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  • Hello, my lovely people.

  • So, amazingly, the 200K thing happened.

  • I mean...

  • OK.

  • It feels like just two months ago I was on 20K.

  • ...It was.

  • I'm stunned, but...

  • Hi, hello. Welcome to everyone who is new, everyone who has come in.

  • I thought, since we have lots of new people,

  • that I would tell you some things about me and that then you can get to know me better

  • which feels like a really strange thing to say, because you've been watching a year and a half's worth of

  • videos in which I tell you personal things

  • about myself.

  • But! Here are some facts that you might not know.

  • Yes! In a completely random order.

  • Some of them may even be interesting.

  • My birthday is the 25th of January, 1989,

  • but I always think of myself as two years younger

  • because I was so ill for my teenage years that I genuinely don't remember two years of my life.

  • So I don't think they should count.

  • I'm allergic to rabbits, cats,

  • dogs, hairy caterpillars

  • (REALLY allergic to hairy caterpillars),

  • bark (I mean sap, mainly), grass (REALLY allergic to wild grass)--

  • Yeah. I actually once got out of a technology exam

  • that I had NOT studied for

  • (don't do that)

  • by going and rolling in wild grass with bare legs

  • and my entire legs came up in blisters and sores

  • and boils, and it was...

  • Eurgh. There was blood!

  • It was pus-y. It was not good.

  • I should probably remind you that I have neurological damage and therefore cannot feel all of my skin,

  • so it looked WAY worse than it felt.

  • Anyway, got out of the exam and didn't have to re-take it until the week after

  • when I had time to actually look stuff up.

  • My all-time favourite pairing: Buffy and Faith

  • from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

  • They are my OTP.

  • They are perfect together.

  • I love everything

  • about them.

  • I have read possibly every Buffy and Faith fanfiction that there is on the internet.

  • Actually, no, I think I have--I have read every. ALL of them.

  • Every single one.

  • Even the bad ones, I'll read the first paragraph,

  • "Eh." Skip down a bit to see if it gets better.

  • And still give it a little go. See how long I can hold out.

  • But no. OK, no. But that still counts as reading.

  • My other favourite pairings are Kim and Shego

  • from Kim Possible;

  • Bubblegum and Marceline, from Adventure Time.

  • And yeah, there's a theme.

  • I also liked--kiiind of liked Blair and Serena

  • in Gossip Girl for a little bit, but not really, because I can't really understand the attraction

  • to Serena, so...meh.

  • But I did really like Bleighton, which is Blake Lively and Leighton Meester

  • because Leighton Meester is so God damn adorable, OK?

  • I also,

  • [clears throat] every time a Fast and Furious movie comes out,

  • read the Fast and Furious fan fiction

  • that has Letty and Dom in

  • for...yeah.

  • I mean, it only lasts three weeks, and they are my only straight pairing,

  • but...

  • every time.

  • Every time those films come out.

  • Following on from that, and you could probably see this one coming:

  • I write fanfiction.

  • Yeah. I've been doing it since I was thirteen.

  • [Quietly] God, that's a long time.

  • I have had three different usernames

  • and I'm never going to tell you

  • what any of them are.

  • But let's just say, if you read Buffy and Faith fanfiction, you have definitely read something I have written,

  • because I was quite prolific.

  • And again, I still do it now.

  • I didn't eat carbs for ten years.

  • Zero. Zilch. Nothing.

  • Not even gluten-free replacements.

  • Yup.

  • Noth--no, no.

  • I mean, it's not like I was on some incredible low carb diet,

  • although obviously I was,

  • but it wasn't intentional.

  • I just couldn't deal with that.

  • My body just thought that carbs were poison.

  • I am awful at responding to messages.

  • This is something I really don't like about myself. I find it...quite frustrating.

  • Because I'll get a lovely message

  • from my friend.

  • Get a little text message, look at it and be like, "Oh, yeah, yeah. That's so sweet!"

  • I think up the entire answer in my head

  • and then for some reason

  • I decide it's too much energy to take that from my head, put it in the text and press send.

  • So, I put it down, go, "Oh, I'll do that later!"

  • and then of course because it's already been opened,

  • it never gets looked at again.

  • I'm so sorry.

  • OK. I'll try--I will try. I will try harder.

  • I have a dent in my head.

  • I'm pretty sure this is because the ceiling fell in on my mother while she was pregnant with me.

  • I don't know. It's kind of--it's sort of like this. There's a literal...

  • There's a dent. There's a dent.

  • And

  • there's a bumpy bit at the back and for a while, between the ages of maybe ten to twelve,

  • the bump sort of grew and it was quite painful

  • and...

  • hard?

  • But no one ever did anything about it

  • because

  • no one listens to the child who cries wolf.

  • And anyway, then it stopped growing and shrunk back a bit, and now it's just kind of solid and there.

  • The great thing about that, though, is that the dent creates a kind of

  • natural valley for my headbands to sit in

  • or my bows.

  • In Chinese astrology, I am a Dragon.

  • An Earth Dragon, in fact.

  • And that fits me completely perfectly.

  • To a T. Seriously, go and look that up.

  • That's me.

  • And Claudia is a Rabbit, so we--we go together.

  • Lumping this in together as one fact:

  • My personality on the Myers-Briggs scale is ENFJ,

  • which I think also fits me quite well.

  • Which is:

  • ENFJs are very firm believers in people

  • and I think I am, too. I'm very optimistic

  • about people, humans, the world.

  • I think we're all good people.

  • I am obsessed with growing my hair.

  • I--I just... I just!

  • And yet I keep cutting it. Why, Jessica?

  • Why?

  • When I was four, the little girls who lived next door to me held me down and cut off my hair,

  • because it was the same colour as Barbie hair.

  • And then my mother gave me a hair cut to try and salvage this.

  • The mushroom hair.

  • Yeah. It genuinely--it looked like I had a mushroom on my head.

  • It was quite possibly the worst thing

  • you could do to a child's hair.

  • And I didn't let anyone cut my hair for ten years after that

  • NO.

  • But then, unfortunately, I got to fourteen and I decided that I was becoming a woman now

  • and that meant taking off all of my lovely hair!

  • Who knows why?

  • Since then, it's kind of gone up and down and

  • you know, ish.

  • But it's never really been that long

  • lovely, luscious hair that I want it to be.

  • That's what I want. That's all I want.

  • 'Cause when you curl your hair

  • it just gets shorter.

  • Basically, I just want Jessica Rabbit hair. I mean, who doesn't? Hair goals.

  • This might just be feeding the trolls, but

  • I still get upset when someone says, "You're not deaf."

  • It's not even an insult, but

  • it hurts.

  • I used to want to be an architect

  • but then I discovered that I hate modern architecture.

  • I'm really, really interested in houses, though. Kind of obsessed with them.

  • Almost. I mean...

  • public buildings are nice and all, but houses,

  • homes - that's where my interest truly lies.

  • Ooh, I spend too much time rightmove-ing.

  • My favourite periods are Georgian and Edwardian houses.

  • I have never lived in a modern house and I never intend to.

  • I--I can't deal.

  • I can't deal with it. There should be a breeze moving through at all times.

  • Obviously, I do like some classical architecture,

  • particularly Ancient Greek public buildings.

  • Not so much the houses, though, so...

  • My favourite place in the world is the Lake District,

  • which is in England,

  • if you did not know.

  • My grandparents bought a place there when my mother was just six-weeks-old

  • and then they retired there later on

  • and we would go for every school holiday, and I loved it.

  • It was such a magical place; I felt like every time I was there, I was dreaming.

  • I want to keep going there every year

  • for the rest of my life.

  • What could be better

  • than a peak

  • and a lake?

  • And woodland

  • and forest.

  • And as you can see from our Lake District travel vlogs

  • that we made, not even rain stops us.

  • It's just too beautiful.

  • To make my little brother happy, for around five years, from maybe the ages of seven to twelve,

  • I pretended to be a...dolphin, called Zoe,

  • every time I hit the water on a family holiday.

  • No speech.

  • No legs - no, no. I was all Zoe,

  • all the time.

  • And thus, I am now fluent in dolphin.

  • And my brother can swim. That was probably the more important part.

  • My favourite animal is a peacock!

  • You probably could've seen that one coming.

  • I drink every drink through two straws

  • because, well, I drink an awful lot, and there's no straw big enough to get enough

  • liquid in it, you know?

  • Also, if you're drinking through a bottle,

  • and you put your straws in, you'll notice it gets all fizzy,

  • but if you have two straws and you drink through just the one straw, but leave the other open to the air,

  • then it stops the bottle from fizzing over.

  • Also works on cans.

  • I am generally always cheerful.

  • Because I don't see a point in not being.

  • I'm very, very empathetic and I tend to absorb the emotions

  • of everyone and everything around me.

  • If I'm reading a book and the protagonist is having a hard time,

  • then I start feeling like I'm having a hard time.

  • [Sadly] Oh!

  • It's not very productive, because then I find myself crying about problems that aren't even mine.

  • For this reason,

  • I like to fill my life with happy media.

  • Claudia insisted I put this one in

  • but fine.

  • My--my unhappy face

  • is an upside-down smile.

  • Yeah.

  • Happy face.

  • Unhappy face!

  • Wait, wait, let's see if I can do it.

  • ['Rainy day' sounds]

  • Yeah. Genuinely. That is my unhappy face.

  • Claudia says it is very hard to take me seriously when I'm unhappy.

  • ...Yeah.

  • I am probably one of the worst people to get into a fight with.

  • If you try and start something

  • I will just walk away, because

  • I don't care

  • for that.

  • Claudia and I have never had an argument

  • because why would we? Nothing's more important than our relationship.

  • If we disagree on something,

  • which is actually incredibly rare,

  • but if we do, it kind of goes along the lines of,

  • "I really like this thing. Oh, you don't like this thing?"

  • "OK, er, why don't you?"

  • "Very valid reasons. I see."

  • "Well, here are my reasons for liking it."

  • "Yeah, you know what? It seems like you dislike it more than I like it."

  • "So, we'll just not have it."

  • It's very simple. but it works.

  • I love historical fiction.

  • Absolutely, completely obsessed with it.

  • Yes!

  • Whether it's books, TV shows,

  • films - oh!

  • If it's fiction

  • kind of based on fact;

  • little bit of history thrown in there

  • - ooh, a lot of history thrown in there

  • - it makes me soo happy.

  • I am always writing at least three books at once.

  • Always.

  • On my phone.

  • I tend to write them on my iCloud, so they're safe.

  • [Thunder claps]

  • But the thing is: I'm genuinely always writing.

  • I'll be there, having my dinner, and then suddenly

  • I'll be sitting on a bus, and suddenly

  • I'll be pretending to watch TV, but really

  • I basically just love writing. I've always written books, ever since I was a tiny, tiny little one

  • and it's what I hope to do for the rest of my life.

  • I promise they won't all be about Buffy and Faith.

  • Sorry, mother.

  • So, there you go - there's twenty facts about me.

  • I hope you enjoyed. I hope you found out some things about me that maybe you didn't know before.

  • Ooo.

  • Thank you so much for subscribing; for joining us;

  • for just being part of this really amazing...thing

  • that appears to be happening in my life.

  • Wow.

  • I hope you stick around. I hope that I can continue to make content that you really enjoy.

  • That inspires you or educates you, or just makes you happy.

  • If you're new here, then also hi, hello.

  • Please come, subscribe, join me.

  • Follow me on my social media channels, which will all be in the description down below.

  • I say "all of" - it's really just Instagram and Twitter.

  • Sometimes I put things on Facebook, but I don't do the Snapchat stuff because that confuses me.

  • Now, here's a game for you if you're still watching:

  • I want you to write down below in the comments when you first found me.

  • It doesn't have to be the exact day, obviously.

  • That would--that would be...probably kind of difficult to do.

  • Just the general month

  • / year.

  • How long have you been here? Has it been a month?

  • A week? A day?

  • A year? Five years?

  • Why would you have been following me five years ago? Did I make videos five years ago?

  • Oh, I did!

  • Ooh, I did. Ooh, university.

  • Oh, yeah!

  • Again, thank you for joining me, and I will see you next video.

  • Bye-bye, my loves.

Hello, my lovely people.

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