Trip to London in Pictures {29th October 2014}

Hi all! Yesterday I went into London with my family to visit the Tower of London and a play at The Young Vic Theatre. These are some of the photos that I took throughout the day and into the evening. The weather was a bit miserable so I wasn't able to take as many photos as I wanted but heres the one's that I managed to take...

Well, that's it! I hope you enjoyed the little photo album that I've put together. Have you been to London? Where are your favourite places to visit?
See ya on the flip side,
Holly x

My Reverse Bucket List!

Hi all! I'm being a bit creative today and presenting my reverse bucket list which is things I have completed and proud about completing. I hope you enjoy it!

{1} Travel to new places
Before I went to Secondary School, I hadn't really travelled anywhere abroad other than Belgium and France. I wanted to visit some new cultures and experience new countries because I hadn't experienced anything like that properly before. Since starting secondary school, I have visited so many new countries in Europe such as Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Iceland and Holland. They all have very cultures and have taught me many different things. In the Netherlands, I rekindled my love for cycling as an easy mode of transport because that's how I got everywhere. In Iceland, I discovered beautiful scenery that I am likely to remember and possibly refer back to for many years to come. Travelling is something that is still on my bucket list. I want to travel further away to more diverse cultures that are so different from what I've experienced before.

{2} Kayak over 20 miles in one day
Yes, I know! 20 miles is really nothing! I which this was more but at this point in time, things haven't worked out for me to do anymore. I am a marathon kayaker and so my aims are always to paddle further than before with quicker times and higher ranking if it is a race. There's something about having a challenge that keeps me going through each year of school and that's what I love about setting aims and completing them. This year my aim is too paddle 125 miles over four days and therefore, paddle 38 miles in one day.

{3} Pass all my GCSE's
I actually passed all my GCSE's this year and I was so happy when I found out because the amount of work I tried to put in while monitoring my health and missing school from March to my exams. It was such a surprise that all my results were passes. There were so many that I was expecting to fail or do badly in and it was such a relief to have achieved something that I had almost given up thinking about. It was a goal that I had really given up on and I was instead aiming to get through all the exams without ending back up in hospital.

So that's my reverse bucket list from the first 16 and a half years of life. I hope you enjoyed it and tell me what you think of this weird idea!

What have you achieved in your life that you are proud of or have ticked off your bucket list?
See ya on the flip side,
Holly x

Youtubers Vs. the Rest of the World

Photo by David Stewart and taken from The Sunday Times article

Hi all! I feel like this is an important topic that needs to be discussed right now.
Over the past couple of months, I've started to feel that youtubers (particularly the mainstream 'british youtubers') have started to receive a lot of criticism from a lot different magazines, newspapers and websites about how they earn their money and the way they go about it.
Some of the particular articles that I have read are:

• http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/sure-teenage-girls-need-role-models--but-not-of-the-zoella-kind-9809136.html
• http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/Magazine/article1473511.ece
• http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/28/vloggers-changing-future-advertising

Two of these articles seem to have a very brushed over view of what we 'young people' know as the youtube culture. One is a completely fixed and aged view of the 21st century and how 'young people' interact. 

A lot of this attention of the youtube culture of vlogging has come from the recent negative publicity from the activity of a certain male youtuber called Sam Pepper. A recent prank video of his brought a lot of attention to how he treats women and possible 'sexual harassment' towards women and even fans. This has been forced into the limelight and therefore, the press have also published their own articles on it (if you haven't heard about any of this, here's an other article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/29404364). 

More attention has been brought to the youtube world for other reasons as well, however. This includes the recent popular book published by Alfie Deyes (Pointlessblog) that remained in the number one spot in the book charts for a number of weeks. Although this is a positive thing, many journalists have taken this opportunity to question and criticise the youtube world and culture particularly how youtubers seem to get money. 

I've been quite an avid watcher of youtubers for a few years now and even if I stop watching them for a couple of days/weeks, I always find myself referring back to their videos and keeping up with their lives. Although I may not know them personally, I know their lives well enough to know they work extremely hard to build up their channels audience, edit videos that are often published everyday, carry out interviews and meetings for new projects, keep all their audience interested, film their videos, come up with video ideas and uploads those videos which can sometimes take hours and hours on end. Some youtubers also have blogs and merchandise that they need to keep on track of and update. Yes, they earn a lot of money. Yes, those videos aren't all interesting to you personally. But they put in so much effort to make sure they get that money. Many of them spent years of their lives working on their channels before they even got a penny out of them. 

