Happy New Year

Hello there!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I hope you had a marvellous 2014 but if not, fear not as you have a brand new year to start afresh. Despite not posting in 2014, I feel overall satisfied with how the year went. It was probably the most stressful year of my life but also my most successful. Here's what went down in 2014:

• I passed my driving test. ( third time lucky, but all the best drivers pass third time, right?)
• Last day of school ever.

Sixth Formers dress up for the last day of term and we went as The Chuckle Brothers. - Some people actually thought we were male!!

For the second to last day of school year 13's wear their old year 7 - 11 school uniform.

• I became an official adult - I'm 18 and celebrated with pizza and friends.

• School Prom.

Prom was just so lovely, and we went to a club afterwards.

• The longest summer holidays so far.
• Camping in Lincolnshire with my parents for a week.

• 3 days in Paris.

• Soul Survivor and collecting A Level grades.
• Passed my A levels.
• Visited my sister in London.

• Late birthday surprise trip to Weston-Super-Mere.

• I started studying Psychology at Coventry University.
• Moving out.
• Freshers flu and Freshers week fun.
• Joined Snow Sports society.
• Christmas festivities including Birmingham Christmas market and my halls block Christmas dinner.

Although this post is public, I've written it mainly so I can remember what I did in 2014 in years to come as it's easy to forget. I think it's good to keep track of what you've done so you can look back when you are feeling a little down and think, yes - I did that - I can be successful. I wish you all the best for 2015 and I hope it's productive for you.
Best Wishes xxxx

Revision, Revision, Revision... Already?

Hello There!

So I haven't written in a while because I have been overloaded with school work despite it being the half term break! Shouldn't we A level students be needing a break, rather than studying hard in order to pass the first mock exams of the year. Anyway during the 'lack of motivation revising stage' I remembered a fabulous website that my sister told me about a very long time ago. Quizlet, if you haven't heard of it. (quizlet.com). And no, I have not been paid or asked to write this blog post by anyone for your information.

Basically, Quizlet is a website where you can create your own flashcards for free, or use some that other people have made, and learn using the games and tests on the website. A personal favourite is the space race game even though I can never think fast enough to score any points. I find it helps me to still carry on revising when I honestly feel like completely giving up A Levels. It can actually make learning a little fun, as much as revision can be.

Also there's an app for that. For freeee! So you can revise in a 5 minute gap you have between doing things or while traveling.





So as you can probably tell, I really like this website for revising, and I thought I'd share it with you for those who have no motivation to revise ever, like me.

Other than this my other revision techniques include, mindmaps, revision pages, practice questions and reading over things again and again.

Love Caroline xx

Thorpe Park and The Swarm

Hello there!

A while ago I went off with a few friends to Thorpe Park. Since I am a little bit of an adrenaline junkie, I could not wait to get on to their newest ride- THE SWARM-. So, as soon as we stepped into the park we rushed off to the ride. For those of you who don't know, you can also travel backwards on this ride, so we hopped straight into the queue. 

The queuing I found strange because if you wanted to go on the ride forwards you had to queue on the left of the line, and if you wanted to ride backwards you had to queue on the right. (I hope that makes sense to you) However, all of the fellow queuers seemed to be trying to queue for forwards, but they had taken up the whole width of the queue so unfortunately, we had to awkwardly push past them all to get the the end of the backwards queue. It was just awful looking at the other rider's "uhh, what do you think you're doing?" faces as we slithered through the line.

When we finally got to strap ourselves into the "winged seat position" as stated on their website, we rushed off into the air, and you get that thumping heart feeling causing you to automatically scream in excitement and anticipation of the inversions and 127ft inverted drop. I won't reveal the whole ride but it was very fun and it was definitely a roller coaster not to miss. Personally, I think I preferred the ride in the forward seating as I liked watching all the things we were about to 'crash' into, but the others all preferred going backwards.

I didn't manage to take a picture of The swarm, so here is one from their website:

As for the rest of the day, we went on many other thrilling rides such as, stealth, colossus, nemesis inferno, and the not so thrilling rumba rapids, which we actually went around 3 times in a row because it was very pleasant calming and fun.

We also went on tidal wave, where it is fair to say I was soaked through and through to the skin, but it was worth it for the thrill and experience. Here is the ride by the way, not that you can really see it ;)

Love Caroline xx

Quality, not Quantity.

Hello there!

