makinglifeacamera

The life of an A-Level student

Wednesday 4 January 2017



This is a bit strange for me, I haven't written a blog posts in months and months! I am so sorry about this; it is genuinely down to me not finding the time or coming up with any ideas. Before I sat down to write this, I looked back to the last post I uploaded which was my life update after finishing my GCSEs. I anxiously awaited the summer for the year and was pleased with most of my grades. Now, having completed the first term of my A-Levels, I wanted to write about my initial thoughts and how well I settled into the change from Yr11 to Yr12. 

For my A-Levels I started out with 5 choices really but by the end of the first half term, I narrowed it down to 3. So initially I had timetabled: maths, further maths, physics, chemistry and french. However, on my my first day, I dropped further maths as I realised that 5 A-levels would be way too difficult to maintain. I studied chemistry for about 3 months but I didn't enjoy the subject content and the way it was being taught, after a lot of consideration, I dropped chemistry and narrowed down my subjects. Currently, I am taking french, maths and physics and am thoroughly enjoying them all. Some may think that this is a strange combination, especially the french, however in the future I am looking to study physics and hopefully study abroad for a year with that - hence the language. 

I've now completed a term of A-levels and am sitting mocks in my subjects. Lots of people told me that A-levels are a huge step up from GCSEs and truthfully, it hasn't been a massive jump in terms of difficulty of the subjects, yet (they'll get much harder as I go on), the jump for me has more prominent in terms of the different expectations of a student. You get so much more independence and if you don't want to put the effort in, your teachers will not spoon feed you. It's up to you to do well. Study periods become your best friends, I normally spend mine reading french books - I've been assigned ones to read but I always underestimate the amount of time it will actually take me to read even a page thoroughly! You're also expected to do lots of independent learning and reading around the subject - sometimes even things not on the specification, just to get a deeper understanding of the subject matter. 

I actually really like this independence and am so glad that you only do a few subjects so you spend your days in lessons that you are truly interested in. What I would change though about my first term is the amount of effort I put in outside of school, I did get a bit lazy towards the end. However, I am excited to start up again after my time off for Christmas. This year, I only have exams in maths as I don't have the opportunity to do As exams anymore and the maths course that I'm on separates its exams over two years anyway. So most of my time come April time will be revising various maths topics - I'm dreading this! 

If you would be interested in posts written in both french and english, let me know as that is certainly something I would be interested in doing! If you are currently a A-level student or completed them in the past, how do/did you find them?

xox

Life update

Saturday 25 June 2016


Ahhh! I'm so excited to be blogging again! Finally, all of my exams are over and I now look forward to a relaxing summer - except having to do lots and lots of summer work! I posted a poll on Twitter about a couple of days ago asking what post you would like to see and a life update was by fair the most requested, so here goes...

I have been busy studying for my GCSE's the past couple of months and on Friday 24th June, I finished them. Although I know I made some mistakes (which is inevitable) and I found some papers very tricky, overall, I think they went well. I now have to wait until late August to collect my results. In terms of what I am doing next year, I have applied to do my A-levels - which is what all of the summer work is for. After spending a long time deliberating, I have chosen to take: physics, maths, chemistry and french. I was originally going to do biology instead of french but I have such a passion for the language that I couldn't face dropping the subject. I'm not entirely sure what I would like to do in the future with these, at the moment I am considering physics but that may change. I tend to change my mind a lot, my 8 year old self would want me to become a sweetie shop owner!

As I haven't posted on my blog for a long time, this summer I want to upload lot of posts to make up for it! I'm not sure that I'm going to stick to a particular schedule though, as I would normally try to - I'd prefer to write posts as and when. This summer, I do have a 2 week holiday followed by another further week away so in that 3 week block, posts will become less frequent but I'll address that nearer the time.

My personal goals for the summer are to try to get fitter and eat much more healthily. Over the exam period, my diet became very poor so I'm going to make an active effort to improve it. I also have a fitness routine planned out - it may not always happen but I will endeavour to keep it up. I normally enjoy exercise so I hope this will get me out of bed this summer and stop procrastinating!

