Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts

Music Moment: 8tracks and Obscurity


For a while now, music has become a big part of my life and I thrive off of making playlists with my favourite songs from my new obsessions. Lately, I have discovered 8tracks and it really is an amazing way to discover an assortment of new songs and artists because you can only skip two songs within an hour for licensing reasons. This means you are basically forced to listen to songs and is a really great way to hear new music that is not played on the radio because lets face it, Radio 1 does get a bit tiring.

My current favourite songs are:
  • Two Fingers - Jake Bugg
  • Be Above It - Tame Impala
  • My Number - Foals
  • Champagne Supernova - Oasis
  • Midnight Kiss - The Propellers
  • Sugarstone - Peace
  • It's All Good - The Vaccines
  • Dissolve Me - Alt-J
  • Whispers in the Dark - Mumford and Sons
  • Beach - San Cisco
  • Everlasting Light - The Black Keys
  • Tom The Drum - Palma Violets
  • Eat That up, It's Good for You - Two Door Cinema Club
  • Shuffle - Bombay Bicycle Club
  • Flowers in Your Hair - The Lumineers
  • Love Machine (Girls Aloud Cover) - The Arctic Monkeys
  • Wicked Games - The Weeknd
And my current album love has to be Yeezus by Kanye West. As ghetto as it may seem, I do love me some Kanye and his collaboration album with Jay-Z (Watch The Throne) is also sheer genius.

Pet Peeves

We all have those little pet peeves that can range from pulpy orange juice or crunch peanut butter but recently there have been several things frustrating me so I thought I would share!
  1. Commercials on YouTube before the video plays. They take so long to buffer and it annoys me so much!
  2. People who reveal too much on Twitter. Please keep some things to yourself, no one cares and I do want to be able to look at you in the eye without having that tweet in my head.
  3. Obsessive fans. Your idol/favourite band member is never going to marry you. Give up before it is too late.
  4. iPhoto and iMovie. Maybe its just my computer but it seems to freeze every time I open either of them despite them being standard Mac programs. Not sure exactly why it happens, but it does so I have resorted to a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop.
  5. Album downloads that have the wrong genre or album artwork. Sometimes when I download albums, they have album artwork that lists where the download is from or little comments that appear on my iPod saying 'downloaded from rnbhits' or something like that. It means I have to spend forever searching for the album art which I don't mind but it would be preferential if they already had it. I like my iTunes to be clean and believe me, every single song and album has artwork and genres.
  6. Polyvore. Well, I would just like to clarify that I love it to pieces but half of the items on there are from the American equivalent of the store and therefore the prices are in US$ rather than £ even though it is a british store. Secondly, many of the items on it are out of stock or have been discontinued so it makes things slightly more inconvenient, as a result I spend my time going through websites like Topshop or River Island and clip items from the latest collection so any sets on polyvore are actually accessible.
  7. Finally, the confusion between your and you're. Just learn it and use it correctly, I beg of you.
Those are my most recent peeves, do you have anything that really pushes your buttons?



Eighteen.


[A birthday assortment and the key chain which reads 'Keep Calm and Carry On Shopping' is for when I'm in the UK and actually need one! A very exciting prospect!]

[Aren't these cards simply beautiful? I still have cards from my sixteenth and seventeenth birthday!]

[The present from my parents alongside driving lessons. Dirty Dancing is one of my favourite movies and the musical was absolutely amazing!]

[The Elsa Peretti open heart necklace from Tiffany's was a collective present from both my Grandma and Aunty and Uncle. Isn't it beautiful!]

As many of you who follow my various social network sites know, I turned eighteen a couple of weeks ago! Unfortunately my birthday always seems to coincide with exams and such but I managed to have a lovely birthday dinner with my family at a gorgeous italian restaurant!

Now, I know many of you are as nosey as I and adore hauls and as it was requested that I did a Christmas haul, I figured that many of you would like to see what I got given on my birthday!

One of my favourite things about birthdays has to be the cards, don't laugh but they are always so pretty and I do fall in love with them if they're glittery, in fact I still have cards from both my sixteenth and seventeenth birthday because who doesn't love pink glitter?

The Final Countdown


The day has come, the day that has been on my countdown since the beginning of senior year, the day of my first exam. Tomorrow is my very first A-level examination in English Literature. As my school follows the british system, we do exams at the end of a two year course, the grades then go towards our university applications so are not to be taken lightly!

I have five exam papers to take; one for english literature, two for geography and two for biology which means that all my exams will be done by the seventeenth of june which is less than two weeks away (a terrifying thought). It seems like the entire time I have been in sixth form, I have been counting down the days until I get to leave and finally start living in an independent manner but now that the time has come, I'm not so sure that I'm really ready. 

