Author: Courtney Shek

#DearMe – A Letter to my Younger Self

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

I’m a little bit late with this since International Women’s Day was yesterday and the YouTube campaign has stopped and everything but I have decided to take part anyway because it seems like such a great concept to me and it not only helps yourself but also helps many other people too. 🙂

Dear Me,
I have never been the best at giving advice but I think if I was going to advise anyone I think the best person would be to advise myself. So that’s what I’m going to do.
The first thing I’d like to say to my younger self is that it’s okay to want to spend time on your own. You might think it’s weird when you get days when you don’t want to talk to anyone and just want to shut yourself away and be invisible and that is okay. You are just not a people person. It’s not anything to feel bad about and it is okay to turn down plans if you aren’t feeling up to them. Your friends will understand, it’s just that sometimes you just need to take the day to yourself and just be.
On the other side of that it is also okay to want to be heard. If you have an opinion don’t be afraid to speak up and share it. Even if you are worried about people getting offended you have a right to say how you feel. Almost 99% of the time you say something someone is going to disagree but you just have to stand your ground and stay true to what you believe in. It is also important to be careful with the way you word things, while it’s important to be heard it is also important to be mindful of other people. Don’t go out of your way to purposely hurt someone with your words. Respect that they have a different opinion from yours.
Also stay away from the internet when you are angry. It is okay to rant when you are angry, it is okay to have negative thoughts from time to time but try not to share them with the world. I know I’ve always found comfort in sharing my thoughts online but if they are hurtful and rude I would keep them to myself. Spreading hatred online can only lead to trouble and you have no idea how the person you are aiming these things toward feels on the other side. 
It is also best not to indirect post about other people. You might be angry with someone about something and you think the best way to let them know you’re angry is to talk about them indirectly. That’s the opposite of what you should do. I know I’ve never liked confrontation but it is better to talk directly to the person you have an issue with rather than tell everyone else but that person. Having open communication with people can make relationships a lot easier and save a ton of drama.
I would also advise my younger self not to worry so much about other people. It is okay to care about your friends and worry about them from time to time but you can’t force them to get help or change. So don’t worry so much you put their needs before your own because this can have a negative effect on you too. All you can do is be there for your friends and give them advice but it is their choice whether to take the advice you give. The most you can do is do your best to help them but  you can’t control what they do with their lives. So while you may not agree with everything they do, you should accept them for who they are and hope they will make the right choices for themselves.
It is also okay to let go of the past and the people in it. I know it’s hard to let people out of your life but sometimes it’s for the best. You shouldn’t be holding onto people in your past if it is stopping you from living in the present. While yes, you have great memories with these people you have to accept that that’s what they are, memories. You can always look back and enjoy the time you had with them but at the end of the day if things didn’t work out it’s okay to move on. It just takes time.
And the last piece of advice I would give to my younger self is be yourself. Don’t be discouraged by people around you that don’t like who you are. Don’t let them influence how you live your life because they aren’t the ones living it. Find what you love and do it. It is always best to stand out on your own rather than follow the crowd. Be proud to be different and embrace it. Because it’s your life and you have to live it, no one else. So don’t be ashamed of doing what you love, don’t be embarrassed if you don’t like what everyone else likes. As long as you’re happy with your life, that’s all that matters.
Love, Courtney x

And so there’s my letter to my younger self. I am sure I would have so many more things to add but I think this covers a lot of it.
I hope you guys enjoyed reading this advice I’d give to my younger self and that you can relate to it and it helps you in some way. I’d also love to know if you have any advice you would give to your younger self because I think even when we are older we still forget basic advice like this. Especially when you are still growing up like me…
Thanks so much for reading. 🙂
~ Courtney x

Girl Online Book Review!

~ Courtney Shek ~ 1 Comment

It took me a long time to get around to reading it but I finally finished Girl Online!
Girl Online is a fictional book written by British YouTuber Zoella and I have to say I was so excited when I heard she was writing a book! I mean I have been excited for every YouTuber book coming out but I was very excited to learn that Zoe’s was a fictional book. Almost every other YouTuber is writing an autobiography/lifestyle type book so I was interested in seeing how Zoe’s was different from everyone else’s.
And before I get into the review of the actual book I just want to say that the cover of this book is stunning. The cover of the book is actually the whole reason I bought my own physical copy. I was originally going to buy a kindle version of the book because it was cheaper at the time but once I saw the cover I changed my mind and when I went to change my preorder the physical copy had went down in price so it was close to the kindle version’s price so I was very happy about that.

