Hello 2015! Goodbye 2014 - a Reflection

Hi guys!

I hope you guys have had a brilliant Christmas and sent off the New Year in style. Last year I was off to a party for New Years Eve but this year my plans are absolutely zilch so a family night in with trivial pursuit was definitely on the cards! Plus I worked 9am-5.30pm today so an early night was needed (this did not happen).

This time last year, I decided that I wanted to put together a memories jar, so I would be able to look back and reflect fondly on the things that I'd gotten up to in the year. I managed to consistently keep up with all the good times in my life and omit the bad ones, and today I can finally crack open the jar and read back over the high points of 2014, to start off a positive 2015! So, I have collated all these bits of paper into months and thought I'd do little summaries per month. I hope you guys enjoy!

January

My very first entry into the jar was 'Sam's New Years Party (31.12.13/01.01.14)'. One of my best friends Sam decided to step up and host a new years house party, and to date that was the best new years ever! I remember the soundtrack mostly being Beyonce - her album had only just been dropped on us a few weeks prior! It was so cute when the night ended with everybody there hugging and wishing each other a happy new year. The month of January mainly consisted of family birthdays, what with my mum's 47th on the 16th and great grandma's 92nd on the 24th, both celebrated by lovely meals out I would think! I also see an entry that simply states BUDDIES for January too, which I believe was due to always hating the restaurant but having a turnaround for it this year! I fell in love with the retro decor and music. When you serve mac and cheese and play the Beatles, it was hard to hate it. The only other entries were school related (fun!) - firstly 'Sixth form volunteering with Deborah' which was meant to be a boring old volunteering session, only made fun by then new friend Deborah being fantastic company and thus resulting in a very fun time. Then, it was 'study leave', I must have been SO sick of school by that point that study leave for mocks was practically a godsend.

February

February started off with a really insightful trip with my media class to the British Film Institute. Since our exam prep was all about British film, what better place to visit? Going to London was a brilliant substitute for dull schoolwork, and getting to watch artistic films and learn about the history was really interesting as a media student. The next piece of paper is so cute haha, it simply says 'Reunited with Emma!!' My best friend had decided to swap to college instead of going to sixth form, and this was the first time she came back in to visit us I believe! 

Ooh the next thing in there was one of the most defining events of my year - NCS! The residential phase came first in Shropshire, and we left on valentines day. The aim of National Citizen Service is to partake in a volunteering programme in the community that you come up with yourself in a team, but firstly you had to spend time bonding with your team. This residential phase was so out of my comfort zone - there were activities such as archery and assault courses but doing activities involving heights such as rock climbing or caving which I was worried about due to claustrophobia really made me push myself and I felt so accomplished afterwards, as well as making tons of new friends in my team. The residential went so quickly it was unreal, and it was soon onto the college phase a few days later, where we'd have to come up with the actual idea. This involved visits from various organisations and more logical team building activities, as well as pitching. It was clear to see that others were more passionate about other things, so our idea was to split into two sub-groups, one would create a video raising awareness for autism, and my sub-group would be helping out in a care home to tackle the issue of isolation with the elderly. Next month would see us make our ideas a reality. After all these NCS events finished this month, one of my best friends Kyla turned 17 and to celebrate this we went to T.G.I Friday's and since I'd only been surrounded by my NCS group for two weeks, it was lovely getting to see my own friendship group again. 

March

Second day into the month and it was already back to NCS related activities! We now had to fundraise in order to get our event off the ground, and firstly we decided to do a seven mile run at Pitsford Reservoir to raise some of the cash and also contribute towards the thirty hours of volunteering goal that we'd been set by our NCS team leader. Seven miles later and we were absolutely shattered, but it had of course been worthwhile. The rest of the month would be saturated in more NCS activities but sandwiched in between was a party that I was looking forward to! It was another house party BUT the theme was American fancy dress, and this gave me the opportunity to dress up as fame-era Gaga, donning a glittery jacket, shades and a platinum blonde wig complete with bow. It was brilliant seeing everyone in their fancy dress, and rest assured many photos were captured. Following this party there was ALREADY another NCS related event the next day! 