But alas, I cannot slow down time nor can I alter the time of my exams so I have poured my entire life into studying for these past couple of months which has meant that I have had even less of a social life than normal!

I am slightly apprehensive about my english literature exam as my whole grade is based upon this one paper and coursework which is nerve wracking to say the least, but at least I know that I have studied as much as possible and hopefully my writing will be up to scratch!

On Friday I have my first geography exam which lasts a grand sum of three and a half hours and as much as I love the subject, three hours writing on volcanoes and ecosystems is not top of my things to do list.

And finally, biology. Finding the motivation to study for this subject had been rather hard, however the desire to spite my somewhat negative teachers has definitely spurred me on to get extra tutoring; the benefits of which are evident in my work. It is one of those subjects that if you know the content, it's easy however it is the learning of the course that is tricky. But be honest with me, who really has the strong desire to learn the true in's and out's of photosynthesis?

So I shall love you and leave you as I return to my books, my hand eventually falling off from sheer exhaustion. I will be back in touch after my exams or possibly sneak in another post in between some of them.

Following my exams, I am considering restarting my youtube channel, so let me know what you think!

The End Of An Era

It seems like my entire education (particularly sixthform) I have been counting down the days until I could leave school and pursue my higher education options in the UK through a gap year and hopefully university but now that time has come, I'm not so sure I'm ready.

Today was my final day of year thirteen before embarking on less than three weeks of study leave and several important A-level examinations. Although I have literally had a countdown on my iPad since november of 2012, time has flown by to the extent where I wish I could simply turn back the clock.

Although I have barely spent three years in Brunei, they have been some of the best years of my life. I never expected to form such strong friendships with such a diverse range of people within such a short space of time; friendships that will hopefully last far into the future.

So I decided to compile a series of photos from the final two years of my high school education; many from our final dress up day and some from meaningful events that have occurred throughout the year.

Without a doubt, although there have been negatives and positives to my time in Brunei, I am actually incapable of saying that my time here was anything less than amazing. I will truly treasure every memory and carry it with me for a long time and hopefully the same applies for others.







Thank you all for bearing with me over these past hectic couple of months but my exams will be done in a month and my attention shall return to this blog! I'm off to Singapore on Saturday, so I'll try and remember to post some pictures from there!

I Dreamed A Dream

You know when you're younger and at the start of the school year your teachers get you to write down any targets or ambitions? I certainly do and believe me, I used to think it was absolutely rubbish. I used to mess about and write all sorts of tosh and I actually found one of my school books from year 10 with said targets in it so decided to share them with you! Now, these were from a PSHE lesson where my lovely teacher had us write down what we wanted to do with our life. Please bare in mind that I was 14 at the time, so these are rather embarrassing:
  1. Grow. 
  2. Dye my hair blonde.
  3. Become an actress.
  4. Write a book.
  5. Delete my tumblr.
  6. Become a radio DJ
I actually could not stop laughing when I read these! The first one made me convulse with laughter simply because it isn't exactly a goal that I have to work towards, it is really quite amazing to think that somehow I could will myself to grow. Needless to say, I did grow but because of genetics not due to a strong sense of will power. My biology teacher would be absolutely cringing at the sight of this goal simply because it means that I was not paying attention to any of the lessons regarding the impact of genes upon individuals, which I wasn't really but oh well.

Now, I did dye my hair blonde(ish) and it was probably one of the worst decisions of my life. Ever. I shall always appreciate my natural Brunette colouring and hopefully I shall never choose to experiment again. I'm pretty sure at the time I had a fixation with blondes and I truly believed that blondes did have more fun however my pre-college days weren't exactly brilliant, so I guess I completely turned that theory on its head.

I have always had a passion for acting but unfortunately my terrible acting skills had prevented me from ever achieving target number three. However, I shall always continue to imitate members of my family to the point of annoyance in the hopes that one day I shall be snatched up by a talent firm who believes I would be ideal for the big screen. It was never going to happen, but its always good to dream right?

Writing a book has always been something that I wish I had done but it never actually happened. I have several pretty notebooks lying around with story plans in them but somehow due to my busy schedule of procrastination, I have never found the time to actually write one! Hey, maybe I should just start writing fanfiction or something... I take that back. Thats never going to happen. 

Delete my tumblr. Well thats interesting. I have no idea what possessed me to write such a thing as I have had the same tumblr for four years now, yes my url has changed, but its the same account. I guess old habits die hard? I have no idea why I thought that would be a good idea, I spend most of my life on that beautiful blue website and yes, I have looked back over my archive and deleted posts that make me cringe beyond belief. It was humiliating. But oh well, my tumblr is pretty spectacular at the moment so if you fancy checking it out or following me, then click on the link in the sidebar!

