My 5 Most Favourite Quotes Ever

Everyone likes a good inspirational/depressing/deep quote right?

Heart? Or mind? Always a difficult decision

I like to take every day as it comes. Nothing lasts forever

God wouldn't waste his time on it if it's not worth it

I am guilty of this oops

Life motto tbh. Thank you Audrey Hepburn

FIFA 15

*b/n* Is every 3 days often enough for posts? Because that's what I'm gonna do hehe

Hey y'all,

The newest version of Fifa has been out for a while now; I'm sure y'all are familiar with it. Anyway, this post isn't gonna be a review or anything, as it's been out for so long now I'm pretty sure the internet has been flooded with them already.

Aside from the fact that FIFA 15 is like amazing and my FUT (Fifa Ultimate Team) is like amazing too (well it's not amazing yet, but it's getting there), what I wanted to post about is the fact I locked myself out of my account. sad face.

You have to answer a security question, and I couldn't seem to remember what I previously wrote as the answer, and I left the resetting answer thing too late. Therefore, I am locked out of my account.

This literally broke my heart because my fifa is my life. I literally can't live without it. And yes, I am still a girl for any of you who are by now, questioning the authenticity of my gender.

So I had to contact the EA Sports customer services 4 times, which took about my whole day, Apparently they're going to fix it soon (but I don't know when soon is) and I really hope they do because my servers for FIFA 14 won't work (where I had quite an impressive squad line-up), and I'm really not mentally or physically prepared to start again from scratch.

I accept all pity should you feel it.

Sarah x

P.S. I thought I posted this two days ago but clearly I didn't oops

My Top 3 Smartphones

(Blogger's note)
Sorry I haven't written in like almost two weeks... It won't happen again I promise please forgive me


Okay so,

I am obsessed with technology and though I may not be the first to buy all the latest gadgets (through lack of funds, if you would like to sponsor me with money I am open to all offers... just kidding), I am always the first to know about them. That being said, I spend a lot of time looking at all the tech-specs of phones and the like, just because I have nothing better to do with my life. Here are my top 3 smartphones that are out in the UK market:

(I haven't personally used them all but I have decided according to the specifications & reviews etc.)

1. iPhone 6
If I took price into consideration this wouldn't even make it onto the list, as it is ridiculously priced in the UK. £539 is the cheapest we can talk about, whereas across the pond (USA) prices start from $199. In terms of the actual content though, everyone knows what there is to love about iPhones.

2. Samsung Galaxy S5
I mean it's super tough, which is particularly good if you regularly drop you phone in the toilet, bath, outside, down the back of the sofa, and just everywhere basically (I swear I'm not a phone abuser). It sports a 16MP camera, good enough for me, a quad core 2.5GHz processor (super super fast), a freaking 4K video camera (they also call 4K 'Ultimate HD') and a good battery life (excellent for an avid phone user aka me).

3. HTC One M8
I've always wanted a HTC One, because it was simple amazing, then the HTC One M8 came out and I was like woah. The only reason it's third is because I'd rather boast that I have and iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S5 to my amigos.

Sarah x

Bacon Crisps Review

Hey y'all

Today my blog post is gonna be about crisps! (or potato chips as you call them in most other parts of the work except the UK)

Specifically, bacon flavoured crisps (and they have to be either Walkers or McCoy's because all the rest are just rip-offs and taste like s**t)

Price: 55p, reasonable enough


Crisps to air ratio: Walkers - 10% crisps : 90% air   McCoy's - 50% crisps : 50% air


                                      Tastiness factor /10: off the scale


                                      Final verdict: fantabulous

Note;
I'm gonna be posting every other day from now on A homegirl's schedule is too busy for daily blog posts (ie. I like twitter too much)

Baby Names

I'm kinda obsessed with babies, and in turn, baby names. I once wrote all the ones I really liked and saved them on my phone in a memo... but then I accidentally deleted everything....

I think I managed to gather them all again though, yay! Basically I just spend hours on mum forums and look at everyone's ideas and yeah. Not weird at all.

