New Year's resolutions.

I have been writing my resolutions for three years now and I thought it would be nice to share it with you! I did a little poll on twitter and the New Year's resolutions won, so here I go.

My photo and my edit!

Before I start, I want to say that I have been feeling quite off today and I wanted to do this also to make my motivation go up as well as yours :)

My resolutions for 2016 are quite varied, but some of them are actually the same as in 2015 - which doesn't mean that I didn't accomplish them, I did - because I want to keep them as habits forever.

1. Drink a good amount of water - that includes other drinks as juice or tea. I started really taking that seriously in September, when thanks to a friend from university I installed 'Plant Nanny' on my phone, an app to keep track of the water you drink. I really recommend it to you, it's really useful and super cute! Plus, I have noticed my skin is so much better now, for real.

2. Eat healthy food. I had been doing that on and off, but I really want to have a good diet and keep it for a long time. That means not eating fast food or junk food, and also trying to eat little chocolate and sweets. I want to start baking more so I can eat sweet food that's healthy.

3. Exercise regularly. This one I have also been doing it on and off. I had a great start in 2015 with apps like '7 minutes', but I slowly stopped. Now I try to walk everywhere and I try not to use the elevator, and I also want to run or go swimming a couple days a week.

4. Write every single day. It's the first time I take this seriously. I have 'tried' writing regularly before, but I always failed thinking that I would solve it writing less often but more words. My experience tells me that doesn't work, that leads to blocking and losing interest in the task. Since I want to be a writer - even if I don't really know what that word means - I want to write every day, either an amount of 500 words at least, or for the days when I literally don't have time, I want to write one of the '642 things to write about' that the book has.

5. Read different books. In 2015 I did an amazing job of reading - I read a total of 55 books. This year I don't know if I'll have that much time to read, so I want to read different books, different genres. I want to get inspired by books, not just read the same plot all over again. In order to do that I have created my own 'Reading Challenge' combining multiple challenges.

6. Cook every once in a while. Since I already know I want to go on Erasmus, sooner than later I'm going to live on my own. That's why I want to learn how to cook, and not only learn the traditional dishes, but try new ones. I'm really interested in vegan food and Japanese food, I also want to become more independent and be able to help my parents more than I do now, so along with cooking I also want to do more housework and see it as an opportunity to grow.

7. Meditate. I started last year with Chopra free 21 days challenges and it helped me a lot through the hard times, I can assure you I was much more relaxed. I want to meditate at least a couple days a week so I feel comfortable with that habit and I can do it whenever I feel I need to.

8. Stop doing things I don't want to do. In the past months I have realised I do quite a few things I don't want to do just because I started doing them and I think I can't stop them. I want to break unhealthy habits and forget about toxic people without feeling guilty for it. Also, this goes hand in hand with Start doing things I feel like doing, which is related to point number 10.

9. Record myself. I had been wanting to start a youtube channel for more than a year now, and I have finally started recording myself in videos. I want to do that not for the sake of starting a youtube channel - which would be pretty cool but I don't know if I'll do that because I'm super shy - but I want to do it in order to help myself become more fluid talking in English and explaining myself. As I had said, I'm a very shy person so I have a hard time talking in front of others, and since I have to do presentations for university, I want to become more confident. I think talking in front of a camera about the things that I like will help me a lot. And who knows, maybe eventually I open a youtube channel.

10. Stop being so hard on myself. I tend to stress over things that are not important at all or I start stressing ahead of time, which is not good for my health and leaves me always in a state of anxiousness and sadness. I'm not going to stop being responsible, but I want to free myself and do things because I want to do them. What I mean by that is that if I don't feel like studying in the morning, I should listen to myself and do what I feel like doing, so then I'll be happy and I'll be able to study with a smile on my face in the afternoon. I have also realised life is much more than just 'what we have to do', and I'm over trying to be the perfect thing society wants me to be.

11. Break the ice. I'm a really shy person but I'm also very curious and over the past months I have overcome my shyness and I have met a lot of new people who are amazing and who - surprise, surprise - find me amazing too! I want to keep on greeting people on the street and talking to people even if I'm a bit embarrassed at first.

