Watercolour Boy | a poem

Everywhere you go, you leave the world awash with colour, 

Fairy-pink blossoms and velvet leaves on trees,

Warm amber streetlights that hum in teal night skies

as pavements glisten like silver. 

Your paintbrush delves into seas 

and turns their waters into ripples of

clear blues and perfect waves.

You see the world better than anyone, 

yet the world does not see you. 

You think that no one knows you exist. 

You think that one day, your paint will run dry, 

and there'll be no one there to notice that

no one paints the sky soft pinks and oranges 

in the morning, so that

the sun makes it come to life,

Or that birds' feathers no longer reflect

a kaleidoscope of royal blues and emerald greens

as the morning light hits them. 

But I will notice, Watercolour Boy, 

for you showed me your watercolour skies when

all I saw was black and white. 

♥

Two blog posts in two days, it's a miracle! I don't think I've been this active on my blog since 2014, to be honest. Either way, I'm going on holiday tomorrow, so I won't have anything for you in a while, but I will try to get some holiday footage, and I hope you enjoy this poem. The idea came to me when I was half asleep on the sofa, so at first it was quite nonsensical (as most of my original ideas are). I wasn't thinking about making it a poem exactly, I just thought that the words sounded really nice together. Watercolour Boy. 

Speak to you after my holiday, 

Lucy x

The return of the Christmas face

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas/holiday season (whichever is more important to you!). I got multiple pokemon hats, so I am pretty happy with the gifts I received! If you celebrate Christmas, feel free to tell me your favourite present(s) in the comments ^.^

It seems to have been a thing over the past three years that I take a selfie on Christmas day with what has turned into my Christmas face so, just to continue the tradition...

2013

2014

2015

(present)

I think I've changed quite subtly since last year, but what even am I in the first picture? Also the quality of my selfies seems to be improving.

I've decided to make it my New Year's Resolution to start writing again. Recently, I've been finding it really hard to put sentences together - not just on my blog, but in my spare time too. Until earlier this week, I can't remember the last time I was working on a story (yes, I am now writing a story!). Since a very young age, I have loved writing, and creating my own content and outlets, but I've been so tired recently that it's impossible to find the energy or creative motivation to write anything. I claimed in November that my blog would be resurrected, but that just hasn't been happening. I think it's mostly down to how tired I am. 

For now, at least, I am writing. I don't know whether I will post some of my stories as blog posts in the future (I don't know how much you guys would be interested my stories, for a start), but if I could create content again, that would be cool. As a quite creative person, it is infuriating when my mind turns blank!

Speak to you soon, 

Lucy x

Walking out of the 1940s

This blog post is very different from the kind I would usually make (which, funnily enough would be none at all, because I am lazy), as it is kind of fashion-y-ish. My look in this blog post is partly of inspired by Liesel's look in the movie "The Book Thief" - which, by the way, is amazing. I watched it the other night and loved it - I had to try really hard not to cry (if you know me, you will be aware that I cry at quite a lot of movies). I would definitely recommend the movie, and am currently reading the book. 

Liesel has curly that is in different hairstyles throughout the movie as her hair grows to different lengths, and one of my favourite hairstyles of hers is when it is in bunches. 

My hair is naturally wavy and I'm not usually bothered to use heat on it (I can't straighten my hair as it only gets frizzy and annoying, and my hair is quite straight as it is), so it was quite interesting trying to curl it. I do own overnight hair curlers, though I don't tend to use them because I then have trouble sleeping (my hair is very thick and hair curlers are very lumpy!). 

This time I had to experiment a bit when curling my hair by using hair straighteners. I'd heard that you can curl your hair with straighteners before, and I don't own a curling wand, so this was the next best thing. I failed the first time and had to watch more hair tutorials than I care to admit before I succeeded. I tied my hair in bunches beforehand so that I would have less hair to curl, and I think it turned out alright... 

(keep in mind that this picture was taken after a walk in the rain, my hair was considerably more curly before!)

