2017

“maybe I grew as a person” – my 2017 resolutions

2017, lifestyle, photography, student

Hello,

I was going to make a New Years Resolution post looking back on my resolutions from last year and talking about my resolutions for 2018 but I know for a fact that a post consisting of both of those things would end up with a blog post that’s about three thousand words long. I’m a very reflective person and I like checking in on my own progress so that’s what this is.

Should I publish this on the internet? Probably not, I don’t know if anyone else is interested in this. But I like being able to hold myself accountable and I don’t know if anyone else would maybe like to see if I’ve stuck to what I said I wanted to do in both my 2017 resolutions post and my mid-year check in post!

For context, I split my goals into three sections – personal, creative and university.

My personal goals:

  • being healthier
  • exercising more
  • focusing on my dental hygiene
  • becoming a morning person
  • be more careful with money

Being healthier and exercising more didn’t go well – I’m the heaviest and unfittest I’ve ever been and it makes me very sad so we won’t dwell on it, but it won’t be a surprise that this appear on my 2018 list too! Dental hygiene was a mixed bag – I’ve come to the conclusion that I just hate brushing my teeth and I will never enjoy it, it will always be a sensation that I just don’t enjoy. But I have got better and I’m still working on my dental hygiene despite hating it so much.

Becoming a morning person has been much more successful though! Having 9am starts for most of this semester at uni has really helped but I naturally wake up between 7am and 9am (depending on what my schedule has been like – during a busy week, I wake up earlier and in the holidays or a quieter week, a bit later). At the moment I’m not pressing myself to be up too early because uni has really taken it out of me, but when I’m properly back in Southampton for uni next year I’m going to get back to working on this. I feel like this is my most sustainable change I made this year.

And the money goal was really successful too – I’ve been lucky enough to come into a couple of fairly large sums of money and my family have recommended to me that I use that to get out of my overdraft and I didn’t want to do that. I wanted that money to go back into something more memorable so I put that into my travel saving fund and worked on getting out of my overdraft on my own. So when loan arrived in September and I paid rent and my bank account was still positive and I’ve never been happier than closing my overdraft and knowing that all the money I had was mine. I was so proud and I’m so glad that the only debt I’ll have leaving university (‘glad’ ish, I guess) will be my loan.

So personal goals, a big ‘ish’ but feeling positive.

My creative goals:

  • keep learning about photography
  • maintaining my blog and YouTube channel
  • make sure to keep trying out new content
  • start writing again
  • find new creative outlets

Taking advanced photography taught me a lot about thinking about photography and how good photos can be much simpler than all the daunting equipment and scary editing software. I’m excited about the prospect of continuing to learn about photography and I’m saving for a camera that I think will really enable me to explore more creatively.

Maintaining my blog and YouTube channel was a mixed bag too – they were okay for a while, I dipped in and out of both throughout the year but these last four months has just been radio silence. I’m working on getting that back – exhibit A is the blog posts and videos I’ve been making in the latter half of December and I’m really hoping to maintain this when I go back to uni but we’ll see, the biggest aim for 2018 is taking the pressure off.

In terms of trying out new content most of it for me was making sure I didn’t feel like I was churning out the same shit that every other blogger desperate for brand deals and pretty instagrams was. I didn’t necessarily ‘try out new content’ but I’ve been particularly thoughtful about what I’ve made and I’m pretty pleased with it to be honest!

In terms of writing again – I actually kind of have! Yes, it’s fanfiction but I’m 16,000 words and 50 pages into it and I’m writing. Right now, where I’m very focused on my degree and making content online, realistically working on a personal work of fiction isn’t something I have the mental capacity for so what I’m writing is 1) much more manageable, 2) keeps me writing creatively and 3) is something that I really enjoy, like a lot. And I haven’t found any new creative outlets other than perhaps interior decorating the house I moved into in July so this project works for me!

