak english) and were taken to our hotel. Well, taken most of the way to our hotel. The road that the hotel was on was actually blocked off because they were 'resurfacing' it, meaning we had to carry our suitcases down the very steep hill. This wouldn't have been such a problem, but I don't know how the resurfacing was being organised because it pretty much seemed like some randomers had come along and decided it was time to dig up the road. To get down it you had to jump over ditches, walk alongside pipes lying in the road, and be careful not to step on the edges of any pavement that was still around, because it was likely to crumble away. It was pretty funny, even if we did arrive at the hotel quite dusty and confused.
Me and my friends had looked up the hotel rooms before arriving, and it had looked promising, so we were looking forward to our three person room... We were wrong. For some reason, we were the only group to receive a two person room - with an extra armchair bed. My bed during our stay at the Hotel Assos, was an outstretched armchair. And, to add insult to injury (literal injury in the case of my back) we still only received 2 of everything, 2 pairs of slippers, shampoos, cups etc. We did have a Tv though, the choice of channels wasn't very varied and we found ourselves watching the TurkPop! channel for weird amounts of time, meaning I am now familiar with the musical stylings of many turkish musicians, for example, Odan Aydın.

One of the first places we visited was a mosque, when inside the mosques women are expected to cover themselves up appropriately to be respectful. It was pretty exciting to wear a headscarf (don't need much to impress me...) but I soon discovered there's a reason I'm not muslim. I have a pretty wide pale face, and with the scarf draped around my head, I looked like a massive moon emerging from a dark material cave on a girls body. At least I was wearing trousers and didn't have to put on the large 
blue velcro skirt they gave to people whose legs were showing.

At the end of our first day we were able to collapse into bed (or armchair) and sleep. Unfortunately this was interrupted by the call to prayer at 6 in the morning. On the one hand it is amazing to experience such a different culture, and I really admire them for being so devoted that they get up to pray that freakin' early. But it literally sounded like the guy had stuck his head into our room to sing to us, I think some people consider it sounding beautiful, but trust me, it doesn't after 15 minutes at 6 in the morning, especially after 5 mornings in a row (you can youtube it if you want to experience a more tuneful version)

Whilst in Istanbul, our school group visited many markets. These were really amazing and not like anything we have in London. But us girls found that one of the most interesting things about them is the stall owners, they can easily see young british tourists who they can very easily rip off, and do everything they can to not pass up the opportunity (don't get me wrong, some of them probably plan to give you a fair deal, but I know for sure I paid weird amounts of money for stuff.) We heard some very interesting chat-up lines such as 'WAIT, come back to me! I love you!' and 'Hey Spice girls!' (In the Spice Bazaar followed by a rendition of a spice girls song). One stall owner said to my friend 'I like your boobs! sorry.' which took her quite by surprise. I actually ended up receiving a lot of love advice from one stall owner, who thought I was miserable because my boyfriend had broken up with me, I tried to tell him that my regular face is just a kinda depressed looking one and no-one had broken up with me, but before I knew it he was shouting 'If he doesn't like you, he doesn't deserve you and you shouldn't like him!' he seemed pretty angry about this whole break-up scenario he had invented.

The most fun we ever had a market was in the Grand Bazaar when we walked past a shop selling handbags and purses. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted an orange purse with silver letters on the front spelling out 'PPADA'

This of course, was very hilarious for us and although we tried to buy it it turned out to be pretty expensive. So instead I asked if I could have a photo of it to remember from, but this quickly turned into a full-on photo shoot, featuring me, my friends, the turkish stall owners and a variety of purses.

One of the most interesting stops on our trip was when our guide told us he was taking us to a 'leather fashion show' we were all very confused as this hadn't been on the itinerary and were not aware of Istanbul being famous for their leather industry. We went along happily anyway, but this leather fashion show turned out to be one of the weirdest things I have ever experienced. When we arrived we were led into a dark, basement-type place, with long black benches and a raised checkerboard 'catwalk' surrounded by mirrors. We were then given the weirdest apple juice I have ever tasted and turkish dubstep began blaring. We were treated to many reversible leather jackets and coats and began to wonder if we were in fact having some curious shared dream/nightmare.

After being led into the shop of leather delights, where we had to make a hasty escape from the sales assistants who kept trying to make my history teacher try on leather jackets. Back on the coach, we all headed to our next stop still feeling extremely confused.

Every restaurant/hotel we visited in Istanbul served us lentil soup as a starter, and meat and rice as a main. But one restaurant in particular was very interesting, this is not because there was a different menu, but because of the other restaurant guests. As we sat down to eat, a very large group of Koreans also entered the resturant. One old Korean man sitting near us seemed very friendly. He asked us if we knew 'Gangnam Style' and started to do the horse-riding move whilst sitting down at his table. Now I don't know what came over me, it could've been the Turkish air messing with my head, being over-tired, or just an attention-whore in general, but when he excitedly asked if any of us could do the dance, I actually got up and danced Gangnam style for the whole restaurant.

This was filmed by many Koreans, so who knows? I could be on Korean Youtube. What we definitely know is I have a problem which means that I regularly have to embarrass myself. The other times I embarrassed myself in front of everyone was when we went bowling and I got a bit over excited after scoring a strike, and didn't realise people were watching me, and also the time we went to the turkish baths.

At the turkish baths, you had the option of simply sitting in the steam room and having a dip in the pool, or for a little more money you could have a body wash and scrub. Being the adventurous and naïve person I am I opted for the full body scrub along with a small number of people. What we didn't realise was to have the body scrub, you were required to take off your bikini top. So readers, a lot of my school friends, possibly my teacher, and some strangers saw my boobs as I was scrubbed by a half-naked turkish woman with scary teeth.

 my life in a nutshell.

I had a great time in Istanbul, and I recommend you going if you ever have the chance. Hopefully you can have as much fun as I did, without making a fool of yourself.

Drunkish

The other weekend I went to a party of a vague friend of mine, it was kinda an open invitation thing which meant there were loads of people most of whom I didn't know. So, readers of the internet, to help deal with this problem I may have had a little bit to drink...

This makes everything much easier, probably because I stop being concerned with what people are thinking of me because I am concentrating so hard on not falling over (I don't even need to be that drunk, I'm pretty sure I just have shit balance anyway).  Although me being a lot more sociable is also dangerous, I say a lot of dumb-ass things to people I have never met before.

But what's great is that most people at parties are drinking, therefore don't notice you being an idiot (and there's always the drunkest, craziest person you can count on to hold most of the attention). The party actually ended up being ended by the police, (yeah I go to hardcore parties - believe it.) because the girls parents came home and weren't to happy about the whole situation (sounds like a soap opera, my life is more dramatic then I realised...).
WhenWalking back to the tube station, some random guy stumbled up to us and handed my friend his iPhone. At first we were very confused, but it soon came to light that he and his brother were trying to find each other, but he was too drunk to explain to his brother where he was and how to find him.

We, being the kind citizens that we are, explained to his brother where he was and how to find him and then firmly told him to STAY where he was and not to hand out his very expensive phone to anyone else. He was very friendly so we changed the background on his phone as a souvenir of our meeting which he would probably not remember...

It's late now and I am getting up at FREAKIN' 3:40 to catch a plane. I am going on a school trip to Istanbul and I don't get back until Sunday, but you can count on some hopefully interesting stories from my adventures in Turkey, I know I'm going to wear a headscarf (I anticipate it falling off my head), go to some turkish baths (I anticipate having mud rubbed on me by a turkish man) and spend all day on a ferry (I anticipate throwing up on my history teacher).