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The End of an Era.


So, here we are. I can't believe it has been 5 years of Chelle Belle. I started this page at the age of 16, still at school doing my GCSEs. I thought it would be a great creative outlet, where I could write for pleasure but also have some sort of impact on readers. I had no niche in mind, just lots of random ideas and a fire in me to publish them. Here I am now 22-years old, about to start my journey as an English teacher, a lot more grown-up, and a burning fire to find my next passion. 


I cannot thank you all enough for the support I've had over the years. Thank you for every post you've read, shared and commented on. I never would have thought this blog would reach the lengths it has. I mean, over 65,000 reads....INSANE. 


This page has been a huge part of my life growing into the woman I have become and even though I won't be posting anymore content, I know it will be a huge contribution to the woman I'll become from now. I've had the most amount of fun blogging and I've learnt so many things whilst doing it. I truly applaud every full time blogger out there, because believe me, it is not as easy as it seems. There is more to it than just writing and clicking publish. It takes so much time and effort to maintain a page like this, and I can only imagine it to be even more so when your bills are reliant on consistency. I've definitely slacked on posting over the past year or two due to other commitments, but I'm glad that I've had such an understanding community. 


I started this with no qualifications and you've witnessed me achieve my GCSEs, A-levels and now a Bachelors Degree. I started with just a few experiences, and now I have many more under my belt. I started with no views or followers and now I have a small community. A community I am immensely grateful for and I hope to stay in contact with on my other socials! 


Saying goodbye to this page almost feels like saying goodbye to my childhood self. With it being my 22nd birthday the day this goes up, it feels appropriate to end this era today. 


This page has been a form of therapy at times and I cannot put into words how much it has impacted my life in the most positive ways. I love reading old posts back and reflecting on who I was/where I was at the time of writing it. I also love seeing how much my mindset has evolved from the age of 16 to 22. Not just that, but my voice too. I always said I wanted this page to be more like a conversation rather than essays, and I really hope I did that justice. I hope it felt as personal to you as it did to me. 


I plan to leave all my posts up and I won't be deleting this page, so if you ever want to read some of them back again, feel free. I'll be right there with you. 


My tagline for this page was 'finding joy in the journey" and it's crazy how fitting it is. I really have, and once again I want to thank you for being a part of it. 


So, for the very last time.....


Thanks for reading,

Have a great day x 


My Final Year University Experience: Accommodation


This is the final post within my university experience series! If you haven't read my previous three (Academia, Social Life and Finances), click the links, which will take you straight to them. This final post will be short and sweet once again, focusing on my living situation during my final year. 

My Final Year University Experience: Finances


This is the third post of my final year university experience series. The first post was focused on the academic side, where I discussed each module, my dissertation and my final degree result. My second post was focused on the social side of university, which was very different to previous years due to the pandemic. If you haven't read those two yet, click the links and check them out.

This third post is going to be short and sweet. It's all about my financial position during the year. To find out how I coped with my finances, just keep reading.

My Final Year University Experience: Social Life


Welcome or welcome back! This is the second post within my final year experience series. If you haven't read the first, click here to read. The first post was all about the academic side of my final year. I talked about each module in detail, shared my results and plans for the future. This post will focus on the social side of uni, which has been very different in comparison to previous years due to the pandemic. If you want to know how my social life has been during my third year, just keep reading. 

Things I Did Whilst Self Isolating

I think we can agree that quarantine was a strange time. Not having the freedom to go out and live life like "normal" wasn't an easy adjustment but I decided to make a list of the things I did whilst self-isolating. I have been adding to this list since lock-down began and reading it back made me smile. Despite the year not being what any of us planned, honestly 2020 has still been memorable in good ways. This list consists of things that I did in lockdown 1, 2 and 3 (yikes). If you didn't know, England went into national lockdown three times. The first being between March and July, the second, November-December and then January 2021 - April. Now we are finally starting to get back to normal life, with everything being open and mass gatherings becoming legal again. In light of "freedom", I thought it would be a great time to post this. 

My Final Year University Experience: Academia


Today we kickstart the long awaited final year university experience posts. I thought I would start with the academic aspect this year, since it has been the most prominent. If you've not read my previous sets from First and Second year, the way that this series works is that I share my annual experience in separate posts, focusing on Academia, Social life, Finances and Accommodation. I studied Bsc English Language at Aston University, in Birmingham. 


