Jess Louise

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Lifestyle

My Childhood Favourites

I’m always sharing all of my current and monthly favourite products and I thought that it would be a fun idea to share a few of the things that I loved within my childhood – and some of which I still enjoy now!

My Childhood Favourites

My Nintendo DS

I can’t remember ever NOT having a DS really! It was a big thing back in the day and almost everyone I knew owned one. I remember my friend, Maddy, coming over to my house once and we spent the whole afternoon playing Pokemon Diamond/Pearl on the DS. I used to also spend a lot of time playing Nintendogs with my cousin, Serena, and having head-to-head battles with my friend and neighbour, Sophie, on New Super Mario Bros!

I still own a DS – two in fact – and I have 24 games! A lot of the games I played as a child include: Pokemon, Mario, The Sims 2, Animal Crossing, Professor Layton and Trauma Center! Some of the games I have are slightly newer, and a few I have repurchased from when I had got rid of them and then decided I wanted them again.

Pokemon

Another big thing of mine in my youth was Pokemon. I was so obsessed with it to the point that when I was in Year Three (8 years old), I was told to give it up for Lent! I owned loads of trading cards, books, toys and games, some of which I adopted from my older cousins. I even watched the series on TV! In case you were wondering – yes, I do have Pokemon Go on my phone and it’s great because my college has a Pokestop and a Gym! It’s almost as if they’re encouraging it…

Crayola Supertips

My mum would be able to tell you that I went through countless packs of these pens as a child. They are great pens and honestly I still use them now for titles and diagrams. When I was younger I used to write and draw A LOT and so I’d practically be able to run a whole pack dry in one sitting – that was my special talent! If you’d like to get some, I got my current pack (of 50!) for only £9 ish in Tesco.

Jacqueline Wilson

I mean, what child hasn’t heard of JW? She’s the literal goddess of children’s literature! If you haven’t heard of the woman herself, I’m almost certain that you would’ve heard of Tracy Beaker. Alongside loving Tracy Beaker (the series on CBBC and the books) I also really enjoyed many of her other classics too. A primary school staple, I believe!

Swimming

My favourite activity as a child was swimming! I went every single week – and I was good at it too. I had a good stroke and strong stamina but I stopped going so often when I started secondary school. I still love to swim now but I don’t go very often. I’m still a pretty strong and fast swimmer but my stamina has dropped massively!

Matey Bubble Bath

My favourite bath product as a child was the ol’ Matey Bubble Bath. It used to blow my mind that it changed the colour of the water and that’s why I loved it so much! To be fair, I’d probably still use it now – I like bubbles!

Sonic The Hedgehog

Another obsession was mine was Sonic The Hedgehog! Again, I owned toys, games, books and I watched the TV series (Sonic X). My friends and I even used to play Sonic games on the playground at school!

I hope you enjoyed my post all about my childhood favourites! It was fun to write and remember the things I loved!

Thanks for reading – what are your childhood favourites?

Mental Health

Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2019

This week is Eating Disorders awareness week, so I thought that I share with you some common misconceptions about eating disorders (ED)! For those of you who don’t know this is what an ED is:

EATING DISORDER (noun): any of a range of psychological disorders characterised by abnormal or disturbed eating habits.

Common EDs you may have heard of include Anorexia, Bulimia and Binge Eating Disorder – there are many many different types though! Also, I’m not doing this to hurt anyone in any way, I simply just want to raise awareness of the struggles that can be faced.

Common Misconceptions Of Eating Disorders

‘if you’re really skinny you’re anorexic’

HAHA no, that’s not how it works… You can be thin and perfectly healthy. You can also be morbidly obese and still suffer from it. EDs do not discriminate.

‘but, you’re not skinny enough to be anorexic’

This links to the last one and you guessed it, you’re wrong again! For starters, EDs are MENTAL disorders which means that, by definition, they affect the brain and thus people’s behaviours and feelings. This misconception is a HUGE problem for many people because the NHS is struggling so much it can only afford to help those morbidly underweight when someone of a fairly average BMI could be just as sick and suffering just as much – BMI should not be as big a factor as it is when it comes to getting treatment. I have had – and still have this problem – because I am of perfectly normal weight.

‘only girls get eating disorders’

Nnononononnon, are people that ignorant? As I mentioned before, it is not discriminative so yes – that includes boys. Eating disorders are a fairly silent killer among boys sadly because so many people believe that only skinny white girls get them 🙁

‘grow up, just eat it’ (in reference to restrictive Eds)

Whoaaaaaaa, if only it was that easy! Many people wish they just could, they’d love to! EDs can come with an overWHELMING amount of disgust and guilt when the person has chosen to eat. It’s like having a little bully living inside your brain. Not pleasant.