My university goals:

  • stay motivated
  • stay organised
  • keep trying new things
  • keep putting yourself out there
  • work experience

I feel like I could write a whole blog post about my university story – the long and short of it is no one in my sixth form believed I was capable of anything and I fought through the battle that was my A Levels on my own whilst being bullied by my maths teacher so to think that I finished second year with a grade I was so happy with and being treated as a ‘High Achiever’ by my university just blows my mind.

So yes – I stayed motivated, I stayed organised and I kept trying new things in the stories I covered and the roles I took on within my course and outside of it. I put myself out there in ways I never thought I was capable of, even taking on editorial roles and too many commitments outside of my course but I got through it. In the end. Ish.

And work experience might be the most successful part of 2017 – two weeks at BBC Three, a week at NASS festival, a week working at Reading festival (one of my first paid freelance jobs!) and a week at Sky Entertainment which actually helped me figure out a three year plan (let me know if you want a whole post about it?) and I feel like my university goals were the most successful part of my 2017.

Just looking back at what I asked of myself a year ago and knowing that that version of me didn’t even imagine what she would have to go through and what she achieved is genuinely making me really emotional. It’s been a huge year and this is the first year that I can remember that I look back and feel proud and I’m excited for next year, it’s a really nice feeling. I’m motivated now to get the same out of 2018!

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

 

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Snapchat: SophieALuckett

what I got for Christmas 2017

2017, lifestyle, photography, student

Hello!

Christmas is a time full of love, thankfulness and gifts. I wasn’t sure about writing this post but looking at the gifts I got this year and the ones I have chosen to include, this isn’t a list of me showing off how much money my family spent on me and I think the controversy around these posts are kind of centred around that. Assuming people that write these posts are in the same mindset as me, these posts aren’t boasting about anything – I just want to share some of the wonderful, thoughtful gifts I got, take some pretty pictures and show thanks to those who went to the trouble of buying me a gift.

So with that in mind, let’s get into what I got for Christmas this year!

Long story short, I have a collection of cactuses and plants (some real, some felt) and I’ve named them all David – David I is a felt plant from Tiger, David II is a real succulent that I always forget to water, David III is a DIY cushion that I never made, David IV is an Ikea toy, David V, VI and VII are a set of three plants from Ikea and this, is David VIII. I love my little collection and I love that these coasters can be arranged in whatever fashion I like, I think it’s so fun. My mum has a way of finding the weirdest and most amazing little gifts.

It’s only within the last six months of the year that I’ve really got in to any kind of gaming. I’m still completely head over heels obsessed with Overwatch and the depth to which the creators go with the characters and their story arcs. The basic story about this character, Bastion, is that he’s a kind of robot built to fight in a war – the one in the game gets lost and finds a bird in the woods who becomes his friends. Ganymede, the bird, teaches him about love and friendship and the robot essentially becomes sentient. So this is a Ganymede toy and the box is shaped like Bastion’s head and it’s really cute.

I don’t know if I’ve done the game any justice in my description but if you want to add me on X-Box my handle is ‘sophieislame’.

To be honest, I was really awful whenever my mum asked me what I wanted for Christmas because there really wasn’t anything I wanted this year. But she did offer to take me to Long Tall Sally so I picked up this gorgeous loose turtle neck jumper in grey and my new favourite yellow jumper. I’m really into yellow right now and the fact that the sleeves are long enough that I can actually wear it properly make me unreasonably happy. Also it’s like wearing a hug it’s the softest thing I have worn in a very long time.

I don’t know if there’s much to be said but wow I’ve got a lot of food this year, like a lot. I’ve eaten so badly.

Also shout out to the honey roast ham my mum made because oh my god I’m salivating thinking about it.

It could be said that I’m somewhat of a stationery nerd – I have a rather large collection of pens and, my oh my, did my family build on this – my mum bought me two different sets of pens and a cute little elephant pencil case with stencils for my bullet journal (I’m actually dead excited to start putting these to use!) and my sister bought me a book on fancy lettering and brush pens to go with it! I’m so excited to learn about writing all fancy and making my bullet journal just that little bit more beautiful. It’s going to be stunning.