So I know that a lot of people were upset to learn that Zoe’s book had a ghost writer…and I just want to address my thoughts on that. I don’t really have a problem with the fact that she had one. I mean if she had help to make her novel she had help, there’s no shame in admitting that. Plus I think it’s a bit much to have high expectations for someone who has little writing experience to be a best-selling author right off the bat. Besides she’s not the first person to have a ghost writer…
However I do understand why people would get upset about the fact she didn’t write it on her own. I have to admit I was a little upset about this but only because other YouTubers that are writing books have done it on their own. The difference being that their genre of book is different from Zoe’s. Other YouTubers are writing about themselves which is easy to do but Zoe is writing fiction so it’s understandable why she would turn for help.
At least that’s just what I think about the whole thing. While I wish she hadn’t used a ghost writer there’s nothing I can do about it. I mean I know if I was in her position I’d probably do the same thing. So yeah…moving on to the actual story…

Penny has a secret.
Under the alias Girl Online, Penny blogs her hidden feelings about friendship, boys, high school drama, her crazy family, and the panic attacks that have begun to take over her life. When things go from bad to worse, her family whisks her away to New York, where she meets Noah, a gorgeous, guitar-strumming American. Suddenly Penny is falling in love – and capturing every moment of it on her blog.
But Noah has a secret, too, one that threatens to ruin Penny’s cover – and her closest friendship – forever. 
– Girl Online Blurb (source)

As soon as I read the blurb I was interested in this story… and I was so excited to finally begin reading it and while I did enjoy the story I didn’t like it as much as I thought I was going to.
To me it felt like this book was written for a younger age group. The style of the writing is simple and the whole storyline turned out to be a tiny bit anti-climactic for me.
I thought that the beginning of the book was good, I liked the style of writing for Penny’s blogs and I found this aspect of Penny very relatable. As someone who also enjoys blogging and understands the need to put your thoughts out there for even one person to read I did enjoy this part of the book. I also found the reason for Penny going to New York understandable…
I have never had a video of me go viral before but if it did I’d probably flee the country too. Especially if it was that embarrassing.
Another thing I found relatable about Penny is her struggle with friendships. I’m sure we’ve all been there. When we have to decide when it’s time to stop being friends with someone or you’ve “outgrown” them. It’s something everyone has to do in their lives and I liked the way this is handled in the book. However not all fake friends are as easy to spot in real life as they are in the book.
Something that I wasn’t able to relate to is Penny suffering from panic attacks. I don’t suffer from a lot of anxiety but I do understand that a lot of people do. This book gave me an insight into what it’s like for someone who might be dealing with anxiety and I found this really interesting. I also liked that there was advice on how to deal with anxiety in the book. I thought this was important especially since Zoe has suffered from anxiety and panic attacks her whole life.
As the book goes on and Penny and Noah spend more and more time together I found the book was getting a little bit boring. I just thought that nothing really happened in that time she spent Christmas and New Year’s with him. And I know not every part of a book has to be exciting but I was just waiting for the time when Penny would finally learn about Noah’s secret…
Throughout the book I had my own ideas about what his secret might be. I think I was thinking too outside the box and have been reading/watching too many vampire things because I thought he was going to be a vampire or some other supernatural being….Or I thought he was going to find out about Penny’s blog or that he was actually a criminal or something really crazy and unexpected.
My friend Bryce actually came up with the idea that Noah was really gay and was going to end up with Penny’s gay best friend Elliot which would have been quite funny but also kind of mean.
But none of those things were Noah’s big secret.
I do have to say when I found out what his secret was I was a little bit sad. I mean I wasn’t expecting his secret to be what it was but I was expecting something a lot bigger. Which is why I felt like it was a little anti-climactic.
I was also surprised that we only find this out about 3/4s of the way through the book…I thought we’d find out sooner than that.
After that I felt like everything just happened in a blur. Which I guess is how it’s meant to feel but to me everything just seemed to be happening too fast. Faster than the rest of the book and I feel like it caused them to brush past some more important issues.
For example what Elliot was going through with his father. I feel like it should have been something that was put into more detail. I know that he’s not the main character in this book but if he is dealing with a serious problem like that I think maybe there should have been more about it…I feel like it was a little bit random to have in the midst of everything else towards the end.
However I did like the way that Penny took control of her situation and dealt with the cyber bullying. It also teaches you the lesson that while anyone can make up a rumour about you only you know the truth and that’s all that really matters. As long as you and the people you’re close to know the truth it doesn’t really matter what other people think and I think that’s a really important message to have. Especially if you are someone who does put themselves out there, on the internet or in real life.
As for the ending of the book…it was predictable. Which I didn’t mind because I do prefer happy endings more than sad ones. And for a book like this I didn’t expect there to be a sad ending. I also know that when two people go through so much together it does seem like a waste for them not to end up together. However sometimes that’s for the better but not in this case.
Overall I’d say the book was okay. I didn’t really hate it but I didn’t love it either…like I said before I really felt like the book was aimed at a younger audience just because of the style of writing and the way the story played out…I did however think the love story between Noah and Penny was quite cute but I’m a sucker for any type of love story.
Now the real question is…will I be buying the sequel? I wasn’t actually aware of the sequel until one day I was on Amazon and it came up as a recommended item for me. But I think I’ll have to wait to find out what the sequel is about before I consider buying it. Considering how I felt about this book I’m not sure if I will immediately jump at the chance to get the sequel but I guess we shall see when the time comes.
If you guys have read Girl Online please leave me a comment letting me know what you thought and also let me know if you will be buying the sequel when it comes out because I’d be interested to know.
And until the next blog post I bid you adieu 🙂
~ Courtney x