12. Switch off the phone - switch on creativity. I want to spend less time on my phone doing nothing and be more on my own, in the sense that I want to pay attention to myself and have some me-time. In my case, that doesn't mean putting on make-up or taking a bubble bath, it means to let my creativity flow. I have started writing a new story and adding drawings to it, which I hadn't done since ages. I want to be able to stop for a while and doodle or play the guitar or just simply experiment.

So this are my resolutions for the new year! I hope you found them inspiring or interesting, what are you resolutions for 2016? 

Thank you for reading xx
P.S.: I have realised it's one of the longest posts I have ever written omg.

None of the above + Faking It

I finished reading None of the Above some weeks ago and I really liked it for the topic it develops: intersex people. Before reading the book I had a slight idea of what being intersex meant (really wrong idea if you ask me, to be honest I didn't really think about it) because of Faking It, a MTV series.

In this post I'm going to explore the description of intersex people given in that two different contexts.

I started reading the book thinking it would be about a different topic (more about sexuality rather than gender identity, I don't even know why but it was my fault anyway), but I welcomed the subject with my arms open: intersexual people. I really hadn't much information on the theme, and I hadn't really thought about it until that moment. It is very well explained from the medical point of view, and also from an emotional point of view. It's an approach to non-binary people, with little hints of the LGBT+ community. 

[To read the whole review go to my goodreads profile] 

Kristin discovers she's intersex in a really shocking way, which explains her strong denial and hate of that condition. However, the book tries to highlight a taboo topic without having a very open attitude towards the queer community. That's what I did not like. Queer people have a voice in there, don't get me wrong, it's just that they don't really get a nice reaction from the main character. The actions are too "hetero" based, which leads to the final point of girl-boy relationship that solves everything. I totally did not like that. The idea of the book could've led to a gain of Independence of the main character, which happens but in a very small amount. The great thing about the book is the idea of accepting oneself, no matter what. 

I still recommend the book, it really teaches a lot about AIS, and gives you different points of view.

One of the main characters in Faking It, the MTV series, is intersex. This is not known from the start, which causes a bit of mystery and drama through the first season. As you can see, Lauren is everything you would never think about intersex people: she's super feminine, even the prototype of a Barbie teenage girl. She's your typical popular mean girl, except for the fact that she's not typical at all. 

The series' main goal is to present typical cliché scenes, characters and ideas and deconstruct them, show that in real life, things are not just that simple. It also portrays very well queer characters, even though it's centred on gays, lesbians ans bisexuals overall. The general attitude is very accepting and open, which I love. Uniqueness is a treasure.

I think they totally worked it out with the character of Lauren, who seems very flat and simple, but ends up being one of the most complex ones. Even though they don't explain that much about intersex people when Lauren's secret is discovered, they indeed do a great job of accepting her as a whole, not just a person whose main feature is being intersex. She has some issues relating to her condition, she always feels different and less than other girls, that's why she does a show of being super confident and the girl that can have whatever she wants. She has to take some pills in order to help her hormonal system, but in medical terms that's more or less all. It's explained that she was born intersex but developed as a female, and due to her hormonal system she has good skin. In None of the Above, Kristin's body is explained in more detail, saying that she developed as a female, but in fact has the masculine gonads inside of her, whereas from the outside she just seems a female with no period, because she doesn't have ovaries at all.

In both contexts, one of the issues relating to intersex people is sex. In None of the Above, the situation is directly presented, and let me tell you, it's not nice or pleasurable at all. In Faking It, the drama comes because Lauren is one of the few girls that are still virgins, which she simply cannot stand considering the fact that she's beautiful and popular. But she's not ordinary, what makes her boyfriend/ex-boyfriend uncomfortable. The difference here is that, while boys only get uncomfortable around the idea of having sex with Lauren, Kristin has a much worse time. Boys think she's a "faggot", even a monster, and they can't even stand touching her. The environment Lauren is in, is much more comprehensive. She's a girl. She's intersex, whatever that means. In my opinion, the sex issue relating to Lauren is much more ordinary, because sex is still a taboo in society. People are pretty scared of sex, and intersex relationships are confronted from the point of view of the unknown in an innocent way. Not like poor Kristin, who cannot even deal with speaking to other people without being verbally abused.

In all, Kristin and Lauren are just two sides of the same coin. Different girls, different environments, different ways of dealing with it.

I highly recommend you to read the book and watch the series! 