I also have a small obsession with vintage clothes, so I bought this 1940s style dress off amazon for £16 - which I think very good value for money. I will leave the link here. 

I didn't do my makeup too differently. I wanted the main focus to be the lips, so I went for a bright pink lipstick (I would have gone for red, but I don't personally think I suit it very much). My eyes are a pale gold colour with a brown outline around the lid, which I think is quite subtle. 

(I like this photo because it is unintentionally dramatic)

I don't know whether I'll continue to buy vintage-style clothes (though I will definitely be curling my hair more often), it just seemed like a really fun thing to do. I think it also temporarily raised my confidence a bit, too - my skin is going crazy at the moment and I can't seem to control it, so trying this out made me feel awesome. Not only that, but school starts tomorrow, and I want to be able to look as crazy as I want before I have to revert back to my usual look of school uniform, combined with eye-bags and rain-drenched hair...

It's not all bad, though - I am definitely excited to see my friends, and I am looking forward to a few classes, such as drama and English. I feel like going back to school with restore some order back to my life (e.g. a sleep schedule!). 

Wishing you the best of luck in the next school year,

Lucy x

What I'm currently listening to:

I have a wattpad, by the way - click here to check it out!

I'll follow back :)

A slip-up (or two)

For any of you who have been watching my YouTube videos, you will realise that, for the past few days, I haven't uploaded VEDA videos - something that I was originally planning to do. 

I wish I did have a massively dramatic excuse as to why I haven't posted (like, I have been out there living my life to the full instead of staying at home and eating doritos), but my life is hardly too exciting! Somehow, I just feel mentally tired and drained. I don't know what it is exactly - the school year is over, so it's not like I have a particular reason for my lack of sleep. Even when I do stay up ridiculously late the night before (like I did at a sleepover two nights ago), I always have the time to sleep in for hours and hours before I have to do something productive. 

From the minute I decided to go for VEDA, I decided that I would not upload any content that I wasn't proud of and didn't really want on my channel. Typically, VEDA videos are uploaded to YouTubers' second/vlogging channels (as the content is not supposed to be at such a high-standard on that channel), but all my videos have been uploaded to my main channel. I do not own a second channel, as I don't feel as if there would be much use in me having one - I don't tend to vlog too often, so it would only really be used for VEDA videos. 

I can't exactly explain it, but I feel as if my brain has turned to mush. If "creative juices" are supposed to "flow" or whatever, there is some kind of drought or water blockage going on in my head. Although I have been writing and planning a bit, I haven't been doing nearly as much as usual, and that freaks me out a bit because I am always writing. 

When I have days like these (which aren't too common, but do appear occasionally), it isn't just about a lack of creativity. I just don't feel like myself -  it's like I am absent from my brain or something. I don't know whether or not that is because I am so used to writing that when I don't, I am freaked out, or because of something totally different. I usually just wait them out, because it can't last forever, but in a way, I feel worse about it now than I do when it happens in school. I think this is because I feel I have an obligation to make videos, even though that choice is optional and completely up to me. I have felt terrible for the past two days about not uploading, even though I know I shouldn't. It's hardly as if anyone is going to particularly miss my videos!

Hopefully, I will upload tomorrow, as I do have something planned, as long as I no longer feel numb. I'm sorry that this blog post was so weird. I just felt like I had some things to clarify because I feel so lazy, even though I'm trying (I'm promise!). 

Speak to you soon, 
Lucy xx

My latest YouTube video:

(I filmed and edited this before rushing off to a sleepover - it has to be the quickest video ever!)

What I'm currently listening to: 

(AAAH I love it!)

VEDA is a thing.

Hey guys :)

In case you haven't already heard of VEDA, it is something that some YouTubers take part in and stands for "Vlog Every Day in August" (though it can also be done in April!). This month, as it is the summer holidays, and I feel like I need to do something productive so that I don't spend my time boredom-eating and sleeping (this would not be unusual for me, to be honest). 

