The Liebster Award

Well guys, I have been nominated for the Liebster award by the amazing Josephine Beth! She has an amazing blog that I love to read, so go check out her blog here if you haven't!

If you don't know what the Liebster award is, it's something you give someone whose blog you read or even enjoy to read and you ask a few question and give this award out to a few different blogs. Josephine has left a few questions for me to answer, so I will answer them as fully as I can!

When is your birthday? Month and date

My birthday is March 5th.

What is your favourite season and why?

My favourite season is automne because it's the perfect temperature, it's socially acceptable to start drinking hot chocolate and it's just so beautiful outside.I guess I would call it the loveliest season.

What is your favourite TV show?

This is a really hard question for me, I can't pick just one so I'll name a few off. I'm currently really enjoying Friends, Modern Family, The Middle, Two Broke Girls and How I Met Your Mother.

If you could speak any language, what would it be?

Wow, these are really hard questions! I love anything culture related, so language falls under that category. I already speak both French and English, so I would have to say either Spanish or Gaelic.

If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

I would have to say either somewhere in the UK area or New York or Boston, United States.

What is your favourite drink?

Am I the most sarcastic person ever if I say water? Besides that it would have to be chocolate milk or for special occasions, Sprite.

Why did you start blogging?

I could go on for ages with this question alone. To keep my answer short and sweet, I would have to say I started blogging to get things off my mind, say what I think and not regret a thing. It's like my comfort place where I can write to my heart's content. In real life where I feel as if my voice isn't heard at all, blogging gave me the chance to have my voice be heard and to help other people.

What food do you hate eating?

Mushrooms, straight up. No ifs, ands or buts.

What is your favourite animal?

My favourite domestic animal is a dog and my favourite international animal would have to be either penguins or giraffes. 

What is your favourite smell/scent?

I love the smell of Vanilla.

What is your favourite movie/genre?

I can't pick one specific movie, but I do enjoy the old Disney classics along with comedy and action movies.

I nominate the following:

1. Making My Life A Camera

2. Plain Insane and Insanely Plain

3. Isabella's Choice

4. Just Another Girl
5. Reckless
6. Cherries and Perfume
(If I got your blog name wrong, please let me know so that I can change it!)


My 11 questions for you guys are:

1. What is your dream job?
2. What do you like to do in your free time?
3. What is/was your favourite class in school?
4. What is your ideal weekend?
5. What question(s) do you hate having asked to you?
6. What is your favourite holiday and why?
7. What do you see for yourself in the future? (You can pick however many years ahead you want!)
8. What is something you want to accomplish by the end of this year? 
9. When did you start blogging?
10. What is your idea of a perfect world and what would you change about this one to make it perfect for you?
11. Why did you start blogging?
(Bonus question is you want to answer it: How and why did you choose the blog name that you currently have?)

The Rules for Liebster Award :

1.Thank the person who nominated you

2. Answer the questions given by the nominator

3. Nominate another 5-11 bloggers (with 200 or less followers) and link them

4. Create 11 new questions for the nominees to answer

5. Notify all nominees by social media/blogs

6. Include the rules within the post

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I'm Back!

Hey everyone! I got back from my vacation in Jamaica Monday evening, and it really was great.

I got to do a lot which I'm extremely grateful for. I went to a crocodile farm (I'm not joking, the tour guide kissed one), went to YS Falls (a beautiful swimming area where theres about three or four different places to swim in and there's one main waterfall and then a few small ones which trickle into the different swimming areas), the Appleton Rum factory and horseback riding.

I got loads of pictures and I'm still debating if I want to post them on here or not. I'll probably end up deciding by the end of the week, so keep a look out for a new "Pictures" page that I might create, no promises though.

The resort I stayed at was really nice and all of the staff was so kind, food was great, beach and sunsets were beautiful. There really wasn't anything more that I'd expect from the trip.

I got more than I expected.

The next little bit will be slightly embarrassing for me, you might roll your eyes and think "Typical," but there is a reason as to why I'm writing this. Right, are you ready to be annoyed with me? Here it goes:

I met a guy when I was there.

He's my just about my age (slightly older by not even by a year), kind, funny, same state of mind and he was overall easy to talk to. He was the type of person that as soon as you start talking to them, you're dreading the thought of it ending because a conversation could flow so easily between you guys. We only really started talking the last few days of both of our trips, but even then it was fine.

This is the part of the story that get's embarrassing for me and entertaining for you guys.