We decided we needed to meet up as a team, and our team leader suggested Long Buckby fire station, so we all met there and discussed what we needed to do in the run up to our big day. One of the things we had decided is that we had to do a leaflet distribution in Moulton (the area our event would be) and this was fun in itself, especially crossing paths with a classy drunk girl throwing up and trying to insult our team leader...! Aside from that we also did a cake sale, and our event on the 17th came around so quickly! It was at Moulton's Chappell House and we spent the whole day with elderly residents, serving them tea and cake, chatting to them, doing female members' nails, holding a raffle and games of bingo. We all really enjoyed it, and the residents commented that it was the most fun they'd had in ages! We all felt it so rewarding afterwards.

On the 29th it was our NCS graduation! It was all such a whirlwind over the past two months, and we were shown a video put together of all the Northamptonshire groups and our respective journeys. It was brilliant being reunited with my whole team again and receiving certificates signed by David Cameron, all our hard work had paid off and I now had something to put on my Uni personal statement in the coming months. Only downside was that I had to rush off early due to my dad wanting to make a move for the QPR game that day! 

April 

April seemed to be a lot more chilled, with the memories here being cute days with family or friends. Firstly, there is a 'town trip with Emma' memory, and me and my best friend do love a good town trip, especially as we don't get to see each other all that often. It was a great catch up, and I remember this trip very well, especially purchasing loads of CDs and a Beatles shirt! One of my other best friends Kyla also had such a fun movie night this month, I finally got to see White Chicks plus we had our faves of proper greasy kebabs and also we discovered loads of YouTubers. Meals out seemed to be popular, as I have 'Buddies and the arcades' as well as 'Beefeater' down for April, two top places there with the aforementioned Buddies cropping up again, gosh my family love their food! Oh also, following NCS I felt so inspired that I wanted to partake in volunteering again after the programme ended, so this month I began volunteering at Cynthia Spencer Hospice charity shop, which filled my volunteering void, allowed me to find bargains before anyone else and would be great to put on my CV as it was a shop. 

May

May was the month when it was exam central and when I was particularly obsessed with the British YouTubers! Firstly however the memory put in was 'Family BBQ' - so it's clear to see my family get into the summer spirit far too early, that or it reflects how sporadic British weather is. A few days later, it was time for another special family birthday as my grandma turned 75! I believe we celebrated this in the form of a Harvester, which is always fab. Oh gosh, the day after I counted a memory as 'Fab purchase at Shoezone'!! Woooow, this was probably during my 'obsessed with DMs' stage, when I found fake ones that looked nice dead cheap. Okay then the YouTuber thing was definitely evident, as this month both 'Alfie Deyes followed me on twitter!!' and 'Tanya Burr tweeted me!!' both score a memory, but to be honest they were rather exciting at the time! As per usual there are more meal-related memories such as 'Fun Bella Italia/McDonalds trip' as well as more fun trips with friends, such as 'fun catch-up with Emma at the park' where I saw her amazing blue hair in person for the first time, and then 'cinema trip - seeing 'Bad Neighbours' with Christian & Kyla'. I remember this being the day before I had a media exam, oops priorities. It was a rather crude film with some cringe moments, but balanced out with a lot of humorous bits too! Speaking of exams though, on the 23rd there is 'END OF EXAMS!!!' so this was quite the highlight this month, as I had completed my AS Level exams which were hugely stressful at the time!

June 

So the month starts off in true me fashion, with the first memory as 'Spontaneous McDonalds trip!', wow this really highlights how often and how much I love eating out! This is soon followed by 'fun day with Christian' which I believe was us walking around our estate just chatting for hours, those kind of days are so lovely. June of course marks father's day and this was celebrated by Frankie & Benny's! Oh dear more examples of meals, but at least there was an excuse this time!! Next up it says 'Uni trip!!' which on paper sounds SO boring but following the Uni trip in question, I left feeling so motivated for my future and it felt so fantastic at the time, like I finally knew that I would enjoy my course and what the future would hold. School-wise, apparently I loved the 'ICT + media day' where we were put in groups and got to make our own trailer and I don't remember enjoying it that much at the time but hey, I must have been on a high from the Uni trip. I also apparently had the 'BEST sociology lesson EVER with Sam!!' which leaves me with mixed emotions as in year 13 our classes changed so me and Sam no longer have these epic lessons anymore! Finally, there was 'Going to London to visit family' which was particularly special because a) London and b) because we hardly ever get to visit them (my great nan and her son) so it was wonderful. 

