I'm not going to lie, I've always been dismissive towards girls who fall in love with shoes. I always thought them to be irritating and spoilt with wrong priorities in life. I used to turn my nose up at them and insist they were ditzy, idiotic airheads.

However, on the 28th of March this all changed. I went shopping in London with my nana and we were in Irregular Choice in Carnaby Street, which is a shop that sells the most unbelievably unique and stunning shoes you've ever seen. And I saw a pair of heels. And it quite literally was love at first sight. So I asked the lady for them in my size. But alas! "They're out of stock in that size." So I enquired, "Can I order a pair in?" "No.", she told me, "They are now out of production." I left the shop with my metaphorical tail between my legs.

That evening, I emailed the stockist telling him how desperately I needed these shoes. But hark, his reply merely read:

"Dearest Irregular Customer.
Thank you for contacting Irregular Choice!
As you may know, Irregular Choice is very popular and often sells out. It can be hard to get hold of past season styles once they have sold out from shops.
Our web site is currently undergoing a super-dooper makeover and will be back in full swing during June 2009.
However, if it’s something from a previous collection that you are after, these websites and stores will sometimes stock past seasons! Check:
www.letsbuyshoes.com
www.branch309.co.uk/irregularchoice
www.ebay.co.uk
T K Maxx
Should you wish to buy a pair of shoes you can’t find in a local stockist feel free to contact our London or New York store who may be able to help until our fantastic new web site launches.
Carnaby Street, London W1: 0207 494 4811
New York, Soho,: 001212 334 3404
Remember to sign up for our newsletter at www.irregularchoice.com and receive 10% of your first order :)
Love n Kisses
Irregular Choice.
Xoxox"

However, disastrously, none of the aforementioned websites of shops have the pair of shoes I so passionately desire.
So now, I take back everything I have ever said about girls who fall in love with shoes. I now know how you feel, and my heart is truly broken.

Dwell on their stunningness...

ifoundyourcamera

Despite getting back from Greece this morning and having had the time of my life, that is not what I want to blog about.

I was just on Postsecret's Twitter page and found this site www.ifoundyourcamera.blogspot.com. I have no idea but looking at it has made me feel really, really emotional. I'm one of those people who always has their camera on them; everything that happens I record with photos or film. Looking back on them in such a lovely feeling, even just looking at photos taken on a normal bus journey to school in the Summer of 2006 makes me feel really happy and nostalgic. I think ifoundyourcamera made me so upset because the reason I take so many photos is because one day, when I'm much older and the memories have faded, I will have the pictures to look back on as reminders of what happened and what I was feeling at the time. On ifoundyourcamera there are photos of honeymoons, holidays, weddings and 100th birthday parties. To think that the people who wanted the photos as memories of these amazing times might never have them back just makes me feel so sorry for them. One of my biggest fears in life is forgetting. Losing my camera could equal just that. I really cannot bear to think that there are people out there who have taken photos to record memories, and have then lost the visual evidence of what happened. I really hope I never lose my camera. And I really hope that anyone that has lost theirs can get it back really soon.

Greece is the word.

It has been quite a while since I last blogged.

When it comes to schoolwork, I would not say I'm a bare minimum type of person, but I could definitely do more. However, the last couple of weeks, I have been working like an absolute loony. Every single free period I have spent in the library doing work and I've been doing about 3 hours on return from school every evening. And what with that and the occasional vlog, I have not had much time for blogging.

But I return!

Not for long though because at 2.45am I am going to school. And then I'm going to Gatwick. And then I'm going to Greece. YAY!!!
It's only been just over a month since the ski trip but I'm already jetsetting again and I am so excited. The drama trip last year was to Italy and we had an incredible time, awesome bunch of people and awesome teachers. So I have reason to be really optimistic about the coming week. We're doing 10 hours of drama workshops and then performing in an amphitheater at the end of the week. WOOHOO! I love doing stuff that not many other people have had the chance to do. Not because I'm selfish and like to gloat about my experiences (cough) but just because...actually...I can't think of any other reason why I'd want to. Not gonna lie :D

But anyway. It's 21.44 and I still haven't finished packing, so I should probably do that in a minute. And I want to do a last vlog before I leave aswell.

Argh I hate that we're flying with EasyJet, you don't get reserved seats. Which means you just have to REALLY hope you're sat with someone you know and like. Otherwise it's gonna be 4 hours of awkwardness.

More important aspects of the trip: WEATHER. It's about 20C there at the moment, which is like 70F. Not perfect, but definitely more perfect than England. It's enough that we should be able to have a nice sunbathe on the beach, which conveniently is across the road from our hotel :D

So excited!!!

And on Thursday we get the day in Athens! I've always wanted to go to Athens, it's going to be incredible. I've been to Kos and Rhodes but never mainland. Lovely :D

I need to go to and sort stuff out now. I'm gonna Skype Tom and I'm gonna pack and I'm gonna have a bath and I'm gonna wash my hair.

