I'm A Nightmare Dressed Like A Daydream

Hello!

Sorry for not posting in a while, as you probably all know, the last year of secondary school is VERY demanding so I've been studying and revising non-stop for weeks now. Unfortunately for me, yesterday I went home sick from school with plunging and soaring temperatures, aches, pains and a sore throat. Lovely.

I'm at home today to recover so I'll be back in school hopefully tomorrow. I don't generally miss school, this is my first day off school probably since last December! As a result, I physically cannot sit still, despite being exhausted walking from my room to the sitting room for breakfast. I did some of yesterday's maths questions and practically fell asleep afterwards!

Now, after being told by my Mam, I'm in my room lying in bed. So I figure I might as well tell you about what's been going on the past few weeks! *Not much* I've spent a lot of time studying and doing school work, babysitting and drinking coffee due to a lack of sleep.

Last Friday, my brother and I went to see Nathan Carter (he sings Wagon wheel) It was a spur of the moment decision as my aunt and uncle gave us their tickets as they couldn't go. It was a genuinely brilliant night with people of all ages in attendance and questionable dance moves from more mature members of the audience. ''If you didn't like this concert, well then my name is Daniel O'Donnell.''

I also received a certificate from Swipe Festival for my blog post about 'The Digital Age' so thank you, it really cheered me up after going home sick! I also received my Blood Donor card from the Irish Blood Transfusion Service. Over midterm I donated my blood for the first time as I had just turned 18. Giving blood is a big thing with my family so I went with my Mam and brother to donate.

Since being home sick I've been catching up on the television shows I've missed from doing school work for the past few weeks. Watching 3 episodes straight of American Horror Story and The Walking Dead is extremely relaxing, now to watch this week's episodes and catch up on The Fall! Heaven indeed.

Photos from my week!

My brother and I went to see Nathan Carter! Major thank you is needed to our aunt and uncle who gave us the tickets as they couldn't go. 

My brother sent me this saying that I was my ''own worst' enemy'' 

I replied saying ''Smart women scare weak men. We know more than them. They think that prospect is terrifying.'' 

Thank you to Swipe Festival for my certificate! :D 

I'm officially a blood donor! I felt it would be weird to disclose my blood type. Moustaches not included on cards, it was a way to cover up my blood type. 

So that's about it from me, hope you're not all ill like me!
Stay Strong, Happy and Fearless!
Aveen xx



*lyrics: Taylor Swift ~Blank Space

Fat Shaming & Skinny Shaming.

So this blog post has taken a lot of time, effort and thought to write. I would have written this sooner however, with great indecision I delayed writing this post, until now.

I suppose I am known for controversy on this blog, however this subject is deeply personal for me and has been an extremely negative part of my life for as long as I can remember so these are my views, and you may not like them. (And that's okay, we are all so diverse)


I've been reading a lot of blog posts recently about ''skinny shaming'' and how unfair it is to smaller framed people. It's not right, however, I'd like to mention fat shaming and how I have experienced so much of it as a young child and into early adolescence. I was never the thinnest child around the age of 9 or 10, but I would never have been classed as ''fat or obese'' medically. Yet I was by my peers. I experienced such awful abuse at a young age for being ''too big'' yet when we're children, particularly girls aged around 10 or 11, the majority of them are pudgy.

I had such little self-confidence until around the age of sixteen-and-a-half due to this and various other factors. I used to loathe buying clothes, as I would never be wearing a size 8 or 10. I remember a girl in my year during Transition Year talking about her size moaning that ''I'm actually a size 6, but my ass is an 8'' and sighing as if it was a global calamity.

My self-confidence increased when I started writing here on this little blog, yet also with having a growth spurt and thinning out a little. It's the same for a lot of girls. I think it's scary how we place so much self-worth into how others perceive us, instead of our talents and skills. I love school and do well in subjects, but for many, that wouldn't matter, only my looks would. I think this ideology is in a way, terrifying. Many focus on their exterior selves much more than their interior selves. I ask you, what is the point of being beautiful on the inside and be ugly on the inside from putting others down?

Of course it is perfectly fine to care about how you look. I always do something with my hair in particular. Whether I straighten it and put a cute bow or wear a huge doughnut bun. I like to make an effort. But it's when it consumes you and you forget about what's on the inside.