July

So July was a fairly packed month! The first day of the month was rather emotional but fun as me and my best friend Emma went to the cinema to see The Fault In Our Stars! Upon this initial viewing I adored the film, but I luckily managed to restrain myself from crying, even if I was dying inside! This was closely followed by the far more productive work experience over the next two days, where I spent my days learning all about what goes on in the media departments at the Argos and Homebase head office. This was so rewarding and fun, and in fact inspired me to create this very blog after one of the girls who I spoke to there was a blogger herself! The memory for the third is SO cute - 'Started my blog and loads of positive feedback!' - thanks to you guys! Two days later was followed by 'First proper Nandos' haha - by proper I mean that I went two years prior but all I ate was garlic bread! So I delved right into their butterfly chicken and was glad that Nandos lived up to how much everyone bigs it up! Later on that day was a local event called Walk In the Park with my friends Christian, Emma and Kyla where you listen to live bands and eat and it was an all night thing, it was such a great catch-up and we all had a brilliant time. Oh my gosh haha, a few days later I had 'Business day with Sam, Hayden & Sam' which also on paper sounds like the most boring thing ever, but I guess I liked it so much at the time because we basically just had a laugh the whole time instead! I also wrote down 'Social Sciences fair' oh gosh haha, me and my friend Christian had a laugh though all day, and it was when my friends were obsessed with the Kim Kardashian app! Lastly, there was a festival that my school hosted with acts currently there or alumni performing for us, and it was surprising just how talented people were! Ooh the best moment came on the 18th, the 'SUMMER HOLS!!'. Need I even explain? 

Next up was supporting my brother in his futsal tournament! It was actually quite fun, and amusing to see how much the boys in one of the other teams kept showing off! Apparently an all-nighter with my brother was also worth a mention too. A couple more family days followed, what with 'YUM curry at the Grange Inn' and 'Fun in Kettering - the wimpy and bowling!' being written down. As I said before, we do love our meals out my family! Especially with bowling chucked into the equation.

August

August and December are by far my favourite months of the year, so of course I was so excited for it to arrive! There are so many bits of paper for this month, starting with 'pizza hut trip!!' on the first, once again, oh dear! Pizza hut buffet is lush though, to be fair. However, a mere three days later was my birthday! Yep, I turned 17 on the 4th of August, and my birthday was made so special going to the Brittania and followed by a Mandarin meal. Three days after that was my brother's 16th, where we saw the hilarious Inbetweeners 2 in the cinema! Birthdays are usually the foundation of August, what with my cousin Sophie turning 21 also this month!  Away from the birthday fun, the following week I would be getting my AS Level results so that was in the back of my mind. The day prior, me and my friends Christian, Emma, Kyla, Sam, Kieran and Kaela all had a fun day out once again at pizza hut but with the arcades too! So that was pre-exam fun, and now the next day was met with stress for us year 12s (and of course anyone else receiving their results at the time). Anyway annoyingly the school website had an error with our results and we didn't get them for hours. However, I finally did and I was THRILLED to to get A B B D! I honestly thought I'd tanked, so it was such a relief to have not only passed them all, but be completely content. Knowing my family, the first thing we did was of course a celebratory meal! The following day was also a bit of a celebration too, as I met up with Emma in town to have a huge chat, and after getting the bus home I actually spotted Christian and Kaela too! Aw. Of course with it being exam season, my brother also received his GCSE results a week later! He got a fantastic set of grades and once again it was... a meal out!! Oh, the suspense. So yes a lot of happy times in August, rounded off by... the ice bucket challenge of course! 

September

God knows WHY I put this in there, but it was back to school on the 3rd for my first day of year 13. I guess we must have been eased in gently! It was back at school working hard, including analysing the Fault In Our Stars in media, so how fitting that I went to go and see the film again in the cinema a couple of days later! I wasn't as impressed the second time round as now I knew what happened, I began picking faults in it. Oh well, something far more enjoyable was a couple of days later. It was my dad's 40th on the 15th of September so a couple of days prior, we all went to my hometown Watford and spent a huge family day there having a barbecue and everything. My dad also received a thrill drive as a present, so at the end of the month we had quite the lads day out, with my dad doing his thrill drive at Silverstone, followed by the QPR match in the same day! Finally, blogging-wise I wrote down 'Sent free stuff for blogging!!' so yes that was unashamedly the first time I had been sent something by a PR company, which felt so rewarding in terms of progress at the time.