This month I have decided to do VEDA. I know for a fact already that I won't be able to upload every single day, because later this month I will be travelling to France in order to attend a family member's wedding, which is something I am very excited for! However, this means that I won't be able to fully dedicate to VEDA, which is fine, because I never really expected to manage anyway!

Some of the inspirations I had for VEDA were doddleoddle and thisbedottie (two of my favourite channels!). Dodie often does VEDA, and also did VEDIM (Vlog Every Day in May) earlier this year. I have to admit that thisbedottie doesn't do this style of video, but a while ago she went through a stage of making poetry videos every single day, and I loved them! She is also one of the reasons why I started writing poetry (so I suppose you could also say that she was to blame, haha). 

It's going to be a challenge to upload daily (or as close to daily as I can get), but in way, that is one of the reasons why I like it. This is like my little holiday project :)

Here are my VEDA videos so far:

Speak to you soon, 

Lucy x

What I'm currently listening to: 

(a little weird, I have to admit, but it's cool)

The end of a year.

Tomorrow is the last day of Year 10, which also means that it is the last day of school before we officially start exam year, which feels very weird. For years now, my GCSEs have seemed very distant, and general attitude being "If you got a good grade in your test - great! If not, you still have ages before your actual exams! You'll be fine!!". 

Only now, it is different. Our GCSE exams are suddenly upon us and there is no one there to brush it off and say "You'll be fine, it's not the real thing!". 

I don't know why this comes as much as a surprise to me. Although it often excites me, I've never been great with change, and there is something terrifying about getting a bad grade on a test and someone then speculating what that will mean for my future, even if it may not be the real thing. 

Either way, I technically did start my GCSEs this year in that I took my since exams: biology, physics and chemistry (I meant to write about these but, as you can probably imagine, I didn't have much time on my hands!). Sadly, I'm not too great at science. I don't have a very technical brain - I am more creative. My favourite subjects are English and drama, mainly because I like the way both of these things can spark emotion in people as well as empathise with them. I enjoy creating characters and creating situations just as much as I enjoy playing them and throwing myself into those situations.

Although I do like that I am deeply interested in these things, sometimes I do wish that my talents laid in the technical subjects, such as maths, the sciences and ICT. Quite often I stumble across this post on tumblr that expresses how, when students struggle with creative/arty subjects, they are simply reassured that they just don't have a "creative mind" or whatever, whereas when a student struggles with technical subjects, people assume that they are stupid. As someone who often struggled with technical subjects, that post speaks to me a lot. A few months ago I quit my weekly maths tutoring that had been going on for roughly a year (I think) and it was SUCH A RELIEF. Although the place was alright and the people were friendly, I can definitely think of better things to do on my Friday evenings or Saturday mornings than walking up the road to do simultaneous equations or some stupid crap where I would stare at a jumble of signs and numbers with my brain screaming "WAAAT". Since then, my maths has improved A LOT (considering the fact that when I turned up, I couldn't do basic multiplications that I should have learnt in Year 4, or subtract large amounts without using a number line - basically, there were massive gaps in my knowledge!). 

But when it came to sciences, I was still slightly wobbly. I tend to be alright at biology - in some cases, it can genuinely interest me, especially when we are learning about the brain and how it works (just please don't make me dissect anything because I don't personally agree with it, okay). Chemistry and physics tend to be the dodgy ones. However, when it came to my GCSEs, I had to forget that. In the weeks building up to those exams, I revised like hell. This meant a lot of burying my head in textbooks and moaning to my mum that the information in them were just LOTS OF WORDS IN A RANDOM ORDER. 

Honestly, I'd like to tell you how they went, but I have absolutely no idea. I just remember that I was horribly ill and the time (wow, great time to fail me, Immune System - just in time for my first GCSEs!!) and had to suppress my snuffles throughout each and every exam - I just didn't want to be that one kid who sneezes really loudly right in the middle of the test!