My Strange Friends and Picking Photos! | Pages 188, 25, 6 & 154 | The Pointless Book

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment

This is my first Pointless Book blog post for this blog!
If you want to see my previous Pointless Book blog posts click here.
So with this Pointless Book video I took my book into school and asked my friends to fill in some things and it got a little weird…
The first page I asked them to fill in was the one where you ask a friend to describe you in 3 words. I didn’t ask just one of my friends, I asked three so I have three phrases below which are supposed to describe me:

The first one was written by my friend Georgie and she says I am “dedicated to FSOG” for those who don’t know FSOG is the abbreviation of Fifty Shades of Grey and if you follow me on Twitter you can see this is a pretty accurate statement haha.
The second one is written by my friend Megan and she says I am a “vlogging-obsessed fangirl” which is very true. I started my YouTube channel almost a year ago and I have become obsessed with vlogging…and I have been a fangirl for about 8 years now…
And finally the last one was written by my friend Ashleigh and she says that I am a “lover of Ashizzle” which basically means I love Ashleigh. Again true, we are really good friends and I love her a lot.
So all in all it is safe to say my friends know me pretty well. Then again I feel like if you just went on my Twitter you’d know these things about me. Apart from my love for Ashleigh you might have been unclear about that until now lol.
The next page that I asked my friends to fill in is the one where you ask a friend to write a message and swap pages with them. Now because none of my friends have a Pointless Book I decided just to let them write a message in my book and I would share it with you all and I have three messages as shown below:
The first and last messages were written by my friend Ashleigh. As you can see she is very open with her feelings for me haha.
The middle one is written by my friend Victoria who had some requests to make. This was done a while ago before Christmas and so this is why she is calling me Santa lol.
And that is what my friends got up to with my Pointless Book. I basically just handed them the book and asked them to write something it’s amazing it was as calm as that I can imagine it could have been much worse haha.
The next two pages I did were to stick in photos and this was an easy task. These are the two pages:
                  
The first one is a photo of me and my friends from 3rd year which was like four years ago…I have to say we look a little bit different now haha but mostly the same. It’s the first photo we have of all six of us together so it’s a very significant time. Especially since these were my first secondary school friends, I’m still friends with all of them even if some of them don’t go to the same school anymore but we’ve had lots of fun over the years. That’s why I decided to add this photo to my book.

The next photo is a really old photo of me from when I was younger haha. I don’t remember anything about this photo, I just know it’s me and my sister found it a while back and posted it on Facebook and I thought I would share it with you guys. At least it’s not too embarrassing.

And this concludes my first Pointless Book blog post for this blog! Woo!
Like always I did make a YouTube video of me talking about these pages so if you would like to see that you can click below – I say the same things in my blog posts as I do in my videos but I feel like if I do both then the event is documented very efficiently. There’s no need for both but I feel like I should have them both haha.
~ Courtney x

Grace’s Guide: The Art of Pretending to be a Grown Up Book Review

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment
Hey guys so today I am going to be giving you a review of Grace Helbig’s book. I have been meaning to write this book review for about 2 weeks now and I apologise that it has taken me so long to sit down and write it.