I have a long way to go (8 years at least until I want to even start thinking about having a baby), but I just wanna be prepared you know? So I can present a list to my future partner and he can chose from my suggestions (obviously I'm gonna involve him but I'm not having my future children being called anything chavvy or ratchet like caightlynne or sharayrayquanda).

I want names that look nice written down because I feel like my name (Sarah) looks so ugly. It also has to original-ish (not too common but nothing out of the ordinary). I like using spellings that not so many people have, but at the same time I don't want everyone always spelling my child's name wrong. I also want my child/children to have at least one middle name, and the all the names (first, middle/s, and surname) have to sound right together.
I tend to be a bit pickier with girls' names because there's a lot more variety and idk.

Don't pretend you've never pondered on what you would call your children.... Multiple times. I'm guilty, you're guilty, we're all guilty, and so we might as well embrace it. Discuss it. Share ideas. You know?

I'll start:

Boys
Austin
Aaron
Calum
Cody
Connor
Cameron
Dylan
Jayden/Jaiden/Jaden
Jordan
Rhys
Tristan
Xavier
Zach

Girls
Abigail

Can I just point out that this is like the
 cutest thing ever

Alyssa
Annalise
Ashleigh
Brooke/Brooklynne
Kaylee/Kayleigh
Merrilee
Scarlett
Sienna
Skye

Guitars

Hey y'all,

Here's the deal with me and guitars: I've had one for about 7 years now, but I've only just started playing it properly, which is a shame since two of the strings (the high E and low E aka the top and bottom one) won't tune because their corresponding tuning keys are broken. This happened because I left it unsupervised in the same room as my little brother, who was 2 at the time.

Did I mention that he also snapped on of the strings? Yeah, that meant that I had to go through the trouble of re-stringing the whole damn guitar just to fix one snapped string.

Don't let me put you off though, this was just my carelessness. If you're thinking about getting a guitar, DO IT! There are a lot of relatively cheap, good quality guitars out there. Once you practice, you'll find that playing is about 100000000x easier than it looks, trust me, I'm your internet friend.

Anyway, I had previously focused all my main efforts on the piano, but now it have come to see that learning songs on the guitar is so much easier and quicker.... Well at least for me. However unfortunately, at present I am left with an, effectively, 4-string classical guitar. If at this point you are feeling somewhat sorry for me, it's all good! My dad offered to buy me a much better electro-acoustic guitar in my favourite colour... Blue!

I'll do a review of it when I get it; before the end of the month. (Don't judge I'm on a budget) >>>

Sarah x

P.S. Sorry for this lame post but I wanted to write something about guitars because I'm obsessed.

10 Things I Hate About The Supermarket

A bit of a weird topic to cover, but I go into Asda (virtually Wal-Mart if you're American) practically everyday, and unfortunately almost everything everyone does annoys me. Let's begin:

1. When people can't wait their turn to get the cookies
It doesn't have to be specifically cookies, but if I'm stood taking a closer look at something on the shelves, I don't want a big fat hand in my way! They're not going to grow legs and run away, you can wait until I'm done!

2. When shop assistants keep asking you if you need any help
No thank you, I am perfectly fine wandering up and down the same aisle a million times debating whether I should get starbursts or sour patch kids.

3. Aisle blockers
I understand things may be a bit hectic if you have a massive trolley, a pushchair, and three kids on your hands, but could you please move your problems to one side of the aisle? And then there's those people that want to spend all day having a chat and won't let you past even when you politely say 'excuse me'....

4. Children
I'm no baby hater, I love kids. But I don't want to hear your kid screaming at the top of their lungs for the entirety of my trip. And there's some children that seem to have parents that think it's perfectly okay for them to run around like animals and get in the way of strangers' shopping. They could get hurt! (Just thinking of their safety here)

5. The price
I don't get much when I go because I go so often, but let say I get a bag of about 5 items. It should cost £10 at the most. Only after I've payed I find out it cost £500 (exaggeration but still)

6. People collecting for charity at the exit

I give to charity, I'm not cold hearted. But I can't give money every time I leave a shop, especially since I hardly ever carry loose change around since I mainly use my card. And then they give you the 'you have no heart and deserve to rot in hell' look as you walk out without dropping any coins into their bucket.

