Keeping Up With Juliette

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, As I've briefly talked about recently, I have been considering going on this amazing trip with my school to Northern Tanzania in the summer of 2022 and I've just spent 2 weeks consolidating my decision. Well, long story short, I've decided to take the plunge and go for it since there's probably not going to be many other opportunities like this in the future. This trip will count towards, hopefully, many parts of my CAS experience (school enrichment programme) so it's an important part of my education and my overall IB qualification. I was a little bit unsure as to whether or not I should do this trip because it is such a big commitment. The preparation for this trip is a lot of work as you have to attend weekly meetings, organise fundraising, and probably work to earn some money but after attending one of the virtual meetings on Microsoft to find out more about this trip, I realised that there was a lot to gain...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Sorry for not posting a dance article on Saturday. I was ill with a bad bug on Friday evening and I wanted to rest instead of finishing up a blog post but I'm back now. Today, I'm going to be talking about a few of the places that I would like to go to at some point in the distant future. It's nice to have something to work towards and there are definitely a few countries that I've been having my eye on recently so I'm going to share them with you today. Enjoy! I think the first place that I would really like to go to is Japan. As I'm taking standard level Japanese at school, I may have the opportunity to do this with my school but taking into consideration the current climate we're all in, I know that if that doesn't happen, I can always go myself. I actually have some relatives in Japan and so I thought it would be nice at some point to rekindle that side of my family and visit a truly amazing coun...

  Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  Today I'm going to be talking all about ZooNation and Kate Prince, in continuation with this series. Now, I've actually done a lot of research on Kate Prince's life and the ZooNation dance company when I was completing part of my coursework for BTEC dance. As I found out more about Kate and her company, I felt inspired to tell you guys about her since she isn't very well known and through what she's done, she has changed the way we look at dance and therefore deserves to be talked about today. I hope you enjoy reading about her story and the life of ZooNation! It's really interesting. Kate Prince was born in 1974 in Southampton. She is the founder and artistic director of ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company, an urban, contemporary, and hip hop specialised dance company, based in London. Kate has choreographed many pieces in her own musicals and has a real eye for creative, new, and raw talent. One of her p...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  When people say that interviews can go both ways, believe them. I've been talking a lot about this competitive sixth form college that I've been really trying hard to get to. I went to their open evening and the students seemed really nice and the subjects actually seemed quite interesting. Consequently, I was really quite interested in going there. I went to this other sixth form that I was initially quite interested in, which does the International Baccalaureate, as they offered small taster sessions for year 10 students and I really wanted to go. I was quite disappointed as some of the subjects initially seemed quite wishy washy and not clear and their punctuality was not great, so this other competitive college seemed like the best place to go. Some people I knew really well, also expressed an interest in going there so I thought I could go there too. However, I was really unimpressed by the interview they gave. Firs...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, A few days ago, was National Mental Health Awareness Day and many people posted on their Instagram, really positive and uplifting things about their own journeys. I read the post that Katie Piper posted on her Instagram, under the image of her recovery process, after her horrific acid attack and how she got herself out of some dark places afterwards. I truly felt for her and all the many other people going through similar health issues after horrific events. However, whilst many people get mental health issues after horrific events, others get it through just the stress of everyday life. Whilst the west is an extremely rich and successful sector of the globe, it can also be one of the most imprisoning. It wasn't until I went to Portugal, that I realised how stressful our part of the world is. I went to a really cut off part of the country, near the city of Porto, and the difference between the city folk and the country folk w...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, You may or may not agree with what I'm about to write about but that's honestly okay. I just feel the need to talk about what I'm about to now because I feel as though we're buying into something that is really not beneficial to us as a whole. Formulate you're own opinions because you have the right to do so but I felt that it was important to talk about one of the biggest topics that has been on the news recently.  I really want to help the environment in the future and I hope that I will come up with something that might help with that. It makes me upset seeing all the destruction of our natural world, even right on our doorstep. I was driving to dance today and one of the main roads leading into Cambridge was being built on, in order to install a new road because of all the traffic that comes in from the big ports in Felixstowe. However, in order to do so, the builders have had to cut down masses of trees...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, I recently went shopping to Tescos with my family, after going out for dinner and I was surprised to find a big billboard in the entrance way, which showed various photos of plastic pollution in our oceans. Admittedly, none of the plastic bags that you could see the fish and the turtles eating were Tesco branded but at least it showed that something is about to change and in some respects, Tesco want that change to happen. I also saw various plastic recycling bins where people can recycle plastic that the council cannot such as plastic film and laminated plastics. I don't quite know what makes their bins better than the council's but at least it shows that they're aware of the problem and are trying to take action to make our environment better. Also, Tesco has allowed refills for hand soap and I'm hoping shower gels and dish soap in the future since that's what we seem to be using most often. However, I ackno...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Recently, I went to the Cambridge Open Studios and visited a house that I've driven past a lot of times but have never actually been in before. It's called the Wooden House and there's a big yellow tower that you can see emerging from the trees. At first, I thought it was a house full of crazy people because it was quite an out-there place. However, when we parked up and began walking up the garden path, we were welcomed by a overpowering view of colour and art.  Everything that was made had reused parts to it. There was a fish outside made out of scrap metal and inside it, it had old harmonicas so that when there was a strong wind, the fish would make music. Inside, we were met with a lady who made a living by selling her beautiful homemade crockery. She showed us how to put coloured pieces of transfer paper onto plates and fire them in a kiln to produce a beautiful art-deco style. Whilst she was talking, I couldn...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Recently I've been re-watching the hit documentary series, Blue Planet, by David Attenborough. I personally find this documentary series really amazing because it highlights how animals act and behave towards our ever changing environment. However, what I find most shocking is that this documentary was filmed 4 years ago and if we look at all the things that have been achieved in those 4 years, there would be very little to talk about. Sure, the government has been shaken slightly by the warming of the planet and plastic has been a hot topic but apart from that, nothing has really happened. To me, this is really frustrating. There is so much to be done and people are choosing to sit down and do nothing because it's the easiest option. Well, it may be the easiest option but it's certainly not the most effective what so ever. People are going for the easiest option of telling people what the world's problems are on ...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Today, I decided to talk about something that I've never really talked about on my blog before and that is bullies. I don't know really what motivated me or propelled me to make this post but I know it's something that I've definitely been through and I know that my advice can hopefully help others out there who are struggling with this. I can't really remember exactly what happened but when I started primary school, I was bullied. I don't remember the exact details but I think that they were just saying nasty things to me and as a young girl who was really desperate and excited to start school just like her big sister, it really took a toll on me. I didn't really talk about it to my parents but I think that subconsciously, I did want to let them know that something was wrong so one day, I came home after school with a packed lunch box still full of food. My mum asked me why I had not eaten anything an...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, A couple weeks ago, I watched a documentary by Louis Theroux which was about trophy hunting in Africa. Louis Theroux is renowned for making documentaries on controversial topics. He is excellent at filming these documentaries without imposing too much of his own opinion on the subject. If you have time to watch this, I really recommend you do because some of the things I saw were shocking and I was stunned that people were not ashamed by their actions. This is what I'm going to talk about today but if you want to watch the documentary, I'll leave the link below. It's truly worth the watch. The first place that Louis visited was a house owned by hunters from Ohio. Unable to hunt anything considered to be interesting in their own country, they went to South Africa to hunt there. They hunt things from wild boar to zebras. One lady that they interviewed was cautious at first to do the hunting, but once she managed to ki...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, I have had a lot of friends in the past. I would probably say that since the beginning of school, in reception, till now, none of them have stayed. That's okay. I have made new friends. Those friends from the past have chosen different paths to me. Some paths I would disagree with but we have to accept that we are all different people with different aspirations in life. Within my current friendship group, there have been arguments and ups and downs but we also have to accept that that is part of any friendship. It's not all rocky, we have great and fun times over the majority of the time. I would say that now, I know who are my real friends and who are not. That is because I've learnt the art of freeing myself from friends I do not want to associate myself with. There have been times when I've just been clinging onto rude people in the hopes that they'll come round. In the end I just found that I was wasting m...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Recently, I watched a documentary called Fashion's Dirty Secrets with Stacey Dooley and I was shocked by what I had seen. We constantly talk about the effects of plastic on our environment but little do we know that cotton has a large impact on our planet too. If we are globally producing 100 billion new garments from new fibres every year, our planet will simply not be able to handle the impact-as Stacey Dooley quoted. So what is the damage? Here are a few examples. BBC Three Back in the 60s, the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan, covered 68,000 sq km. It was known as one of the biggest inland seas in the world with a full ecosystem and attracting loads of tourists. However, it has shrunk dramatically due to the cotton production. Stacey drove for 3 hours on what once was the seabed. This catastrophe is all down to the fact that we can use up to 15,000 litres of water to grow cotton to make one pair of jeans. Another big issue lies ...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, We all had that time when we've tried to look preoccupied just so that we could skip talking to people. We frantically search for our earphones to pretend that we are listening to music even though our phone screen is off. Or, we frantically look for a book or the magazine that we bought down the shop, pick a random page and read it. I'm guilty of this and I know that many other people are too. But becoming a social butterfly does not have to be a scary thing. One of the benefits to talking to people is that it prepares you for what's to come in the future. You may need to network with people who share the same career path as you. More simply you may need to start getting to now your new community once you move out of the family home. There are lots of places where socializing is needed. So we've got to break down that barrier and become more interactive with people. And here's how: Find common ground ...

Hello everybody and welcome back to my blog, Recently, I watched Zoella's vlog where she explained that she felt like she wasn't being her true self and felt like she couldn't express her true views on things in case someone took it the wrong way and found it offensive. She claims that she sits and re-watches her videos about 3 times just to make sure everything she said in that was okay. That makes me really sad because I am seeing more of that nowadays. An opinion may not be factually correct but all of the greatest ideas all started with one simple opinion. That didn't mean that everyone agreed with it because they had the choice not to.  But because one person was brave enough to share their opinion, that view, changed the world. I was going to write up another power of writing post but I thought this was more worthwhile. Your opinion could have the possibility of being really stupid but it could also have the possibility of being really great so don't ...