So much to do, so little money!

Well, here we are, November the 17th, 5 weeks and 3 days until christmas and I have bought a total of 2 christmas presents! I just don't know what to get anyone this year, and I spent most of my money on a school trip last week, trains to London are soooo expensive, and that's with a 16-25 railcard discount!
And it's not just christmas, there's so many books i'd like for my history coursework and my EPQ, but I can't get them from any libraries and it's just so expensive to buy them all, plus, I'm still hoping to go to Australia with BOLD EARTH this summer before going to university, that's certainly going to set me back a bit!
I have used Swagbucks for a while now and bought my dad's christmas presents using an amazon giftcard I earned last year, unfortunately I forgot about the site until recently and am now aiming to get another 800SB in time to get some presents! It'd be great if you guys would sign up using my referral link: swagbucks.com/refer/Jodz
Swagbucks is a site where you conduct searches (like google - it uses goggle results), complete surveys, polls, watch videos, play games etc. to gain points "Swagbucks", these points can then be redeemed for items, only giftcards in the UK but there's a wide selection, and I think other items as well as giftcards can be redeemed in the USA. It's a great way of getting Xmas presents and no doubt i'll be using it to partially fund my university life!

Now, before anyone starts saying "get a job", I spent the whole of year 12 looking for a job, and when it looked like I had one, the job was given to an incompetent girl in the year below me, obviously because they were cheaper to employ, but I was a bit miffed.
Anyway, I've been working hard with my business this year and I can't really do that and have a job as I use my weekends for it.
Also, I struggled a lot with school last year, and this year I'm barely keeping above the water in biology, I don't want to compromise my university place for a bit of extra cash, especially now that I've heard back from all 5 choices in the space of 4 weeks (record time!).

Anyway, moving away from money, I've been considering going geocaching with a friend sometime soon, we had a brilliant adventure once just going into town, and I think geocaching would be even more fun! I've only done it once with explorers, and we never found anything (Well, it was pitch black at 10pm) so I'd love to have another go!
I think i'll see what my homework's like next week and maybe go next saturday, it looks so much fun!

A typical geocache full of swaps

Anyway, I've been homework-ing all day and now i'm finally done, I'm going to have some quality Primeval time, and then Doctor who at 7:30!

Alons-y!

Hello all

Hello all,
It's been a while, I've been trying to get ahead at school this year to improve my predicted grades for UCAS.
I thought I'd give you guys a couple more daily routine thingamy bobs - one for Wednesday's, as i dont usually go home till 10pm and one for Saturday's.

So Wednesday, I'll use today but I'll also add a bit in that usually happens but didn't today.

6:15 - 6:50 get up, eat, dressed etc.
6:50-8 - do homework/ surf the net.
8-8:20 - dad drives me to school.
8:20-8:45 - chill in study room/ work
8:45-9 - form
9-10 - wrote questionnaire and planned psychology answer for tomorrows assessment
10-11 - watch sea of souls & read history chapter 2
11-11:20 - break
11:20-1:20 - double history lesson
1:20-2 - lunch
2-2:25 - form/ assembly on open evening
2:25-3:25 - EPQ lesson - found some great websites
3:24-3:45 - walked back to nans
3:45-5 - made biology notes
5- 6 - was cool and watched Lizzie McGuire and my parents are aliens & had dinner.
6-7:45 (usually go to help out at cubs but it wasn't on tonight due to splash night at the weekend) dad picked me up and I did a lil bit of homework, at 7:45 we left for explorers.
8:15-10 - explorers, tonight was problem solving activities with the main aim of escaping prison (hence the activity name 'jailbreak) and winning chocolate. My team didn't win, but we did solve most of the problems. Dad picked me up at 10.
10:30 - 11 watched frasier and went to bed.






Typical Saturday (not this week as I'm working, I had Friday off school so I'll use that as an example):

9-9:30 - get up,dressed, eat
9:30- 10 - finish off homework - most is usually done by Friday evenings.
10-10:30 - type up history mind map we made in class.
10:30-11 - rewrite notes neatly from Friday.
11-11:15 - biology reading ahead notes
11:15-11:30 - psychology reading ahead notes
11:30-12 - history reading ahead notes
12-12:30 - EPQ research
12:30-1 - history coursework (the exam board found a potential problem with my proposal regarding balance, but I came up with a cunning plan, emailed my teacher and it's all sorted!)
1-5 - jewellery making
5-6 - surf net
6-6:30 - dinner
6:30-7 - shower
7-10:30 - tv


I'm sure that was thrilling reading, so I'll think of something else to write about :')

Actually, while I was "working" at the weekend (trying to sell my jewellery at a shopping village we hire a display stand from), I actually made £13 on saturday, and £8 on Sunday - 3 bracelets and 3 necklaces - that's the first time I've sold anything while I've been there! Pretty chuffed - that's enough for one fresher's event next year, now for the money to live on and Bob's your uncle!
I was also approached by a woman who has recently opened up a handcrafted jewellery village and is very eager for me to be the final seller, the footfall should be much larger there so hopefully I'll make at least a small profit (it's £5 a week for the space) and I'm going to try and get my website finished and then utilize social media and I might be pushing my products on here as well haha, I'll upload a few examples now actually, I have a lot more stock however, and some cool new stuff I haven't photographed yet. I also make keyrings that i'll be happy to upload if you wish. If you're interested in anything, or are looking for for something specific that I may be able to produce, comment below or email me at j.l-smith@outlook.com - i'll be happy to answer any questions or hear of any ideas/inspiration you internetters may be able to offer me!