In this post, I will be discussing my thoughts around online content, share a breakdown of each module and the grades achieved, as well as my plans for the near future. Grab your snacks because this is going to be a long one. If you want to know how my year has been, just keep reading. 

Glowing up isn't fun.



It has been a little while since I've written an opinion post. I listened to a podcast episode a couple weeks ago (click here to listen), which really inspired me to write about this topic. In this generation, the "glow up" transformation is often glorified and romanticized without regard for what the process actually entails. Today I just wanted to share my thoughts on my experience going through growth and character development. This will only be brief, as I could talk about this for AGES. If you want a more in-depth discussion on it, I would HIGHLY recommend listening to the 'To My Sisters' podcast episode. I agreed with absolutely everything mentioned, and some of those points will be made in this article today. 


Disclaimer: As mentioned this is an opinion post and is based on my own experience, so it may differ to yours. Everybody's journey of growth varies, so please bare that in mind when reading this.


The WORST 2010s Fashion Trends


I don't really do fashion posts on this blog because I wouldn't consider myself to be all that fashionable, however I thought I would make an exception here since today we are going to talk about BAD fashion phases most of us raised in the 2010s, unfortunately wore. This was inspired by a YouTube video I came across, that was talking about how fashion recycles itself every 20 years or so, and today's aesthetics are inspired by the early 2000s and also the 70s. It got me thinking about how much I DREAD the day 2010s fashion comes full circle. So this post is going to be a deep dive into the wardrobes of 2010s teens. Let's cringe together shall we. 

Life Update - May 2021

Hey guys! 

Over the last few months I've been pretty inconsistent over on this side of the internet. Apologies for that, but allow me to explain...

P.S. I Love You Book Review [NO SPOILERS]



A new book review! About time ay? Today's post is a review for P.S. I Love You by Cecilia Ahern. This book was on my TBR for a little while and I finally got around to cracking it open. I decided to read it last month since it was the month of loooove. I tend to read at least one romance novel in the month of February since it's pretty fitting. This book is slightly different though, as it's not like your generic romance novel. It is more about letting go of your past love and going through grief. If you want to know more about it, then just keep reading. 

It's OK to hurt


So, I was responding to a story by Aimée (check out her blog and Instagram because she is the sweetest), and it really sparked sudden inspiration to write a blog post. If you had told me this time last year, that we would end up in a global pandemic, resulting in a third national lockdown, I would not believe you. It's truly a bizarre situation that sounds like it came straight out of a wattpad novel. But here we are. We're living in very strange times and everything is all up in the air. Our Prime Minister seems to be struggling to control....well anything to be honest, we've made barely any progression since the first lockdown in March BUT we're expected to just pretend like it's not changing everything. Here is the truth that too many people seem to be glossing over. Things have changed and it will never be the same. Extremely hard pill to swallow. The toughest steak to chew. The hardest carb to digest. We're expected to just carry on as normal, as if things aren't changing rapidly everyday. This blog post is essentially just some encouragement and advice on how to cope with that. 


Disclaimer: How YOU deal with this pandemic is completely up to you. We are all going through the same experience but from different angles and lenses. Don't feel pressured to deal with things a certain way, because it seems like that is the way to do it. Don't feel silly for struggling more than the person next to you may be. Don't feel like you have to be "productive" and carry on like nothing is happening, if that isn't helping you get through it. Even though what I'm about to tell you really changed things for me and did wonders, doesn't mean you have to do it. This is your own experience, so handle it the way you think is best. 


So, I've got the hard truth out of the way, but lets get a little deeper. We all have a vision of what we want life to look like and how we think it will go. This pandemic has truly taught us that no matter how much we think we are in control of our life, ultimately we aren't. We don't get to choose how life goes but we do have this wonderful ability to adapt. Adapting is one of the most powerful things we get to do in life. We can turn a terrible situation into a good one, simply with our mindset. It's all about perspective. Looking at the same situation with a different lens and using different tools to navigate life is truly the best way to still live the life you want, even if it wasn't the original plan. Life can still be fruitful and amazing, it may just be a little different. However, I would argue that there is an important step you have to do before you can adapt, and that is grieve. 