I feel like the many people criticising them just aren't in touch with the world changing as well. This is the 21st century and it's not weird for 'young people' to find other people to idolise. This situation happened with music. For many, many years, teen's often find themselves idolising different bands and artists. This is now happening with youtube stars and just because it doesn't seem like a conventional or normal job, doesn't mean it isn't a job worth supporting or embracing.

The youtube phenomenon, as it is often referred to, is something that is not too different for human kind because for years, new jobs or trends have been created by the change of technology. Yet for someone reason, some people are still struggling to come to turns with another change, for some reason it's journalists especially (the only good website I have come across which produces articles that the audience always agrees with is Sugarscape!). Yes, journalists need to cover what is happening with the world around them and voice their opinions but so do bloggers and I have  never come across one blog post which has an negative reaction to the changing world. This is probably because bloggers are also a changing job and because there haven't been many negative press towards bloggers or even 'stand-out' popular bloggers as much as their are for youtubers.

The thing is youtubers are now becoming a real job and sadly, I feel like some people need to start to get used to the job world changing yet again instead of criticising the change and trying to stop it from happening.

What do you think about the recent criticism? I want to hear what different people think about the articles. Tell me in the comments.

See ya on the flip side,

Holly x

Autumn

Hey guys! Autumn is officially here in the UK and therefore, it is constantly cold, windy and rainy. Although the weather during autumn can be very dull and miserable, I find myself looking forward to autumn every year for several reasons. There is something warm and fuzzy about the idea of colder weather and darker evenings.

Why I love Autumn:

• yellow and brown leaves outside
• bonfires
• fireworks
• halloween
• homely, warm food such as chilli and pie
• reasons to wear scarfs
• wholly jumpers
• fluffy socks
• hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream
• darker makeup
• boots and welly weather
• blankets
• warm insides
• autumn scented candles
• pyjama evenings in front of the fire
• it's closer to christmas

However, Autumn can have a few negatives about it as it's not just sunshine and rainbows. There will always be those days in which I wish it was summer again.

Why I dislike Autumn:

• frosty, cold weather
• wind that create knots in my hair
• constant storms and rain
• not being able to spend lots of time outside
• covering up every time you go outside
• darker morning's that make getting up early harder
• indecisive weather

What do you love or dislike about autumn?  What's autumn like in your country? 

See ya on the flip side,

Holly x

New Blog Design!

Hi all! So I've been working hard all day and have officially completed my new blog design! I was getting slightly tired of my old blue, pink and grey design and decided to expand it to a black, pink and grey design. I have to say, I really do like it!
What do you think about it? Let me know in the comments as I'd love to know!
Also if you have my blog button on your blog or wish to do a button swap (email me so I know), can you copy the new html code for my new button and swap it for the old one! Thank you!

html code:
<div align="center"><a href="http://inkyquillandpaper.blogspot.co.uk/" title="Inky Quill and Paper"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/gIqnGs_v39hkjAyS3Y-AVKCsC9t7ZVYFzsKCcTJpKAJJF3tM1yXLqXsi1LAnbQbU17aaKGLocso=w1415-h599" alt="Inky Quill and Paper" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