Just a fraction of the earring collection

A small number of the necklaces

Personalised braceletes

I went to Liverpool's open day the other day - that was one loooong drive, and I was totally in love, the first accomodation I saw was brilliant, brand new, and so cheap! Then we wandered round the campus which I loved, then went to the subject talk, with no more than 4 others, the lecturer made me even more excited, I REALLY hope I get in! I should get my predicted grades soon so I really hope they're high enough and not based on AS results (my 2nd papers for each exam dragged my grades down cause I was sooo I'll, I don't know how I even passed, pretty sure I was writing gobbledygook.) I KNOW I could get straight A's if I worked as hard as I am now, although that may not be possible as the year progresses, but I do know I can get the offer grades, of only my teachers can see that too!

I'm off now to get sorted for school.

Alonz-y!

Work experience, University visits and summer

Well, It's been a busy couple weeks over here, I was on work experience at Paradise Wildlife Park from 17th-2st June 2013; monday-Wednesday I was on Farmyard which was loads of fun, I was cleaning out Rabbits, Guinea pigs, sheep, goats, pig ducks, tenrecs (and cuddling rabbits!).
Then Thursday and Friday I was on Paddocks with Zebra, Camel, Alpaca, Tapir, Wallaby (I wanted to take one home!), fox, deer....

He's a big bunny

This is Boris

Tiny Tenrec (called Puff)

Russian Hamster

Here Mousey Mousey

Boris liked my shoes

And the shovel...

Foxyyyyyy

The following week had a severe lack of lessons as well, Monday and Tuesday were business as usual, although my history teacher was not in, then on Wednesday us year 12's were bundled onto a coach to the University of Essex for a higher education fair, this gave us a chance to talk to people from hundreds of universities across the UK (and made me realise that it may not be a good idea to drop geography) and get some freebies too - a definite high point!

On returning home I headed off to Explorers for a game of real-life where's wally! This consisted of one of our leaders hiding "somewhere" in the town and we had to text questions that he could only answer yes or no to. My team was 2nd to find him so didn't win the prize for finding him first, but we were the first team back to the scout hut by quite a long time so we won a box of lindor chocolates to share. :D

Then on Thursday I headed to Bristol with my Dad for the university open day, the sun was shining, it was warm and I fell in love with the city.
The Archaeology even has a fleet of landrovers for transporting students to various dig sites!
I used the trip to get some photography in, so here's a few of my shots:

Welcome to the Open day (Victoria rooms)

Clifton suspension bridge

View from Clifton Suspension bridge

I think it's a very photogenic city and I could definitely see myself living here and spending summer days sitting in one of the parks with lots of books, working the day away.

I'd best be off, I need to get some work done if I'm going to get the grades to actually get in here! :D


Alons-y!

Year 13 - A2

Well, that's it, year 12 is officially over!
Final exam was on wednesday 5th June, I then had 4 days to recuperate before coming back to school today to start my A2 courses.
The whole applying to uni has really hit me now, considering how sure I was just a few months ago that I wanted to do psychology, i'm now somewhat torn between psychology, palaeontology and archaeology; not helpful when I need to churn out a personal statement tailored to my subject... I'm thinking that my AS results in August will make the decision for me (or at least, i'm telling myself that for now). Right now I'm doing rough drafts of statements for each subject and i'll make the final decision at a later date.
I also need to make a decision about which subjects i'll be continuing with as I believe it's highly unlikely that I can continue with 4 subjects and an EPQ as well as starting up my business and getting more involved as a young leader while doing my silver DofE - I might just keel over!

Over the weekend I was working at Gosfield shopping village near Braintree (do feel free to visit - seriously!)

My display

While there, I spotted an item that I fell completely in love with and I'm not entirely sure why, perhaps I found it charming, let me know what you think:

It's a Raleigh folding bike, priced at £75, I might just ask my family to club together for one christmas present haha!

Got my first A2 geography lesson tomorrow, I'm going to need all the relaxation I can get, I think i'll treat myself to 10 minutes of personal statement-ing followed by a good old movie, perhaps Matilda, one of my all time favourite stories. :)

Alons-y!

Decisions, decisions....

Well, today was a day full of decisions: "Do I take up the EPQ or not?", "Do I buy chips tomorrow, or save my money?", "Which bus stop should I go to?", "Should I do a revision post or save it for tomorrow?".

In case you are wondering, I haven't yet made a decision on EPQ, I'm saving my money, I went to the second bus stop and i'm saving the revision post for tomorrow.