Now I don’t think it would be a ‘what I got for Christmas post’ if I didn’t include what my gorgeous boyfriend got for me this year – he’s truly spoiled me, pre-ordering the new Fall Out Boy album, a ‘merch voucher’ for when we see them in January, a Hufflepuff scarf (that I’ve wanted for so long) and amongst other things, this frame – that makes absolutely no sense out of context. Here’s the context – two of my favourite albums of all time are ‘Save Rock and Roll’, Fall Out Boy, and ‘This Is War’, Thirty Seconds to Mars, (let’s leave all opinions to one side please and thank you) and I’ve been saying for ages that when we have a permanent space I want to get them properly framed and hang them in an office space. So Lucas bought me new copies of both albums so I could cut them up or whatever if I needed to and then drew this wonderful interpretation and stuck fairy lights on the frame. I actually adore it, I think it’s really cute and I’m excited to have it in years to come.

This post ended up being way longer than I thought it would, but tell me all about what you got for Christmas in the comments! I feel like the memories that come with the presents are the best bit and that’s what I want to savour.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

 

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Snapchat: SophieALuckett

“under pressure” – why I disappeared from the internet

2017, lifestyle, student

Hello!

When I started this blog (over three years ago now, wow) I knew it would be a fairly big ask – I was in my last year of sixth form, I was applying for uni, I was already making YouTube videos once a week. But I didn’t make a big deal – it was somewhat unfamiliar territory so I didn’t make a big deal about pushing myself. Between September and December 2014 I wrote 8 posts.

In the new year of 2015 I started what I called the ‘365 Pages’ project, where I wrote a blog post every day for a year with each post being ‘Page 1 of 365’ and so on. I didn’t actually write a blog post every day – there were a couple of days I missed and I actually went away on an charity work expedition to Ecuador for four weeks and managed to pre-write over 30 blog posts and schedule 9 or 10 videos too (I’m still very proud of this, don’t know if you can tell).

So as my blog has gone on I’ve piled on the expectations of myself. It’s really not unusual for me to ask too much for myself. As the year of blogging ended, I decided I wasn’t going to have a schedule – I was going to have lots of ideas and write fairly regularly?

Yeah, no.

That didn’t happen so I planned a schedule – I think I uploaded three times a week and then I didn’t do that anymore. I don’t remember how my blog schedule changed between the end of 2016 and the entirety of 2017 but by September this year I just stopped. Third year began and blogging and making videos and basically everything else (like my diet and mental health, lol) took a massive backseat.

Third year has been really intense – in the 12 or 13 weeks that made up my first semester (I lost track, to be honest) I had 11 deadlines, pretty much one a week, I didn’t have time to do anything like cook myself food, I was in university 40+ hours a week every week, alongside running a society and rehearsing for a drama and performance showcase and trying to maintain friendships and a relationship and it was a lot.

Following the final result of my second year, I was driven for third year – I’d done the maths, I knew exactly what I needed to do to get the grade I wanted from my last year of university (so far). But that made me very stressed when suddenly I was faced with the reality of actually working at that level.

I don’t know if I’m writing really ominously or pretentiously or if I’m just not making sense at all, but not all the pressure came from myself. Third year is intense – obviously, it’s my last year of uni so it’s meant to be challenging and I thought I was ready but clearly not.

Maybe by asking myself to do as much as I can for third year, writing for my blog, making YouTube videos, running a society, being part of a performance society and having a job was putting too much pressure on myself? I was made redundant at the end of November so that’s one thing off the list and I’ve taken a step back from drama and performance until after Christmas. Sonar Film has been manic and I want to sit and have a day focusing on that over the holidays and I’m slowly working my way through uni stuff.

Writing all of this out really helps me, which is partially why I love writing on my blog and why I’m determined to get back into blogging and YouTube.

I’m someone who thrives on routines – writing and making videos as and when ‘I feel like it’ doesn’t work for me at all because I’m not someone who gets inspired to write things as and when.  So I’ve planned a new routine.

I have so many blog post ideas and I’m going to write as much as I can before I go back to uni properly at the end of January and I’m excited about it.