As well as fitness and diet, another activity I'd love to do lots of is reading. The last time I went to France I brought home many french books to read and I'd really like to have a go, to prepare myself for A-levels. Most likely, I'll end up reading a paragraph and have to look in a dictionary for many of the words but I'll be improving that way.

I hope you have perhaps enjoyed getting to know a little bit more of my current life and plans for the future. Thank you so much for sticking with me through exams!

What are you planning on doing this summer?
xox

A lovely week in Cornwall

Friday 3 June 2016


If you follow me on Twitter, you may know that I went on a holiday to Cornwall this week! We often travel down there at this time of year with our dog - who has the best time running along the beach. For me, this was a perfect chance to get away and experience a different scenery whilst I am currently  revising for exams. What made the week was the beautiful weather; it was definitely a nice change from the weather we normally have at home! Although I am wearing jeans and a jumper in the photo above (jeans were such a bad decision to wear on the beach), it was evening time when it was taken. 


This time, we spent most days on the beach! I went surfing a couple of times and thoroughly enjoyed it as usual! When you catch a wave, it is honestly the best feeling. Although, sometimes, it can be embarrassing when younger children are so much better than you but I still love it! I was really silly on the first trip out and forgot to wear suncream, meaning that the rest of the week I resembled a tomato!


As I still have many exams, I had to stay at the apartment a couple of times, when everyone else went out, to revise. This wasn't that bad though as I could get away with working outside. In our small porch area, there were some beautiful flowers such as the one above! 


I had such a wonderful week and I hope to go back in the future! Have you got any exciting trips planned?

xox

Promenade Style

Wednesday 11 May 2016


Even though a number of days at the moment don't seem like it, summer is right around the corner. A few weeks ago, I went on a holiday to the south of France and experienced some lovely weather. One day it was particularly warm so I decided to take some outfit shots in front of the beautiful Mediterranean sea. 


My family and I enjoyed a relaxing stroll along Nice's promenade. For a long walking day, I like to wear clothes that are really comfy, hence my Topshop jeans which I live in! They are 7/8 so they are perfect to roll up or down depending on the weather. Generally, I believe that Topshop jeans are a great investment and I am guilting to owning many pairs!


My off the shoulder top is from Forever 21. This is my only top like this that I own, although I do love the style of it. This particular one is slightly cropped so I tend to wear it with high-waisted jeans or shorts. What I think initially drew me to this was the beautiful dusty pink colour and the frills at the bottom. For this weather, it was perfect as it wasn't quite warm enough not to have sleeves. 



Ever since purchasing these Nike trainers, I rarely ever wear my other trainer shoes. They are so comfy and don't pinch your toes like converse do on me. I'm so glad that I didn't wear sandals, which I was considering, because my heels would have been tore apart by the end of the day. 

What are your go-to comfy outfits?
xox

Yalla Yalla | London

Sunday 1 May 2016


Yesterday, I went to London for a lovely day out with my family. After a morning of shopping, we needed some food and a long sit down so we ended up in our favourite restaurant - Yalla Yalla. A couple of years ago, my dad found this on Trip Adviser as a recommend place for a meal and since then, we rarely eat anywhere else.


I can be, sometimes, a very fussy eater so when my dad suggested a Lebanese restaurant I was unsure whether I would like the food. I can confirm that I very much do! My favourite dish is chicken livers in a pomegranate sauce (shown below). Also, they do an amazing homous and pitta bread! One of my closet friends surprised me in London when we both ended up in Yalla Yalla; I think she gave the food a big thumbs up as well!


When we eat there, we order a selection of dishes so that we can experience a variety of flavours. However, if you prefer to have a main meal, Yalla Yalla offer that too! The restaurant we go to is just off Oxford Street on Winsley Street so it is in a perfect location if you intend to do some shopping.


I never really write posts about restaurants but, as this is my favourite and I visited yesterday, I decided to, incase anyone is in need of restaurant ideas in London!

