DON'T MAKE MY MISTAKE: BACKUP YOUR BLOG!

So, the other day I was just finishing designing the new look for my blog - by the way, do you like the new design? I did it all myself using tutorials from other bloggers - I think I might be starting to get the hang of all this css and html/coding malarkey! The image below is what my blog looked like before - aaaah blogception! :O

I definitely prefer how it is now; it's cleaner, more simplistic, and just a bit more mature I think :) It's not perfect by any means, but it'll do until I decide to have another mess with it haha!

Sorry, going a bit off topic there! So where was I… Oh yes, I was just finishing up for the day and changing some of the signatures on the ends of blog posts that were already published (the signatures had a coral background before to go with the old colour scheme, so I was changing them to green to go with the new colour scheme). I was clicking things really fast because I was trying to get through all the posts - I like to get repetitive stuff done as quickly as possible - and then disaster struck. I don't really know what I did, but suddenly my recent post called 'The Summer Tag' was just magically replaced by the one that I posted two days ago about old video games, and I have literally no idea how or why it happened!?! Maybe I was pressing Command-Z (Control-Z on Windows) repeatedly to try and undo something and then pressed save without thinking? But it just somehow overwrote my summer tag post with this other post. Or, thinking about it, it could have had something to do with my Apple magic mouse - when you swipe to the left, it takes you back to the page you were viewing before the current one - and sometimes I carelessly swipe sideways thinking I've swiped downwards. It takes me back a page without saving and I lose my work.

Well, whatever caused it, I just immediately started freaking out because I've never been as careless as this with regard to my blog. I'm always really careful and I was just so annoyed with myself that it happened, especially seeing as someone else put the effort in to make the questions up for that tag. And I answered them as honestly as I could because it was my first tag and now it's gone forever, lost to the depths of the Internet. Or so I thought…

The morning after this debarkle, I had a brilliant idea to maybe be in with a shot of recovering the contents of my lost post. I went onto the Bloglovin' app, because I know that when I flick through my feed every morning and click on people's posts, the app doesn't take me directly to each post on its proper webpage. Instead, I am shown the contents of each post (the text and images) within the app. So I thought "I wonder if my Summer Tag post is still there" and sure enough it was there. I clicked on it and, as I said just before, it showed me the post without taking me to the webpage it is actually on. If it had taken me to the actual post on the web, I would've just been told that the webpage no longer exists. So once I discovered it really was there, I took about a million screenshots of it (just to be on the safe side!), typed up all my answers again, and Bob's your uncle - you'd never guess that anything ever happened! I'm now just sooo glad I signed up for Bloglovin' back in April - it has literally saved my blog!

So immediately after this whole thing went down, I was like, okay I'm not gonna let anything close to this happen again, so I typed into Google "how to backup a blogger blog" and I found this really useful post. It's really easy to follow, and it tells you how to download both the template of your blog as well as the content, i.e. all the posts and pages you've linked to it. This process saves a copy of your blog in its current state straight to your computer to be used as a backup in case something goes wrong in the future. It's a pretty quick and simple task to complete, definitely worth doing!

To be honest, I can't actually believe I went almost a whole year without backing up my blog. You hear all kinds of stories on the internet with people's blogger accounts getting hacked and their blogs being deleted, cases much much worse than my temporary self-inflicted blog post deletion. Still, it has changed my perception on the matter. So from now on, I'll probably be backing up my blog every week or month, so at least I'll be able to recover something if the same thing happens again!

REMINISCING.

My brother came back from university last week, so, naturally, the other day we spent about four hours playing old video games together. As kiddies, we used to be completely obsessed with Lego, so our favourite online computer game used to be this Lego-orientated puzzle game called Junkbot. You basically just have to move the Lego bricks to get the main character, Junkbot, to the blue trashcans, whilst avoiding obstacles along the way. You have to try and do each level in as few moves as possible, and you gradually unlock new areas as you play. After all these years, I finally found it online again - here's a link to play it.

Did any of you guys used to play this when you were little? If not, what were your favourite computer games?

RECENT ASOS PURCHASES.

I'm sure you're all aware by now that ASOS had a fire at their main warehouse in Yorkshire last Friday night. Everyone was evacuated from the building and fire crews managed to stop the blaze before it destroyed everything. ASOS have since calculated that about 20% of all their stock was damaged in the fire. I checked my Saved Items list earlier and found that a fair few things that were in clear abundance before the fire are now just completely out of stock, so the event must have really hit the company hard.

