My GCSE Results 2017 | My Subjects, Grades + What I'm Studying For A-Levels!

Before I start, I just want to congratulate everybody who sat the new GCSEs because God knows that it wasn't easy and cannot even be compared to previous GCSEs. There was some A-level maths in the higher paper, not to mention that time management was key in the English exams to actually doing well in it.
Whatever you got, I can only advise you use it to push you to wanting to do better for yourself. There's still A-levels and getting a degree to go - depending on which path you decide to take. This is only a crumb of a cake compared to what we have yet to go through. Good or bad - continue to work and hustle! Because eventually, if not now then later - it WILL pay off!

So hi guys 👋👋! On the 24th of August - I had to collect my GCSE results, enroll at my chosen college/sixth form and basically decide the next stepping stone which will impact the rest of my educational path. I just want to say I actually thought year 11 was the HARDEST year of secondary school which is to be expected but I didn't expect it to be as hard as what I went through personally.

There were times where I felt completely alone because everybody had priorities to attend to. I remember balling my eyes out because the pressure to succeed and wanting to do well was mounting on me. I felt really somehow when it came to my group of friends, I just didn't feel completely happy. It was a year where I had to learn to let go people's opinions of me - good or bad. (It's secondary school, it's a stressful year - everybody wants to act bitchy, it happens.) I lost a lot of friends, I constantly worried and feared a lot - I had to deal with feeling left out etc etc etc.

It was just a really tough two years; with year 11 being the hardest of the two.

With that being said - to have gotten what I got was crazy. I'm EXTREMELY grateful because the hard work paid off. No one will really know the extent of what I had to do to get the grades I did. Some will assume it was luck, genetics and probably the receiving of a lot of help. But I know what it took for me to get what I got. The prayers, late nights, the cramming it took. And I am someone who has VERY high expectations, I will always think I could have done more when I did all that I could have. Sometimes I will feel a nag of annoyance/upset if I wanted to get a higher grade when the grade I got is amazing but that's just me.

BUT I DID IT. Through every wrong and every setback - I finished strong. So with that said...
Here's what I got.

Maths - 7 (A)
English Language - 8 (A*)
English Literature - 6 (B)
Art & Design - A
French - A
History - A*
Physics - A*
Chemistry - A*
Biology - A (I took this last year)
And I got a Distinction in English language for my speaking assesment (you had to write and present a speech).

Overall I got 4 A*s, 4 As and 1 B. 9 A*-B grades. 

I couldn't have asked for anything more. I'm so thankful to God, my teachers, my close friends and my family members. What surprised me was English lit, physics, maths and french. I was expecting an A or even an A* in literature and I got a B. I remember shedding tears because honestly when I first saw my grades - that's all I could fix my eyes on, the 6. My other grades hadn't even sunk in yet. I felt even more like shite when I saw other people getting 7s, 8s and 9s. I really thought 'what the hell did I write?'. I don't even know the breakdown so I don't even know if I'm close to the grade boundary or not.

But after being extremely stupid and feeling silly/upset after comparing my grades to everyone else's, the reality sunk in that I did very well. An A* in physics??!! I remember telling my friend about a dream I had of failing it. Maths - I'm honestly happy with an A !! Anything higher I would have not thought it was my paper. AND FRENCH!! A?!!! I used to get Us. In all the classes I've attended in my LIFE, I've never been at the bottom of the class except for french. And I left with an A.
Wow.

Physics (P7) grade before exam

So here's the breakdown:
(for English and maths - I can't even speak on it because AQA and Edexcel decided to be a pain and not post the marks or the breakdown of MY OWN grade 😶

French - I got an A in the listening (that was where I was getting the Us in french) and I got an A* in the reading. I got a B in the french speaking and an A in french writing.

Art & Design - I THINK I got an A* in my coursework and an A in my final piece. Either that or it's the other way round.

