My Top 5 Back To School / Uni Study Tips!

As most of you would know by now, I've recently returned to university just this past week. With a renewed sense of motivation and a clear idea of where I want to go with this course, I've committed myself to doing my absolute best this year, and throughout the entire course. So I've decided to put together a list of the 5 study tips I find the most helpful and essential when going back to school/uni!

Get Organised 
Before you even go back to study, or at least within your first week back (while you've still got a bit of free time on your hands), get yourself organised. Print out or save your timetable, factor in any other extra-curricular commitments, work etc, and put those in your timetable too. You need to know when you're free and when you're not, and it's always better to figure out the basics sooner rather than later.

Make Friends
I cannot stress enough how important it is to make friends at school/uni. Even if you're not the most social type, or you've got classes with some unsavoury characters - try to get along with them at the least. Having somebody to sit with, to work on group projects with, to ask for notes if you happen to miss a lesson (but try not to!), is so so important as it can really mean the difference between a positive study experience and good grades, or the opposite.

Do Your Homework
I don't want to sound like your mother, but I've gotta say it. Your homework could be something specifically set for you by your teacher/lecturer/tutor, working on assessment pieces, or simply revising the days lessons and content. Whatever it is, you should be doing it daily. Even 10 minutes is better than nothing, and will save you a heck of a lot of work further on down the track (you know, when you've got 100 assignments due and nothing done?)!

Show Up To Class, and Be Punctual
Again, I sound a bit like your mother. But you seriously need to be in class if you want to do well! The more 'hands-on' learning you do in person is such a great way to learn the course material and be able to ask questions right then & there if you're struggling with something. You'll also be there when your teacher's give you some sneaky hints at what you'll need to know for exams or the best way to complete your assessments & more! Not to mention, attendance is often considered as part of your overall grade!

Relax
Okay, so it might sound contradictory to the rest of my advice, but it's really not. You need to have some down time, whether it be laying in bed with some tea and netflix, or having a night out on the town with your friends (preferably not the night before class). It's important to take some time away from your studies, allow your mind to absorb the information it's learnt, relax, and return to it later. That way you're not getting overly stressed our burned out (a sure fire way to end up failing despite all of your hard work)!

I hope these tips have been helpful for you, whether you're returning to study or just looking for some general advice! What are some of your best back to school/uni study tips? Let me know in the comments below! <3

xx Chontelle Louise

Puckle Street Precinct, Moonee Ponds

Looking West down Puckle Street, through the station crossing.

Moonee Ponds Station.

Looking East down Puckle Street.

The other day, mum and I decided to go somewhere new for lunch. Being new to Melbourne, we've been doing a bit of exploring of different suburbs/areas and somewhere we'd been planning on checking out for a while was Moonee Ponds. 

Puckle Street, Moonee Ponds is the suburbs 'high street' and home to the Puckle Street Precinct. The Precinct occupies the first couple of blocks both north and south of Puckle Street, and includes a small essentials shopping centre (Moonee Ponds Central), along with standalone Supermarkets and an array of cafe's, restaurants, clothing stores and businesses. 

After a stroll down Puckle Street, we decided to step in to Lil Kitch for some lunch and coffee. 

Exterior of Lil Kitch Cafe.

Lil Kitch is located at the end of Puckle Street nearest to Moonee Ponds Station. The cafe is warm and comfy, it feels a little bit fancy (in design) but still nice and casual. The food is reasonably priced for the most part, and the quality and taste of the food is just lovely. Mum had the Omelette on Toast (which was freakin' massive!) while I had a Turkey Foccacia. 

I'm not much of an omelette person, I find the taste kind of sickening so I'm going on my mum's review of the meal, which she says way really nice. She loved the variety of toppings with the melted cheese, mushrooms (her favourite), tomato and spinach leaves. 

My Turkey Foccacia was really nice. The bread was lovely and fresh, there was a whole lotta shredded lettuce (which I think made the sandwich's presentation rise a few levels), just the right amount of melted cheese, 'smashed' avocado, and a deliciously sweet cranberry sauce. 

As I mentioned, we also ordered coffee with our meals however I've chosen not to include those in this post due to the fact that I've had better coffee in a pie shop/garage up in Queensland than the coffee we were served here (and given that Melbourne is known for it's coffee, it should of been average at the least. It wasn't).

Lunch at Lil Kitch.

Omelette on Toast.

Turkey Foccacia.

So all in all, Lil Kitch is a great place to grab a nice meal, but perhaps leave the coffee until later. Which brings me to the next place we stopped in at.