My aim for my blog and my Youtube channel is to take the pressure off a little bit – so that I have time to do it around my uni work but enjoy it as a welcome break from my degree. I don’t need anything else to be stressed about!

If you have any tips for maintaining a blog and a million other commitments do leave me a comment, I need all the help I can get!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

 

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Snapchat: SophieALuckett

the lost blogger

2017, lifestyle, photography, student

Hello!

Writing and filming for my blog and YouTube channel have been a challenge recently – I’ve not felt inspired, the longer I left it the more difficult I found it to approach creating anything and I just put it off for longer and longer.

So I’ve reevaluated – I had a think about what I want my focus to be and I want to redesign my blog a little bit. I want to enjoy blogging and I don’t want it to feel like a chore or a responsibility – I want to feel more chatty and conversational and maybe make my blog more like a diary which is where blogging began really.

In my head I know I want to write blog posts somewhat inspired or rooted in things that happen in my life (which isn’t much right now, these past few months have just been uni assignments, Sonar Film and Drama and Performance society) and have a somewhat bigger message. But that’s a lot of pressure? Do I want to talk about clothes and make-up because that’s where I see lots of successful bloggers but does that make it harder to be successful? Do I talk about uni life or YouTube or films because they’re all things that are a big part of my life but does anyone care?

Does anyone care about what I’m saying? Does anyone care about the words I’m writing? Spending my time and effort crafting, taking photos, promoting on socials? Why do I bother?

I bother because I love writing. It’s almost like a therapy for me before it gets it off my chest and I feel a lot better for writing. Why do I make YouTube videos? Because I love filming and editing and crafting these memories. But why? Why don’t I keep it private?

Because I’d love it to be successful. People can say all day long about how they write for themselves or their family or they make YouTube videos for the same reason but then why are they made public? Because at the end of the day people want an audience, they probably want this to be a career and I feel like that shouldn’t be shunned.

I’ve seen so many blog posts and YouTube videos made for ‘new bloggers’ and ‘new YouTubers’ and all of them say: don’t do it for views, subscribers and fame. But then if you’re not doing it for those things, there are ways to have private and passworded blogs and unlisted videos that can only be viewed by people you give the link to.

Why is bad to want views? If I’m spending time and effort on creating and crafting a post that I publish, I don’t think I should be ashamed to want it to do well and hiding behind the facade that I’m writing for my own sake because I don’t think these things are mutually exclusive.

I love writing blog posts, I love writing and I love publishing my work on my little site – but I’m not going to be ashamed for wanting it to do well.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

 

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Snapchat: SophieALuckett

we’re all (super) heroes

2017, lifestyle, photography, student

“Hello,

This one’s a little off the cuff, because I find those are the posts I love most and my friend Becca (gorgeous blog, I thoroughly recommend getting lost in it) always writes amazing posts when she’s inspired and something really drives her to write so I’m going with that.

Hear me out – I’m rolling with it (I will also acknowledge the lack of blog posts, but not today).

I love superhero movies – I’m not talking I like watching Marvel films, I mean I’m so invested in superhero films and I find it very difficult to critique superhero movies because I’m just so invested in them. I don’t know if that quite conveys what I mean, but my heart is in all of those movies and shows.

On Wednesday night, my boyfriend and I completely caught up on DC’s ‘The Flash’ and I can’t put into words how this show has buried itself in my heart and soul. We started watching the show about a year ago but got a bit lost and busy in the middle of season 3, so we recently started rewatching it and catching up on what we missed. And this week we watched Season 4, Episode 5, ‘Girls Night Out’ and I felt something.

One, the episode was really funny but, predominantly, two – catching up meant something; I feel equally content and lost.

Content because we caught up and it’s nice to not have to avoid spoilers anymore and lost because rather than watching a couple of episodes a night I now only get to watch one new episode a week.

When I say my heart is in all of these superhero films I just don’t know how else to explain it but they really are everything and they way I can express that is by writing – by writing and losing myself in these brand new stories.