History - In my first exam (All about the Cold War) I got an A*. In my second exam (all about Nazi Germany) I got an A*. In my third exam (all about Britain) - I got an A. And in my coursework I got an A.

Chemistry - The first exam (C123) I got an A*, the second exam (C456) I got an A*, the third exam because I took triple science (C7) I got an A*. And in my coursework, I got an A*. If someone said I would have got that in year 9, I would have actually wet myself crying because I HATED chemistry in year 9.

Physics - The first exam (P123) I got an A*, the second exam (P456) I got an A*, the third exam (P7) I got an A and in my coursework I got an A*.

Biology - This I took last year: in the first exam (B123)  I got an A, in the second exam, (B456) I got an A*, in the third exam (B7) I got a B and in my coursework I got an A*.

Chemistry (C7) grade before exams

Overall some of the grades for certain subject I just was not expecting. Things I thought I did really well in, I got a lower grade compared to subjects I thought I didn't do really good in - only to end up with a higher grade.
My advice to anyone who is not happy with your grade is to get it re-marked/reviewed and look at the possibilities of doing an early re-sit. Considering the new grading system, it has already been highlighted that there will be some errors which is to be expected. Don't take this lightly - if you feel that you have nothing to lose or that you felt that you did a lot better than the grade given to you -- get it re-marked.
Plus use this time from now until we go back to school wisely, it may seem like it's easy for me to say but it really isn't. I still need research and prepare myself for my a-levels because I'm still unsure on what I'm doing and that's another pressure point for me.

So far I've chosen to study Biology, Chemistry, English literature and economics. However this might change as my views on English literature is wavering and I might change economics with history. I'm really not sure. With that being said, thank you so much for reading. I hope you got what you wanted and more! There's no guarantee that what you get in GCSEs will reciprocate once you take your A-levels. Some people forget that, believe they don't need to revise and get lower grades. I can only say use whatever you got to motivate you to work harder and smarter for a mega comeback !


Have a great week guys! Until next time...💖

Simply, Jessy Tee

Prom 2K17: Awards, Turn Up, The After Party | Part 2

Hey guys! This post is a continuation from my first prom post where I talked about the moments leading to the actual prom. In this post I'll be continuing from that post so if you want to have a read of part 1 of my prom, just click HERE!
Now onto the prom itself.

6pm-7pm:

This was the greeting hour. Everyone was saying hi and just taking selfies. People were posting on their Snapchat stories, complimenting each other, getting into the moment. Plus it’s that stage in a party/event where everyone is coming out of their shell. It wasn't until 6:30 that we actually boarded the boat. The boat was really nice, it didn't look quite like the way it did in pictures but it looked nice all the same.

7pm-8pm:

Lord Jesus kept me alive guys. Now I never thought I could be bored at prom – but I got bored. I kid you not guys, there was a group of us females and males just sitting down and glancing at either the floor or outside the boat. The DJ kept playing the same songs over and over again and was playing songs that were not ‘in’ I guess. It made me laugh a couple of times because of the reality of the situation but for the most part I was ready for the boat to just pull up and let me go home.
In this hour we had food which was O.K. Burger, wedges, chicken etc. I sat with different people that I spent the night with so that was great as it meant experiencing the evening with different people. (Even though Year 11 – the last year of secondary school, wasn’t my most social year to say the least).

8pm-9:45pm

Thank you Lord because it was turnt during this period. The DJ started to play more modern/recent music. Everyone was on the floor – for those who it wasn’t were thing were outside or upstairs. But this point was where the teachers and students came and did their thang. It was great fun. The girls were in their group, the guys were in their group. Due to the small floor, we were still together and it didn’t feel segregated. The boat was at one point swaying because at one point everyone was leaning back and forth. I danced with my girl (we’ll call her G) in the middle and my other friends too. And they played my song! (Mr Eazi-Leg over). But honestly guys, my head of year was just on another mission. Every time it got lit – the music would stop. I think it happened like 3 times so at that point I was like – allllrrriiiightyyy then!! And I think they played one song which we all thought that greater music would follow and it will continue getting better – NOPE! 9:45 had arrived and the boat was at the pier waiting for us to get off.

