Collaboration Opportunity for June 2016

I am looking for bloggers that would be interested in doing a collaboration with me in the month of June.

How it works

We will choose a topic to better suit our blogs together. We will choose a date for the blog post to be posted. I will ask for you to produce an advertisement picture of your choice to suit your blog and what you do, this will be featured in the ''Other Businesses & Blogs'' section of the blog for a month free of charge, the picture will be posted with the link to your blog on the day your post is published. I will be advertising the blog post announcement the week following up to the blog post publishing date, it is up to you if you would like to do the same. I usually do this to keep my audience engaged in the content and looking forward to the date.

• We will produce separate blog posts. You will post your post on your blog and I will post ours on our blog. Both posts will have to be posted on the same day, ideally at a chosen time (but if you have a different timezone this is fine). Our post will have a link to your blog and a mention at the start or end of the post that we are collaborating with you and for people to check out your blog post, and vise versa.

Once both blog posts have been posted, your advertisement picture with be published on the ''Other Businesses & Blogs'' for free for an exact month. I will also be advertising your post and blog on the Twitter and Instragram pages to help you grow your audience, I usually charge for this as well but because we are doing a collaboration, I will do this for you free of charge as well.

How to apply

Simply send a tweet to @asboe_blog (https://twitter.com/ASBOE_blog ) with the hashtag #collabjune2016, add in your tweet the topic you would like to enter with for a chance to be selected. If you are selected, you will get a reply to this tweet within 24 hours. You can enter as many times as you wish with as many different topics as you would like, but if you are picked, only one of your topics will be picked. Follow on Twitter to then receive a DM with further information.

OR

Simply send an email with the subject ''Collab June 2016'' to asweetbitofeverything@gmail.com . You will receive an email within 48 hours if you have been selected.
What to include in your email:

• Link to your blog.
• A topic of your choice.
• Preferred date to publish post.

We can't wait to hear from you all. Good luck!

My One Year In College

If you live in the UK you will know that in recent years, a new law came out to say that after you leave high school at the age of 16, you have to be in education until you turn 18. This can be college, sixth form, apprenticeship, and so on. I was months from turning 17 when I left high school (long story short, I didn't know any English when I came to the UK and they thought it was best to make me re-do a whole year to give me time to learn, 3 months into that year, I was fluent in English so hooray), this meant I would be able to do just one year of college instead of 2 years so I was pretty happy with that.

In the last few months of high school, I applied for over 80 apprenticeship positions per month in my town and surrounding areas, I had a few interviews here and there but never stayed. The apprenticeships I was applying for were mainly for reception, front of house, administration, sales, hairdressing and hotel management. If you live in the UK you will know this, but if you don't then let me quickly explain, colleges usually require you to apply for courses before September which is when the courses start. So, I had until September of that year to find an apprenticeship or I would have to go to college.

August came along and I just couldn't get into an apprenticeship, I was getting notifications to my email every day with the first line being ''you are the ideal candidate for this position, however, the position has already been filled at this time. We wish you good luck for the future''. It was driving me crazy. So I ended up looking on all the college websites in my area. I quickly decided there was no way I was going to a sixth form college so I limited my options a little. I had a look, I applied for a few hairdresser and beauty courses as I love all of that, and I also applied for business admininstration courses. Why did I apply for business administration courses? I really wanted an apprenticeship, that's what I have wanted for myself once I got out of high school ever since apprenticeships became this huge thing in the UK. Since administration fit with most of the apprenticeships opportunities I had been previously applying for, I decided that I would try this as a college course.

By this point it was now September and I got into the business administration course. The first few months of the course weren't too bad, everything was pretty organised and the coursework was easy to keep up with. But the last few months were hectic for me. I wasn't in a very good place with myself, I was having anxiety attacks almost daily and I simply couldn't focus on my coursework properly. In the last few months of the course, I did consider quitting just because I felt like I couldn't do it and I would rather quit something than end up with a bad grade or a fail to carry on my CV for the rest of my working life.

Good news though, I struggled but I didn't quit and I passed the course so everything was okay in the end. But it was super stressful and everything did drive me crazy towards the end, there was so much to do and so much to rush and I also had a hard time dealing with anxiety attacks at that point.