The first thing I would like to comment on is the name of the book. It is very long. I don’t really have a problem with that other than when you try to post something on the internet talking about the book you usually have to shorten the title to “Grace’s guidebook”. Which is kind of sad because the full title of the book is one of the main reasons the book appealed to me.
For those of you who don’t know I am currently 17, in my last year of secondary school and currently have no idea what I am doing with my life. So the fact that one of the YouTubers I watch has released a self-help book on how to pretend to be an adult seems kind of perfect. I don’t know if it’s the best advice in the world but I think that it can be useful for the future. 
Anyway, you might think that it’s weird to read a self-help book all in one go, especially Grace’s which is split up into different sections. I have to say it was a lot of advice and information to take in at once but I wanted to get an idea of the type of advice she could give me so that if I ever did need advice on a particular subject I knew that Grace would be able to help.

Overall I would say that Grace actually did provide me with some helpful advice for the future. I mean I didn’t think she would give bad advice but at the same time I didn’t know if the advice would be suitable for me. Some of the topics Grace covered in her books I have yet to experience in my life and so I can’t put that advice into effect until these things happen to me for example, how to do the walk of shame.
Most of the advice that Grace gives in the book is actually quite simple. They are little things that you often forget while you are going through life and it is really nice to be reminded about them. For example when you are on the internet, don’t post your personal information such as your address, social security number, bank details…that kind of thing. 
To be honest I wasn’t expecting life changing advice from this book, if you know Grace then you know she isn’t a very serious person and she tends not to like to get too deep and meaningful – a perfect example of this is her podcast “Not Too Deep“. Not that I minded if the advice wasn’t that good. I was more interested in buying the book to support Grace (as a YouTube fangirl I will support YouTubers by buying their merchandise if it appeals to me even a little) and to learn more about her.
While the advice wasn’t completely life changing it was very helpful. As someone who is socially awkward and avoids being in public a lot I found Grace’s tips on how to host parties very useful. There are some things that she mentions in her book that you wouldn’t even begin to consider when you are preparing to do something, like when you are going for a job interview it is important to ask questions back rather than just answer your questions that way you seem more invested. I would never do that, but thanks to Grace’s book I will do it in the future.
As I mentioned before Grace covers a lot of aspects of being an adult in her book and at the beginning of each section of the book she will write an introduction and share a story or two of her experience regarding that particular topic. I really enjoyed these introductions as they allowed me to learn a lot more about Grace as a person which was really nice. It was nice to learn more about her real life and not just the YouTuber personality we see in her videos. Although as you read the book you discover that Grace doesn’t really have a YouTube personality and that the person you see in her videos is the real deal.
Another thing I really enjoyed about Grace’s book were the photographs, because who doesn’t love a book with pictures? They were very funny and adorable and just very “Grace”. Below are some of the photos within Grace’s book so that you can see what they are like:

Another enjoyable thing about Grace’s book is that at the end of each section she would have made an acronym for all of the advice that she gave on a topic. This means that it would be easier to remember her advice as well as produce random funny words at the end of the book sections. I have no idea how she came up with those acronyms but they are definitely memorable which means I won’t be forgetting any of the tips and tricks on how to decorate like an adult anytime soon.

And with that I think I have said everything that I want to say. The only thing to say is that the writing style is very casual and easy to understand, I noticed that the style of writing is in the style of how Grace would speak naturally so reading her book is just like watching one of her YouTube videos which I think made the whole book more enjoyable. It is surprising how well Grace’s sarcasm can come across based on the style of her writing. That or I have been watching so many of her videos that I can always tell when she is being sarcastic, even through written language.
Oh! That’s another thing that I enjoyed, Grace’s sense of humour. I don’t know if everyone enjoys Grace’s puns and bad jokes but I do. I might not laugh out loud at them but I do appreciate them and I imagine that if the book didn’t contain these puns or jokes that it wouldn’t have been Grace that wrote it.
And now I think that I have said everything I wanted to say. Overall I really did enjoy Grace’s book and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes Grace Helbig’s videos or is struggling to become an adult like myself haha. Will I ever use her advice in real life? I think I will. I might not follow it exactly to the letter but I will definitely think about it because like I said it can be useful. I just think it depends on the type of person you are and if you can apply the advice to your life.
And so yeah…I never really know how to end my blog posts. I just sort of drift off at the end and stop writing haha. I need to think of a better way to end them. But until then I hope you guys liked my thoughts on Grace’s book. Let me know in the comments below if you have read Graces book and what you think of it and I hope you will come back for the next blog post! Whatever that may be…
~ Courtney x