Did you know about intersex people? Have you read the book or watched the series?

On embarrassment and mean people

Today, something happened that made me feel specially frustrated - not just about myself but about people surrounding me - and made me really sad. It genuinely made me sad, so sad all I could think about was going to the bathroom and crying. It wasn't something massively important, in fact it was just nonsense, but it affected me a lot.

I have had a few bad days, starting on last weekend. This past months have been so intense I have been bottling all up, plus I barely spend proper time at home during the week. This has led me to a state of utter tiredness, which has also led to me being too emotional. As you can imagine, all mixed together has just kicked me in the guts.

I don't even know if I'm going to reach a point here, I just feel that I need to let it all out.

So, I was in a uni lesson, as every Tuesday. Things were going fine, and then we had to do an exercise in pairs. Unfortunately, the boy I always pair up with hadn't come, plus, the girls I talk to, all were paired up. So I looked for someone that was alone, without a partner, like me. There was a boy, and I went to talk to him, and he was plain rude. He told me to basically go away because he was going to do the thing with two other classmates - which by the way was stupid because we had to do it in pairs, not in groups of three. I was there looking like an idiot and he just told me to go and do it with a boy that never talks to anyone, who isolates himself and always does everything with the teacher. I stood there for a few moments pretty confused, and then the teacher stated again that we had to do the exercise in pairs. So the boy eventually agreed to do it with me (it was just like 30 seconds, so whatever), but I felt bad. Like really bad, because I felt totally stupid and needy and I don't know, it kind of made me feel like when I was in middle school and some classmates rejected me and ignored me. That connection with my past really made me feel bad, because it was like reliving all my old fears, thinking the story would be the same all over again. 
I even thought for a second about ignoring that boy and trying to do the thing with the isolated classmate, but I guess I was just scared.

The second thing that happened was that the teacher picked me and another classmate - a nice girl, if you ask me - to do a thing in front of the whole class. It was okay, really. Except for the fact that, when we had already finished it, the teacher made me feel horribly bad. I have had a few issues with that teacher already, but luckily he's not going to be our teacher anymore for some reasons. As I was saying, we were already safely sat down - «safely» - and he dropped the bomb. He said that I was grammatically correct and everything, but I had to show more enthusiasm, because it seemed that I didn't have any interest at all in the dialogue. If that wasn't enough, he even added «maybe it's just your character».

I know for many people that wouldn't have mattered at all, but for me it did. For me it was embarrassing and painful. Even now, while I'm typing this, I still feel like crying. It makes me angry because I don't want to be this kind of person that is so weak she's affected by people's mean comments, or even comments that are not aimed to hurt. God I have let out a couple of tears. I'm ashamed and I'm relieved at the same time, isn't it a big contradiction?

Someone somewhere said, it's okay to cry. It really is okay. No matter what happened, it's always okay to cry. I'm afraid I'll need to repeat this quote in my head a million times before I can say I truly believe it.
We are taught to be strong, to never cry. Because if you cry it means you're sad, so you're not having the life you were meant to have, to fight for. We are taught to be perfect, and crying is a flaw.

Well, I'm tired of pretending I'm perfect. I'm even tired of pretending I want to be perfect. Fuck perfect. I want human, because I'm so incredibly tired of trying to impress everyone and forgeting about my feelings. Not failing is extremely hard, I want to fail. I want to be loved for my achivements and my failures too. I want someone to tell me: I love you because you always fear talking in public, and not mean it in a bad way. I want someone to tell me that not because they think that way they can control me, but because they know everything about me and they accept it. Just accept everything of me, instead of trying to change it, trying to improve me and obtain a better version of me. Why do we always have to be telling people «you should do this or that» if they're not hurting anyone and not hurting themselves?

I know being shy is probably going to prevent me from doing some really great stuff, but why does not anyone think about what other things really out-going people are losing? There are good things and bad things in life, for almost everything. Nothing is completely right or completely wrong, let alone for everyone. 

My point here is: stop trying to make people get rid of their embarrassment and their insecurities, because you're probably going to make it worse. We all have our own pace to do everything and that's okay.

A friend of mine told me that the issues I had had with that same teacher were maybe because he wanted me to overcome my shyness and embarrassment. Turns out he even made it worse.