October

Ah, this month was rather bleak. There is just the one memory here, as due to the passing of my great grandad, there was a looming cloud of sadness that was hard to escape from. Still, at least the good memory was such a mega one! Instead of our annual holiday in the summer, we instead decided to go down the cheaper route of going on holiday in October! We went to Spain for around eight days and it was exactly what we all needed! We got up to so much, such as getting to go to the beach in Autumn, exploring the sights, eating out and shopping amongst other things. Definitely the worst month of the year on the whole, but Spain was definitely a huge highlight of the year. 

November

So thankfully this month was definitely looking up! It was brilliant on both a personal and social level. Prior to this year I had never really done anything to celebrate bonfire night, but this year I got to go to two firework displays! The first was with a huge group of friends followed by a McDonalds and Starbucks, then that same weekend I went to one in my estate with my two best friends. Both nights were so much fun, although the playlists while the fireworks were going off were rather awful, with the inclusions of hits such as 'Firework', 'Relight My Fire' and 'Firestarter'...! I was already on a high, but then the following week did absolute wonders on a personal level as I FINALLY got a job after a lot of unsuccessful interview processes! Better yet, it was somewhere I had wanted to work ever since I was small! On 15th November I started my current job at HMV and it's been such a brilliant experience, as well as having excellent colleagues to make the shifts more enjoyable. Yay! As I said before, this month was decidedly quite social. I had two unconventional 18th parties in just over the space of a week, instead of the usual clubbing, firstly Lauren's 18th was a huge gathering at pizza hut, and then Chrissie's turned the whole idea of an 18th on it's head as she had it at a place called Kids Play! Basically one of those huge indoor activity centres for kids, but as a laugh she invited about fifty people and we all had a brilliant time, but it was so exhausting, particularly the trampolines! The month ended on a high, with one of my best friends Sam having a pizza night at his house, with a whole group of us having loads of Domino's pizzas with Christmas music and gossiping - fun fun fun!

December

Oh good old festive December, I miss you already. Of course I spent the entire month capturing the run up Christmas through Blogmas! However, there were a few certain days I did write down. Firstly, Christmas jumper day! Yes I am a sad person who got excited at the thought of wearing my Christmas jumper! However, it wasn't just that, the day on the whole was so cute with my friends. Around a week later, the Christmas holidays arrived and I was delighted to finally be getting some well deserved lie-ins after being at school every week day and then working all weekend! Of course lets not forget CHRISTMAS itself! What an incredible day as it always is, sharing the magic with my closest ones. Boxing day was also good too, as we went down to the pub and it was karaoke night, always a guaranteed laugh! The year was toasted off spectacularly last night as a family, with a huge match of trivial pursuit and a kebab! Not the best idea at work today, but luckily I managed to recover from the kebab and lack of sleep!

I really hope you guys enjoyed reading and visually absorbing what my 2014 was like. It's been up and down but definitely the best year of my life on a personal level! Apologies for how long this turned out to be!

How was your year?

Thanks for reading,

Jade xx

Working in Retail

Hi guys!

Apologies that I haven't posted in a fair amount of time, life has been SO busy what with school, UCAS and what this very post is all about! If you follow me on twitter or instagram then you will know that I FINALLY got a job after trying for so long! It was the quickest process ever; I applied, got a phone call back 2 hours later, had an interview the next day, and then began working the day after that!

As you can see from the picture above, I'm now an employee at HMV! Not only is it a job, but one that involves products that I'm extremely interested in, predominantly music that I've been passionate about all my life. As work has completely taken over my weekends (9.00-5.30 on Saturday, 10.00-6.30 on Sunday!) it inspired today's blogpost just about working in retail in general.

So far personally I've been loving it! It is so satisfying when customers ask me questions about music and I genuinely know what to say to them, and the dosh is quite lovely. There are of course some things that come with it that aren't ideal, making mistakes on the till gets me so flustered and the hours take their toll sometimes on me mentally and physically. It can be brilliant though, like an elderly woman coming up to me and asking me for a Lil Wayne album that was apparently 'number 7 on uTunes'. uTunes. Adorable! 

So yeah I'm getting used to the ins and outs, like rude customers or erratic queues leading to coping under pressure. There are great things too though as previously mentioned, and getting to discover new music all day while you're working is pretty brilliant. Right now this is the biggest change in my life as of late, so it only seems right to base this blogpost around it. Christmas presents are officially sorted!