Failing at Being a YouTuber

~ Courtney Shek ~ Leave a comment
So I guess there is no right or wrong way to be a YouTuber. But lately I have been feeling that I have not been doing my best and so I thought it would be best to make a video explaining why…apart from the fact when I tried to film the video I could not talk properly and explain what I wanted to say very clearly. And so after take 105 (give or take one or two) I decided to give up and make a blog post about it.
Sometimes things are easier to express through written word rather than spoken word. Especially if you are having a day like me.
And so…below is what is going on with me and my YouTube channel right now. I hope you understand.
My Let’s Plays
The first video I posted on YouTube was a Let’s Play video. That was how I wanted to start making YouTube videos. I thought if I became confident with that I could go on to make other types of videos. And while I have been making new content, I have always stuck by my Let’s Plays. Until now it seems.
I know I haven’t posted a new Let’s Play in over a month and for that I really feel bad about. It’s always in the back of my mind as something I should do but lately I haven’t had the time or energy….
I don’t know if anyone else has tried to film a Let’s Play but the way that I do it, I usually play for about an hour to 40 minutes…and then I spend about twice as long editing.
I have to admit there’s not a lot of editing involved in my Let’s Plays but it is still a lot of work. Especially when you are trying to do school work at the same time and you don’t actually sleep very much because you’re addicted to the internet.
Also I am a bit hesitant to go back to my Let’s Plays as my computer has recently been having issues and had to be reset to its factory settings. I did do a backup of everything before this took place and everything has been reinstalled but I have a horrible feeling that I didn’t backup my save games correctly which could mean restarting.
This isn’t such a huge thing for my Sims 4 Let’s Play but it is for my Animal Crossing one…
I guess we’ll find out soon as I plan to get back on my Let’s Plays as soon as possible. Hopefully I backed everything up correctly. I wouldn’t want to be starting from scratch.
Birchbox Unboxing
I would just like to put it out there that my next Birchbox Unboxing will be my last. I have decided to cancel my Birchbox subscription due to the fact that recently the products they have been sending me I don’t actually use. I usually end up giving them to my sister and so it doesn’t really benefit me. And because I have been paying it with my own money I think it would be better to stop the service if I am not getting anything out of it anymore.
I will miss getting a package every month and not knowing what’s inside but I really just don’t think I need it….But it was nice while it lasted. 🙂
Everything Else
So I know I haven’t been consistently posting videos at all…and while I like to think I have some sort of schedule in my head I really don’t. My ideal would be that I could post 5 videos a week like I did over summer but I know that’s not realistic. Other than that I don’t really have plans for a schedule.
I think the reason I don’t like to schedule my videos is because I don’t want to be posting loads of pre-recorded videos. I like to have my videos going up as soon as I film them or a few days after. Otherwise I feel like they are no longer relevant…
As for my Let’s Play schedule of only posting them on Monday…I feel like that’s just out the window. I haven’t been posting Let’s Plays on Monday for a long time now and I’ve come to realise that I will probably never get them up when I say they should go up.
I just don’t think I’m the type of person to do scheduled videos….
Sometimes I’ll feel like filming a bunch of videos, sometimes I can barely get two words out before I am stumbling over my words and struggling think of what to say next. There really is no in between.
So I hope that you enjoy the random times I choose to post videos.
I think that only a few people can actually get away with posting randomly whenever they want but I hope I can be one of them. I don’t want to be limited to a schedule. Especially one I know I won’t stick to…
And so yeah…I think that’s everything. If you have been following me on Twitter you have probably been learning more about these things as they have been happening but I know it’s kind of hard to follow my actual life between my fangirl tweets. But I hope this cleared some things up.
Like I said this would have been a YouTube video but I really struggled to film it so I decided to it this way instead.
If you guys like this type of blog post let me know and maybe I’ll do more. Sometimes I think it’s a lot easier to write a blog post rather than trying to film a video. At least this way my hair doesn’t have to look good, the lighting can be terrible and I could be in my pyjamas for all you know haha.
Still, I promise that there are more videos to come, I still have some pre-recorded to share with you and this will allow me to film some more videos.
So yeah, thanks again for hearing me out on these things. I promise I won’t make excuses like this all the time but I feel like there were just some things that needed explaining.
If you guys have any more questions or queries feel free to leave me a comment or tweet me or something, I do read everything. And until next time, I’ll see you in my next blog post. 🙂

~ Courtney x