Why is there such a need to get people out of their shyness? Why does my shyness bother you so much that you have to try and make me change day after day?

I may have lost all faith in humanity, but in days like this, I simply think people are mean.

P.S.: I wasn't going to post this for fear of appearing to be seeking attention or whatever, but I'm tired of fearing what people is going to think. I want to try to be more honest about my life, and this starts by letting total strangers read what another total stranger has to say. I also want to try to write more about my feelings instead of bottling it all up, even though I don't want this blog to become some sort of diary.

So yeah, this is me starting a series of posts I'm calling "Things I would've told my therapist if I had one".

Things I would've told my therapist if I had one:

#1

More sad than angry rant to a specific nobody

You know it's funny how I used to think about love and soulmates and compatibility as this really complicated stuff to find, but that when you find it everything is so damn right.

Well, it's not.

Compatibility arrives, but it doesn't have to be with a person that has the ability to be the "right one". Sometimes that person is younger than you, sometimes that person is not single.
People talk about timing. Yeah, they're right, that's important, but what if timing makes our paths cross at the wrong moment and never again?

You know, I believe in destiny, but I also believe it may be wrong. What if the sacred forces of the universe make a mistake? What if that person was really my person?

Like, everybody tells you: "You have to fight for the right person" and "You'll know who that person is when the moment comes" but I have never been sure about anything in my life.
Only after losing everything, I have known the truth, but then, it was too late.
They say we learn from mistakes, but what if I don't want to let this mistake go?

Maybe I just believe in fairytales and things that don't exist, that don't belong to the real world.

The thing is, I'm afraid to be right about my person, because what if he doesn't even see me at all? And don't tell me than if he doesn't notice me he's not my person.

I'm not the kind to fight, I'm the kind to offer passive resistance, and that only works for letting things go.

***

Okay, so this is the first "rant-thoughts-thingy" I post in here. I usually keep this kind of things to myself but I thought, what's wrong with sharing it with the world? Anyway, it's not like a lot of people will read it, so it'll remain pretty private.

If by any chance there's someone reading this, I hope it made you think about something or at least feel something. Any opinions will be cheered.

Laura xx

P.S.: now I understand why punk-rock bands like long titles so much.

P.S.2: What does the real world even mean? 

Ultimate book-tag

1. Do you get sick while reading in the car?
It depends. I can read in the car/bus when we are in the city, but in long trips I can't read.

2. Which author's writing style is completely unique to you and why?
Alison McGuee. Totally astonishing. Her book 'All rivers flow to the see' was a mind-blown.

3. Harry Potter Series or the Twilight Saga? Give 3 points to defend your answer.
As bad as it sounds, I haven't read any HP books, and I have only read the two last books in the Twilight saga, but I was just PSH MEH about them. So I'll probably give it to Harry Potter because I hope I'll love the books when I read them (and I hope it'll be soon).

4. Do you carry a book bag? If so, what is it in (besides books...)?
If you mean the back-pack I carry to uni, there's my pencil case, a bottle of water, a little umbrella, some food, tissues, my purse, my cel phone, my keys...

5. Do you smell your books?
Yes (?)

6. Books with or without little illustrations?
I don't really care. I mean, if a book happens to have illustrations I like it but I'm not intentionly looking for them.

7. What book did you love while reading but discovered later it wasn't quality writing? (Ex. I read Twilight before I read HP and thought the writing was amazing but read HP and now think Twilight is a little bit of a joke.)
I don't really know. I mean, I have this feeling that now that I'm reading more books, I'm not so excited as before when I read a mediocre book, but I can't really point at any past book.

8. Do you have any funny stories involving books from your childhood? Please share!
It's not funny but it's the only thing I have... so, I absolutely loved a book about gnomes and fairies and witches and my favourite page of the book was the one with all the different categories of brooms, and every once in a while I would pick up the book and spend hours re-reading that page and simply looking at the drawings.

9. What is the thinnest book on your shelf?
The Little Prince and some books from my childhood.

10. What is the thickest book on your shelf?
A bilingual edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.

11. Do you write as well as read? Do you see yourself in the future as being an author?
My biggest dream is to be an author. I do write, of course.

12. When did you get into reading?
I don't know, when I learnt how to read?

13. What is your favorite classic book?
I'm ashamed of saying this but I haven't read a lot of classics. My favourite would be Lady Chatterley's lover.

