Musings of a Perfectionist

Hello :) Those of you who know me well will probably have listened to at least one rant about feminism, especially after having studied Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez in English. And those of you who have also read this wonderful book will (hopefully) be joining me in ranting. One of the parts of this book discusses women's health and medicine, and how the concept of the default male (a major concept throughout the entire book) prevents women's health issues from being properly understood and treated. There were many parts of the book that made me so angry that I had to put it down and just stare into the distance. It was probably quite a good thing that we were studying it, because it meant that I only had to read a few chapters at a time and so the anger wasn't building up BUT, the revolution is here! Slowly, it comes, like a steam train. One of the parts of the revolution concerns actually listening to and collecting data on women's health so...  Please fil...

 Good morning/afternoon/evening! I'm not even going to guess how long it's been since I last published a post. And then, when I was going to write one today, I remembered that Feedburner (the google system I use to track subscribers and that sends out the emails finding their way into your inbox) is dying so I had to change everything over to another site. The new site is great: it's slick and helpful and so much better than Feedburner (which didn't seem to have been updated since it was first created) BUT it did involve a lot of messing around with HTML codes and playing around with the useless Blogger settings. Hopefully, it is now all sorted out (although I'm still wanting to add the subscribe button to the main home page as well as in the sidebar). Oh, and for subscribers, it should be more of a newsletter system because I had to pay to get the whole sending an email whenever I post - as I don't post much, it shouldn't affect you at all :) Anyway. Moving...

Hello and welcome back to another post from my blog - prompted in part by my father asking when there would be another, and also by UCAS reminding me that I was going to write a post about applying to university. So here I am, packed with knowledge about UCAS applications and personal statements and all of that fun stuff, all of which I hopefully still remember. Firstly, I hope that you, dear reader, are keeping fairly well in these times - with lockdown coming back in the next few days, I do hope that you can remain positive and loving and I shall try to write more blog posts to keep you entertained (although as I am still going to school, this may have been an empty promise). Secondly, the reintroduction of lockdown has meant that my driving theory test that was to occur on Friday 6th November has been cancelled (to be rescheduled!) which is highly unfortunate. But I shall endeavour to go out driving with my parents despite no longer being able to have lessons with an instructor. We ...

Heya friends! I've been up to quite a lot recently (including finishing Draft One of my Maths coursework yesssss) and today, I decided to do some researching about women in the railway industry (to be fair, this is for a challenge badge but also I am interested in female empowerment and the state of equality/lack of in the railway industry is an excellent indication of general equality in Britain). So yeah. I found out a load about the railway industry and now you can too! At the birth of the railway near the beginning of the 19th Century (around the 1830s), the industry was structured in such a way to mirror how society worked. This meant that fathers and sons would follow each other into the industry while the women would become wives and mothers. They were, however, hired by rail companies to work although this work was prohibited to ‘women’s work’ such as cleaning and sewing. They were also able to be level crossing gatekeepers as it could be fitted in with family life - this p...

Hi, and I'm here again, ready to grace your laptop/phone/other device screens for however long it takes you to read this post! Well, it's been pretty warm recently, hasn't it? Today promises to be warm and then tomorrow... eugh it'll be too hot for me and I won't want to do anything apart from sit on the cold floor in our dining room. But the weather is not a particularly interesting topic (even if I am British) and so, have no fear, I am here to talk about something different. There is actually something interesting that I read in the book I'm currently reading (The Tiger by John Vaillant, because I love tigers and it's been sitting on my shelf for ages and I'm doing this thing where I read all the books on my bookshelves) and I kinda wanted to talk about that BUT I don't really have to attention span at the moment and it probably needs a bit more research/thought than this randomly generated blog post. Also. I'm a bit busy with the whole Maths ...

Hey...so I know that I haven't written anything for ages  and I'm sorry, but in my defence, I haven't been doing anything but sleeping and schoolwork, and also I simply have not been motivated to write a post. Still need to set a little reminder that pops up once a fortnight or so and tells me to publish something. I may get round to that before Christmas. So today's post is inspired by the end of term/the school year and also by the fact that I was messaged by someone asking about the IB - yes, this post is a post about my experiences doing the IB (for the first year, remember) so buckle in and get ready to have the answers to any questions that you didn't even know that you had. Also, if you're nearing the time that you have to start deciding where you want to go after GCSEs or you're starting the IB in September (covid-19 permitting) I would actually recommend reading this - I know that I would have loved to be able to hear the thoughts of someone actuall...