Where he lives, he's a competitive sailor and our resort had a boat (I sat here pondering the type longer than I should have, so I have finally decided that I have, infact, forgotten what type it was) and he offered to take my sister and I out. By the time we got out, the wind was dead, there was absolutely none, so we decided to go back in.

My sister decided to go swim with our parents, so this guy and I took out two paddleboards and decided to go to this raft not that far out from our resort. It was probably a 500m-800m distance. The raft was the perfect place to go snorkeling and jumping off it, so we had fun jumping a few times.

At one point, he was in the water already and then encouraging me to jump in. (I just want to say that I didn't have a fear of this or anything, I already did it, I was honestly just hesitant to jump because I saw a few fishes.)

I jumped in and when I came back up, he took notice to an extra bracelet I had and he asked me what it was. Treading water, I pulled my wrist up out of the water and looked at him and started to say what it was, but he didn't want to hear it. He grabbed my wrist and my waist and pulled me in for a kiss.

That was my first kiss.

Why was it so bad? Because the second he pulled away, I apologized.

This wasn't a "sorry, this is my first kiss I'm not all that sure what to do," this was a basic response that I didn't even think twice about. Who's mental reaction is it to apologize to the person that just kissed you for the first time?! Obviously, it's mine.

I was there, mortified, but he just kindly laughed and said it was fine and I didn't have anything to be sorry about.

Let's just say that the second one was much better.

Moral of the story?

• If you have yet to have your first kiss, don't expect for it to be a movie magic moment, it probably won't be. You have every right to picture how you want it to be like, but don't set yourself up for disappointment because made up scenarios and the real thing can be quite different.
• Although you might not be looking forward for a trip of some sort, you really never know what will happen or who you'll meet, so keep your thoughts open. They don't have to be wide open, maybe just a little crack in the door, but don't shut off the possibilities completely.
• Don't kiss in deep water where you can't touch. It makes things impossible. It's just not easy.

Would you say that it was a short lived paradise love? Yeah, probably. We are still talking though and I don't know what will come out of it. He lives on literally the other side of the country from me, I probably won't see him for a very long time, maybe not ever again for that matter, but I feel as though that's okay. 

Being in the same state of mind, that gives you someone to talk to when you need it and both of us felt as if we didn't have someone like that to talk to before we started to talk. I might not see him for awhile or ever again, but he's someone to talk to when things get difficult and he knows that I'm there for him if he needs it, and to me, that's pretty special already.

That trip turned out pretty alright for me.


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Vacation

Friday was the official start of March break for me, and I couldn't be anymore relieved.

I have found that recently I have these piles of stress on my shoulders, so it will be great to be able to take a week for myself and not have to worry about school, courses, work, and day to day life.

I have been starting to dread the thought of school more and more recently, but that's probably because it's all I've known. It's the same exact thing, five days a week, six hours a day, it does start to get dull.

I'm lucky enough to be traveling this March break, and I get to travel to Jamaica tomorrow morning. I'm so excited to go, I'm really excited for the change in scenery for a little bit and it will be a good little change for me. 

I have to admit, I'm a little nervous about the plane ride. I have been on one before, but I still always get nervous about 24 hours before I go.

Something that I have been super stressed over at school is that we were assigned the biggest history project of the year, only had one class to work on it in school, and were assigned to do it over March break so we can hand it in the day we get back (The 23rd).

If you ask me, that is unfair. Many people are going away for the break and many have been away before the teachers even gave us the project. I say teachers as in plural because we currently have a trainee teacher in charge of this project while our regular teacher is in the back of the class doing some other work.

I have been working on this project at home, but with all the outcomes I have to meet, it feels as if it's going to be impossible to finish before I leave.

My parents agree with me and do see my point of view on this matter and have emailed my regular teacher, informing her that I probably won't have it in on time, but that's not necessarily my fault. I know for a fact that it hasn't only been my parents to do so.

I guess that's another reason as to why I'm nervous for this vacation; I won't be able to get any work done and that will only be a bigger burden on my shoulders when I get home.

My parents have told me not to worry over it, and I think that's exactly what I'm going to do.

It's not everyday that I can escape the freezing Canadian weather and that I have the chance to go to Jamaica for the week. 

My teachers are informed that I won;t have it in on time, so that should be enough.

Everyone deserves a break that they're going to enjoy, so that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Among the fact that I'm traveling to Jamaica, my family and I are staying at this really small resort (about 60 rooms I believe), so to have wifi, we would have to pay a fee. I'm not sure what this fee is, whether it's 40$ a day or 60$ a week, but what I do know is that my parents have decided to not pay for this fee and to have this vacation be a disconnected one.