We were all so nervous. I got to the end of every exam and had no idea how I'd done or what kind of grade I might receive in August - I was in shock, especially after my very first one. I remember it was a biology exam and I was scared like hell, but I was told that I looked confident because I did what I do before performing. I put on a smile like I knew something that everyone else didn't/I was about to turn the place to the ground, stood up straight and held my head high. It's amazing how confident it can make me feel, especially when I want nothing more than to escape the situation I'm in. 

At first, I was fine. Among a sea of flustered, panicky people, I held my sandwich bag full of everything I would need (pencils, pens, etc.) and pulled my most dangerous face. Afterwards was different. 

As soon as we left the exam hall and everyone started gushing about the exam, some exclaiming "It was so easy" or "It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be!" and some with a horror-struck look on their face that screamed "OH-SHIT-OH-SHIT-OH-SHIT". 

I was on a completely new level, staring into the distance in a kind of trance. 

This spell broke as we approached our lockers to retrieve our bags and I started messing around with my friends as I had suddenly become really hyper. In the end, things got a bit out of hand and I dropped a very heavy lock on my friend's hand as she was crouched on the floor, which looked very very very painful, and I kind of cracked out of the sudden shock, as my hyper-ness was immediately replaced with the all the fear I had for my future. 

I think it would have been better if I had been certain of my grades, because then I wouldn't have to endure the terror or uncertainty. My friends immediately put me back in place by exploding into the rant of "LUCY WHAT THE HELL YOU'RE SO SMART SHH" that I usually hear whenever I have a freak-out like this. 

Even now, I still don't know how I did. My results come in August, so that shall be interesting. Nevertheless, I know that there's nothing I could possibly do to change them now. 

I think that when people think of your last years of secondary school though, they often forget that exams aren't the only things going on. I have changed and grown so much over the past year, and I just think that there's so much else that you can also focus on. 

For instance, I have had very few panic attacks this year as I have become better at controlling and stopping them when I feel them coming. 

I have become better at telling people how I feel in order to make things right. 

I have formed quite a few new friendships and have strengthened some older ones.

I started my YouTube channel and reached over 100 subscribers. 

My blog reached its one year anniversary(!!!!). 

Yeah - I totally forgot that initially! I realised this just before I started writing this, like "Hey, didn't I start my blog just before the summer holidays last year?" and yeah, it did... three days ago (oops!). It's such a crazy thought. These kinds of things don't really cross my mind. 

Thank you to everyone who reads my blog today, whether you found it yesterday or were one of the very first readers :) Feel free to leave your blog in the comments if you'd like me to check it out!

I'm going to leave you now as I struggle to make last-minute after school plans with my friends :) Happy holidays to all of you!

Speak to you soon, 
Lucy x

I Can't Even Technology (and other holiday stuff)

Here in England, is the one week holidays, which is amazing after having to push through all three science exams during the last two weeks of term, but there are going so fast! I hope that you are having a nice time, regardless of whether or not you are on holiday right now or not :)

One thing I have been telling myself throughout these holidays is: This is it. After all the revision and the stress and the exams, this is your chance to finally make all the YouTube videos you've been planning. This is yet another reason why I have been looking forward to the holidays so much - I love making YouTube videos and recently I have been given next to no time to do that, and that has upset me. I just really feel like I should do something for me, and not because the education system tells me I have to do it. 

There was one video that I was particularly looking forward to making: my braces video. I got my braces off around four weeks ago now and have been desperate to talk about my two-year experience with braces ever since, but revision just kept getting in the way. I was trying to balance revision, other homework, and socialising (because without free time with friends I think I would have gone actually insane!), and YouTube just didn't fit in. 

I finally filmed my braces video two days ago, which made me very happy as I have missed making videos so much recently, and felt like I had a lot to say. To be honest, I wasn't really sure exactly how the video was going to turn out on the whole, but I was quite proud of it at the same time!

Aaaand then came the editing. What a lot of people don't understand when they think of how much effort YouTubers put into their videos is just how much time is spent editing after the camera stops running. If I want to upload a video on the same day as filming it, I have to dedicate an entire day to that specific video and focus on barely anything else. In my videos, I use Windows Movie Maker - it's definitely not the greatest software ever, but it is free, I can just about get my head around it, and it hadn't ever failed me... yet.