The more I write of this the more pathetic it sounds.

I think part of it is because I spend so long in my head anyway – I love writing and crafting stories and that has always been my escapism and I can mentally put myself in these films and I’m gone (I’m trying not to sound like a total lunatic here).

I could talk all day (and probably have) about how I hate the stigma around FanFiction for being all 12 year olds writing about their favourite band members having sex with them and books like ’50 Shades of Grey’ becoming the phenomenon that they are, but writing FanFiction gives me a way to put myself into these situations.

And I know it’s probably not the healthiest coping mechanism, to take myself away in the words I write but Flash has been my escape for the last few weeks while my brain has been everywhere with uni. I’ve been lower in these last two months than I’ve ever been before and watching Flash has been my way out – I’m living my life through Barry Allen.

[ Side note – I’m nervous about watching Justice League because I love Ezra Miller but I /love/ Grant Gustin and I don’t want movie Flash to be better than TV Flash but also I don’t want movie Flash to be disappointing. ]

I think what makes this all more poignant is that I’m now taking part in NaNoWriMo (a month long challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days) as a way to get my passion for writing back. I used to sit every single night in the living room with my family watching TV and writing – whether it be FanFiction just because I wanted to write it or original fiction, I would write and write and write.

And I don’t. Since coming to uni I just haven’t. In part that’s because I’ve been spending more time with my friends and housemates and I don’t have the evening time I used to have but I miss writing and I want to get that back. I’m not trying to write a novel, or even 50,000 words for that matter, I only started on Day 12 – I’m just trying to write again. And that includes my blog to be honest.

Real life hasn’t been working so well in my brain right now, but having this outlet where I can write myself as a superhero – someone who isn’t held back by assignments or my sad brain (or a lack of superpowers) and I can be someone who’s the only one who can stop the bad guy.

But to be honest, that applies to real life too.

Sophie xx”

 

I wrote this whole post in one night. For some reason, making the feature picture and actually posting it meant that it was over a week later. I don’t know how to explain my brain right now but I feel like that was relevant.

Thank you for reading

what is Sonar Film?

2017, lifestyle, student

Hello!

I’ve talked about Sonar Film a lot but I don’t think I’ve really explained what it is, so I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about it!

Sonar Film is Southampton Solent University’s cinema society – a society that gives students the opportunity to run a blockbuster cinema for a really small joining fee.

We are a fully functioning cinema – a lot of university cinemas show DVDs or old release films but we get a lot of the films that Cineworld, Showcase and Odeon show. We’re a legit cinema and our tickets are way more reasonably priced! £4 with a valid Solent card and £4.50 if not.

Working with Sonar Film has been one of my favourite parts of my university experience so far – from the perspective of joining the society, you show up a little before the film starts to set up the film and prepare and tidy the lecture theatre, then you let people into the showing, get the film going, watch the film and tidy up the room again. If you’re a big fan of films and want to learn more about putting them on and also join an amazing team of people who also love movies, it’s a great society to join without a huge amount of commitment.

Sonar Film is a great place for students who want to join or whether they just want to attend – only £4 to go see the cinema release films at uni? That’s maybe a third of what you’d pay if you went anywhere else and you can bring your own popcorn for a fraction of the price.

There’s not much else to add – follow Sonar Film on twitter and Facebook and check back on our website to see what we’re showing and when. It would be awesome to support Southampton’s students and the university – technically we’re registered as a not-for-profit charity but everything goes back to the students who help our society function.

Also, I made a video about Sonar Film during VEDA if you’d like to watch that!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

 

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Snapchat: SophieALuckett

August favourites

2017, lifestyle, music, student

Hello!

I’ve not done a favourites for a while, but it’s nice to be able to look back on the month and pick out the things I enjoyed the most. Lots of new content came out in July and August and I spent a lot of money on things I really didn’t need, so I really love the selection of things I’ve picked this month!