Honestly? I'm excited for that. I know that I spend a lot of time online, so it will be amazing to get away from all temptation of that and to see a part of the world that I've never seen before. Sadly, though, it means that I won't be able to post on my blog like regularly. So there's not going to be a post Wednesday or Sunday, but my next actual post will be on Wednesday March 25th.

I have to admit though, I'm not 100% sure about the whole wifi situation, but I will try and stay off it as much as I can. If there is a chance to use wifi, I might use it to upload some pictures that I took onto my blog so that I won't use up all my storage space on my camera memory card, but that will be it. 

What are you guys doing? Any plans for March break? I think that the break in March is for Canadians and a few others around the world, I'm pretty sure that Americans had their break in February, but even so, what did you do then? Feel free to let me know!

I'll see you all again when I get back. 

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Bumps In The Road

This afternoon, I went to the doctors and I heard the words that I was terrified to hear, yet deep down, I knew that they were coming.

At the moment, I'm still having trouble processing it all, so I don't feel up to opening about all of that quite yet, but maybe a little later on in the future I'll be open to talking about it.

Tonight's post is going to be a short one that's going to be a reminder for myself in the future, and maybe it could be one for you right now.

They say that life's a journey and you never know what to expect on that journey, and I learnt a little more about that with today.

For a journey, I assume that you need some sort of transport and grounds to get across.

For me, I see life as a dirt road.

It's a dirt road because some parts are as smooth as ever, others are a little patchy yet still manageable, and others are extremely rough, not necessarily in that order and on a constant loop.

I'm currently in the extremely rough part of that long dirt road, and all I can say for anyone else that might also be on that part of the road is that it may not look like it, but there will be a smooth part coming up.

Trust me, I know what it's like to see a rough part of the road for ages, but everything comes to an end at some point, right? No, sadly I can't say whether that the smooth part is coming up in a few minutes or in a few days, I can't tell you when it is, but I can promise that it's waiting to greet you.

Although you may feel terribly alone right now or when you but that rough part, you're not alone. That's probably the hardest, yet most important thing to remember. You're not alone, there's always help somewhere and there's always someone looking to support you.

Even if you don't believe it, I'm supporting you. I'm rooting for you to find that smooth part of the road.

I don't know what your current life situation is. I don't know if it might be a little rocky or if it's a smooth ride for awhile, but there's always going to be bumps in the road and you don't have to let it become a mountain for you.

Whatever you have to do, slow it down. There's no point in blowing a tire or damaging your car while trying to speed over the bumps.

What I want for anyone who reads this to take from it is that things do get better, and there's always someone cheering you on, even if you don't see them.


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Make a Statement - Make YOUR Statement

Nowadays, out in the real world, it seems as if everyone is hiding who they truly are in order to fit in and meet some imaginary social standard.

This isn't something new to people, many are aware that this is the current situation with people in our lives.

Personally, I find that the reasons as to why people hide their true self are:
1) Because they don't feel comfortable with the people they're around yet. This isn't something that's necessarily bad, but you deserve to have friends that you feel 100% comfortable around. It might take a little time to get there, that's okay, not everyone opens up to reveal who they truly are the moment you become friends.
Or
2) They feel ashamed of who they are, or someone has already put them down for being who they truly are.

Now that second one is not okay at all. Under any circumstance. Period.

Something I hold really close is music, it's something I couldn't live without. When you insult me in my taste in music, on my favourite bands, on concerts I want to attend, it's not even something I could defend myself against because I'm trying to play off that I'm not actually hurt by your words, yet in reality, they feel like scissors cutting out a little piece of me.

That's how I feel when someone insults the most important thing for me, but it could be anything for anyone else. It could be their fashion sense, favourite sport, arts, books, other people, movies, sense of humour. it could be literally anything. 

All of those things, they're matter of opinions. 

I might like one band when you like another, or I might like comedy movies when you like drama movies. 

There's no right or wrong answer, they're all to our preference and what we favour.

I am sick and tired of people being insulted for what they like and they feel the need to hide their true self.

My friends also hold music close to their hearts, yet the enjoy heavier types of music when I like anything from R&B to punk. They would insult me for liking some of the bands I did, so I resorted to only listening to music I knew they liked when I was around them to feel accepted.