See ya on the flip side,
Holly x

Overcoming Fear, My Story

Hi all! When I was younger, I was rarely afraid of anything (apart from the irrational fear of touching sand when I was a toddler but we won't talk about that). I would throw myself into a lot of things including going down small rapids in a Canadian canoe or body boarding the waves in the freezing sea in Cornwall. There was rarely anything that I wasn't ready to throw myself into.
This independence that was created from being rather fear-free meant I would put myself forwards to go on Girl Guiding camps and residential camps away from my family for a couple of days. These were the kind of camps where you were pre-booked into activities when you sign up and that is set in stone for the whole camp. On one particular camp that I went on in the new forest, the activities my group and I were given were archery and raft building. I was fine with both these activities and looked forward to them during the camp. Archery was fine and went without issue but once I got to raft building, I didn't feel happy. The raft building was taking part in a small 3/4ft deep pond with a wooden deck going from the edge of the pond into the middle. The banks around the pond were quite steep and overgrown. We started to build the rafts in two teams. My team were second to put on the water. We went down the decking and put the raft on at the end, like instructed, and attempted to get on. Of course, it sank, like most rafts do. I became quite quickly aware that pulling myself out of the water wasn't going to be easy and every single minute I spent in the water, I hated it even more. This moment at this camp messed with me for quite a few years and still does.
I had been a casual kayaker for a lot of my life, going on different adventures with my dad in different forms of boats on different forms of water such as sea, canal and river. This moment made me give all that up. I refused to go near a boat for several years until I decided to go and support a few crews from my dad's school while they took part in a 23 mile race. For some reason, this kicked something inside of me and based on a random decision, I was attempting to get into a kayak with the most intense butterflies in my stomach ever. I was scared but I pushed on and from then on in, I was paddling almost every week. I was still nervous about getting in the boat in the first place and I was still uncomfortable about falling in. It took me a lot to have someone else paddle with me because it meant I lost that sense of control over the balance of the boat. I hated being a boat that I wasn't use to. I always preferred to be in control and that was how I could grab the horns of the bull and wrestle with it.
Kayaking on a canal was completely different from many other forms of kayaking. I still can't paddle in a swimming pool with kayaks that keep you in the boat if you flip over (Panic attacks hold me back in this situation) and I won't go near raft building still (again, I panicked last time I tried and had to sit out) but from something that is probably my greatest fear, water and drowning, it's now something I face every week in my favourite sport to take part in. Anxiety towards certain situations still affect me often and this can mean that I won't go paddling some days because I know it will just end up badly. It holds me back which frustrates me in many situations. Sometimes, I wish I was happy to mess about on the water with my friends but sometimes I enjoy watching from the bank. This is my main fear and although I can handle it most days, it takes some mobility. You may not feel positive every single day but don't take that as a step backwards because in reality it will only be a bad day. Take some time off and come back to it gently.
See ya on the flip side,
Holly x

Teenage Blogger Central Birthday Blog Party

Hello Guys! So in honour of it being TBC's 2nd birthday in the blogger world, I decided to take part in the Teenage Blogger Central Birthday Blog Party Tag as I am a registered member of the online community. Also I wanted to honour what it has done for me since I joined. So happy Birthday TBC!!!

Rules:
{1} You are eligible for this tag if you are a registered member of Teenage Blogger Central.
{2} You should try to post this tag on the 20th October or as close as possible. It's never too late to participate, though!
{3} Add the Blog Party button at the start of your post.
{4} Answer the questions and link back to TBC
{5} Make sure you join the link-up so people can read your post!

Here's a link to the main post from TBC with all the rules and bits and pieces: http://teenage-blogger-central.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/tbcs-birthday-blog-party.html

Okay, let's get into the questions....

{1} What made you decide to take up blogging and what inspires you to write till today?
I have a pretty awful reason for starting up blogging really. I had started back in 2013 but the blog didn't last very long and wasn't very successful. I was then off school for quite a long time from march 2014 with an exploded appendix and infection which made me very ill. As I was recovering from the serious stage of the illness, I wanted to do something that would keep me entertained and mean I could socialise with people from all over the world. I was also quite interested about youtubers such as MrBenBrown and Zoella and SprinkleofGlitter. They all have blogs and I wanted to give that side of the internet a go.
What inspires me to write is that I am really enjoying it. I get so many lovely comments and making so many connections with so many people all around the world. It's probably been one of the best decisions that I made this year and I don't think I will give this up for a while.

{2} How did you find and register on TBC? Did you find it helpful and worth recommending to others?
I registered on TBC after simply searching teen bloggers into google and that was the first thing that came up. It such a cool and interesting idea and decided to give it a try and see what it was like. TBC has to have some of the nicest bloggers registered ever. Every single person I have spoken to are the nicest people. I do find TBC very helpful because it has opened many doors for me from connecting with other bloggers, finding new blogs to read and even getting more people to read my blog. A hundred percent, I would recommend this to any teen blogger out there. Certainly worth it.