I did actually order two items from ASOS on Thursday night, and according to the tracking information for my order, they managed to escape from the warehouse about 15 minutes before the fire was said to have broken out. Phew! I was extremely lucky that the timings all worked out for me, but I know some people's orders were actually affected by the fire, so I'm not entirely sure what the company have done about those cases. I'm sure everything will be sorted out as it should be.

Anyways, I wanted to share with you the things I got from ASOS the last two times I ordered from them. Some things were slightly more reduced than they are now because there was some sort of sale going on when I bought them, but most things are at least still available. So let's get on with it!

The first things I bought were these navy leggings from the ASOS Petite range. They are high waisted and really comfy - and the best thing about them for me is that they are the perfect length, because they were specially made for people of my modest stature! They aren't particularly summery, but I thought I'd get them ready for autumn, as they were reduced to £6 at the time - they're back up to £8 now. I still think this is a really good price given the quality of the leggings - they are light but yet not see-through, which is most definitely an important factor to consider when purchasing leggings!

They come in navy, teal (ohmygosh I'm getting this colour next!), black, white and light grey. These colour options aren't in the little drop down menu on the page linked above; instead you have to search for them, which is a slight pain. These leggings are also in the main collection for women of average height!

The only piece of jewellery I bought was this gorgeous and understated gold heart necklace. It's so dainty and beautiful, and it was half price so it only cost me £3! Unfortunately, it's no longer available but ASOS almost always have similar variations of these kinds of cute, little necklaces on offer.

Okay, so here's where it gets a lot more summery! This dress is by New Look Petite and it's this gorgeous two-tier skater dress with crochet detailing at the neckline. The floral print is not something I'd normally go for, especially as it covers the whole dress, but I think because there's quite a lot of black, it didn't seem too far out of my comfort zone. The material is so soft and falls really nicely, and I think the tier section on the top half adds a little something extra to an otherwise quite generic skater dress. It was only £11 when I bought it in the sale, but it has gone back up to £14.99, which I still think is pretty reasonable. [I JUST CHECKED THIS ITEM ON THE ASOS WEBSITE AND IT IS CURRENTLY IN THE SUMMER SALE FOR £9.50!] You can get the same dress on ASOS from New Look's main collection and their tall collection too.

Now, these gorgeous (wow I use that adjective a lot!) culotte shorts by ASOS have been in my Saved Items list for months and months, until I finally decided to buy them last week. They have this gold oriental print all over them, which really is quite vibrant, and they are really soft and flowy. They basically have the appearance of a skater skirt but give the security of being shorts, so they won't get caught up in the wind and expose you in public! I feel like this particular pair of shorts can be worn with some opaque black tights in the colder months, as well as over bare legs in the summer - they really are quite versatile. These were £15, but I got a sneaky little 10% student discount off of them!

Last but not least is my most favourite item of the whole lot - this beautiful, aztec print kimono by a brand called Band of Gypsies. I'd been wanting a kimono for a while, after seeing other bloggers wearing them, but I was struggling to find one that I really loved, and one that I'd be happy spending the money on. That was until I found this one by this new brand I'd never seen on ASOS before. I poured through their whole collection and decided I'd allow myself to buy one thing from it. I originally wanted the purple-y kimono, however they didn't have any left in the smaller size :( I then saw that they had the same design in a reddy-green colour scheme, so I plumped for that one instead.

When it finally arrived though, I was so happy with it, I almost forgot about wanting the original one! It's a really light and drapey material, with loose armholes, and it hangs just beautifully. I found that other kimonos were quite square and harsh at the bottom, which made me look even shorter than I already am(!), however the way this kimono hangs is really flattering, with different lengths that really complement my figure. It was originally £34, but it was reduced to £18 for some reason, and then I was able to use my 10% student discount again, so it was a complete steal!

As you can probably tell, I hardly ever pay full price for my clothes and accessories, which meant that the total cost for these two orders was only £49.70 - that's a saving of nearly £30 overall! I was really chuffed with everything I got, most of all the items I can add to my rapidly expanding summer wardrobe!

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS: EXCLUSIVE UK FAN SCREENING.

