Taking Control

Chapter Five - Little Star

As I moved up through the school into Year 3 and Year 4 I remember feeling more and more grown up and mature by the day. When I was in Year 3 I developed a crush on a Year 4 boy named Joshua and he just had it all: chocolate eyes, luscious lips and a deep seductive voice even at the age of 8! The teachers would make comments about how deep his voice was because they found it so funny that he was basically going through puberty at such a young age. I remember one day these girls in my class were trying to get me to tell them who I liked and when they finally got it out of me they went right up to him to tell him and I was mortified. Afterwards we sat down together to talk about it and I don't remember anything we said but I do remember he was really sweet. I do have this memory of him playing football one lunchtime and me sitting by the goalpost screaming "go, baby, go!" which totally sounds like something I would do, right? I miss Christmas at primary school still to this day, just that warm feeling, the Christmas card letter box with fake snow on it, I miss it all and I think that's what started my lifelong love of Christmas - every year at Christmas time when I watch Nativity it makes me feel so nostalgic for primary school! I think it was around this time in Year 3 that I started really honing in on my musical experience too. My mum bought me a lovely pink guitar and so I joined the guitar group at school and actually stuck at it for quite some time, as well as joining the choir which I eventually stayed in until the end of my primary school life. I took part in the Christmas Carol concerts at the school which I really enjoyed and I even auditioned for the school talent show which I had previously never done. I performed Wings by Little Mix which was brand new at the time and not many people had heard it because it was yet to blow up, but as soon as I stood there I froze and I was singing so quietly because I was just so nervous about singing a solo in front of people. I didn't get by my first audition for that reason and I was devestated. I had my first ever studio session when I was 8 too, it was the summer of 2012! My parents paid for me to spend one week dancing, one week recording, and for whatever reason, one week doing sports which was surprisingly fun but I had never shown any interest in sports before. First was dancing and I remember there were only 4 other girls in my dance class. We spent a week preparing different dance routines in a proper dance studio which I had never seen before. I specifically remember dancing to Runaway Baby by Bruno Mars, Domino by Jessie J who was one of my favourite artists at this point (and still is), and Blame It On The Boogie by The Jackson 5. It was fun and I made friends with all of the girls there but I was the youngest so that put a strain on just how deep the friendship went. We also sang Firework by Katy Perry during the dance recital which I thoroughly enjoyed. I've never really been a good dancer but I've always enjoyed it and tried my hand in pretty much every style of dance. I remember trying out ballet when I was in Year 1 but it wasn't to be, also street dance, the list goes on really. I don't think I've ever really been destined to be a dancer but I enjoy doing it for fun still sometimes. On the second week we did the recording studio work and it's safe to say I was in my element. I remember on the first day recording a cover of Read All About It by Emeli Sande and I had so much fun, especially when one of the adult supervisers came up to me privately and told me how beautiful my voice was. I honestly felt like I was living my dream as I looked around and saw the recording studio surrounding me. We also recorded a funny little voice over for a Monsters Inc scene which wasn't exactly my lane but it was an experience I guess. They split us up into 3 groups: a girl group, a boy group, and a mixed group. I was put into the mixed group and we were given the task to record 2 covers. We picked Domino by Jessie J and We Are Young by FUN (it doesn't get much more 2012 than that!) When we heard the recording back I cringed so much at my voice on Domino and it wasn't bad at all for an 8 year old kid but I do think that was perhaps one of the earliest signs of my being extremely critical of myself and it spawned my hatred of watching myself back or hearing myself back which is something I still struggle with right up to this day. After we recorded the songs, we had to perform them in this X Factor type show. My group ended up winning and I was so happy because I felt like I had literally just won the real X Factor. That whole week was a real experience for me and I remember a few weeks prior when my mum told me about it I thought they would let me record some of the songs I had written and I was scrurrying to finish my "album" but let's just say I'm sort of relieved they didn't let me record it because I dread to think what my album would've sounded like at the grand old age of 8. The third and final week was sports and I fell for this boy named Leo. He was so cute and I spent the week hanging out with him and his 2 friends. He for one LOVED my Cat Valentine impression and that made me like him even more because I got made fun of for it back at school. I never confessed my feelings to him because as outgoing as I was at that age, I was also really shy and reserved which came into play even more as I got older. When I was 6 I swore that I would be famous by the time I was 8 and if anyone questioned it I just used Willow Smith as an example of a cool famous child. Obviously when I approached my 8th year I started to accept that maybe this wouldn't happen just yet but that didn't stop me from writing song after song and planning out my future. I realised that I could be the next Katy Perry rather than Willow Smith so I decided that maybe I didn't have to rush so much to be famous just yet since she was a fully grown adult - that didn't stop me from want to be famous as soon as possible still however. I think it's worth noting that at this point pretty much every kid my age was obsessed with this virtual online game called Moshi Monsters where you basically keep a monster as a pet and care for it. I was no exception of course and it was my favourite thing in the world. I had literally all the playsets in real life and all of the cute little moshling figures. We used to trade moshling figures and trading cards at school and it was so much fun. I met the Moshi Monsters at Alton Towers and I even won 2 competitions from the Moshi Monsters magazines which made me feel like a million bucks! I do have very fond memories from this time in my life because everything was just so carefree and youthful. It was also around this time that I began uploading onto YouTube for the first time and sharing my life with the internet. When I was 9, me and Angel both loved Monster High and so we created a YouTube channel called Superstar Reviews. It was actually pretty successful and a brand of dolls called Once Upon A Zombie even gifted us some of their dolls to review which was a very proud and shocking moment. We did Superstar Reviews for about 3 years and sadly I deleted all of the videos once I started secondary school which is actually really sad but the memory lives on. Not long after starting Superstar Reviews, I also created my own YouTube channel where I would upload videos of me with the neighbourhood cats, including my own cat Millie who we got in 2011 when she was 2 months old. The first time I saw her was actually the day after she was born and we still have her today. She's 11 years old putting her on the later end of middle-aged but she's quite ill at the moment. (UPDATE! I wrote this chapter in November 2022 and I am writing this update in October 2023. My beloved cat Millie sadly passed away in June this year which I will touch on more later in the book. Love you space kitty!) I also uploaded videos of me dancing and singing and I just had the most fun ever. I also remember making tons of VideoStars which was a huge thing back in 2013. Sadly a lot of these videos were deleted when I started secondary school too but a few of them are still up. I had a new found passion for filming my life and putting it on the internet and I even remember making my first ever vlog at the age of 10. Having 2 YouTube channels didn't exactly make me popular with the kids, though. I was picked on quite a lot a school for posting on the internet and this never really went away. I continued to post all through secondary school as well and I obviously still post now because it's part of my career path, but it did get quite nasty around the Year 9/Year 10 mark of school and I would even say it turned into bullying. I do think it was jealousy now that I look back on it, I mean I had the confidence to continue posting videos online even when I was receiving tons of hate for it in school and I don't think people could understand why I was still posting. I wasn't stopping for anyone, they could keep making fun of me all they want but at the end of the day they're going to be the ones wanting a taste of the highlife once I truly make it.