What is your favourite place to eat?
xox

Wednesday 4 January 2017

The life of an A-Level student



This is a bit strange for me, I haven't written a blog posts in months and months! I am so sorry about this; it is genuinely down to me not finding the time or coming up with any ideas. Before I sat down to write this, I looked back to the last post I uploaded which was my life update after finishing my GCSEs. I anxiously awaited the summer for the year and was pleased with most of my grades. Now, having completed the first term of my A-Levels, I wanted to write about my initial thoughts and how well I settled into the change from Yr11 to Yr12. 

For my A-Levels I started out with 5 choices really but by the end of the first half term, I narrowed it down to 3. So initially I had timetabled: maths, further maths, physics, chemistry and french. However, on my my first day, I dropped further maths as I realised that 5 A-levels would be way too difficult to maintain. I studied chemistry for about 3 months but I didn't enjoy the subject content and the way it was being taught, after a lot of consideration, I dropped chemistry and narrowed down my subjects. Currently, I am taking french, maths and physics and am thoroughly enjoying them all. Some may think that this is a strange combination, especially the french, however in the future I am looking to study physics and hopefully study abroad for a year with that - hence the language. 

I've now completed a term of A-levels and am sitting mocks in my subjects. Lots of people told me that A-levels are a huge step up from GCSEs and truthfully, it hasn't been a massive jump in terms of difficulty of the subjects, yet (they'll get much harder as I go on), the jump for me has more prominent in terms of the different expectations of a student. You get so much more independence and if you don't want to put the effort in, your teachers will not spoon feed you. It's up to you to do well. Study periods become your best friends, I normally spend mine reading french books - I've been assigned ones to read but I always underestimate the amount of time it will actually take me to read even a page thoroughly! You're also expected to do lots of independent learning and reading around the subject - sometimes even things not on the specification, just to get a deeper understanding of the subject matter. 

I actually really like this independence and am so glad that you only do a few subjects so you spend your days in lessons that you are truly interested in. What I would change though about my first term is the amount of effort I put in outside of school, I did get a bit lazy towards the end. However, I am excited to start up again after my time off for Christmas. This year, I only have exams in maths as I don't have the opportunity to do As exams anymore and the maths course that I'm on separates its exams over two years anyway. So most of my time come April time will be revising various maths topics - I'm dreading this! 

If you would be interested in posts written in both french and english, let me know as that is certainly something I would be interested in doing! If you are currently a A-level student or completed them in the past, how do/did you find them?

xox

Saturday 25 June 2016

Life update


Ahhh! I'm so excited to be blogging again! Finally, all of my exams are over and I now look forward to a relaxing summer - except having to do lots and lots of summer work! I posted a poll on Twitter about a couple of days ago asking what post you would like to see and a life update was by fair the most requested, so here goes...

I have been busy studying for my GCSE's the past couple of months and on Friday 24th June, I finished them. Although I know I made some mistakes (which is inevitable) and I found some papers very tricky, overall, I think they went well. I now have to wait until late August to collect my results. In terms of what I am doing next year, I have applied to do my A-levels - which is what all of the summer work is for. After spending a long time deliberating, I have chosen to take: physics, maths, chemistry and french. I was originally going to do biology instead of french but I have such a passion for the language that I couldn't face dropping the subject. I'm not entirely sure what I would like to do in the future with these, at the moment I am considering physics but that may change. I tend to change my mind a lot, my 8 year old self would want me to become a sweetie shop owner!

As I haven't posted on my blog for a long time, this summer I want to upload lot of posts to make up for it! I'm not sure that I'm going to stick to a particular schedule though, as I would normally try to - I'd prefer to write posts as and when. This summer, I do have a 2 week holiday followed by another further week away so in that 3 week block, posts will become less frequent but I'll address that nearer the time.

My personal goals for the summer are to try to get fitter and eat much more healthily. Over the exam period, my diet became very poor so I'm going to make an active effort to improve it. I also have a fitness routine planned out - it may not always happen but I will endeavour to keep it up. I normally enjoy exercise so I hope this will get me out of bed this summer and stop procrastinating!