Image result for spider-man homecoming

Spider-Man Homecoming: Spider-Man has been my ultimate favourite superhero since I first saw The Amazing Spider-Man with Andrew Garfield in the cinema – his wit, morality and agility are just everything I would like to be really (who wouldn’t want to swing so high you feel like flying – yes please!) so I was nervous seeing this film. I had every faith in Tom Holland having seen him in Civil War but there’s still every chance this movie was going to be awful. But it wasn’t! It was incredible! Every film has pros and cons and no film is without it’s flaws, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and couldn’t recommend it more (and omg Zendaya).

‘You’ – dodie: A new dodie EP? Of course I’m obsessed. I treated myself to a bundle with a t-shirt, the EP and a vinyl version of the EP and I just love it. I love how the yellow of the case brightens up my room, I love having a studio version of ‘6/10’ (because god knows that song is my anthem) and ‘Would you be so kind?’ is just so happy. On the first EP, ‘Absolutely Smitten’ was the token really happy clappy mood lifting song and wybsk is the ‘You’ equivalent and I just can’t put into words how much it makes me smile.

Overwatch ‘Summer Games’: I think I’ve mentioned it fairly regularly – I’m obsessed with Overwatch, it’s all been very sudden but I’m now properly invested in my first and only video game and there’s been a fun event with extra things to collect and a fun new game to play and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYNd5DUgMpX/?taken-by=ahealthiersophie

My elephant water bottle: We all know about my major obsession with elephants, but I was going to Primark to buy plain black t-shirts to work at Reading and it was in the aisle you have to go down towards the tills and it was all by itself and it was calling my name. It’s just gorgeous and I could never resist. I love it.

From Ikea’s website

Ikea shelving unit with wheels: For some reason, I went to Ikea three times in August and the first time I went I spotted this unit that I became utterly obsessed with it. On the second trip, I resist and it was that third trip that I gave in and just did it. I’m not recommending just spending money like I did if you can’t afford it but I knew exactly where it was going to go in my room, what I was going to put on it and how gorgeous it would look and I don’t regret it for a single second. I love it and it looked beautiful.

Jeffrey the bear: In August my sister was doing a summer course at Arts University Bournemouth and I went over to see her for the day. My boyfriend and I love this arcade cafe place called Fun Central and we’d decided we were going to win the bear that was worth 6,000 tickets for sure on this, our third time to the arcade. Shock horror, a new bigger bear worth 14,000 tickets had been added but my bear had been reduced to 5,000 tickets. We totally smashed it and I named him Jeffrey. I love him so much there aren’t even words.

My new hair colour: I haven’t really photographed it properly at all but I finally got my hair fixed at the hairdresser! It’s a deeper pink than I wanted (I was going for red) but I adore it because the blue is gone and it’s actually a nice colour and I’m still growing it out – think I’m going to get it dyed properly again in December when I’m next home and can go to the salon again. Can’t wait.

jelly > meringe > melted chocolate > sprinkles

The best dessert I’ve ever made: Just a silly thing I got very excited about – strawberry jelly with crumbled meringue, drizzled in melted chocolate and sprinkled with an excess of brightly coloured sprinkles. I recommend stirring it all around and mixing it all together but I’m very excited to have it again soon, I’m not going to lie.

Reading Festival: I wrote a whole blog post about why I loved working at Reading Festival, but I wanted to include it here as well because I’m still just so in awe that I was lucky enough to get to go.

VEDA: I’ve known for a few months now that I wanted to take part in VEDA and I’ve been noting video ideas for that long. But you know what? I never thought I’d actually manage it – 31 videos, let alone all of them being edited and uploaded by 6pm! But I did it, and you can watch the whole playlist here.

Wasn’t that a wild ride? I’m excited to do this again in September because September is my favourite month and my birthday month, very exciting! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

 

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Snapchat: SophieALuckett

know how good you are – working @ Reading Festival 2017

2017, lifestyle, music, photography, student, travel

Hello!

Getting the chance to work at Reading Festival  as a Camera Operator was something I was never going to turn down – if I had to apply in any other way I wouldn’t have got it because I haven’t done any camera opping before, but my housemate was recruiting and he took a chance on me (hopefully he thinks it paid off).

