You're beautiful

To anyone battling with anything. You're beautiful. Always. Never forget it. Yes, you. Stop doubting it, it's true.

I'm just saying

I'm so over hearing people say "Music is my life". Its not. If you can't make music, music is not your life. You can't read music. Music is not your life. You only ever listen to one type of music. Music is not your life. You don't spend hours lying on your bed, just appreciating the sheer beauty of it all. Music is not your life. I love music, and I couldn't live without it, but there is more to my life than music.
That being said, music is my everything. Every mood has a song, when someone means something to me they get a song to be represented by.
I spend hours daily making music by myself, and I love nothing more than the feeling when you learn a new song and it eventually sounds right!

my newspaper article

In every teenager’s life today, whether they are in school or not, poor or rich, they face the big S word - Stress. Girls my age are generally stressed about things like schoolwork, family relationships and what other people think of them. I know that I personally stress about each and every one of those things.

 I feel that compared to the past, most school-pupils are loaded with more and more homework, tests and the workload is constantly increasing. As at my school (Our Lady of Fatima) there are a lot of appealing extra-murals offered, students often find it hard to finish all their homework etc. I personally have an extramural every single day of the week and don't have a lot of time outside of school to just chill, and it’s not because the homework is difficult, or even because each teacher gives a lot, but because every teacher gives a bit.

Every teen also deals with family stress, and I know at my age, there are a lot of hormones flowing around, which leads to lots of tension in the home environment. Then there’s what people think of you. This is a hard age because everything that you do gets judged. You have to wear the right clothes, say the right things, get good grades-but not so good that you're a nerd-associate with the right people, be on her side, be on his side, be neutral, and if you don't-well you're not cool. And teens my age, especially girls, care about being cool.

I have a long history in school and things, but the long and short of it is about two years ago, I was diagnosed as “gifted” which changed everything.

1. Have you encountered bullying? If yes, how did you deal with it?

I wouldn’t call it bullying, per se, but when I was in junior school, I was never the “cool kid” and was always an outcast of sorts at school and I was never part of the popular crowd, and at some points, I wasn’t even part of any crowd. I spent a lot of breaks in the library, reading, and therefore inducing further bullying, as because I read, I was a nerd. Eventually I moved schools.

2. You were in two very different schools; what was it like in each? It must have been very different.

In my school career so far, I've been to 6 different schools, so I was quite used to the moving around between schools. At my school preceding Fatima, I was at a school for gifted pupils, and this was different from mainstream schools in that we could all work at our own pace, and that everyone around me was also gifted. I moved to Fatima because my mom no longer wanted me boarding, and Fatima is very different being a convent mainstream school. Also, I had to move from a class of predominantly boys to a girl- only school, which took a while to adjust to. Each school has its unique challenges and difficulties, but I've thoroughly enjoyed experiences at both and I'm grateful I've been given the opportunity to experience both.

3. What are your thoughts on kids who go out drinking and partying during their teen years?

I personally try not to judge people, and if they want to go out drinking and partying that's their own personal choice, it’s their life and they can do what they want with it. In my eyes, it does however become a problem when they start lying, whether it be to their parents, or about their age or whatever. Also, if they go out now and experience clubs and drinking, what do they have to look forward to?

Some cool pics

Individuality

I was thinking recently, about how no-ones really different. I mean, we all scream for individuality to end up just the same as the person next to us. I say I'm individual, just like everybody else. But I'm not truly different...Why?

Why do people conform? We always want to say the right thing, wear the right jeans, straighten our hair to perfect the right style...who's the judge of what the 'right and wrong' thing to do is?

You have to have the nicest jeans, or wear the cutest purse, or say the newest thing until it catches on and everyone else is saying it as well. You have to be skinny, have frizz-free hair, white teeth. You cant wear that because 'its so yesterday'. You have to go to all the 'cool' parties, be friends with the cool people, pose like this, smile like that, lean your head this way, stick out your bum like that, just because that's the way it is.

And all I can say is, well, to hell with that. Yeah, I'm a teenager, and I'm always going to have a part of me that will care about what other people think, but I AM different, and I'm happy with that. I'm not going to be a carbon copy of someone people have deemed popular just to fit in. This is me. Take it or leave it.

Zanzibar 2012

This was honestly one of the best experiences I've ever had. From the girls I've made friends with, to the different foods eaten, to the life lessons learnt, to the amazing sights seen and more, this is truly what I'd call a  life-changing experience. Everything was perfect. I'm not going to babble on though, I'll upload some pics instead!