The awards:

The awards came and they did prom king and queen, silliest voice, worst uniform etc. It was just all banter and silly awards. I won the one for the uniform. I received big hoop earrings and stick on nail whatever it’s called. When it came to uniform, I wasn’t 100% AKA I often wore nail polish, big earrings etc (don’t do it guys- not worth the stress). But it was funny to gain an award for that so that was a cute touch.

More pictures:

We took pictures throughout and we took a big one as a whole year. (The WHOLE year did not attend prom for various reasons so there was like 130 who came out of 180).

Home time… or is it?

So we got off the boat. The night was sooooooooo young. But it is what it is. Honestly it was a great evening overall. A funny/lit ending to say the least. Now me and my friend who I came with were waiting for our mums to pick us – to go to an after party. So after about 20 minutes of taking more photos at night; we’re both ready to go to our friend’s after party. So can someone explain to me why our mums said no even though it was already agreed.
They arrived at 10:30 and we didn’t leave central London till 10:50 to say roughly. So we clocked up at our friend’s house at 11:15 (no traffic, no rush hour so the journey was quicker than before). Previously my mum said she will pick me at 12:30.
She picked me and my friend at 11:50.


I know my time will come where I can stay out late until the cows come home but until then – my butt had to leave. The after party was alright – we danced, drunk coke, chatted about prom and just various other things. My friend ‘G’ also came with me and my friend home and we all had to walk, roughly 15 mins. And let’s just say 3 girls, walking in prom dresses, late at night can attract a lot of attention AKA a lot of horn honking, questions of there being a wedding from strangers, and a lot of staring.

And that was prom! This is probably my longest post – I sincerely apologise. I will not do this length of post again but so much happened and I just wanted to capture it all! I know it sounds like I was complaining a lot in this post so I apologise if it came across that way but I wanted to keep it 100, not sugar coat anything and overall the night was amazing. Let me just stop writing before I write a novel :)

Simply, Jessy Tee

Prom 2K17: The Dress, Central London, Erasmus | Part 1

Hi guys! Welcome back to my blog and today I’m going to be posting about my prom. This post is long overdue but I really wanted to upload it because I’m pretty sure that I will not have another prom again and plus this is something that is a bit more personal and I feel as though it would be great to share, so although it’s late -  it’s here! (My Nails were done the night before and excuse my crusty hands :P I cleaned the dishes before taking the photo).

The morning/afternoon: 

From what I can remember, I basically did hardly anything in the morning (I apologise for the bad English right there). In the morning I texted/called one of my friends and we were just talking about the day and what’s to come. I also remember viewing my Snapchat and watching everybody’s story which was actually funny because on everyone’s story, it was legit – the date of the day, a picture of nails or a ‘sneak peek’/preview of hair or people getting ready. So as the afternoon approaches, everything is going a bit slow from what I can retrieve.
But sooner or later everything began to speed up funny enough. My grandma came to see me, I applied my contacts (which at first felt like I had a pebble in my eye), then it was down to make up. My mum did my make up for me which was a dark lip and a pink eyeshadow as my dress was pink but she suggested that I go for something dark on my lips so it's a contrast from all the pink.
So after makeup comes hair. My mum styled the hair for me (shout out to her!!). She blow dried and straightened it and did all that stuff. I didn’t want to wear my hair in its natural state due to heat and I’ve already straightened it once this year so I didn’t want to add anymore wahala to it.
(The concept of hair might be confusing to some when it comes to a black woman's hair so I’ll just move on :D )

Putting everything on and of course pictures:

Now that hair and make-up was done – it was time to put on accessories. I put on the earrings, I didn’t wear a necklace because my dress was high neck, I also wore my watch/bracelet and shoes. And finally the dress.
My dress was custom made because there is like one area where they sell prom dresses where I live and I just wasn’t willing to risk having the same dress as someone, plus it’s all fridging expensive. My dress was a decent price but the alterations made it shoot up (it was too big). So the day before, the dress was done and all was sorted. I was nervous at this point because the moment that I, along with the rest of my year group, had been waiting for was actually here and it was just a bit nerve-racking.
So of course my mum took pictures, my grandma took pictures with me and my brothers were somewhere in the house that day- and the moment had arrived to leave.