So, to those of you that work or have done so previously in retail, what were your own experiences?

Thanks for reading as always,

Jade xx

LADS day out - Silverstone and QPR

Hi guys!

So one thing you should know about me is that nowadays I am NOT sporty whatsoever, and my friends can confirm that I am even known to get out of breath when walking to school. However, I am more impartial to days out that involve observing sport! I thought I'd share my day out with you yesterday as there's a fair amount to talk about and there was PLENTY of photo opportunities. It was definitely a lads day out as such!

So first up was Silverstone! It was only a 20 minute drive away so not too far at all. My dad would be partaking in a thrill drive day that they had! It wasn't his first time, but this time he was far more nervous as he'd never done one of these thrill drives in a proper F1 type car! We waited around for a bit whilst my dad got registered. I had a huge soup craving as well and the cafe had everything but, sigh. We passed the time by listening to music, and me and my brother recreated the photo we'd taken at Silverstone four years prior!

2010 

2014

So, we most definitely do not look like our twelve and thirteen year old selves, and my brother still pulls stupid faces in photos! Oh, and headphones are still intact. 

Anyway, the time had soon come and my dad and everyone else also taking part were readily getting in their cars and putting on the helmet that gives you guaranteed hat hair! It was really cool watching him drive at such a speed and waving at us each lap! He made it look so easy, although later admitted he nearly span off twice! Still, I didn't notice. One other driver wasn't quite so lucky as he did spin off. He turned out fine, just a bit shaken. Although apparently he had asked for a refund for the memory stick that films your drive but the people there were NOT impressed with this as he had caused around £5k of damage to the car! Still, at least he was okay and we'd had fun, despite the cold sweater weather!

That pic above is definitely my favourite from the day, me and my mum there with my dad pre-drive! The laddish day did not end after the drive, however. As QPR supporters, we decided to go down the pub and watch the QPR vs Stoke match down there, all in full kit! Luckily we did not get booed, haha. 2-2 the score was, so all in all not too bad a result.

Yay for family fun! Oh also, how could I not have enjoyed it when I had THIS to eat (not this exact one, I forgot to take a pic, but this was from a previous time, exact same meal though!). Chicken Tikka Masala is too good.

A brilliant weekend all in all, sport can be enjoyable sometimes! Hope you guys enjoyed, have you had a good weekend?

Jade xx

Good Times with Good Friends

Hi guys! 

Hope you're all doing well. Right now I am freaking out SO bad for my A Level results tomorrow that I needed a creative outlet to take my mind off that. So what better than a blogpost, AND one about today - which was actually a really optimistic day for me. So yeah just a quick post that I hope you guys won't mind my rambling on about. This will literally be the most pointless thing ever but oh well. Technically it's a bit of lifestyle, eh! Btw the lighting was awful so apologies for the rather grainy photos. Btw, in that photo above features two of my best friends - Sam on the left, Emma in the middle, and myself on the right. God knows what my hair was doing - literally a mind of it's own. It originally was like the Ariana Grande half/up-do, but it's supposed to be a bit more forward so it's kinda just done a weird thing in that photo. It'll look more NORMAL and how it was supposed to look in the upcoming photos, hopefully.

 ANYWAY.

That's myself and another one of my best friends Kyla above. See, my hair looks a bit more normal here regarding THAT hairstyle, but now it seems like there is a random chunk of hair exposed on the right? Props for having the most unphotogenic hair ever. Can you tell I'm nervous for my results? So anyway onto happy things. The summer holidays are a great thing, ESPECIALLY post first year of A Levels because gosh that was a huge but confusing step up alright. But a lot of watching films and eating pizza can get ever-so-tedious. So instead I chose to swap films for my actual friends, but of course kept the pizza - just instead at a restaurant. Yep, me and my friends went to pizza hut! My plans keep going weird lately, I keep trying to arrange stuff but it keeps not working out - I guess people get busier when they're older, so it was a good thing that all the people I'd wanted to come COULD do so (plus 1 extra, but it was great to see her too). So yeah I'd been getting far too lazy, so it was fantastic to catch-up with the usual lot. Social anxiety usually makes me a bit on edge in public so it's lovely to actually be able to feel feel super comfortable when I'm around my best friends.