So this brings me back onto skinny and fat shaming. It shouldn't happen full stop. But I feel that I've been reading so many blog posts about SKINNY SHAMING, and nobody will speak out against fat shaming, which I experienced for such a long time during an important time of psychological development as a young girl. I'm better now, I even take OOTD's and take selfies, for fun. I don't hide any more. I stand up tall and wear skinny jeans all the time.

 But girls have to stop putting each other down based on their size, appearance, body shape or even hair style. Just because someone isn't the same body shape as you, doesn't give you the right to call them out on it. I'm 5''8 with curves and hips. A lot of girls have an athletic figure or all sorts of figures, just because they're different doesn't mean you should tell them they're ''weird'' or even ''fat'' It's just disgusting and shows contempt and ignorance (in the context of lack of knowledge) on your behalf.

I think at times that society has conditioned us to believe that unless you have the ''perfect'' body, you have nothing. Excuse me, but I would rather have good grades than a flat stomach (but having both would be preferable!) We've all become so accustomed to seeing Size Zero models on the runways, airbrushed on magazines and on television. I often wonder, if a regular sized girl was to appear on a runway, would she be called normal or would she be considered the awful F word? It's definitely food for thought.

On a final note. Don't partake in body shaming, whether it be fat or skinny shaming. We are all unique individuals with unique experiences. Calling someone an unkind word could lower their self-confidence and esteem even further when they may already have body issues. Nobody is perfect. I've seen girls who look like models, with beautiful exterior looks, be the worst people, constantly putting others down and gossiping in the back of the classroom judging everyone on their appearance. Be kind to people. If anyone says hello to me in the corridors, I always make it a point to say hi back and ask how they are. You don't know what anyone is going through. Some days we need someone to ask how we are, or to say that they like your new hairstyle or scarf. Above all, be a good person on the inside. What goes around comes around.

Stay Strong, Happy & Fearless

Aveen xx

Penneys/Primark Winter Haul!

Hey Everyone!

Over midterm I paid a trip to my beloved Penneys to stock up on some accessories and t-shirts from their Autumn/Winter collection. Needless to say I wasn't disappointed. Here are some of the items I bought! 

**I bought Christmas items which I will post at a later date. I feel November 1st is a little too early to be singing about a 'White Christmas.' I'm not the Grinch but I always wait until December before getting excited for Christmas! 

Another sign to hang up in my room, it's a similar design to a heart I bought last time in Limerick!

I think it was 3 euros.

Here are some pretty bobbins, I thought they looked really cute and girly.

You may not know about my bow obsession (It's getting serious) so these were a delight to see!

More bows. Oh dear.

I love this bobbin with the pink tinged roses, I wear my hair in a doughnut bun in school so it would be amazing to wear with it.

Owl pyjamas! 

A blouse I bought for only 7 euros. I really like the shape, it's similar to other blouses I have. 

I feel in love with the detail in this cardigan collar! It's so pretty and brightens the appearance of the black cardigan.

Here's a black top I bought, the back is longer than the front and creates a flattering effect. 

So that's my Winter haul! I'll be posting a Christmas themed Penneys/Primark haul closer to Christmas. Warning, may contain cute Christmas cardigans. 

Stay Strong, Happy & Fearless!

Aveen xx

Halloween Baking; Chocolate Chip Muffins!

Happy Halloween!

Today I have a delicious recipe for the most scrumptious chocolate chip muffins!

You will need: (To make a dozen)

25g sugar

75g butter or margarine 

150ml milk

225g self-raising flour

150 chocolate chips

1 tablespoon of baking powder

A drop of vanilla essence 

2 medium sized eggs

METHOD

** Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius

1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

2. Whisk the eggs, milk and essence in a separate jug.

3.Add the contents into mixing bowl.

4. Sieve in flour, baking powder and coca powder.

5. ''Fold in'' gently eg stir until it's all soft, chocolatey and yummy

6. Pour in the chocolate chips!

7. Place mixture into cupcake cases in a cupcake baking tray

8. Place in oven and allow to cook for exactly 22 minutes

9. Once baked, place on a wire tray and allow to cool.

10. The best part, decorating!

To decorate my cupcakes I used chocolate butter icing and various sprinkles (see below) 

The Family said that these were delicious, so why don't you try bake them too? 

Hope you all have a lovely Halloween!

Stay Strong, Happy and Fearless!

Aveen xx 

Haul: Converse, Orla Kiely & Wet N Wild!