I hope you all have fabulous weeks and I will see you when I return!

A rant about my new hatred for the Pussycat Dolls

I saw something on MTV Dance earlier and now I'm so so pissed off.
Just to clarify, I don't purposefully watch MTV Dance as a rule. I channel hop through the music ones and as I was in a time wasting sort of mood today I was stopping at ever single one.

Right so as we all know I am an insanely humongous Slumdog Millionaire fan. I love everything about it, especially Dev Patel and the soundtrack. But this is specifically about the soundtrack.

SPOILER WARNING!
At the end of the film there is this Bollywood dance, the last scene transitions suddenly into it and the leads are Dev and Frieda and it is to a Bangra song called Jai Ho and it is amazing. The scene itself is really romantic and special and it's really tasteful too; the acting is not over the top and it is just so so lovely. And then they go into this traditional Bollywood dance which is what happens in all of the Indian films, they spontaneously start dancing. The moves are all really authentic and it's got so much atmosphere and I think it is my favourite part of the film
SPOILER WARNING OVER!

Which brings me back to MTV Dance. So I stop on that channel. And I hear a familiar beat. And it is Jai Ho from the Bollywood dance scene at the end of Slumdog Millionaire! Except it's not. It's the FUGGING PUSSYCAT DOLLS. It is the most HORRIFIC thing you ever did see or hear. They've taken the beautiful, authentic Indian dancing and put their signature Slutty Trademark on it, totally sexed it up and made it tacky and disgusting. And what I found most insulting is that they set it in a replica setting as is the original dance in the film. And that stupid lead singer of Pussycat Dolls is wearing yellow too, which is Latika's colour in the film. I really do not know how it got passed to be filmed or recorded. Because I'm not being funny but they even made up some revolting lyrics in English to fit to the same rhythm. Some things in the music world should not be touched. This song is a beautiful, upbeat Indian song that fits the storyline perfectly. And the Pussycat Dolls have slaughtered it. What even makes them think they have the authority to completely sabotage the initial meaning of that dance sequence? It was inserted to add in an authentic Bollywood touch, and they've gone and mimicked some of the moves but started thrusting out their boobs and shaking their hips all over the goddamn place. It's just totally inappropriate. "Jai Ho" translates into "Victory" in Hindi, and if you've seen the film, you'll know that this is the perfect song to be performed at the end. I was pissed off enough when they ripped off an ELO riff, but this is worse. Because I love Slumdog Millionaire more than I love ELO. I'm so angry that they had the sheer audacity to completely destroy the song. I know that A. R. Rahman, who wrote the original Jai Ho, played a big part in the re-writing of the song, but I really do not think he should have sunk so low. We should known from the start that any girl group who call themselves the Pussycat Dolls were an absolute joke.

End of rant.

Yay for burning calories :D

Right I'm not being funny but I have been saying for the past 3 years that I am going to take advantage of living in the countryside and actually use the fields around my house to get some exercise.

This started today.
Hallefugginglujah.

So I got home from school (not till about 5.10 because we had drama rehearsals) and then Sarah and I went jogging.
I'm not even joking.
I, Jocelyn Levy, exercise-a-phobic, went JOGGING.
It turned into alternations between jogging and power walking (which is called interval training, hellz yeah for terminology) but we did it for a solid hour and covered about 4 miles.
I feel so so good now. Very achieved. The weirdest thing is that I actually quite enjoyed it. Apart from the horrific stitch in my side and feeling sick most of the time. But it felt really good and shiz.

I'm so glad that the drama trip is to Greece because last year it was Italy and carbs are pretty much the national dish of Italy. It's all pizzabreadpastapizzabreadpasta. But in Greece it's all nice fish and salad and stuff. AND BAKLAVAS! OHEMGEE I CANNOT WORDULATE MY ADORATION OF BAKLAVAS! But anyway. At least I don't think I will gain weight like I did on last year's drama trip.

I'm going to watch last night's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and then I'm going to tidy my room and then I'm going to have a shower and then I'm going to do some of my English essay. Speak to you all soon (: xo

Goodbyes, good grades and what will be good times

Hi guuuyyyssss!

It's been an exhausting week. It started off horrifically depressing; on Monday morning I waved off the Young Americans and it was so, so sad. We all felt really close to them after the 3 days of workshops and watching them pull out of the carpark in their coach was so upsetting. The show we put on with them on Saturday evening went incredibly well and we all surprised ourselves as well as the audience. Unsuspecting people discovered that they had amazing talents that not even they knew about. The Americans brought out the best in us, and I think that is the main reason why it was so hard saying goodbye to them all. And another reason it was so hard was because you know the chances are you'll never see them again. However, enough of that for now.