Me, Emma and Sam above there! Once again the terrible lighting detracts any sort of good quality. Half of my hair is covered up this time though, so no chance to have any dodgy hair pictures. Yay! But yeah this was the bit after Pizza Hut. I was super boring and had Margherita, with pasta and garlic bread too though. With refillable drink it's pretty decent for £9.95. Help though, my birthday money is going so quickly, at least half now! But yeah, after Pizza Hut we decided to go to the arcades in the bowling alley next door. Above you see my friends and I on one of the cool motorbike rides they have. But yeah I was straight to guitar hero with also best friend Christian, I have definitely lost touch over the years though, what an awful game that was! Meanwhile, they now have a huge doodle jump game so turns out that app isn't totally irrelevant (doesn't stop me still secretly playing it though...). But YEAH don't you just hate those crane machines they have to win cuddly toys when it gives you the SLIGHTEST bit of hope and then constantly drops them. Gah! So addictive, I think my friends ended up having about 10 goes. 

So yeah um that's pretty much it! Don't you just love those catch-up days you have with friends and just have a really nice time? I don't know it just makes me feel more appreciated to know I have a great set of people surrounding me, that's all that really matters. Plus it's always great to have a laugh with said people you care about! Oh yeah, there was ONE decent picture that I actually really liked:

Me, Emma and Kyla there. Gosh her phone camera is SO much better than mine. No hair disasters either - result! So yeah that's about it - writing all this has actually calmed me down a bit recollecting on today's happy times. I am SUCH a worrier though, so of course I'm dead nervous about tomorrow's AS Levels. Hopefully I'm in for a miracle like GCSEs last year. So what about you guys, any impending exam results? Or more to do with this article, any recent fun times you've had with friends? 

Thank you :)

Jade xx

July Favourites

Hi guys, these are a few things that I was really loving in July this year, including: clothing, cosmetics, TV shows and food. I've also experimented with the design to make it look a bit more aesthetically  pleasing, hope you enjoy!

First up is clothing, and I was absolutely delighted to find this. I'd wanted something smart and girly for ages, and the pink colouring as well as the black collar provided this. I usually really do not suit pink at all, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually really loved what this looked like on! I bought it for £8.99 from New Look, total bargain for something non-Primark!

Speaking of Primark, that's exactly where I got this from! I'd been looking for ages for a really nice playsuit for summer, but couldn't quite find one that I liked enough to purchase. However, looking around Primark, I stumbled across this one! I love the colouring and patterns, and at just £7.99 I just couldn't say no!

This was another Primark purchase this month! I was a bit strapped for cash so this month it's been another one of limited spending and looking for bargains. But anyway, I was looking for a dress in Primark and came across this one. I absolutely love the blue colour, and teamed up with a flower belt I have, the two went together so well so I just had to get it, especially once again for another brilliant price, this time just £10.00.

Well this is decidedly less girly than the other stuff! Anyway, I'd wanted something along the line of this for a while, but usually I have a look on Truffleshuffle.com for this type of thing. I decided that I didn't really like any of their 'drink' shirts. However, after being dragged (okay it wasn't that bad!) around Matalan, this Pepsi-Cola vest caught my eye and as it was only £8.00 I decided to pick it up for the summer!

Now for a quick piece of jewellery that I picked up this month! My necklace that I had been wearing pretty much everyday for the past few years was getting tatty so I wanted a new necklace, and another green one at that. I was in a charity shop and this one caught my eye, I liked how dramatic it was with all the different large green gems inside it, and I just adored it after trying it on, so now this has become one of my main necklaces, haha! The best part is that I only had £1.50 on me and the woman let me have it for just that, what a bargain!!

This has been my old faithful for almost three years, after originally testing out lots of different ones, getting help from one of the make-up ladies in store and finding the perfect make and colour for my skin tone. I'm including this because it usually lasts me a good few months but the time came where I needed to re-stock! The exact make is the No7 Beautiful Skin BB Cream, but more specifically the Normal/Oily SPF 15 one in the 'Fair' shade. It usually costs me about £11.99 but it is so worth it for me as it lasts so long, is the exact right colour and doesn't feel too heavy or anything, it does a really good job. Oh, and I usually buy it from Boots.