When I went to Channel 4 and BBC Three (and Sky next week) I always say there was no luck – I spent a lot of time and effort getting those placements and there was no luck involved. Reading however – it’s all because I happen to live with the guy that needed camera ops. Obviously there was a bit of skill involved – if he didn’t think I’d be good at it he’d have said no but Reading was all chance, and I’m very, very grateful for it.

Watching every act from the side or right in front of the stage is something I’ve dreamed of for so long

I was so unbelievably anxious before we left I can’t even put it into words – I felt ill, I was overanalysing everything and I contemplated not going because I was so scared of getting things wrong or being bad. But I knew I couldn’t turn down Reading.

And I went. And I did well. And I loved it.

Camera 2 – my favourite Camera

I learnt a lot about how to work the cameras but I also realised how much I already knew – I know what a good shot looks like, I knew to keep an eye on what was happening on stage, what the other ops were filming and the crowd (filming someone holding a Lightning McQueen balloon was a highlight of the weekend).

I felt comfortable doing the job – it was like I’d found something that I should have been doing all along – filming live music, surrounded by artists, techies and heavy bass. I don’t think I would camera op for the rest of my life, but working with bands in environments like this is what I want to do. Now I have more of a focus to get to that.

The crowd for ‘The Hunna’ were absolutely mental, favourite crowd of the whole weekend

No one really expected me to excel at this festival, and I don’t think I’m the kind of person to make the assumption that I did, but I did learn this – have faith in your own skills, don’t be afraid to say you’re capable and you’re good enough. I’m definitely the sort of person who puts themselves down (to no end), assumes that I will never be good enough and I’m afraid to apply for jobs or work experience opportunities in roles that I could do but I haven’t done before but I know what I’m good at.

The last sunset of Reading 2017

I’m a good writer, I know how to film and edit good videos, I know how to take a good photo, I’m a good presenter and I’m really good at research and organisation. And there’s nothing wrong with knowing your skills or talking about them.

I’m so glad I had the opportunity to go to Reading and prove this to myself. I am capable of it even if there are people who would quite happily tell me I’m not.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

The sunrise at Basingstoke station on 6.30am on Monday morning was worth the all nighter

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becoming plus sized | outfit

2017, lifestyle, photography, student

Hello,

I’ve been wanting to write this post for a really long time – ever since my last outfit post I knew this is something I wanted to continue and then I picked up this gorgeous yellow, floral playsuit from Primark and I knew I wanted to do an outfit post in it, talking about the size I had to buy it in.

It’s a size 20 – I’ve been putting on weight like a small freight train this year and it’s something I’ve been struggling to cope with. It’s not the first time I’ve bought something in that size – I’m a lover of baggy, over sized clothes anyway – but it’s the first time I’ve felt I’ve really needed that size. And I won’t lie, it hurt.

My weight has always been a sensitive spot for me – as I spoke about in the self confidence post – I can’t remember a time of my life where I didn’t feel like I wanted to be smaller. All through school I was always too tall and I felt like every part of me wobbled. Everyone I seemed to know was someone who was stick thin without trying and could eat whatever they wanted without ever putting on a pound, especially since I spent my whole life dancing I’d get home from school, go to dance and all of my dance friends were the same. They’d prance around like dainty ballerina’s and I was the comic relief elephant in a tutu, or at least that’s how it felt.

Having tried to document healthy eating and fitness routines and whatnot on my blog before, I feel like the phrase ‘the heaviest I’ve ever been’ has been cycled around quite a lot, but it’s also a sign of the massive amount of weight I put on this year.

I started a new Instagram to try and document healthier eating and at the beginning, it worked – I put up videos of the ab challenge I was doing (and gave up on), I was making a conscious effort to eat a lot better and I had time for it all. Now I don’t – I wrote about it all on Instagram last night so I won’t repeat myself here.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYKxUQDghaP/?taken-by=ahealthiersophie

I have no problem with buying big clothes – I tend to buy the biggest size I can for comfort anyway and I once bought a 6XL t-shirt just to see how big it would be, but even in my baggy clothes I don’t feel happy. Sitting at my desk right this second I can feel the weight of my stomach and my thighs in my chair and I don’t feel healthy, it genuinely makes me want to cry.