I had ridiculous amounts of work this week, including a piece of English A2 (I'm accelerated) coursework that I've been putting off for months. But the other night I sat down and just did it and now I feel much better. Speaking of English, in January I retook one of my English AS modules. See, I got an A overall in the AS, but this consisted of 3 modules and in these individually I got A A B. So i retook the B. When it came to the day of the exam I was ill and pissed off and I was just so annoyed that I was retaking an A so I made absolutely no effort. I didn't even finish the paper. I got the result on Thursday and it was...A! I was SO shocked, I was genuinely expecting a C at best. So really, really chuffed about that ((: It's been a good week for grades. I also got top marks in an English vocab test and joint top with Matt on a Sociology test. So yay :D It's actually been quite motivating and encouraging, I feel I'm rebuilding up the work ethic that I lost after getting my GCSE results, so that's good.

There's a few things that I'm really looking forward to. On the 4th April I'm off to Greece for the week with the drama department at school. We're having lessons in Greek theatre and then performing in an amphitheater, which is going to be an amazing experience. Not to mention, Greece is one of my favourite countries (I've been there the past 2 summers) and I can't wait to get away from the shitty English weather for a little while.

Then in May I'm going to Warwick uni's open day. I've wanted to go to Warwick uni to study drama for about 4 months now and I absolutely cannot wait to see it. I think it's definitely what I need as a last push to try really, really hard on my AS exams. I need ABB to get an offer and I already have the A so I'm feeling fairly optimistic. Obviously I don't want to get my hopes up too much. Part of me thinks that knowing how gutted I will be if I don't get an offer is a good thing and part of me thinks it's bad. But we shall see.

Shizzz, this has been a wordy blog. I just really feel like getting everything down in words is important so that when I'm an adult I can look back and know what I was thinking/feeling at the time. DEEP! I'll shut up now. Au revoir!

What a day. To say the least.

Today has been the strangest day of my life.
I'm in the middle of three days of workshops run by the Young Americans who are a non-profit organisation consisting of ridiculously talented Americans of ages 19-23 who are teaching us singing, dancing and acting.

Basically, today they performed The Circle Of Life from The Lion King and then we learnt it. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. I must have been to about 30 West End musicals and this was better than any of the ones I've seen before. The passion was just unbelievable, it was so emotional. Lots of people cried just because it was so moving, you could tell how much they love what they're doing and the thought they put into their performances is just mind-blowing. So then we had to learn it. Well put it like this, by the end of the run through the majority of the YA's and us students were in tears. I can't explain it. The Lion King rehearsals and performances took up about 2 hours and I can't really remember anything that happened. But I can remember how I felt. It was as if my subconcious took over and pushed my concious away. I really can't put into words what that felt like. Out of body is the best description I can think of. All I can say is that it was the most moving experience of my life. I always feel a bit tearful during musicals just because I love them so much but this was something else. The fact that one song and dance had such an impact on 150 people simultaneously, so much that most were crying and some sobbing hysterically for no obvious reason just absolutely outstands me. I never realised how much of an outlet musical theatre is until now. All the barriers were broken down. No one was self-concious or worrying about letting go and showing their emotions. Boys, girls, teachers and students alike were all just completely comfortable in releasing emotion in a way that is usually seen as "shameful", "embarrassing" or "childish", and that is totally breathtaking. I've never felt like that before and I don't think I ever will again.

What made the day even odder was that after this we just had a massive dance in the sports hall. This room in my school is associated with boredom and torture, yet I can safely say those 15 minutes of dancing were probably the best of my life. I'm the most paranoid dancer you'll ever meet, but all that left me and we just went crazy. We danced on our own in front of everyone and it was just the best feeling of freedom ever. I never thought I'd get that out of dance. But it was just so fun. And to go from feeling absolutely emotional, fragile and vulnerable to feeling confident and excited in the span of a few hours is just indescribable. They were the two most extreme senses of the emotions I've ever felt, and to feel them both in such a short space of time is just ridiculous, special and once in a lifetime.

I feel emotionally drained but really priviledged that I've experienced this. What I thought would be three days of song and dance and constant jokes has turned into a life-changing experience. It's altered my whole outlook and just listening to the YA's talk about their experiences and hearing their advice and stories is just such an impact. They're all so grateful and willing to share and it's incredible because they have such different lives to us despite being around the same age.

I genuinely do feel honoured to have been part of this because it has affected me more than I can say. I've learnt so, so much.

So that is a brief summary of Friday 6th March 2009. It has, without a doubt, been the most unbelievable day of my life and I'm going to sleep tonight a different person to who I was when I woke up this morning. I wish a blog can do today justice, but it's one of those things you have to experience to believe. And I know I'm so lucky to have got to experience it because there's no way I'd be able to get my head around or properly appreciate this just hearing it from someone else's point of view.