Hey Everyone!

I did some shopping over Midterm and decided to share my purchases with you all! You may know I've developed a teeny obsession with Orla Kiely, an Irish designer. I got one of her handbags for my birthday and I bought one myself. They're such versatile and pretty bags.  Her designs are just simply to die for, they're that beautiful. 

I was in Wexford town on a shopping trip and paid a trip to a shop, which had an entire section of Orla Kiely products! I actually squealed a little, it was like an Aladdin's cave, filled with so many pretty items that I just wanted to own and stare at for the rest of my life. I bought a cute cake tin which I'm going to be using whenever I bake and a pen which I can't wait to use in school or to take notes with. 

Last Saturday I was going around the town and saw these gorgeous Converse on offer in a local (but my favourite) clothes shop. All Converse High Top shoes were reduced to 30 euro and I luckily found these in my size. I adore the colour and think the shade of pink is really striking. 

I also went into a local stationery shop (another favourite of mine) and saw that 2015 planners were out! I love having notebooks to scribble things in and I fell in love with this design. I love the birdcage and the general romanticised Parisian feel to the planner. It'll also be useful for organising my study. 

On Tuesday morning I was woken up to my brother shouting in the hall, ''YOU'VE POST AVEEN!'' Turns out it was the package from Elizabeth from Elizabethsblog and the prize of make up I'd won. The products are simply gorgeous and so pretty so thank you again! x

That's about it from me, 

I'll be posting an AwkwardSprinkles video on my channel soon. *Hint* Grace has uploaded hers*

I've another few blog posts planned, in particular an Awkward Sprinkles blog post and a Penneys/Primark haul so stay tuned! 

*****I've started a YouTube series called ''Letters to the Leaving Cert'' 

Let me know what you think of it !

Stay Strong, Happy & Fearless!

Aveen xx

Struggles And Reality Of Being A Leaving Cert Student.

I thought it was about time to finally post after a fortnight interval.

I feel I should be honest and explain my inactivity on my blog as of late. With the stresses of being a Leaving Cert student, I've found it quite difficult to scrape together some time to sit down and tap away on my laptop like I usually do every week. There seems to be so many other ideas and problems that consume any spare time I do happen to possess and I honestly despise that.

The week before Midterm was quite simply a nightmare. Multiple tests in all my subjects, short deadlines for essays and tonnes of material to be revised, I found it difficult to breathe without feeling anxiety consume my lungs, let alone justify several hours to type on my laptop about things that I felt were so completely insignificant and false in comparison to all the work and study I was doing.

Thankfully all that is behind me. I doubted myself far too much and believed I hadn't done any work since coming back to school. In fact, it was my need and desire to have everything practically word-perfect from my notes that caused me so much stress. I had 10 sets of sraithpictiúr to learn and if they weren't word perfect, well I recited them for hours until they were.

It's officially midterm and so far, I've completed three out of the five essays I was given as part of my week's work. I feel relieved but I won't fully relax until everything is finished. I want to have a few days, an utter luxury, to relax and do NOTHING. I crave mornings where I wake up, with no anxiety or nerves in my stomach, worried about study and work still left to do. I just want a few days just to have fun and live, on my terms.

I'm planning on finishing the rest of my written school work tomorrow and relaxing for the rest of the week. I've had several drafts of incomplete blog posts knocking around my blog for several weeks, either due to a lack of time to add 'polish' to them or I was simply terrified about posting them as they involved real-life incident and my feelings. How terrifying indeed.

I'm also a little annoyed. I had five tests in the space of three short days and studied for all of them. The fourth test, first thing on a Friday was maths. I've double maths on a Friday morning. Maths is quite simply my Achille's heel in comparison to my other subjects.  As a result, I've a huge fear of having maths tests. I mean, a huge fear. As in my other subjects I can learn off the material and regurgitate it in words on paper, I find them much, much easier. Maths, however is a whole different ball game.

However I've made a special effort to not miss any maths tests (or any tests) in either Fifth or Sixth Year. My belief is that you can't skip a day or pretend your sick on the day of your Leaving Cert so why bother do it in school time, instead of learning from your mistakes and owning up to the fact that you aren't comfortable with the topic of the test and should try harder at learning it? I never get A's in maths but I try my best (If you're wondering, I am in Higher Level) and always try scrape an honour in the tests. But it bugs me when people skip the tests out of laziness, yet appear in school later in the day, once the test is over. I honestly find that so cowardly. That sounds horribly blunt but if you want to be in the Higher Level classes you have to do the work, not just sit there and look pretty and brag about being in Honours. School is for doing work and working hard, not to make excuses.