Because I haven't actually written anything on my blog for a bit, the modern look threw me once again. Oops? But hello! I hope that everyone is doing okay with everything that's going on at the moment. Our history teacher said that we're living through history at the moment and that it is exciting (especially as a historian) but also terrifying. This came about because we were talking about primary sources and secondary sources and which is more reliable/accurate (because it's history, the answer is neither). If you wrote a diary about the events happening at the moment, is it more or less accurate/reliable than someone thirty years in the future writing about the events drawing from multiple sources? Haha isn't history great. It's fascinating and there are so many different interpretations that can come out of sources, much like English (we're studying Othello at the moment and I did go off on a mini-rant about how I don't like Cassio). Oh, and also I j...

Hey everyone! I've been thrown a bit by the new Blogger update - it looks fancy and actually like something that belongs in this decade (or even the 2010s... shock horror) but it's weird . I'm really hoping that my formatting isn't messed with but sorry if it is. (Edited note: the picture uploading was always pretty bad but now it's worse?!? I didn't realise that this was possible but just go with it.) I've been doing some crafts recently - something to do with all of this free time (around lessons) I'm having all of a sudden - and thought that I'd use my blog to share some of it, as and when I complete it. Especially if I write it up as CAS, along with this blog.  The most recent thing that I've done is a little cross stitch (as can be seen below) of some owls in a tree. I did it because we had to do something that was new and that was a challenge for Rangers and I had been putting it off for ages because I didn't think that I'd be any g...

Yep! I actually won NaNo again - the last time I did this, I was in Year 10 and it was November. Since then, I've participated in the November 50,000 words one every year and have not won, and also have participated in the Camp NaNo (every April and June) where any target is acceptable, and not really won any of those (not really because sometimes I've just changed the goal a lot which is fine but it feels a bit like cheating to me). But this beautiful month of April, I have managed to write 50,000 words for a story in 30 days! This is actually in part due to the quarantine, because I've had more time around school work to write (as I'm not spending what seems like years on the bus) as well as two weeks of the Easter Holidays. But, regardless of the reason, I'm very proud of my achievement! And that's it for today, folks. Have a good day. Do something that makes you proud of yourself. Find the website  here  (and if you're under 18,  this one  is ex...

Hi everyone! *waves dramatically* How are you all doing? So this post comes to be read by you because I put something on my author Instagram story yesterday about checking out my blog for updates during this weird time and I realised that I hadn't actually written any updates for quite a long time. Virtual school began last week, and this is now week two. I'm doing okay with the whole virtual school thing because I can listen to music and go at my own pace and there is pretty much an unlimited supply of coffee/tea. But it's also nice to have a little routine - I wake up, read and drink coffee, shower, breakfast, work...then we're continuing with Brownies on Mondays, Rangers on Thursdays, and various different video calls at the weekend. Saturdays, for example, are about family: we chat to Dad's family before lunch then do a quiz with Mum's family before supper (which is what I call tea/dinner, before anyone gets too confused). On Sundays, I have a chat with ...

Hi all! Today's post comes with a nice list (because who doesn't love a fun list?) of ideas to keep you happy, healthy and occupied during these trying times. Even if you just choose a random number (using a generator or maybe a really clever cat) each day and add that to your to-do list (because that's how you can feel more productive, by ticking things off a list!). Anyways, I hope that you enjoy reading through my list - as always, I've included some funny anecdotes/thoughts with each entry. :) Sit down and drink a glass of water, just for the sake of it. Do some pilates or yoga. Also known as finding out just how unfit you really are. Video chat with your family or your friends and just chat with them (talk will inevitably turn to the coronavirus, however, be warned) Do some colouring (may end in you ripping the paper up, depending on the kind of person you are) Discover your love language ( http://www.5lovelanguages.com/quizzes/ ) Play chess, either agai...

Hey! I'm really very sorry that I have not written a post for ages (yet again, sigh) but, as you may have noticed, the world has gone a little crazy at the moment and we're all trying to adjust. :) Note: you know the song "Ring a Ring a Roses" is actually about the Black Death? I remember when I realised this I was horrified and couldn't work out why they had made this song about death, but now, looking at the internet, I understand. Humans cope with situations through gallows humour- whether that be songs, jokes, memes. It may be morbid, but I think that it is also very interesting and one of those "aw, I love humans" things. School ended on Friday (but two of my four lessons were cancelled so I ended on the high that was Higher Mathematics, also known as confusion) although the week had been spent with broken up lessons as teachers weren't there and half of my year left (so we were down to the grand total of about 30 students) which felt so wei...