I meant to get this post published aaaages ago, but I've been busy busy busy, what with my final exams last week. And since I finished them, I've surprisingly found it quite difficult to adjust to my newfound freedom. I've ended up just whittling away the days doing absolutely nothing productive… (basically I've just been playing Sims!) until I suddenly just thought "No more!" I decided that I want to try and construct some sort of schedule for myself, that I will actually stick to, and set myself kind-of-deadlines to get posts published by, because otherwise I'll just keep pushing the posts back each day, which does not give me a good sense of fulfilment at all! Okay, so I'm thinking three posts a week-ish. Yeah. That seems reasonable... ;)

Right, that's the end of my babbling - here's the actual post! On Friday 12th June 2014, I attended the exclusive UK fan screening of The Fault in Our Stars at my local cinema. This was a one-off event that was happening at precisely 6:30pm all over the UK, so fans from all across the nation were all experiencing the film at the exact same time, which I thought was insanely cool!

With a ticket to this event, we were entitled to the opportunity to see the movie a week before its official release date in the UK, watch a recorded Q&A session with the main cast, director, producer, and the book's incredible author John Green (just give me a sec while I finish fangirling inside), in addition to receiving this special pass on a proper lanyard (I felt so important wearing it!) and a HUGE limited edition movie poster. Like, seriously, the poster is massive - bigger than A1 size, I reckon!

First of all, just before the film started, a recorded message from John Green was played to us, addressing us as fans from the UK, so it felt really personal - it was so exciting! Everyone in the cinema  was fangirling sooo much - it was basically just like Tumblr, but in real life. It was very surreal...

The film itself was simply beautiful. As John Green said in the Q&A session after the film was shown, the filmmaking team didn't 'Hollywood-ise' the film in the slightest. It felt like a true love story with real ups and downs, as opposed to a typical love story, where everything is just perfect and amazing all the time. And even though it was an extremely sad story, there were so many funny lines in just the right places that made everyone in the cinema burst out laughing while tears were still streaming down our faces!

I can also say that the story in the film was very faithful to the story in the book; obviously there were some bits that were missed out, as there's only two hours to fit the whole thing into. A few bits were also altered, because the book is from Hazel's point of view with a lot of her thoughts and feelings written down for the reader to see explicitly, so obviously things had to be adapted slightly by the film crew to make her feelings come across better on screen. I think that anything that was missed out was not crucial to the telling of the story, and by missing these extra unnecessary details out, it meant that there was more time to really indulge in the more pivotal and touching moments of the film.

Ah, I almost forgot to mention the soundtrack to the film - it was practically perfect. I'd actually listened to the soundtrack quite a lot on Spotify in the weeks leading up to the film's release, so I'd gotten to know the songs quite well in advance. When I finally did hear them along with the movie, I found that each track was placed at such perfectly fitting moments in the film, and I just think the film crew really captured the mood of the film and the kind of music that would best suit it.

Overall, I'd definitely say that it's a film that everyone needs to see! It most definitely joins The Perks of Being a Wallflower on my list of must-see-films. These two films really struck a chord with me; the casts and crews of these films didn't require amazing special effects or a ridiculous budget to make good films, they just told the stories beautifully. It may be something to do with the fact that both of these films were originally books, which were then converted into films, so there seems more depth to the story lines… perhaps. Stories like these just seem so true and once you've seen them on the big screen, I think they make you value the life that you have, as well as your friends and loved ones a whole lot more.

So, if you haven't seen The Fault in Our Stars yet (which is very unlikely, seeing as it's out in cinemas everywhere now, I believe), I would urge you to definitely go and see it. And if you haven't read the book, go do that too!

NO MORE EXAMS!

At 2:45pm on Wednesday 18th June 2014, I officially finished my last school exam EVER! It was a very surreal feeling to have finally completed all the A Level exams that the whole of my education has been leading towards, since my first days at school about thirteen or fourteen years ago.

It still hasn't sunk in, the fact that I have no more lessons to attend, nothing else to revise for, and hardly any reason to ever set foot in a place that has become so familiar to me, I would almost call it a second home. I'm going to miss my friends and the corner of the common room where we loved to chill out and share obscure music with each other. I'll miss the teachers that had a massive impact on my life, both academically and on a more personal level. I'll definitely keep in touch with all of these people, as they essentially helped to shape the person I have become.