I wanted the conclusion of this blog post to be ‘but look at this photos! I’m happy look at me’ but I have to be honest – I hate all of these photos. Picking out the best ones was so hard because I don’t like any of them, I can pick out flaws in all of them and I really hate them.

The real game changer for me was that when I was chubby in school, I knew how to work angles in photos to be the most flattering they could be and now, I can’t feign skinny from any angle – my tummy shows in every photo and I just hate it.

I feel like I’m fighting against an invisible wall – I can see myself in the distance looking healthier, I know what I have to do to get there but there’s something holding me back. Whether it’s lack of motivation, lack of will power to resist unhealthy food or people putting me down and not supporting the changes I want to make, I sit at my desk feeling like I can’t do it and drowning my sorrows in food.

Slimming World has been brought to my attention recently – I’ve spoken to a few people who’ve done it and I’ve had a few people reach out to me and say that it works in ways they never thought it would but I just don’t know if I’m strong enough to stand up in front of a bunch of strangers and have someone read out my weight. I can’t do it. I just don’t think I can.

Hopefully if I do another outfit post it will be in a happier tone from someone who’s lost weight, but for now I just don’t know. I’m going to work at Reading festival today where I will have no control over what I’m eating, but when I’m back I’m going to try again because that’s all I can do – keep trying.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

I don’t like it but this one does make me laugh, it’s so 2005

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blogging vs youtube | creativity crisis #2

2017, lifestyle, photography, student

Hello,

Having been running my YouTube channel for nearly 4 years and in September, I will have had my blog for three years. In that time, maintaining both platforms has been somewhat of a challenge – to have them compliment each other without stepping on each others toes or overlapping isn’t easy.

But recently, I feel like I see YouTubers who started at the same time as I did sky rocketing into hundreds and thousands and millions of subscribers and I just don’t know if bloggers are getting the same hits? Or maybe it’s just my blog?

In the first two years of my YouTube channel I steadily built a following of nearly 600 subscribers, it’s diminished a little bit recently but in my nearly three years of blogging I find I have a much more consistent audience on YouTube. Is YouTube where I should be putting my focus? To my understanding (and from what I see on social media) people seem infinitely more interested in video content than blog posts, articles and words. It’s easy to watch a video but reading takes that little bit more concentration so if I want to pour my heart and soul into one of my platforms surely I should make it the one that’s more likely to be more successful?

Is YouTube more influential than a blog? Does it matter? If I like making both forms of content should I just carry on doing both? Or do I sacrifice one to put all of my heart into the other?

This is literally the entire point of the ‘creativity crisis’ series – so that I can have a ramble about things that stress me out sometimes.

I really love YouTube and I really love my blog, for a very different set of reasons – but it’s so disheartening when I work so hard and put so much of myself out online to be put to shame by those who spend more time putting repetitive flatlays with open lipsticks and fake flowers lying on a rug on Instagram (I refer you to creativity crisis #1: social media).

Maybe I do need to focus more on social media, or maybe I need to make more of an effort to post content more regularly, or maybe I take a step back and work on writing, filming and editing what I feel truly expresses my creativity.

The conclusion to all of these creativity crisis rants I feel is going to be I just need to stop freaking out and make what I want and whilst everyone can say ‘it doesn’t matter about views’ or ‘it doesn’t matter about subscribers and followers’, it’s also hard not to notice when you’re so invested in what you make and you want it to do well and you want to show it off to the world so it can be stuck on the metaphorical fridge.

That took a different turn to what I was expecting, but what I mean is that I love YouTube and I love making videos and I love editing but I also love writing with all of my heart. I love how I could make a video and a blog post about the same topic and it would take such different turns and be presented in such different ways and to such different communities and I think that’s what I like about being a blogger and a YouTuber – that I can try and bring those communities together.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

 

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