I know that statement will most likely get a negative reaction and probably a few glares and upturned noses when I'm back in school, however, I feel it's the truth. It's better to accept your weaknesses early in play, rather when it's after the mocks and there's little time to rectify your mistakes. I'm not comfortable on certain topics of maths (Trig, ew) so I've brought home my exam papers and book in an effort to try improve  those questions, as well as a general brush up on all the topics.

That goes for all my subjects, not just maths. I read over my notes in various subjects frequently, particularly business and ag science. Soon the information becomes common knowledge to you, not just something crammed into your brain to last for a revision test your teacher sets you.

Being in Leaving Cert isn't great. In all honesty, it's quite awful at times. However, I'm only stuck here doing all this work and study until June. After that, the world is our oyster. We can do whatever we want. You can travel the world, go to college, whatever your heart desires. I find that thought comforting in the midst of writing an essay on the weakness of human judgement as seen in Shakespeare's play Othello. (Ps. I reckon it's how gullible and easily led Othello is that leads him to follow and become ensnared in Iago's Machiavellian scheming and to his ultimate downfall in killing Desdemona, based on his over-reliance on 'honest and just Iago.')

Don't worry, I will be posting frequently this week and will most likely be a lot more positive than this. I found that once I talk about what's playing on my mind, blogging in a light hearted becomes far easier to do.

Stay Strong, Happy & Fearless!

Aveen xx

Ps, I'm going to Penneys/Primark during the week so I will be posting a haul. 

The return of Sprinkles that can be Awkward may be imminent. Watch this space. 

Tick, tock, goes the clock. 

''Come on Skinny Love, Just Last The Year''

Hey Everyone! 

Thankfully, it's the end of another long school week. The fact that Mid Term is two weeks away is keeping me positive for the fortnight ahead. It's hard to believe that we've been back in school for this long, it's as if the summer never existed. 

I had an interesting week it must be said. I caught up on all my homework this week, except an English essay (which isn't due for more than a week) So my whiteboard of a 'To-Do list' is quite bare in comparison to other weeks. 

I went to see the comedian Tommy Tiernan in concert on Thursday night. I can honestly say I spent the entire night laughing. I won't mention any of his fantastic jokes here, mainly as they're directed for a more adult audience! It was my first Over-18's gig and I'm proud to say that I didn't get asked for ID. (Afterwards Mam said it was because I'm old, how kind) It was a hilarious night and it was nice to have a couple of hours of forgetting about Leaving Cert and stress.

I also got some t-shirts in Penneys! At the moment there are Hogwarts House's t shirts so I bought a Gryffindor tshirt and also a Slytherin one. If you look below you'll see a photo of the Gryffindor t-shirt, the Slytherin one is similar, except that it's bottle green with the Slytherin crest *makes puns about Slytherin and the Chamber of Secrets, mind if I Slytherin? Joking.* 

My week has mainly consisted of homework, study and revision. I went to Spleodar and was i gceannas  of the activities again with another cinnire. It was a brilliant night and I'm definitely gaining more confidence in speaking Irish aloud to a group (That said my grammar is questionable) My Gryffindor t-shirt was a hit and received many compliments (thank you, that makes my year seriously) We're going to the cinema next Friday night to see a film which should be good.

Next week seems a little quieter on the homework and study side, yet more active in the social part of my life (for the first time ever) Some of my friends and I are going to see the school musical in the local theatre which I'm really looking forward to as many people in my classes have parts (which should be amusing to watch)

Photos from my week

Coffee + Books/Magazines + Treats = Life. 

What my life consists of when I'm not studying. 

Fantastic gig!

"You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve and chivalry
Set Gryffindors apart"

Random selfie after I plaited my hair (and turned into Hermione with glasses and a Gryffindor t-shirt)

That's about it from me! Hope you all have an amazing week, I'll see you all soon! 

Stay Strong, Happy and Fearless!

Aveen xx

*If you're going to the Swipe Festival awards, you'll see a video of me thanking Swipe Festival for my award. Message me if you see it!* 

**Lyrics: Birdy ~ Skinny Love