I didn't have to do that at all. I was losing something I truly cherished and enjoyed in the exchange of being "cool". I'd much rather have real friends then be viewed as "cool" in their eyes.

It's time that we stop with putting others down for what they enjoy.

What you like to do is part of who you are. Of course it can change at times, but it's still you. As far as I'm concerned, your thoughts and interest are just as much a part of you as your brain, heart, lungs, cells and DNA, so who's there to tell you that it's not important or it's stupid?

I know how hard it is to take off the mask, yet I feel a though if we did, it would be much easier to find our true friends earlier on in our lives.

If you're considered the "good school girl" and you love screamo music, crank it a little louder so everyone in the hallways can hear it.
If you're captain of the football team and love to watch Gossip Girl, talk to someone who also has the same interest in the show.

Why are we helping the stereotypes? It's time to break those and make our own statements.

***

I would also love to say Happy International Women's Day! You should always be proud of who you are and I'm Proud To Be A Girl.

***

One More Girl, no longer online

Freedom Of Speech...Oh, You're Not Listening

Something that feels as if it's been happening often to me these past few weeks is that I'm constantly being cut off and interrupted.

I understand if I'm in a debate type of conversation and the other person jumps in when I'm trying to explain something and they challenge what I'm saying, I don't mind that if it's reasonable. The thing I really hate it when I'm constantly being cut off so that someone can start to talk about something completely different as to what I was talking about in the first place.

It makes me feel as if what I have to say isn't all that important and that it makes me think that you believe your opinions are simply better than mine. Opinions are the matter of one's personal thoughts, there really can't be a right or wrong one.

For me, this seem to happen a lot a school and also at home.

At school, I'm partnered with three other girls for a project. Two are best friends while the other seems to never be with the group. Whenever one of the best friends ask me something, I'll start to reply but the other one will cut me off and say "Oh my God, do you know the funny thing that I just thought of?" and then go off in a story to which I know nothing about and I'm left as the third wheel again.

Don't get me wrong, these girls are lovely, it's just hard to work in the same group as best friends.

It also happens with family sometimes. I'll be in the middle of talking when I'm either cut of so that the other person can talk, or I realize that they really don't care for what I have to say. 

That's one of the worst feelings, really. To talk about something you're passionate about while no one can bother to listen.

If you're someone who tends to cut people off, I can understand if you do it at an appropriate time while being on the same subject, but if you jump to something completely different, please let the person talking finish. We all hate that feeling, so why let it happen to someone else?

If you're like me and constantly being interrupted, remember to hold your head high. It's their lost if they don't hear the end of the funny story as to what your dog did the other day. Although you might feel as though no one cares and that things would be better if you stay quiet, it won't be. If you're fed up with this (also like me), why not say "I'm sorry for interrupting you, but I wasn't finished saying what I had to say. Do you mind if I say the last little bit? I'd love to hear what you have to say after, though,"? You are politely letting the person know that you still have more to say and I think that's reasonable!

You have a voice and you shouldn't be afraid to use it.


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Sometimes We Have To Slow Down

Man, it's March 1st already. It's insane to think that it's the first day of March, yet it's the first day of March.

When I turned on my phone for the day and saw the date, I think that's when it really sunk in as to what the date is. I knew March was coming up today, I knew it was going to be a new month, but I guess that it didn't really sink in until this morning.

That's what inspired me to write this post.

This year, for me at least, already feels as if it's flying by. We've already gone through two whole months of 2015. Normally, I feel as if days drag on, yet so far this year,  they're flying by.

Although the year is passing by quickly, I've constantly been feeling as if I'm drowning in choices, in a pit of despair for school, and in wonder. 

I mentioned before that thinking about the future is our way of escaping the present, yet I still can't manage to stop thinking about it.

Today was a little bit of a wake up call for me, seeing that the first two months seem to have flown by and I can't say that I've really done something that I'm extremely proud of yet. I feel as if I have wasted two months, constantly worrying about what could be.

This is a reminder for me, and anyone else who needs it, that we really do have to slow down at times.

If you're having a family dinner, enjoy it, don't worry about homework, it can wait. 

If you're talking to someone on the phone that you haven't seen or heard from in ages, don't feel bad for asking them so many questions.

If you and you're friends do something stupid, that's okay, you did it together.

As a teenager, I don't tend to do this, but I will start to slow down and enjoy the smaller things I have in my life because in the end, I know that those will count the most.

As an expression I hear a lot around in my school, "Slow down, speed racer."

Life isn't a race, so why do we all treat it like one?

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