‘just go on a diet or something…’ (in reference to binge ED)

Hmm no? I don’t have experience of this condition but I feel like it’s like an addiction – you physically cannot stop. A bit like smoking or drinking…

‘eww you make yourself sick – that’s gross!’

Ok, yeah – I get where you’re coming from. But, particularly in Bulimia, forcing yourself to be sick is the way of getting over the crushing guilt of having eaten. Comments like these can be super damaging and stop people getting the help they really need.

I hope this has increased your awareness and understanding of EDs and associated conditions! If you want to help, you can always raise money for BEAT which is an excellent charity. They have a brilliant helpline and various mediums of support available for those who need it. They also offer advice to people who have someone close to them with an ED.

Remember to #SockItToEatingDisorders this week!

Thanks for reading

Life

My 2019 Goals

Apparently juggling two A Levels, an AS Level and an EPQ alongside this blog has proved to be quite difficult! Luckily, I have now finished EPQ and my other courses are slowly coming to an end so I’ll only need to do revision. This means that I’ll hopefully have more time for the upkeep of my blog… Yay!

I wrote a post similar to this last year and I realised that I never wrote one for this year so I thought, almost three months in, I’d share with you now what I hope to achieve in 2019:

My 2019 Goals

1. Improve my gymnastics

My first goal this year is to improve in gymnastics, especially my form in certain skills. There are lots of skills I can do but they could be a lot better, I think. I would also like to gain some more expressive/harder skills that I may have not have the confidence to try before this year. I think I am getting a bit stronger so I’ll be able to try lots of new things safely!

2. Achieve good grades in my Psychology and Photography A Levels and also EPQ

The A Levels I’m actually taking this year are AQA* Psychology and WJEC Photography alongside an AQA Extended Project (EPQ). I would like to pass all three of these ideally with a BBB or higher! I’m completing my Biology A Level (OCR A) next year. I’m going to do a separate blog post explaining why I’m doing my A Levels over 3 years…

*I’ve included the exam boards in case anyone wanted to know!

3. Pass my Biology Transfer Exam

This links in with the previous goal, so, I would like to pass the exam that allows me to complete the second year of my Biology A Level, ideally with a C or above (even though we need an E + to continue). The transfer exam result becomes our predicted A Level grade so I would like to do the best I can – especially as I am re doing my uni application and I want it to look good!

4. Apply To University (again!)

Linking in again, I’d really like to apply to uni for the second time ~ and maybe get in ~ this year! I’ve had a look at a few courses already and some of them are the same as I applied for last year but I’ve also looked at a few different ones too! I’m currently looking at courses at the University of Sussex (which I applied for this time round), University of Southampton, King’s College London and Queen Mary – University of London (QMUL)! I’m going to do a separate blog post on what I’m hoping to do later on and I am also hoping to share my open day experiences with you again, like I did last year!

5. Get back into blogging!

This is pretty self explanatory, but I’d like to start posting regularly on this blog again! I’m hoping to get a new post out once a week or once a fortnight very soon to start off with and then I can increase it as my college workload decreases (from June onwards).

6. Get 100 subs on my Youtube Channels

In case you didn’t know, I run two youtube channels – JessStudies and Jess Does Gymnastics. I currently have roughly 40 subscribers on each and I’d really like to get up to 100 on each by the end of the year. As I gain more time, I am hoping to create more content for these channels too. In fact, you could really help me out by commenting video suggestions (please!) and I’ll do my best to act on them!

7. Save money

I don’t have a job currently, however I do get a small amount of pocket money still each week so I think that I’d really like to start saving it more so that I can afford nice things and also so that I have a bit of money behind me. I also want to try and sell a few of my old things on Depop to earn some extra cash too!

8. Be healthier

Finally, this year I’d like to be a little bit fitter! I’ve already signed up and participated in my local Parkrun this year (maybe I’ll do a post on it soon!) and I also have a gym membership along side doing 3 or more hours a week at gymnastics! I would like to start eating a bit healthier though over the course of the year!

That’s what I am hoping to achieve this year and I hope you enjoyed reading about my goals! I also hope that you’ll help me with some of my goals along the way as well, it’s amazing some of the support people can get over the internet!

Hopefully I will start posting more than once a month soon!

Thanks for reading – what are your goals?

Lifestyle

My Top Five Current Favourites

Long time, no see! I’ve been truly and utterly sWaMpEd with college work, various coursework deadlines and declined university applications. It’s all beginning to settle down now so I can FINALLY post here! Yay! Clearly, I’ve missed a few monthly favourites posts – my last one being September – so, I thought that I’d round all the lovely things that I have been loving over the last few months in one big post…. just to make it up to you a little bit!

My Current Favourites

In no particular order, I now present to you my current favourites:

1. Bilou Creamy Shower Foam

I recently discovered this shower foam from a German brand called Bilou – which is available from Superdrug here in the UK. I love it because I think the packaging is so cute and aesthetically pleasing, plus it smells really good! Another positive is that their products are also completely vegan, cruelty and suitable for sensitive skin. If you’re in the market for new shower gel, I’d get myself down to Superdrug ASAP!

2. Mossery Co. Undated Planner

This is something I have only bought recently, but I know I’m going to grow to love it a lot! It’s the Mossery Undated Planner. I love the concept of the undated planner because it doesn’t matter when in the year you start it. Also, if you forget to use it it doesn’t matter because you can pick it up again any time you like!

There are many different designs, both internal and external you can get for it! I have the Seafoam cover and inside I have the weekly horizontal layout. There are 4 different types of layout you can have, Lined, Dotted, Weekly Vertical and Weekly Horizontal – so they suit everyone! I was so torn between the weekly horizontal and the dotted because I think that the dotted would be really good for bullet journalling, but I already have a bullet journal so I went with the former! These are available on the Mossery website.

3. WorWoder Bluetooth Headphones

I bought these – on impulse – off of Amazon on a deal and I have to admit that I love them a lot! The sound quality appears to be so good and so much better than my old headphones! The fact that they’re bluetooth is a huge plus for me too because it means I don’t have to worry about the wires getting all caught up. They also come with a jack lead as well though so you can plug them into your devices that don’t support bluetooth! I really like the colour too!

4. I Heart Revolution Nudes Chocolate Palette

I’m yet to actually use this product but I think that I will like it a lot! I don’t wear makeup that often, but sometimes I like to make an effort! I like this palette because it contains a mixture of matte and glittery/shimmer eye shadows and they’re all quite natural colours! It wasn’t that expensive either, I bought it from Superdrug. Oh, and it smells of chocolate!

5. Nintendo Switch

For Christmas, my dad bought me and my mum a new Nintendo Switch as I had sold the Nintendo Wii we had earlier in the year! It’s GREAT! It’s like a Wii and a DS all rolled into one! I think it’s an ideal family and personal gaming console and it’s very handy that it doesn’t need to be plugged into the TV when playing (although it can be) like with other consoles such as the PlayStation and Xbox.

I hope you enjoyed my first post of 2019, I am hoping to post a lot more now!

Thanks for reading – which products do you love right now?

*Disclaimer* This post contains no ADs, no gifted products or affiliate links.

Life

Eighteen

Woohooo! I’m eighteen!

Yesterday (9th November) was my birthday and, like last year, I thought I’d share a little bit about what I got and what I did! It was an inset day at college luckily so I had the whole day to spend doing something!

What I got…

My biggest present I got this year was my new computer – a Macbook Air! I got this from my parents and they also gave me a Hogwarts Acceptance Letter because we are going to Harry Potter Studios today (Post to come). Most of the other gifts I’ve received have been from friends; I have lots and lots of smellies now which is good because I’m going to be smelling really nice for yearrrrsss! I’ve also received some money from other family members, and I haven’t seen some of then yet so I don’t know if I’ve got anything or not! Thank you everyone for your gifts!

What I did…

As it was an inset day, I took the opportunity to go out somewhere! My friends and I went to Brighton to do some shopping! I met one of my friends at my house, Ellen, in the morning, and the other met us in Brighton later on…

We caught the train, so we were in Brighton at about 11:20. The first thing we did was check out a Harry Potter themed shop called ‘Oliver’s’ near the station that my mum had mentioned. It was pretty cool but I didn’t buy anything from there. We walked towards town and the first shop we went into was Ryman so I could buy a new bullet journal! I had student discount and a voucher so it was pretty cheap! We then headed to Starbucks for a snack as it was too early to get lunch, plus we had to wait for Alicia!

After a bit of a sit down, we headed into the shopping centre and looked around a few shops! I bought a the Makeup Revolution Conceal and Define Foundation and an Imperial Leather Foamburst Shower Gel from Superdrug! I also bought a bodysuit and skirt from Topshop. When we finished in Topshop, we met Alicia and went to McDonald’s for lunch because it’s easy! I had a happy meal because I wasn’t very hungry! We continued shopping after that…

I bought a small body spray from Hollister because I’ve never shopped there before and I also bought a bathbomb from Lush using a voucher that Ellen had given me. We got lost in The Lanes trying to find Lush! I didn’t buy much more despite going to many different shops!

We headed back at about 4:30 and we had to go an awkward way because the trains weren’t running very well. We went to Costa on the way back and they gave us free cake!

When I got back, I immediately went to gymnastics and saw my friends there! One of my friend’s mum gave me alcohol!!

If you’re interested, I did put a vlog on YouTube if you’d like to check it out HERE

Overall, I had a great day, and I’m looking forward to Harry Potter today and seeing my Grandma on Sunday!

Thanks for reading – when’s your birthday?

PS Sorry I’m posting so little!!

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