I really like the idea of the EPQ, but i'm having diffiulty choosing a topic, my intesets include psychology, dinosaurs and scouts....is there any way I could combine those? "Do scouts have a similar cognitive ability to that of dinosaurs?" I think that'd be pretty difficult to research somehow....

I've also been improving greatly at my time management recently (hence why I have time to write this blog), I read my textbooks on the bus and do as much homework as I can in the mornings before school - I work best between 7 and 10am for some reason, that generally leaves me with quite a few frees, which I use to do revision in the library, and sometimes I do some more work for 20 minutes after school as my bus doesn't arrive till around 4pm. This means that while I do still do work at home, my load is lighter and I can relax a little more, it's taken me 6 months to get into this routine!

Obviously, this time will decrease once I start being a young leader, and i'm planning a lot of charity events at school, but I think i'll cope, just about.

We had a speaker come into school today about independent living, it got me thinking about having my own bedroom again if and when I go to Uni - I live in a one-bedroom house and after 3 years of having the bedroom and my parents having a pull down bed in the living room, I got kicked into the attic, but we discovered that it's impossible to sleep up there in winter so i now sleep on a tiny mesanine floor, which is too small for me to do my work effectivey as it's impossible to keep tidy, but downstairs is too noisy.

Hopefully, my room at uni will look less like this:



My old room - messy

And more like this:

Note the big window - lots of light!

Not that i'm excited to have more independence or anything....
Just as a heads up, I won't be posting friday or saturday as i'm away, I may post on sunday though.
I shall probably do homework friday evening till around 10pm, then watch a film/play on xbox.
Then saturday I'll get up at 8/9 depending on whether I have any homework left, I'll work till around 11, either on homework or revision, or both (I'm such a model student...) and then I'll probably run into town to buy a couple of birthday presents, get back and settle down to make some bracelets for the afternoon, perhaps meet up with a friend, and watch a DVD in the evening while pigging out on mini poppadoms, sausage rolls, cocktail sausages, chocolate and scotch eggs.
Much the same will follow on sunday, minus the DVD and pigging out, and if the weather is ok, i'll nip down the tennis courts to burn off all those calories from the night before, and get picked up around 4, arriving home by 4:30pm.
This is generally how a weekend spent at my nans is spent, I quite enjoy them, but I'll probably be staying less often now as work mounts up and I need the internet over the weekend.

Off now to get ready for explorers - 3 course meal to be cooked on a makeshift wood-burning stove! I'l ttry and get some pictures. :)

Alons-y. x

A Bit About Me!

MEMEMEMEMEME!!

I thought i'd write a bit about me, so you can put a personality to blog, so to speak.

So, me....what can I say?

Well, i'm a 17 year old girl from England, I'm currently embarking on my AS levels in sixth form, and my journey to university is underway.

I've trawled through so many university websites, and initially had a list of about 30 i wanted to visit!

I eventually managed to narrow it down but still ended up ordering about 20 prospectuses! From there, i've managed to narrow it down slightly more and am planning to visit a few open days; I went to Hertfordshire university yesterday, but it didn't inspire me all that much, i'm also planning to look at Cardiff, Bristol, Birmingham, Aston, Reading, Leeds, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Exeter, Plymouth and possibly Kent - that's my (quite long) shortlist. Hopefully from that i'll be able to narrow it down to 5!

I'm planning to study psychology or paleontology, it's a tough choice as i've been fascinated with both from such a young age, hopefully i'll be able to make a decision soon though.

Anyway, enough about uni hunting, i've just started trying to write my personal statement (i'm way ahead of schedule, i know) and i need a break from it all, i don't even get my predicted grades for year 12 until next week, let alone year 13!

I suppose the first thing to say is...I love penguins, I mean, who doesn't? Especially emperor penguins - when those fluffy chicks poke their heads out..just...awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!

I'm also an Explorer scout, and I love it, we do so much cool stuff, this week, we're getting all DIY and making wood burning stoves out of old coathangers and GIANT baked bean tins, then we'll be cooking on them. :) Other stuff we've done includes: murder mystery, swimming, camps, problem solving, balloon cars, cardbard castles, which was basically a big water fight in the woods - we had to protect ourselves in forts made out of boxes. They say Explorers are just big beavers. :') There's also a summer camp every year, I only joined last june so this will be my first one - so excited! :D



The bridge we built at Explorers once



The view from Thor's cave - on a camp.



I also enjoy reading when I can find the time, and I love swimming, but I am literally THE WORST swimmer in history. Eating is a pretty good hobby of mine too haha :P

Oh, and I got a new camera last summer for the Olympics and my trip to New York last month - I really enjoy photography, here's some of my photos:

 

I'm quite proud of those.

Anyway, I should probably get going, I have a biology ISA next week and it's my last chance, if i can ace this, it'll take some pressure off from the exams in the summer. Plus i want to watch Miranda tonight - SUCH FUN!

If there's anything you guys want me to blog about (i realise revision and my random pictures may get a bit dull), just comment and let me know! :)

There are 10 types of people in the world - those who can read binary and those who can't.

Alons-y! x