7. People who go to the fast-lane with a whole years worth of shopping
The self-checkouts and fast-lane are there for people who only have a couple of small items and want to quickly get on with paying and leaving - NOT for people with enough food to feed an army.

8. That big massive thing
I don't know what to call it, but that huge trolley thing with products that staff re-stock the shelves with. The one that is literally as wide as the aisle itself. The one bigger than the actual supermarket.

9. Staff re-stocking the shelves
It's a job that has to be done, but does it have to be done the exact same time I want some cereal? They always take forever as well. What if I don't want to say 'excuse me can you move out of the damn way a sec I just need to grab some coco pops'?

10. "Oh wait! I forgot..." and "Let's put back the..."
Look here mate. I've spent 3 days waiting here because I thought you weren't gonna take that long. Clearly I was wrong, and not only have I wasted time waiting for all your stuff to be scanned, now I have to wait for you to get/return an item that lives on the other side of the damn store.

My Dream Holiday

Everyone daydreams about this - especially if you're like me, live in the UK, and spend most of your time staring at grey clouds and miserableness (or in other words, through your window).

As a professional daydreamer, I would like to give you all an insight to my dream holiday destination, and all the activities I plan to do while there (even though I'll probably never go because no money).

Brazil

I felt the need to put that in a larger, bold, italic and underlined font, solely because it is my ultimate favourite place. For some reason I just found myself in love with it. Everything about it. And yes, I am aware that it isn't as rosy as the advertisements want us to think.

Is anyone else the same? Do you ever just fall utterly and completely in love with something for an unknown reason?

In regards to the imaginary holiday, I have it all planned out. Since UK/Brazil is a long-haul flight, and requires a change over, I'll spend the three hours waiting time sleeping in the airport, like you do. I'll sleep some more on the flight from whatever European country to Brazil. Then, I'll check into the hotel, try not to get mugged at gunpoint, and, obviously, spend forever and three days at a Praia de Copacabana (Copacabana beach). I loathe anything above 25 degrees Celsius, but I'll brave it for Brazil.

In Brazil however, you can't not go the Cristo Redentor, or as we know it, the Christ The Redeemer statue in the cidade maravilhosa (wonderful city) of Rio de Janeiro. I'll have to go in February though, because that is when Carnaval (carnival) is. This will probably inspire me to learn some samba, despite the fact I can't dance to save my life.

I'll make a point of visiting a churrascaria (steak house) and filling myself until I literally look like a pig, because the waiters go around the tables and serve you yet more grilled meat approximately every 5 minutes. Obviously I'm going to have to watch a football game, preferably one where a Seleção Brasileira (the Brazilian National team) are playing.

The next thing on the to-do list will clearly be to go to the depths of the Amazônia (I don't think I need to elaborate on that one) and sleep with the Amazonian tribes and let all the tribal children decorate me in tribal colours and tribal attire (don't judge me, a girl can dream).

What about your dream holiday?

Sarah x

Immersion

Hey y'all,

This is a continuation of my last post, but focuses on how I immerse myself in a língua de português (the language of portuguese). Immersion is the NUMBER ONE thing to do when staying in the country for a few months isn't an option. Its not as valuable as actually being in an environment where the language is spoken as a mother tongue, but hey. Here are my tips, and though it's based on learning Brazilian Portuguese, most of them can apply to any language:

 1. TV
There is only one Brazilian channel on my tv (Record), but I certainly make the most of it. It's not the main network in Brazil, but it offers enough for me to feel like a Brazilian; novelas (their equivalent to soap operas); talk shows; children's cartoons; the news; entertainment shows etc. Not bad if you ask me. If you have a selection of international tv channels on your tv, this is perfect.

2. Movies
Anyone can go on YouTube and watch a complete movie in the language of your choice, which makes it ideal for free immersion. I do it all the time! Try and watch movies that are recent if you're aiming to speak quite colloquially, because then you will pick up some speech from situations that might happen to you everyday, but what the books either aren't quite up-to-date with, or are too scared to write.