If I could go back and do it all over again for that course? Not really, I would have rather gone through all the stress for a course I would love to do as a job, like hairdressing or maybe even beauty. I feel like that would have been more worth my stress and struggle than a course I wanted to do thinking more of the money I could make in the future. I thought I would enjoy the course but I really didn't enjoy it in the last few months.

School Time | How To Prepare For Exam Season

I remember when I was in high school, I really struggled to prepare for the exam season and staying organised, I was terrible. But I did get better at it enough in college to be able to tell you how to pull yourself through it. So you can start trusting my points now.

Here is how to prepare for exam season 2016

• Coffee is your only friend. Exam season is lovely isn't it? Not only do you have exams most days of the week, you then have to also go home and do all your coursework because you have a bunch of pieces that are late. The answer is always coffee. You need that little bit of a push to carry on, admit it.
• Get yourself an academic diary with full day pages. You will have so many exams and so much coursework to hand in, you need an academic diary in your survival kit to keep organised. 
• Burn a warm scented candle every night to relax you for the hell you will be entering tomorrow as soon as you get to your favorite place of all time, the exam hall.
• Come to terms with the fact that the exam board have a serious issue with bees this year. This tip will hopefully keep you sane for the first few days and then you will go crazy about it anyway.
• Tweet your anger and stress towards the exams you have just sat through and probably the bees too. This will help you get rid of some steam and help you focus on doing it again tomorrow.

I hope these little tips have helped you. All jokes aside, exam season can be so stressful even for that person in your class that tells everyone they are doing great in the exams and finding them easy. You just have to work hard and wing it, it's not worth the stress you are about to go through so stay chilled and look forward to the day it ends.

Opinion Time: Should The UK Leave The EU?

There is a lot of news coverage on this matter but not enough information on what will actually happen if Britain do leave the EU. This can either make everyone make their mind up on what they assume will happen or freak out like crazy over it.

As a foreign woman from another EU country, I have done much research on this and can't find the answers to the question I want answered. I'm due to give birth this year, the father of my child is British and the child will be born in the UK. If the UK does leave the EU, what can I expect to happen to me and my new little family? I am still yet to have this question answered and I don't think I will have it answered.

I have done some research on both sides to kind of try to figure out what would happen either way but like I said the information is very out in the air and not really focused on what I want to know. Here is what I found.

Reasons to leave the EU

• We would no longer be made to contribute to the EU budget and would supposedly save money (a little hard to believe in my opinion).
• We could establish our own trade deals with no input from EU trade lines (unsure if this can be made into something good).
• Brexit could increase the UK's economy by 1.6% (definitely in dreamland there).
• More jobs could be created among new UK trade lines (now that one sounds believable to me, actually makes sense).
• The UK would be able to vet anyone entering the country to prevent terrorist attacks (something I agree with).
• The UK would have control over all immigration from other EU countries (the point I don't understand and no one answers fully. Does this mean they will only be focusing on who is coming in or will they also be chucking people out of the country and separating families for no reason like some Brexit-fanatics have claimed?.
• Price on food, drink and other essentials would go up (Not great for families that have to work hard enough as it is paying what they already pay).

Reasons to stay in the EU

• The UK would stay in the single market, no tariffs placed (I'm a bit here and there on this one, basically everything would remain the same).
• The UK would continue to benefit from EU trade deals (I'm no economy fanatic but I think this sounds like a good thing).
• Brexit could mean the UK would lose 2.2% by 2030 (which Brexit turn around on their flyers and booklets only since this was raised).
• If the UK was to leave the EU, the EU would make life hard on us (so why not just stay?).
• We can live and work anywhere in the EU (This would benefit students, and also anyone working abroad).
• We could lose jobs because of removal of trade levels (obviously not a good thing).
• Interpol would remain to give the UK extra security and other agencies (don't know what you think but I prefer the sound of that).

As you can see there is a lot I don't get from both parts, what I have stated above is what I gathered from research, followed by what I think or have a doubt about. If you have the answer to my questions then please enlighten me because I have been confused on this for months.

I obviously can't vote as you have probably already gathered but you can. All I say is this post isn't to make you vote for this or vote for that because I think people should vote for who they want without the ridiculous abusive influence I have seen on the social media. In other words, really think about it, have your questions fully answered before you wing it and vote wisely.