Here's another cosmetic that I've been loving this month! These are Estée Lauder lipsticks - the red one is #26 Nectarine and the more purple/brown one is #48 Hot Kiss. They are both absolutely wonderful - very pigmented leading to a very fantastic colour, plus it stays for hours. The Hot Kiss one in particular is probably my favourite ever lipstick shade that I've ever discovered, as you can see it's quite worn out! The packaging also looks amazing! Go check out their website, or failing that, Debenhams stock their products too! 

Okay this boxset isn't exactly new as the show has just finished it's fifth season, but oh my gosh, during the summer holidays I've enjoyed watching back over the Glee season 1 boxset SO much! Season One was just pure gold with the comedy and drama and the story lines were just so on point. 'Bad Reputation' is most probably my favourite episode. Season One aired between 2009-2010 where the show found great success in the ratings and in the charts too.

This wouldn't be me unless it was rounded off with SOME form of food, haha! Firstly, this month my parents drove past a Cadbury Shop and brought us back a bag of 'Mis-Shapes' and they are absolutely gorgeous - a mixture of milk chocolate shapes and then also ones filled with caramel. I love both, so now I don't have to decided which one I'd prefer when I get a bag full of both of them! OH and secondly I was reminded of my love for Dip-Dabs this month when deciding to get one at my brother's futsal tournament. SO sugary but SO delicious!

So yeah that's it for this month guys! I hope you enjoyed this post and knowing me it had to be long and include food! Which of the items featured was your favourite? Most importantly, what were YOUR July favourites? Comment a link to your favourites' posts and I'll be more than happy to check them out!

Jade xx

Work Experience

Hi everyone,

So, I noticed that it's now been over a week since I wrote my favourites post, so I thought it was time to write about something to keep this blog up and running, as I didn't want it to die a death pretty much just as it was taking off! Life has been pretty uninteresting as of late, so I had to wrack my brains a bit for something not only relevant but somewhat interesting. Now, I know the title doesn't sound quite as appealing as reviewing a beauty project or something along that line, BUT it is something I finally had to do despite MANY anxious thoughts that I thought I'd share, for younger readers who may want to know what the type of work experience I did was like, older readers to read and share their own experiences of work experience/work down below OR if it's late at night, and you are in a state of such boredom that you'd actually rather read my ramblings. As part of a lifestyle blog, I may as well share this. Fab, so I'll just get on with it now.

As I said, I had many anxious thoughts in my head. I'd pre-planned this work experience that I was going to do a few months in advance (After getting turned down by quite a few places, thanks guys!) and I was worried even back then, so it was even more daunting now the time had come. I guess it seems stupid to be worried since it was only EXPERIENCE that school wanted me to do, so it wasn't like I had a job at stake and the people would be showing ME the ropes anyway, not the other way round. Still, I'm definitely the type of person you could call a worrier, with all these irrational thoughts all the time! 

Anyway, the place I was going to do my work experience at was at the head office of Home Retail Group, who run both Argos and Homebase, and knowing I was into media I thought experience in different media-related departments would be worthwhile. 

The first day came around and the coolest part was definitely the pre-work experience stop off at McDonalds. Although a coke and a McFlurry was a really odd mixture (Still didn't stop me having it again the next day, though!). After this, I found out that I'd be spending the first half of the day with a lovely girl called Laura who was the marketing manager and was responsible for Argos' advertising, who I also later found out lived in the same area as me! Small world. The first challenge I was set with Laura was to go through tons of newspapers and cut out any relevant advertisements from rival companies. There were - I kid you not - about fifteen newspapers to go through. I like reading the news, but I think I was informed of Kate Middleton's new hairstyle about seven times! Still, it kept me busy and I was already getting to know just what it would be like to work in an office. 

Throughout the hours I spent with Laura, I noticed she was absolutely bombarded with emails as part of the job, and I thought the amount I got (albeit, a lot straight to the spam filter) was a lot! Anyway, it was so interesting finding out just how they create everything. Laura was telling me for example, that for the adverts they do, they even have to hire out the same voiceover lady each time, who comes in especially for allocated studio slots. She was constantly also having to make changes on adverts that involved the brand, whether the logo was too stretched or if the company's remit didn't quite fit with the advert, for example, an advert which previously featured... let's say a lady who wasn't afraid to flaunt it all, had to undergo several changes before it was just right, and appropriate. The hours absolutely flew by and I was learning tons.