3. Books and Magazines
With the new technologies of the 21st century, everything is available online, including books and magazines. In regards to books, I read children's ones because quite frankly, I'm not advanced enough in Portuguese vocabulary to understand half the stuff in adults books. It helps a lot with reading skills. E-magazines work in the same way as movies, but in writing obviously. Especially those with more... explicit content.

4. Social Networking

Twitter is particularly good for this. I set my location for trending topics to Brazil, and suddenly I can pretend I'm Brazilian to people that don't know otherwise. I'll just look at what's trending at that moment, and take part in conversation by tweeting whatever hashtags. I find it useful because it helps you understand all the internet abbreviations and slang (since I'm not learning for a business meeting) and helps with writing skills. Long Instagram captions in another language also make good reads.

5. The Internet
THE INTERNET! It has everything literally. I watch a vast amount of Brazilian youtubers' videos, for colloquialism and to improve on my listening skills. I hardly ever google anything in English now, unless it's about something specifically British. I personally find it very easy to read full articles, whatever the topic, in Portuguese without the aid of google translate, even though for whatever strange reason I can't write a full article in the the language.

6. Talk to Yourself
As odd as this may seem (and probably is), I tend to have dialogues with myself in Portuguese. I'm too socially awkward for skype, so this is the only way I can practice formulating sentences like a native and speaking. I often read stuff in Portuguese aloud, to practice the flow of the language. They speak quite quickly and words get smushed into each other and that's something you don't learn from Rosetta Stone (not that I use it, because I can't afford it). The tv and the movies and the YouTube should demonstrate what it's supposed to sound like when said correctly.

What I'm basically trying to say is that anything that you can find that is in the language you want to learn is your friend.

Sarah x

How I'm Learning Portuguese

Okay like no-one asked (I wasn't really expecting anyone to anyway) but I can't think of anything else to blog about this week so here ya go:

I discovered Babbel >>> earlier this year, because I wanted to increase my Spanish vocab (since school Spanish only teaches you how to say certain things).
Mini Babbel Review:
You join for free, and have access to the first lesson of every course module of free (I'll post a picture explaining at the end). To buy access to all courses - there are currently 8 courses for Spanish and 6 for Portuguese - you have four subscription options: £8.95 for 1 month, £17.85 for 3 months, £29.70 for 6 months and £53.40 for a year. Within each course there are many sub-courses and modules. The content is based on proper framework, so it's basically like walking into a language class, just without a teacher and on your laptop, phone etc. The website also includes a chat board and a friends tab, so you can practice interacting with people from all over the world. It's available as an app on iOS, Android, Kindle Fire and Windows.
Personally I think Babbel is excellent if you want to learn as if you are being taught in a language class (although I had to consult Google for a few of the grammar rules that Babbel didn't explain very well), and it's a bargain for the price in comparison to £200+ of Rosetta Stone.

(I'll link the site at the bottom (check it out to see prices in your country or browse the 10+ languages it has to offer)) 

Another platform I use is DuoLingo which I thought was going to be rubbish because it's totally free, but is actually really good.
Mini DuoLingo Review
Once I found out that DuoLingo was chosen as iPhone App of the Year by Apple, I was like WOAH OMG I GOTTA CHECK THIS OUT. You can access it on the web (I'll link it at the end) and as an app on iOS and Android devices. I've only been using it for 2-3 weeks, and so far so good. It uses gamification (check it out to see what I mean) and is more for giving you words, phrases and sentences to use. In each thing (for lack of better word to use), you either read, write, listen and possibly speak about 10-15 words, phrases, or sentences. It really is quite fun to use, On the web version, there discussion and immersion tabs, which I find really good. The immersion tab lets you translate thousands of different sources; wikipedia pages; news/magazine articles etc, and trust me, it isn't as bad as it sounds.

Those are the two educational platforms I use to learn, but I do a lot more to help me achieve close fluency, which I will explain in my next post, so watch out for that one!

Sarah x

LINKS 

babbel.com

duolingo.com