I had just finished editing my video, and was happy with the results. It tried saving it to my computer, which is never usually problematic, and it didn't look like it was going to be. It was saving at the same rate as usual, until....
98%

BAM.
An error message appeared on the screen and all of my progress disappeared, turning each section of the video into tiny yellow triangles with exclamation marks inside. 
Okaaay, that's weird. I've uploaded videos much longer than this before..., I thought, googling the error message, but nothing useful came up. People were experiencing the same problem, but no one had a solution. I tried and tried to save the video, but the same error message kept appearing. I asked my dad for help, because he is good with computers and basically all of the stuff that I am bad at, but he just kinda came to the conclusion that my software sucks and I wouldn't be able to upload my video unless I got some new software. 

The problem is that all other software (and I mean the good software, not the kind of software that is free, glitchy and leaves a watermark on your video - trust me, I have used many types of software in the past!) is really bloody expensive. Like, seriously, I discovered that the software that we use in media studies at school is actually hundreds of pounds. The problem is that I do not have any money, because the kind of people who buy this software have money and jobs of their own. I, however, am an unemployed 15-year-old schoolgirl, therefore I do not own any money of my own. 

For now, I don't know what I'm really going to do about the whole I-can't-edit-any-YouTube-videos-from-now-on-thing. My dad has suggested another piece of editing software, but it would require a lot of time and effort to get onto my laptop, so I'm not sure just yet. 

So I guess this blog post is my way of apologising for my serious lack of YouTube videos. I don't like to feel like I don't put a lot of effort into my YouTube videos, because I do - I put a hell of a lot of time and effort in, and I really enjoy it! It's just that sometimes I struggle. 

Other than this, I have really enjoyed the holidays, however short they may be. I haven't had a chance to see many of my friends yet, because quite a few of them have been on holiday, but we have arranged a massive sleepover on Saturday due to a deal we made at my old primary school's summer fete - two of my friends entered the movie-themed collection box about a bazillion times, and we decided that if they won, then we would have a proper movie night ...and they did! It was literally the most amazing moment as our old head teacher called out my friend's name and we all screamed simultaneously, my friend practically skipped as he went to pick up his winnings! We were most definitely the most excited people there - even more excited than any of the children who won anything. 
That was a good day :) I'm really looking forward to seeing them. 

I feel like this break has been great for my health too. As I would, I was ill during the last two weeks of term - the weeks in which we had exams. It was literally the most inconvenient thing ever, I felt like hell. Do you know what it's like to sniffle in an exam hall filled with the majority of your year group and half of the year above and have the sound echo? I do. 

Two of my friends also had the same illness, and we couldn't afford to take time off school. On the Saturday after school ended, my friends tried to arrange a trip to go swimming, but me and another friend pulled out because:
1) Hanging out in town and buying weirdly flavoured drinks while ill is a lot better than swimming while ill
2) We didn't have to worry about diseasing each other because we were both equally as gross!

Hmm... what else have I done in the holidays? Let's see... 
1) I've stayed up until 3am (not because I think it's cool or anything - because I have trouble getting to sleep!)
2) I've slept in until midday (see number 1)
3) I've eaten tons and tons of junk food (examples include rocky road and oreos)
4) I've started writing a story about dragons (don't ask unless you want me to start screaming in capslock about dragons - you have been warned!)

Honestly, I think that's just about it. Tell me what the past week has been like for you down in the comments :)
Speak to you soon, 
Lucy xx

Heeyyy...

Hey, guys. Sorry, I know it's been a long time since I've blogged, so I'm hoping you haven't forgotten about me in the past month!

Although it may seem like it, I promise I haven't forgotten about my blog. For those of you who don't live in Britain, we have just had a two week Easter holiday, which was the most fun and relaxation I've had in a long time. I didn't even mind that much that I had to do science revision every day to prepare for our exam in May, it still felt like a holiday to me. 