As well as fitness and diet, another activity I'd love to do lots of is reading. The last time I went to France I brought home many french books to read and I'd really like to have a go, to prepare myself for A-levels. Most likely, I'll end up reading a paragraph and have to look in a dictionary for many of the words but I'll be improving that way.

I hope you have perhaps enjoyed getting to know a little bit more of my current life and plans for the future. Thank you so much for sticking with me through exams!

What are you planning on doing this summer?
xox

Friday 3 June 2016

A lovely week in Cornwall


If you follow me on Twitter, you may know that I went on a holiday to Cornwall this week! We often travel down there at this time of year with our dog - who has the best time running along the beach. For me, this was a perfect chance to get away and experience a different scenery whilst I am currently  revising for exams. What made the week was the beautiful weather; it was definitely a nice change from the weather we normally have at home! Although I am wearing jeans and a jumper in the photo above (jeans were such a bad decision to wear on the beach), it was evening time when it was taken. 


This time, we spent most days on the beach! I went surfing a couple of times and thoroughly enjoyed it as usual! When you catch a wave, it is honestly the best feeling. Although, sometimes, it can be embarrassing when younger children are so much better than you but I still love it! I was really silly on the first trip out and forgot to wear suncream, meaning that the rest of the week I resembled a tomato!


As I still have many exams, I had to stay at the apartment a couple of times, when everyone else went out, to revise. This wasn't that bad though as I could get away with working outside. In our small porch area, there were some beautiful flowers such as the one above! 


I had such a wonderful week and I hope to go back in the future! Have you got any exciting trips planned?

xox

Wednesday 11 May 2016

Promenade Style


Even though a number of days at the moment don't seem like it, summer is right around the corner. A few weeks ago, I went on a holiday to the south of France and experienced some lovely weather. One day it was particularly warm so I decided to take some outfit shots in front of the beautiful Mediterranean sea. 


My family and I enjoyed a relaxing stroll along Nice's promenade. For a long walking day, I like to wear clothes that are really comfy, hence my Topshop jeans which I live in! They are 7/8 so they are perfect to roll up or down depending on the weather. Generally, I believe that Topshop jeans are a great investment and I am guilting to owning many pairs!


My off the shoulder top is from Forever 21. This is my only top like this that I own, although I do love the style of it. This particular one is slightly cropped so I tend to wear it with high-waisted jeans or shorts. What I think initially drew me to this was the beautiful dusty pink colour and the frills at the bottom. For this weather, it was perfect as it wasn't quite warm enough not to have sleeves. 



Ever since purchasing these Nike trainers, I rarely ever wear my other trainer shoes. They are so comfy and don't pinch your toes like converse do on me. I'm so glad that I didn't wear sandals, which I was considering, because my heels would have been tore apart by the end of the day. 

What are your go-to comfy outfits?
xox

Sunday 1 May 2016

Yalla Yalla | London


Yesterday, I went to London for a lovely day out with my family. After a morning of shopping, we needed some food and a long sit down so we ended up in our favourite restaurant - Yalla Yalla. A couple of years ago, my dad found this on Trip Adviser as a recommend place for a meal and since then, we rarely eat anywhere else.


I can be, sometimes, a very fussy eater so when my dad suggested a Lebanese restaurant I was unsure whether I would like the food. I can confirm that I very much do! My favourite dish is chicken livers in a pomegranate sauce (shown below). Also, they do an amazing homous and pitta bread! One of my closet friends surprised me in London when we both ended up in Yalla Yalla; I think she gave the food a big thumbs up as well!


When we eat there, we order a selection of dishes so that we can experience a variety of flavours. However, if you prefer to have a main meal, Yalla Yalla offer that too! The restaurant we go to is just off Oxford Street on Winsley Street so it is in a perfect location if you intend to do some shopping.


I never really write posts about restaurants but, as this is my favourite and I visited yesterday, I decided to, incase anyone is in need of restaurant ideas in London!

What is your favourite place to eat?
xox
DESIGNED BY ECLAIR DESIGNS