After a lunch break, I then spent the remainder of the day with an absolutely wonderful girl called Emily, a social media and marketing manager for the company. The first thing I got to do excitingly was sit in on a meeting between her and three others regarding the company's Facebook and how to successfully advertise. I thought I was social-media savvy until now, they were bringing up so many points about the site intertwining with the company that I never would've even thought of! Still, it was amazing to hear the mature discussion and debate going on, and the pure madness mid-way that amusingly stopped the mature conversation - when a guy dressed as santa walked in the building! I kid you not, and in July, too. 

Anyway, after the meeting came to a close, Emily took me to the social media department and showed me just exactly what her role entailed. She helps to run the companies social media's by using innovative ideas to attract customers, as well as competitions. She was also showing me the vines they used too, and also the extremely cute 'my ideas for tweets' notebooks that they wrote their ideas in (Seriously google them, I want one so bad!). Not to mention that the twitter she was running for the company had at least 100 times more interactions than I would get. Daily. Not. Jealous. At. All. Haha! So as an avid twitter user in particular, it was so interesting to get an insight into how a company's social media sites are ran, and what kind of incentives are used. The last thing I had to do that day was listen in on a conference call, which was ever so professional and exciting! I listened to once again more adult discussion and debate and thought to myself "well okay then these people are EXTREMELY smart". Overall though it had been a super interesting day, and I couldn't wait for the next, either!

Even though I was excited, I was still of course anxious for the next day, because I'd be in a completely different department. Luckily though, I spent the day with another lovely person, this time going by the name of Caroline. She had the title of media relations manager. So cool PR stuff, and I was dead interested in this stuff. The first part saw me being pedantic, and got a chance to show off my inner grammar police. YES, those annoying people that annoyingly correct your spelling are doing it right because this job involved just that! I went through some press releases that the company were planning to hand out, after watching her type one out, and had to basically correct any errors or replace any words that were used more than once with alternatives so that it wasn't too samey. At first it felt a bit weird - I was a 16 year old sixth form student correcting this professional person's work, but I just went with it and actually liked it a lot! She was also showing me spreadsheets and how they were arranging to invite all sorts of people to a Christmas event - yes a lot of early planning to ensure things run smoothly! I also found out that pretty much EVERYONE in every department is bombarded with emails! That's working in an office for you, I guess.

I then spent some time with the lady who sat next to her, called Lexie. I already knew we would get on just from her snazzy desk alone - it was so retro and fab, with a picture of Audrey Hepburn catching my eye! Firstly I had a chat with her about her role, and what she had to do firstly was create layouts for the company's catalogues and make sure all the pictures were just right. After this, she also showed me the social media accounts she ran, such as the PR account for the company, and once again there was so much more that went into it than I would've thought. She showed me for instance what the trending topics would be, then having to create a selling point around that to attract buyers. She also used this site called Hootsuite, which let you write tweets but it also allowed you to pre-write them when you had an idea, only to then decide a time when you wanted them published, and they automatically would be when it got to this time, so cool!

Next, I sat in another meeting but this time with these girls, and mature discussion once flowed again. Caroline suggested that it'd be a good idea if I had a chat with a girl who'd joined that week on a post-graduate scheme called Molly. We went downstairs for a coffee and a chat, and she was telling me all about the last few years of her life. I found out that she had done a journalism and PR course at Uni, something that I was very interested in myself, and it was great to actually get to hear someone's own experience rather than just being told what to do without any actual anecdotes. This really made me determined for the future. 

Lastly, when I went back upstairs, I spent another hour with Lexie, and after more professional work experience-y stuff, she showed me something a bit more personal - the fact that she ran her own fashion/beauty/lifestyle blog! I was so impressed with this because I was so interested in all the big bloggers such as Zoella and Tanya Burr, and had always secretly wanted to start one myself. Well, she happened to be the motivation for me to finally start this blog, so I have her to thank! 

(^me & Lexie! Dodgy front phone camera FTW!)

So yes I had an absolutely brilliant time and it completely reiterated the fact that I definitely wanted to work in the media, but instead expanding my options from journalism to PR as well. Office work doesn't look as boring as they make out! At least I hope so anyway, haha. I REALLY hope you guys liked this, sorry that it was so long but it's night-time a.k.a the peak time of my rambling and there was so much to say that just could not be done concisely. This was very life-styley and I'll try to do more fashion/beauty stuff in the future as well too.

So yes, what has YOUR own experience of working or work experience been like?

Thanks,

Jade xx