{3} What awesome blogs have you found through TBC? Link them up!
Okay, these are the blogs I can think of from the top of my head but there are probably so many more...
- The Fence of Stars
- SparklyKid
- Lemontierres
- SunDuckling

{4} What do you like best about when you connect with other bloggers your age?
One of the best things about connecting with other bloggers my age is that they all understand you and why you can't post certain days because of school work or that you might need help with thinking of blogpost ideas. They are probably all having the same issues and it's a really understanding community.

{5} What do you hope to achieve through your blog?
I want to connect with so many more people around the world and have people commenting about what they liked or want me to blog about. I want people to check my blog everyday and look forward to my posts because for me, that would one of the biggest honours ever. I know I'm probably such a long way off. I also would like to still be enjoying blogging in a couple years time and blogging every week. That would be amazing.

{6}How do you say 'Happy Birthday Teenage Blogger Central' in your language?
Well, this is going to be a bit boring as I'm english through and through...
Happy Birthday Teenage Blogger Central!!!

So, I hope you enjoyed this little post. Thank you so much to TBC for everything (especially F who runs it all!), you are amazing.
See ya on the flip side,
Holly x

Dealing with Break-ups

Hey guys! The past couple of weeks have been a tough one for me for a lot of reasons. One still being college work but also that fact that me and my boyfriend broke up just under two weeks ago. It's been a tough slog for me especially as I still almost always see him every day due us being at the same college. It was on equal terms to begin with but things have changed and it's started to become quite a negative atmosphere when we are near each other. I'm not an expert on break-up's (as you can probably tell) but I thought it might help me to whip up a little post about dealing with break-ups for you and me. I hope you enjoy!

{1} Don't dwell on the past! Pick yourself up and attempt to move on!
I've been trying to really do this week and trying to pick out bad faults in my ex-boyfriend to make the process slightly easier. It's been hard as sometimes when I see him, I end up back tracking but focus on someone else without actually trying to be with them and sometimes the process will be easier.

{2} Live in the moment! Don't let the break-up hold you back!
Again, I've been struggling to do this but I really managed to this Thursday night when my college had a halloweon social for the six form. I went for it and almost completely forgot about him. This resulted in what was a really good night. Plus you never know what can happen as a result of you looking like you are enjoying yourself.

{3} Try to stop your friends from getting involved. Sometimes they can make it worse than it really is.
My friends are absolutely lovely but because they are my friends, they hated to see me upset over a boy and therefore took action themselves and actually confronted him. This isn't really the best thing to do because if anything, it made the situation worse. Try to stop your friends for sticking up for you because in reality, you can stick up for yourself.

{4} Don't do rebounds.
If anything, they will make you feel worse than you did before. You can focus on someone else but leave it for a while before you try to get with someone else. I have to keep reminding myself of this point quite a lot. It's so easy to try and get with someone but it's so important you focus on time for your self more than anything.

{5} Don't obey the urges.
It seem logical to get rid of everything that could possibly rid you of him because sometime in the future you might regret. Maybe you'll get back together and want those things again. Maybe you'll reflect back on the relationship in a month or so time with happy thoughts. Don't let the original anger make decisions for you.

I know break-ups are bad. I'm struggling and I will be for a while still but don't let it ruin your life for a month or more. Boys aren't worth it.
I hope you enjoyed my little post. It's now half term at my college for two weeks so I will be able to blog a lot more than I have been the past couple of weeks. I've really missed blogging regulating and hearing from you guys so I can't wait to have the time to do more on this blog.
See ya on the flip side,
Holly x

Trip to the beach in Pictures {28th October 2014}

Hey all! Two weeks ago, I went on a beach expedition with the family towest whitterings beach. While there, I took some rather lovely pictures if I do say so myself so I thought I'd whip up a little post with them. Enjoy!

                               

                               

                               

                               

                               

                               

                               

                               

                               

                               

                               

                 

                               

                               

                   

                                  

                  

                  

                  

                 

                  

                  

                  

                  

                  

                  

                  

                  

                  

See ya on the flip side,

Holly x