After a bit more of a stroll around the Precinct, supermarkets, Kmart etc, we made our way down south of Puckle Street to The Daily Grind. 

Interior of The Daily Grind.

The best coffee in Moonee Ponds (I think so, anyway!) 

Feeling like we still hadn't truly had our coffee fix, we decided to sit down, relax, and have another drink at The Daily Grind. This cafe is about a 3 minute walk south of Puckle Street itself, and just opposite the massive Woolies. They have a great selection of light foods and snacks, including sandwiches, cakes, wraps, croissants, and the most delicious *insert heart-eyed emoji here* cupcakes I've ever seen! 

Then there's the coffee - oh, am I glad we stopped in here! This coffee fully lived up to the 'Melbourne Coffee Standard', meaning it was really really good and I will definitely be returning for more at some point. I'd definitely recommend The Daily Grind if you're ever in the area, it's got lovely, reasonably priced coffee and food, as well as a really comfy and cosy atmosphere - especially great on a dreary winter's day.

OOTD

I hope you enjoyed reading this post! If you did, be sure to let me know! Have you been to Moonee Ponds, or any of the places mentioned in this post? 

Thanks so much for reading lovelies!

xx Chontelle Louise

7 Things I Miss About Brisbane!

So many of you may already be aware that at the beginning of this year I made the move down to Melbourne from Brisbane. I was born and raised in Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, and every place in between. So as you can imagine, packing up my entire life and moving to a whole new city that I'd only been to once before (in 2005, at that!) was a big thing.

I've now been living in Melbourne for over 5 months (seriously, how did that happen!?) and lately, the nostalgic feelings towards the place I called home for more than 18 years of my life have been slowly creeping up on me.

So, as an attempt to move through my homesickness, I've created this list of 10 things that I really miss about living in Brisbane!


1. Being So Close to the Gold Coast's Theme Parks. I'm pretty sure that I spent just about every weekend of my childhood at one of the many theme parks on the Gold Coast. Coming from the North of Brisbane, it took a good 2-3 hours each way by bus-train-bus, but it was somewhat of a ritual and totally worth it. I was obsessed with theme parks and roller coaster and all of that stuff for the longest time.

2. Summer Storms. A lot of people, my own mother included, absolutely hate Queensland's Summer storms. Me on the other hand, I can't get enough. I love the smell of the rain, the sound of the thunder and how pretty that crazy-ass lightning is when it strikes down on the city. Growing up, I loved standing outside during the storms (which almost always caused a blackout where I lived) and just watching them.

3. The CBD. I mean, it's kinda boring and the surrounding suburbs are nothing compared to the likes of St Kilda, South Yarra, Fitzroy, Brunswick, Moonee Ponds etc here in Melbourne. But it's so simple, everything's pretty much centred around the one strip along Queen Street Mall making it easy to find your way around. No confusion there!

4. Friends. I'm not the most social person so I didn't actually leave too many friends behind up in Brisbane at all. But still, the few friends I did leave behind are some of the loveliest people and I miss seeing them more often!

5. Sushi. A weird one, I know. But sushi is my absolute favourite food and in Brisbane, you could find it literally everywhere. It seems to be a whole lot less popular here in Melbourne, which I personally find utterly depressing.

6. The Laid-Back Atmosphere. Okay, truthfully I think Brisbane is a bit too laid back for my liking. But at the same time, I really hate how uptight everyone is here in Melbourne, and sometimes I feel like taking a step back and relaxing a-la-Queenslander style.

7. Living by the Beach. I grew up living no more than a couple of blocks from the beach, and even when I moved further inland I was never more than 30mins from the closest beach. It was totally affordable and the beaches were lovely, but living close to the beach in Melbourne is rather expensive and since I'm not full of money... (Plus, the quality of the beaches was pretty great!)


xx Chontelle Louise

JoBaz Max Strength Hair Colour Remover | Review

So a couple of days ago I picked up a box of Loreal Excellence Creme hair dye in Dark Golden Blonde, planning to try to achieve a more natural looking blonde.

Disaster.

I had it on for just under 10 minutes and it came out as a bit of a neutral/ashy light brown. I was devastated. I'd spent so long, and so much on getting my hair back to blonde, and suddenly I was basically back where I had started.

What my hair looked like after applying Loreal Excellence Creme in Dark Golden Blonde.

As you can tell in these pictures, my hair still looks relatively light. This is due to the fact that the sun was glaring as I took these, in person it was much darker but these are the only pictures I took. I took these snaps in the car on the way to Priceline, where I picked up the JoBaz Max Strength Hair Colour Remover for $29.99. The price was steep, but totally worth it.