Walking:

So my mum’s car was out of bounds that day as it needed repairing so I had to walk to my friend’s house who lived like a 5 minute walk away. It was a struggle because the dress was ‘poofy’ at the bottom but the walk was practise anyway because I would be walking regardless at the venue. But once I got there and saw her, the nerves were gone. She looked amazing and it was again, pictures and videos. So after we called the Uber – we made our way downstairs to get to the destination. At this point it was 4:40 – and we had to board the boat at 6…
Veeeery early. But nobody wanted to risk it. Plus the standard drive to the venue, with traffic and rush hour, it would take about 40 minutes to get there.

The City:

So we got to the pier/Central London for 5. A whole hour early. My school is a VERY FUNNY school and decided that we should be the first year that doesn’t have an assembly before going to the venue. Now if we had had an assembly, we would have been on time. But the reasoning for our earliness was down to the pressure of not missing the boat which wouldn’t have been an issue if we would have simply had our prom on land/if our school provided transportation which they had done so every year.

But as the saying goes ‘you can’t have everything’
But either way we were early, we said hi to some friends, more pictures from my mum and my friend’s mum. Then before you knew it, everyone started to arrive. (To think that our head of year said if you didn’t come at 6 the boat will leave, BUUUUTTT NOOOOO, the boat left at 6:30, (what a FUNNY SCHOOL!!) The frustration is real but by the time we said good bye, hello and took pictures, and actually boarded the boat – things were okay.

The boat - Erasmus:

The boat was great but I would have preferred if prom was on land. It was a beautiful experience with many scenery and insta worthy pictures. But having prom on the boat means the venue is quite small – although there’s other places to go on the boat, the main dance floor area is quite narrow compared to a standard ballroom/hotel venue. It meant pressure on time and people not being able to come due to lateness. Plus we were told that our prom would last for 4 hours, from 6-10.
Guys…
We boarded that boat at 6:30 and left the boat at 9:45. So if my mathematical skills are still in check that was only 3 hours and 15 minutes we had. That remaining 45 minutes will be missed dearly. There was already complaints at the fact prom was finishing at 10 (too early for some).

Overall the boat was okay. It had its great side and it had its not so great side.
Due to not wanting this post to be too long, I will be doing a part 2 where I will explain what happened during and after prom! Thank you guys for reading!
"The night is still young and so are we." - Nicki Minaj

Simply, Jessy Tee

So It Has Been A Year! | My One Year Blog Anniversary + (Why I Love It, Regrets, Advice etc.)

So - I guess it's now my turn to announce that it's my blogging anniversary. This post was supposed to be up since last Sunday but I wasn't feeling 100 and I didn't want to mess this particular post up! Around this time last year - I started this lil space. I've laughed, cried, been frustrated and lost with this blog. I created this from scratch, template and all which is mad because if you had told me I was going to start another blog from the beginning of 2016 - I would have just rolled my eyes and pretend I didn't hear you. BUT HERE WE ARE!
Let me just unravel the truth of the whys and whats behind the blog along with some facts.

Why I started the blog?