Just a thought:
Recently, I have changed my approach when purchasing new items, like clothes, bags, makeup etc. as before, I always used to look for cheap and cheerful items, which although can often be lovely, they only last for a very little amount of time. For example, over the past few years I have bought school bags that are on the cheaper side and cost around £15, sometimes less, and no surprise after about a month, they break. So I end up buying another cheap back, and the process continues. However lovely new bags can be, it can become particularly irritating having to always sneak into the art block to get sellotape in order to stick my bag temporally back together.
The point I'm making here is that sometimes, it's best to spend a little more on something that will last.

My handbag from primark that will break ;)

Back to School

Hello.

So tomorrow, I go back to school, which in some ways makes me feel a little sad because I know it is my last year of school after 13 years of education. This also means that this year is A-Levels. *PANIC* I have to work nearly non stop for the next 9-10 months, in order to hopefully go to university, which is really, quite stressful. So here are my personal tips and aims for myself, which you could try and follow too, in order for a happy, less stressful year at school:

1. Try to do all homework on the day set - that way I won't be worrying as much when I have to finish coursework for the next day, which may or may not have happened last year.

2. Try to do a little more exercise - Despite often feeling too tired to bother to go on a run, when I do go running I feel a lot better for it after. Also I have new running trainers that are extremely comfy and lightweight so I want to use them a little more.

3. Work hard, Play hard. The classic rule, which I will attempt to stick to. I'm going to try and focus on my school work and then also organise fun activities and meet up with friends on the weekends more to forget about my schoolwork for a little while.

4. It's only 9 months -  of working hard, then I can relax and have the longest summer holiday I will ever have in my entire life (I can't wait)

5. Have a relaxing evening every now and again - after school, so I don't get super stressed. This will involve a hot bath, hot chocolate and T.V.

So I probably won't end up sticking to this completely, but it is worth a try I suppose. Well, thats all for now, wish me luck for early mornings and hard work for the next 9 months :(

Byee!

Soul Survivor

Hello You!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I also went to Soul Survivor this summer, which for those who don't know, is a camp where lots of Christians and a few non-christians, get together to learn about the bible and God and worship and things like that. But before you stop reading, because you think it sounds utterly boring and a waste of time, it is actually, one of my favourite weeks in the year! I find the talks especially encouraging, so when I leave the 'Big Top', shown below, I always leave with a mix of excitement  joy, contentness and the feeling of possibility and hope for the future.

Along with the interesting talks and worship bands ('The Rend Collective Experiment' is my fav) the camping is quite an experience. Luckily this year, the church youth group I went with had a lounge tent complete with sofa, armchairs, carpet and bunting, which was just perfect. So although the food wasn't 5 star or even 3 star cuisine, and the toilets and showers were positively yucky, the lounge and kitchen tents made up for it.

The Lounge Tent

Dinner mmmmm...

The most delicious hot chocolate

The Wasp Trap

Got a little henna fish on my wrist there!

The tool shed, full of stalls and interesting activities.

Overall, I had a fabulous 5 days at Soul Survivor, hopefully I can go next year too!

Jersey

Hello Again!

Woah, it's been a long time, a month even since I last posted, so I will try to post a little more in the future.

Anyway, it has been a bit hectic recently with my summer holidays, and the exciting (mostly) things I have been up to in the last month.


Firstly I hopped on a ferry with my parents and arrived in Jersey, where we surfed, swam, and sunbathed, in the little British Island off the coast of France if you didn't know. Here a a few of my daily snaps, for you to see our adventures:

Boat picture taken from the ferry on the way to Jersey.

A Lovely lighthouse

Every time that our family goes on holiday, for some reason, there seems to be a tradition of visiting churches, just to see what they look like. So bellow, I show you the first church we visited called something like "the glass church" because there is lots of glass in it (such a surprise!) and on the left is a church we investigated in St. Malo...

"St. Malo... but that's in France", I hear you cry (maybe...). Yes that's right, we also went on a day trip to France, which was so beautiful, and the next 3 photos are also from St. Malo, which is a pretty, small and delightful town, which happens to sell lots of different flavoured, delicious Icecream.

Now I'm no photographer, but I uploaded this photo, because I think it looked like a very cute picture, with the tiny coloured pegs,  bicycle on the balcony in the midst of all the big buildings like the one shown below.

We also went to the zoo, and saw I think my favourite animals, meerkats! I just think they are so lovely, and adorable, aw just look at their little faces! :')









Here is a couple of love-flamingoes, to finish off the photos from Jersey.

If I manage to find any photos from surfing I might upload those on to this post later, so keep an eye out!







So I had a super 2 weeks in Jersey, but then went off to Soul Survivor, a christian camp with many of my friends, which was amazingly fun, and I may also upload, another post on that depending on how I feel.
Okay well that's all for now, I'll write again soon!