JoBaz Hair Colour Remover comes in two strengths, Normal and Max. I considered using Normal because I was only going from a light brown back to blonde without any colour build up, but after speaking to the lovely lady at Priceline decided to go with Max strength just to be safe.

This product basically works by breaking down the colour molecules that hair dye deposits into your hair so that they are able to simply be washed away, leaving your hair at it's lightest colour. I say lightest, because it's not always possible to return to your natural colour. If you've ever bleached or highlighted your hair, then that is the colour it will return to as it is not possible to remove bleach. The same goes with box dyes containing peroxide (bleaching chemical), as sometimes darker colours still contain peroxide so when you darken your hair, you're also unintentionally bleaching it. It's also worth noting that JoBaz Colour Remover cannot remove cuticle staining, which can be caused by using fashion colours or henna dye.

Anyway. The process.

So the box contains three parts; Part A (the developer), Part B (the applicator) and Part C (the buffer). Parts A and B are combined and then applied to your hair. You've got to make sure to soak your hair in this stuff so that you don't end up with any uneven patches. Once you've done that, you'll want to wrap your hair in some sort of plastic to conserve heat (allowing the mixture to develop faster). I used an old plastic bag.

My hair after application, wrapped in plastic at the start of the development period.

You let this develop for a minimum of 30 minutes. You're supposed to ensure you're in a warm room with no draft so as not to slow down the development process, but seeing as though it was about 6*c at the time and there's no heater in the bathroom, I improvised and heated my hair using the hairdryer. 

At the end of the development period, just before rinsing.

The next step is simple. Rinse. Rinse, rinse, and rinse. And do it well. This is really important, as if you haven't rinsed properly you're not gonna loosen up all of that unwanted colour. You need to rinse for at least 5 minutes, but 10 minutes is recommended. I rinsed for almost 20. You follow this by applying Part C (the buffer) like a shampoo. Lather, leave it on for a minute, then rinse for 5. This is literally the make or break of the entire process, as the buffer is the vital step that will grab hold of and remove all of the now-broken-down colour particles. Do this well.

After rinsing, you repeat the process with the rest of the buffer, and you're done. If your hair is feeling a bit dry then you can condition it, however just remember that this is supposed to make it harder for colour to stick to your hair so you won't be able to recolour immediately. If you do plan to recolour, stick to temporary or semi-permanent colours. This is essential, as permanent colours contain peroxide which will cause your hair to re-oxidise itself - meaning it'll go back to the darker colour.

The results post-JoBaz Colour Remover, back to blonde!

All in all, the process was relatively simple (quite similar to the process used for most box dyes) and the results were seriously great! I'd definitely recommend this product to anyone going through a hair crisis and hoping to remove a darker colour from their hair, or remove years of colour build up in preparation for recolouring.

Before and after!

As for me, I might recolour after a week or two when my hair is softer and healthier again. But this time, I'm sticking to light blondes. If/when I recolour, I'll be sure to make a post about it!

Have you tried JoBaz Colour Remover?
What were your results?

xx Chontelle Louise

Life Update | 25 May 2015

The last two weeks have been pretty crazy - a good kind of crazy! First, I had an interview at a local cafe and may soon be doing a trial shift, fingers crossed! So yay for employment(maybe)! If one positive piece of news wasn't enough, the next day I got another - I've been accepted to study Public Relations at RMIT University starting mid-year - one of the best uni's for PR and communications courses!

A bit of a background on my study life - I graduated high school back in November of 2013. I enrolled into a Journalism course up at USC but ended up deferring and switching to ACU in Brisbane city because I couldn't get up to the Sunshine Coast for class. So in July 2014 I began Arts (Journ & Comm) at ACU, but after some major family and personal issues along with realising I found Journalism boring and dirty (just my opinion, no hate on journos!!), ended up leaving that. Then I travelled to Europe and the UK for a while, came back to Australia and moved down to Melbourne where I joined my part-time acting course. Obviously, I'd missed the first semester's intake so I've just been settling into the city, job hunting and doing my acting course lately. Then it finally came time to apply for mid-year intakes, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I love communication, social media, etc etc, and public relations was the perfect course. So yeah, here I am, about to begin PR at RMIT!

And then to top off a good week, I got another piece of good news - I scored myself a short Social Media Internship with a new Melbourne based design company. So that happened!

So yeah, it's been an eventful two weeks to say the least! I'm in a pretty great mood right now with everything that's been going on, and I can't wait to get busy - having nothing to do is surprisingly depressing to be honest!

How has your week been, receive any great news? Let me know in the comments!

xx Chontelle Louise