So summers are always a confusing one for me. I don't really have much to look forward to and the summer of 2016 was no different. I didn't want to be bored and lets say my summers don't consist of pool parties, red cups of alcohol, road trips, festivals, sleepovers or travelling the city - not under my parents roof. So I must have (this is gonna sound so sad but I'll keep it 100) been searching for things to do this summer because I full on wanted to be prepared and sorted. And I came across an article that listed various things to do. So after scrolling endlessly, the one thing that kept popping up was 'make a blog'.
However I dismissed the idea of doing one because I didn't see myself having one. The last blog I had was when I was like 10 and I had a good 4. So to get back into blogging would be weird because it's been so long. But no matter how many things I came across, the blogging idea stayed stuck inside my head - so with searching for teenage bloggers on google and just reading the 'About Me' section as knowledge for what having a blog would be like, I created one!

So the short simple answer was, I created my blog in the summer of 2016, from July-beginning of September so that I would not be bored!

Why I almost stopped blogging before I even started?

So although it's been a year, there's so much more to blogging than I've experienced yet. So why did I almost stop just before I got started? The short answer is commitment. Fear. And change.

That's what almost stopped me.

I wanted to create a blog so bad but I didn't want it to be like the blogs I had before (for insight, I had a collaborative blog where me and my former best-friend owned it, a nail blog and two MovieStarPlanet blogs- if you remember those days comment below LOL). Therefore I wanted to make sure my template was different to having the traditional blogger templates. Plus I wanted my blog to have logos and just be completely different from what I had before.
The fear in things going wrong which at times it did was the main reason why I had really bad anxiety. The overwhelming feeling of starting year 11 along with trying to start a completely different blog which I felt was a mile out of my comfort zone produced huge feelings of fear.

Like I never had those feelings before. From September to December, I had a really bad fear of blogging. The fear of it going wrong, the fear of potentially losing the blog, the fear of change because I would now need to commit to something (& whoever read my FIRST  blogpost will know that I find it challenging to commit to things). It was difficult for me and it was something that I overthought about a lot. I would make up scenarios of things that could go wrong. Seriously, if you have ever been through core-shaking, plain FEAR, then you know what I'm talking about.

That went on for four months but I got over it. I prayed about it, I calmed my butt down, I re-evaluated the situation and realised I needn't put myself through no stress. And since the new year, I've been taking it one day at a time.

What is my regret?

I don't really have any regrets when it comes to blogging. I just wish I had done the appropriate research beforehand. There's a lot of things that would have saved me a lot of time, frustration and anger if I had simply just researched it prior to doing it.

Why I love blogging?

Because it's mine. I have complete control of what I post, what I put out there. I have the access to take the blog in whatever direction as I see fit. As the years progress in my blogging journey, I have different plans for it at different stages. I see myself developing each 'sector' of my blog further in it's own individual way. I see myself slowly investing money and more time into it. I have goals for it. I have stated that this is something I would prefer as my main hobby as opposed to a career/profession.

My advice to any new bloggers:

Do it and get better. Do your research and understand what you're getting into. Blogging has many rewards - much I am yet to receive. But like all things like that, it comes with an investment of either hard work, time or money. But you can do it!
Don't compare yourself to other bloggers. I still do this myself but the more you invest into yourself and focus on your own lane - you will soon so how incredibly amazing you are and how much potential you have.
Don't let something fun be the stress of you like I did. Just remember it's a hobby, not a business...yet. Just learn to take it easy, one day at a time and take the breaks you need/deserve.
Engage with others! Only recently I've done this and I'm really glad I did: you feel less alone and understand that many are in your exact position.
DREAM BIG! Don't let anyone say you can't go places with a blog because there's so many out there! Not so many blogs out there are gonna bring what you have to offer. Be unique, be you and never think you can't achieve what the big bloggers are achieving.

Goals for this year:

-Improve my photo quality (it's all over the place at the moment).
-Develop each category of my blog further: nail art, drawings (watch out) beauty, genuine lifestyle posts etc.

So with that done thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who's supported me. The close friends, the friendly people who blog and have been with me at different stages. The likes, the re-tweets, the comments - IT IS APPRECIATED SO FRICKING MUCH!! Thanks for sticking with me guys! Cheers to another year, many more to come!

Simply, Jessy Tee