Hello to all, and I hope that wherever you are you have not been too affected by bad weather. It's actually quite nice where I am at the moment, although it was raining a lot earlier as I was DRIVING- but I did not stall, or crash, or skim the curb, or anything. So yay. First of all, some small things about IB to make you smile. One : I seem to spend half my life filing work away (go ahead and laugh- we're not told this when signing up to do IB). Two : only whilst studying history can you find yourself writing a report to Lenin advising him to seize power and kickstart the Bolshevik Revolution (the report is, of course, signed Comrade Hagger). Three : we did ToK in Maths (how is maths linked to all the different subjects that you can study at school, dance for example?) and Maths in ToK (is mathematics discovered or invented?) Another story from yesterday (not to do with school) which I'm only really writing because I like being dramatic and also I'm hoping my dear ...

Good evening to you, my dear friend *tips hat in a respectful manner*. How have you been feeling, old sport? By the way, old sport can (and must) be used again in reverence to Gatsby as it is now the Roaring Twenties yet again (and also the title of this post is the first part of the last line of the book). Today is the 22nd of February, which means that it is the day for Girlguiding to think about other Girlguiding members around the world- my district is meeting on 27th to celebrate together. Just wanted to mention this, as it's fairly important, I believe, to think of others around the world. For example, the Guides have been looking at Syrian Guides over the past few weeks who have meetings even when there is violence and war. Anyway, today's post is (mostly) about the environment, which does actually tie in quite nicely with WTD as one of Girlguiding UK's big things recently has been about cutting down plastic waste and becoming more environmentally aware. At my ...

Gooood afternoon, all! Again, very sorry about the longness between posts, but in my defence, I was off school for a WHOLE WEEK last week, and I now have managed to contract a cold (which is very unfair, in my personal opinion- why do I have to have back-to-back illnesses?). And then I've been hurriedly catching up with all the work I missed- hint for sixth form: don't miss school otherwise you'll have way too much work to do and your recovery will not be quite as fast. But I'm pretty much caught up now (yay) and so just need to do the homework due over the next week (double yay), of which I have just finished my history essay. This post may, therefore, be some form of procrastination before I continue with work (learning words for Anthropology, I believe, is planned next) but also I realised that I had not written anything about the truly brilliant film that I watched in the cinema at the beginning of January! The travesty! So here is my post about it (and also '...

Good afternoon/evening- can you even remember who I am (I won't blame you if you can't, my last post was ages ago)? I'm not sure if I can...though that may have more to do with the fact that I've just spent about 3 hours working through Maths Trig questions (for homework, not for fun, don't worry) and now I seem to be talking in sad Maths noises. But this post is not to be about Maths (sorry to those of you who enjoy talking about Maths) and instead just a general update on how everything's going. I did not post anything over Christmas, so that first- it was good, we had family over, and my bookshelves are groaning under the weight of about 20 more books (including a beautiful copy of the complete works of Shakespeare!). Post-Christmas, I had a Fake Christmas with four other friends, which involved getting lost trying to buy chicken and crackers, then watching a film on Fake Christmas Eve, sleeping, cooking Fake Christmas Lunch, eating said lunch and openin...

*Prime Minister may also stand for millionaire So tomorrow is the general election (is everyone as excited as I am about this?) and whilst I hope that the 'best person' wins, I fear that there is not really a 'best' person. The way that democracy works in this country means that we have to vote for someone whom we may actually like and agree with, only to have someone else entirely representing us on a global stage. I think that the party system should be eradicated, or at least changed a bit. Must that is not what I wish to talk about in this post. Mostly because I do not wish to anger anyone (too much) and also because it is tomorrow and I really do not have enough time to do enough research to make this a non-biased post. So. Let's talk about the general election: what exactly is the point of those signs that say who you are voting for? I get that it is advertising, as if the political party needs any more advertising (follow the various politicians on ...

Good afternoon, all, and what a finely cold day it is! I am actually fairly surprised that I can type this well as I have not been able to feel my hands for about 2 hours now (although I did spend those two hours making flashcards for Physics, so there may be something there about what physics does to someone...). News about NaNo: I wrote 5494 words yesterday (woah) and I am now back on track! I will fall behind once again this week, most likely, but I know now that I can do it. :) I am very happy about this (don't know if you could tell). So here is a thing that I wrote a few days ago about doing IB compared to doing A-Levels (but it's not the thing that the IB teachers tell you about how IB is better because it makes you more well-rounded and stuff). The thing that I have noticed about the difference between my A-Level doing friends and me (the IB person) is that they are so easily throwing around what grades they are getting and what they need to get. You can see why: ...