Although it is a time of huge change, I am so so soooo excited to move on to adult life, go to university, and be more free to do things that I love to do. I think one of the most amazing things about moving on from somewhere incredibly familiar to somewhere totally unknown and new, is the prospect of meeting completely new people from all over the UK, and possibly even the world, and having new experiences with them. Hopefully, I will still be able to remember all the amazing times I have, as, inevitably, there will be an element of drinking involved!

So yeah, it's sad to leave behind something I know so well, but on the other hand, I cannot wait to leave and enjoy what the future has to offer!

THE SUMMER TAG.

I found this tag on Georgina AKA Makeup Pixi3's blog and thought, "I quite like the look of these questions!". And seeing as I haven't done a tag post before, why not have a go?

1. What's your favourite thing about Summer?
Probably just the fact that the academic year is over, exams are finished, and I literally have three months to do whatever I want. No deadlines, no responsibilities - just pure relaxation!

2. Do you have a favourite Summer drink?
Definitely iced tea! I get mine from Aldi - they sell lemon and peach flavoured tea. It's just so refreshing with a couple of ice cubes in a glass on the hottest days of the year.

3. Is there a location you like to go to each Summer?
No, unfortunately there isn't a place that I go every year with either family or friends. My parents like us to go to a different place every year so we can experience different things, which is really interesting and fun, although I do sometimes wish there was one place that we could call a sort of second home and go to every summer.

4. Favourite makeup look for Summer?
To be honest, I don't really wear much makeup on a daily basis, especially in the summertime, as I'd rather just have a fresh face. Occasionally I'll wear a bit of tinted moisturiser when I want to even out my skin tone, and a bit of concealer to brighten up the areas under my eyes.

5. Dresses or skirts?
I've always been a bit of a tomboy growing up, and it's only over the last couple of years that I've got into wearing more feminine clothes. I'd say dresses because I feel like you can just throw one on and be out the door, whereas with skirts you have to find a top that goes with it and decide whether you want to tuck it in, and for me it's just ugh… effort! :P

6. Sandals or ballet pumps?
I used to like sandals more in my early teens, but at the moment I'm quite into ballet pumps. I got some simple nude ballet flats recently that I've been wearing literally everywhere since I bought them - they're just really versatile!

7. Do you prefer to wear your hair up or down for Summer?
As Georgina said in her post, I'd like to wear my hair up more often to keep cool, as mine is really long (it's almost down to my bum!), but I just don't think I look too good with it up! So, yeah, it's usually down during the summer.

8. Deep smokey eyes or bold lips?
As I said in question four, I don't really wear much makeup, but in answer to this question I'd go with bold lips. I wear glasses and find it extremely difficult to do eye makeup evenly without them on, especially a smokey eye, so lips are a much more practical option for me.

9. Favourite perfume for Summer?
Well, my perfume collection is currently extremely limited, however I have a load of body sprays from a few years ago when I was strangely obsessed with it! My favourite for summer is the Laguna Beach Body Mist from Hollister - it's just a pretty scent that's really refreshing and floral - perfect for summer!

10. Last but not least, favourite music for Summer?
I kinda like light, upbeat music during summer that's really fun and happy. I've been putting this playlist together on Spotify over the last year, all ready for summer!

I hope you enjoyed reading my answers! Be sure to do this tag on your own blog - all the guidelines for the tag are on Georgina's original post. Have a great summer!

MAY PLAYLIST.

These are the songs I seriously couldn't get enough of this May:

Sweater Weather - The Neighbourhood

Trojans - Atlas Genius

My Number - Foals

Anna Sun - Walk the Moon

Let Me In - Grouplove

Demons - Imagine Dragons

Somebody - Fenech-Soler

Afraid - The Neighbourhood

Speak - Spring Offensive
Come To - Bombay Bicycle Club

Byegone - Volcano Choir

Head.Cars.Bending - The 1975

STEAL OF THE WEEK: £1 JUMPER FROM PRIMARK!

This is actually a men's jumper, but I saw it and instantly loved it even before I saw the price - I couldn't believe it was only £1! Well, I suppose they were just trying to get rid of the wintery stuff to make more room for the summer fashion. The jumper itself isn't too thick but it's still wonderfully cosy, and it'll make a nice addition to my collection of jumpers for when I go up north next year for uni!