I tried to dedicate as much of it as possible to making YouTube videos without it completely consuming my life, though during these two weeks I only managed to upload two videos (I filmed another one that I am still in the process of editing). It annoys me when people talk about YouTubers like their job is easy and anyone could do it, because these people put in so much more effort than others seem to understand. 

Yes, part of this time is spent sitting in front of a camera, talking, but there are also other parts of the video making process that take place before the video is uploaded. Before the person can sit in front of the camera, they tend to plan the video, and then afterwards so much editing is involved. If I film and upload a video in the same day, I tend to dedicate that entire day on one video. That doesn't mean that I don't like making videos - please don't think I'm moaning; it just means that I love it enough to spend a lot of time on it (my last video was originally 30 minutes long - it crashed my editing software!). I just feel like more people should understand this. 

Other than this, I enjoyed spending time with my friends, and not just during lunch breaks at school! I have friends who are in many of my classes at school and I have friends who I have never had a class with in my life, so I don't get to see very often. We were planning to have a picnic at some point, but somehow forgot to take into account that we live in England, and spring doesn't truly begin until halfway through April. We are still to have that picnic, but there were many 1am video chats! One day I randomly decided to invite some friends round to make Easter nests, inspired by Dan and Phil's latest baking video, which were basically the least healthy things I have ever eaten in my entire life. It was kinda scary - my dad even described them as having "too much chocolate"... I didn't even know there was such a thing.

However, I learned to forgive myself, as despite the Easter eggs and the crazy Easter nests, I was actually surprisingly healthy during the holidays (shock horror). For once in my life, I think I actually care about drinking enough water, having a balanced diet and exercising, and during the holidays I actually began to notice the change in my lifestyle affecting me. Obviously, I am not the healthiest person on Earth - I am sure that I would still curl up in a pool of my own tears if someone made me play football or lift weights, and I am probably over-exaggerating all this anyway - but I am content with my health for now. 

The only thing that I wasn't so productive with was my sleeping pattern (and my that I mean that I don't think that I even had a sleeping pattern). I have always had a problem in my sleeping pattern in that I never get tired in the night and then am practically a zombie in the morning, and during the holidays it just got worse. I got to the point where I was falling asleep at around 3:30am and then sleeping in till midday, by which time I drag myself out of bed and eat a bowl of cereal only to have lunch almost immediately afterwards. 

Of course, you can imagine how much of a mess I was when I had to wake up at 7 o'clock on Monday to go to school. I was an exhausted, emotional wreck for most of the day (I spent my first lesson crying over fictional characters) and since my meal times were so scrambled, by lunch time I was ravenous. If you are a person who is in control of their sleeping pattern:
1) I envy you
2) Please don't have a sleeping pattern like mine out of choice. You have no idea how freaking lucky you are. 

I feel like these days, many people view it as cool to stay up late and sleep until midday the next day, as if it's just what teenagers are supposed to do. 

From the perspective of someone who wishes dearly that she was a morning person and wasn't a zombie for most of the day: it's not. Please, get some sleep! By the time it was Friday, I was absolutely wrecked. I was planning on being productive and going into science at the end of the day to help improve my grade, but I just found that I was too tired. My mood was terrible and I could barely keep my eyes open - when I went home, I went straight to bed in my school uniform, and even then I couldn't sleep. 

Today, I am glad to say that I am much better. I am still kind of droopy and I actually had a nap earlier (something that made me feel really old), but I am in a much better emotional state - you don't have to worry about me or anything. 

You have almost definitely noticed throughout this blog post that I have completely different background and am using a different font from usual. I have decided to make my newer blog posts look slightly less like they were written by a typewriter (though I still love typewriters). I have also made this change in the captions on my YouTube videos. I don't know whether I'll keep my font like this, but for now I quite like it. I feel like it looks like my writing could be inside a book (what a rubbish book that would be, haha).

I really hope to write more blog posts in the future, I have really missed doing this!
Lucy x

My latest videos:

What I'm currently listening to: