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donderdag 29 november 2012

So it hurts to be alive, my friend

Recently I have been confronted with two people in my 'inner circle' of friends/family who have suicidal thoughts. It made me think a lot about life and how to deal with it's dark side, but I realized that I haven't met life's dark side yet. I'm pretty sure I have had a peek of it, but I have no clue how overwhelming and heavy life can be. Well actually, I have an idea of how bad it can be, but it's not a first hand experience and honestly, I hope I will never know.

I very small part of me can comprehend why people would want to end their life, but since I've never been so deep, I have no idea how it feels like. I find it very hard to bring up sympathy for those people. I will never say: don't do it. I'm not such a big egoist. Of course I don't want them to do it, but it's their choice.

None of us has chosen to be alive. Life was merely given to use by our parents, our God or how ever you believe. Life is a very precious gift and to kill kill yourself will destroy that gift. Suicide is a selfish, easy way out, but not the right one. I admire people who come to that conclusion themselves and fight against the dark shadow that has settled in their mind.




dinsdag 27 november 2012

Fan girl crafting spree.

On the 5th of December The Rasmus, my  favourite band, will play a concert in my town (Antwerp). My BF, Awesome friend and I are going to attend to concert. Of course we can't just attend a concert like regular people, we have to make something special of it! First of all we are going to sit at the venue all day long (seems I always do that when I go to a concert with my awesome friend) and by doing this we hope to get a front row spot and see the band before the concert starts.

Why before the concert and not after? Well because we made this huge arty thing for them and it will be difficult to get it all the way into the venue and at the front of the stage without damaging it...
I got the idea when I couldn't sleep. Several weeks and two after noons of work later, it is finished! It turned out cooler then I thought it would:



Painting the letters so we can easily glue the feathers on it with a glue gun.

It is starting to get feathery. 


After the first couple hours of work. We couldn't continue because we needed more black feathers.



The finished product.
I hope they are going to like it. I think it's very cool and feathery! I had loads of fun making it. Especially since the glue wasn't very nice and decided to leave strings all over the place.

woensdag 21 november 2012

Stress, already.

December is approaching extremely fast. Faster then I expected. I'm certain December will pass by very fast, as is does every year, because of Christmas and New Year.
Unfortunately that means that the exams (which are in January) will be here very quickly as well. And I have done next to nothing for it. Every now and then, like right now, a small panic attack kicks in and I feel so overwhelmed by the stuff I need to learn. Unless I'm mistaken, I have an oral exam of English Proficiency and it scares the hell out of me. Especially since I'm having trouble with pronouncing the middle "D" in words like sadness. Luckily my "Th" sounds very good, but I must not forget to use it!

I am planning to study in the library because it's harder to be distracted, but it's already very difficult to find a free table if I have a few hours time between classes. I can study at home, but I find myself to be way too easily distracted. I'm so going to suffer of insomnia during the exams because of stress and when I'm nervous or under stress I start eating... not good.... uugh... why did it postpone everything? Where did all the time go?. 

woensdag 14 november 2012

DIY: Red Hair

Like I promised I will now reveal how I managed to keep my hair red for 8 months without having to dye it every couple of weeks.



I used Manic Panic Vampire Red Amplified to get this dark, deep red. Before dying your hair, make sure it's healthy. Manic Panic has to be applied on wet, washed hair. It is very important that you do not use conditioner right before you are going to dye it. I dyed my hair from a very dark brown to vampire red without using bleach. If your hair is lighter or you bleach it, it might turn out brighter!

My mother always dyes my hair, using gloves and a brush (you have to buy these separate since it's not included in the box) For my hair, I have a lot of hair, just over shoulder length, one bottle is enough. The instructions say: how longer you leave the dye in your hair, how brighter the colour will be. They advise to rinse your hair after half an hour. I, however, left it on a whole night. I slept with it. How? Well I gathered all my hair and put in a plastic bag that I used like some kind of hat. It looks incredibly silly and it's not comfortable, but it works. Be sure to put an old towel on your pillow or use an old pillow case because the bag might loosen a bit during the night. In the morning you rinse your hair (not until the water is clear, but until you think most of the dye is out of it) and you apply conditioner.

Be careful with towels and clothes. Your hair will stain the towels and can stain your clothes if your hair gets wet (sweating, rain). It's been more than two months since I last dyed my hair in this way, and my shower/bath water still colours red. This is perfectly normal. This means, however, it can still stain clothes and towels! I do not use any special type of shampoo or conditioner to keep my hair red, but some people advise moisturising shampoo and conditioner. The only thing I do is wash my hair as little as possible. If you can't bear that, use dry-shampoo.

Dying your hair red doesn't have to be expensive or high maintenance, you just have to know how. Be careful if you want to keep another dye than Manic Panic in your hair for the whole night since it might damage your hair. Manic Panic does not damage your hair by keeping it on very long.


Red hair

Red is one of the most difficult colours to keep pretty. It fades quickly so you have to dye your hair often and if you have dark hair and you want bright red, you have to bleach your hair, which can damage it to the point it is dead.

I have a love/hate relationship with red. I've have been dying my hair red for about 5 years now (not constantly though) 

The first time I went to the hairdressers to get red hair. It turned out really nice, but faded fast.


I tried to get the same result by using DIY dye hair kits from the supermarket and from Manic Panic, but I never got the same result. Then the crazy idea came in my head to simply bleach my hair since I don't like to spend money on a hairdresser. I used both Stargazer bleach as dye. I believe it was called fire red.  My hair felt a bit like straw for a couple of days, but using a hair repair masque helped it a lot! 

Unfortunately it faded very quickly and  soon I looked like this:


Not red at all... but orangish. 

Now I think I have find the secret of red hair! This is how my  hair looks now:




In the next blog post I will share how I managed to get this hair colour and keep it for almost 8 months. I have dyed it again in the beginning of September because my hair had grown so much that I had 3 cm of brown in it and it lost a bit of it's brightness.

vrijdag 9 november 2012

306

I think i have heard this song a thousand times, if it isn't more. In a way I think it is very creepy, especially if you know that the instrumental part symbolises the time it takes to lose conscience under water (that's what is heard anyway). 


There are a lot of theories about this song. I myself don't have a very clear one, but what I suspect is that it's about someone who commits suicide by drowning herself. But then again, I think that it's very obvious. I've looked something up and discovered some nice theories.

This theory (the second last post)  says that it's about Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet. The prove that has been given makes it a very strong theory, except that someone asked Emilie if it was about Hamlet, and she said it was not. I have no idea since I haven't read Hamlet yet, but it's on my to read list with a lot of other books. 

Another theory is about 306 deaths in the Seine


I have no clue which theory is the right one, and I'm sure their are many other plausible ones, but I like it that we don't exactly know what it's about. The mystery gives another dimension to the song.

dinsdag 6 november 2012

Shall I compare thee...

In the course Introduction to Literature in English there are three lessons dedicated to Shakespeare; While I never new a lot about Shakespeare, I always thought he was a brilliant man, for he has influenced so many people. Yesterday we have been discussing some of his sonnets and our Professor made us listen to these two sonnets:

18 (I absolutely love this one) recited by David Tennant 


And sonnet 30 recited by Alan Rickman. I strongly advise you to put the volume high and enjoy it as much as I did.

maandag 5 november 2012

The Rasmusitis

One more month I will be, hopefully, camping in front of TRIX in Antwerp to make sure I'll have a front row spot at the club show of The Rasmus! I hope the weather isn't too bad because I don't feel like getting sick. Luckily I won't be alone because my dear friend and BF will be there with me. I'm already experiencing a severe case of The Rasmusitis. 


I found this amazing performance of one of my favourite songs and I wanted to share it with you. The Rasmus is, for me, the Stranger in the song. The only difference is that I will love them longer then just one night :)