I am fully aware that I have mocked all of my targets from the dear sweet innocent age of fourteen, but I still stand by my final goal. I am still waiting for the day that Radio 1 will call me up and give me my own slot during primetime, but somehow I am doubting that would happen. But hey, one day you may be able to say that you read the blog of radios next hot thing! Wouldn't that be amazing?

Before you ask, there is actually a point to this post besides ridiculing my younger self, what I am trying to say is that although it may seem ridiculous at the time to write down your dreams, it is rather interesting to reflect upon them and see how much you've changed. It is really quite fascinating to put yourself in the shoes of your younger self and actually see what you were thinking! It is pretty fantastic to see how much you have developed as a person, and how priorities have changed! So I decided to do the same thing again, but instead of writing it down on ruled paper, I decided to share it with the internet:
  1. Pass my A-levels.
  2. Have a wicked GAP year.
  3. End up choosing a course for university that I am passionate about.
  4. Continue writing a blog for you lovely readers.
  5. Write a book.
  6. Recreate my 'look'.

Now, in comparison some of these targets do look menial and I guess I've kind of ranked them in importance but they are all things that I would really like to accomplish within the next year or so. Wish me luck! 

Goodbye YouTube

The time has come for me to finally write and tell all of you that my video days have come to an end. As strong as I make myself out to be regarding hating comments, I had gotten to a state where I would have to check the comments on my channel daily, simply to make sure nothing mean had been written. These comments had actually gotten to the stage where people were setting up fake accounts in the names of my friends! So yeah, I deleted my channel.

Of course another reason behind this decision was the element of time. It seems really simple to upload a video but the editing process takes forever and as much as I loved doing it, the whole process of uploading the video from my camera, editing, exporting and finally publishing takes up to a day and I really don't have that time to spare!

So this is just a quick post to let you know because a couple of people had emailed me asking either why I wasn't posting videos as much or why they couldn't find me anymore, so I decided it was only appropriate to make a post on it.

I am so sorry to all of you that did enjoy my videos but at this stage in my life, I don't have the time or ability to satisfy everyone.

Thank you so much for your patience with me. I adore you all x

Ellie Update: Apologies


Hello my lovelies! I just wanted to write a quick post apologising for my lack of writing and videos! It's just that I have four months left of school, including exams and although writing is my passion, unfortunately it won't pass my exams for me! Therefore, blogging and making videos is not really my priority especially as videoing in particular takes such a long time to edit and film!
I have queued up several blog posts so there will not be a complete standstill on here but there is no guarantee that I can post daily and for this I am so sorry!

Thank you to all of you who have emailed me on youtube or my email or have tweeted me and have asked me how I am and if there was a particular reason for not blogging but it is simply an issue of time!

I will set aside an hour each week to try and write a couple of posts but otherwise there is not much more that I can give.

However, in good news, when school ends I am going on a gap year so I will have so much more time to blog! So hold off for a couple of months and I will be back with a vengeance! 

Thank you for bearing with me and remaining loyal readers even when my blog is looking rather bare!

Love you all and the bunch of flowers above is just a pretty picture, nothing related! 

My Everyday Look

Recently, as many of you can probably tell, I have been become best friends with the video setting on my camera so have been making numerous videos! As many had previously requested that I share my everyday look including makeup and hair, so I made a couple of videos on it! Actually, I would have had to do a video on it anyways as it is near impossible for me to describe everything in detail in written form! So here are two videos featuring my everyday makeup look and how I do my hair on a typical day!
Enjoy!

Makeup Look


Everyday Hair Look



Recent Obsessions





For quite a while, One Direction has been one of the top artists on my most played list on iTunes and I reckon that their recently released music video for 'Kiss You' is definitely going to make them the most played artist. The music video is amazing and I am pretty sure that I am now completely in love with Zayn Malik. I love them like I love chocolate, and that is saying alot!

Similarly to my overblown obsession of One Direction, I am completely in love with the February Cover of Marie Claire UK. Emma Watson could look gorgeous in only a plastic bag but here she looks amazing. The simplicity of the shoot and the leather biker chic look that the stylist has gone with has completely represented Emma Watson's sultry alter ego as seen in 'Perks of Being A Wallflower'. 

And my final obsession of the month has to be cat eye sunglasses. My preference of sunglasses has ranged hugely over the last few years from aviators, to classic raybans to aviators to big big glasses and finally cat eye sunglasses. I know that a pair of these beautiful lenses shall be entering my wardrobe very very soon!