Right now, we are watching the lives we built and envisioned crumble and fall apart, and it is truly beyond our control. Businesses are going bust, people are losing loved ones, mental health is becoming harder to maintain. It's not an ideal situation at all and we really need to stop pretending like it's not a loss. It's a HUGE loss. I've been excited for a graduation since I was in school and suddenly I'm being told that the reality is, I won't get that experience. I won't get to walk across the stage in a cap and gown, receiving the degree I worked so hard for. People are getting married to the love of their life but when they planned to have 200 guests, now have to pick like 15 people or however many it is. People are becoming parents and their child isn't even able to meet grandparents or have play dates with other babies. People are losing family and friends and they can't even have a proper send off. IT'S TRAUMATIC. What we are experiencing is traumatic. It may not be as traumatic as other things that society has dealt with but it is a tragedy. It's traumatic to be scared of catching or passing a deadly virus just in a supermarket. It's traumatic to not see your friends or even family for almost a year. It's traumatic to lose the life you thought you would have. I'm in my early 20s and I've seen my friends more over FaceTime than I have in person. I've had to spend my final year of university online and haven't been to a single social in almost a year. It's tough and we have to let ourselves grieve. 


Allow yourself to grieve the life you're not living. Allow yourself to grieve the life you may never get to live. Now I'm not saying you can't live an amazing life, and that life won't eventually be fun again, but the reality is that it won't be the same. There will be a new normal and it all goes back to adapting. But before you can embrace change, you have to mourn the past. You have to let yourself be angry at what is happening. You have to let yourself cry. You have to let yourself think. It's OK to hurt. In fact, it's healthy to hurt. It's healthy to feel things. Don't feel like you have to just carry on and go with the flow. Let yourself mourn. We're mourning losses. Everyone is mourning something and the only way we can see the light at the end of the tunnel is to walk through the darkness. Being positive isn't about avoiding or denying the negative, it's about feeling it but choosing not to stay there. 


In the first lockdown, I went through my grieving stage and it was everything I needed. I let myself cry (a lot), I allowed myself to be frustrated and angry. But then I picked myself up and said, now you've grieved, where do we go from here? Once I let go of what I lost, and let go of the hurt that was built up, I was able to embrace change. I used my time wisely because I gave myself time to do nothing. I grew and developed because I let myself learn more about myself. I took the time to understand my mind and character. I overcome all of my insecurities because I took the time to understand why I felt the way I did in the first place. Don't skip the grieving process. 


Now I can find joy in the little things. I find joy in just waking up in the morning, despite the fact that I know I won't be leaving my house. I get excited to FaceTime my friends and laugh until my stomach hurts, even though I can count on one hand how many times I physically saw them last year. I get excited to write in my journal at the end of the day and list my daily gratitude, despite life being nothing like I imagined it to be at 21. This lockdown has been great for me, and it's not because I haven't experienced negative things in this pandemic, it's because I grieved. Don't get me wrong, like everyone I have my moments of frustration here and there. Just last night, I was in bed feeling down because I haven't hugged my friends in so long. I miss physical intimacy and being able to be next to someone that I don't live with. However, the positives by far outweigh the struggles. 


You don't have to be OK right now, but know that you will. I know this third lockdown has been SO difficult for many people and I really do feel it for everyone. If I didn't grieve, I'm sure I would be right there with you. It's frustrating to be here again. Life can feel repetitive and it feels like we're going absolutely nowhere. It's OK to feel like that. If you get anything out of this post, it's to let yourself grieve. 


I don't know when life will be "back to normal" but it will eventually. For now, just let go of what you need to let go of and keep holding onto what you can and need. Hold onto knowing that as long as you have breath, you have purpose. Hold onto the memories that are to come and hold onto the little things that give you happiness. 


Sending all my love to every single person reading. Please share with someone you feel needs to hear this too.


Thanks for reading, 

Have a great day x 


January Academic Goals 2021

YAY! Happy New Year guys! This is my first post of the year and I am super excited for the posts that are to come. Today we are kick starting with January academic goals. I'm lucky to have no exams this year but that obviously means that all my marks come from written assignments. I have a couple goals I want to meet before semester B starts, so if you want to know what they are, just keep reading.