14. In school was your best subject Language Arts/English?
I was really good at english (but I don't live in an english speaking country, though).

15. If you were given a book as a present that you had read before and hated...what would you do?
Tell the person that I'm sorry but I have to change the book because of those reasons.

16. What is a lesser known series that you know of that is similar to Harry Potter or the Hunger Games?
I try to read different books so I don't know.

17. What is a bad habit you always do (besides rambling) while blogging?
Watch youtube videos, listen to music, check my twitter timeline...

18. What is your favorite word?
Literature (duh).

19. Are you a nerd, dork, or dweeb? Or all of the above?
Nerdfighter.

20. Vampires or Fairies? Why?
Not any of them? I'm tired of vampires and I don't really see the funny thing about fairies.

21. Shapeshifters or Angels? Why?
If you mean shapeshifters like werewolves, definitely shapeshifters, but if not, angels. I need to read more angel books though.

22. Spirits or Werewolves? Why?
Both! I love paranormal stuff as you can see.

23. Zombies or Vampires?
None of them.

24. Love Triangle or Forbidden Love?
Forbidden love, because it's a bit more realistic (?) Like, in forbidden love both characters love each other and they would be together if it wasn't for their conditions, but a love triangle? It's just stupid, choose already and stop the games.

25. AND FINALLY: Full on romance books or action-packed with a few love scenes mixed in?
Again I have to say none really? I prefer action-packed books but only if the romance makes sense. Otherwise is stupid.


Thanks for reading it! If you want to do the tag, feel free, I had fun doing it :)

'Every day' by David Levithan - bookreview

This is my first review on the new blog, hope you like it!

I had been meaning to read this book for such a long time that I can't believe it has taken me so long. Last month I read 'Dash & Lily's book of dares' written by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, and I enjoyed it so much that I couldn't wait to read another book by them.


So I read 'Every day' (though this one is only written by Levithan). I totally enjoyed it. I have to say I was expecting something different because this book is quite different from 'Dash & Lily' (I'll shorten the name for future references). 'Dash & Lily' is witty and ironic and weird and extremely funny and daring. That's what I loved about it, and then I found out that 'Every day' wasn't like that at all. Was it a bad thing? No. It couldn't be the same. The stories are different, the plots are different, the characters are different: and that's the good thing. I got to see how Levithan writes in different environments, with different objectives.
Obviously, there were good and bad things about the book. Let's start with the good things:

The originality. I can tell you the topic of the book is one of a kind. A "someone" that wakes up everyday in a different body. The paranormal side to it is so awesome, but not just that. The moral implications are fully developed, and there's at least a thoughtful paragraph in each chapter. That's one of the things that really surprised me, it may seem an ordinary cheesy teenage book, but there's so much more than just that!

Also, as an effect of the condition of the main character, there are a lot of interesting topics in there, such as gender identity, transexuality, race, money, relationships, family and religion.

I read it in such little time, I literally flew over the pages. Totally recommended. Easy read, but at the same time it's a deep one.

The only thing that I didn't like was the nature of the romance. I did like that there was a romance, because I think it really helps to develop some things in the story, but I just didn't like the way it was carried out. It was the one thing that made me point at the book and think "It really is a book for younger people" (I'm 19, okay?). Anyway, it's not like it was so annoying that it made my head hurt, no. It actually was a bit confusing because the author gives such depth to the whole story, and then there's this little romance that is not fully explained, pretending to be as deep as the rest of the story.
I have to admit that the main characters are 16, and at 16 we all act stupid and believe stupid things, but I don't know. It didn't feel right.

Finally, the end. There's such a cliffhanger, it's the biggest cliffhanger in the story of cliffhangers. I just loved to pieces the final sentence. 

<<For the first time in my life, I run.>>

If you're wondering, the cliffhanger has to do with the paranormal side of the story, and I can't wait to read the second part and find out more about A and its nature! (If you read this book, you'll understand why I used "its" instead of "his" or "her").

The second book is already out, so check it out if you have read the first one! Or even if you plan on marathoning the two books ;)

Look at the amazing cover!

Have you read 'Every day' or any other book by David Levithan? If so, what did you think?

I have made a bloglovin' account, so you can follow me there if you want! :)

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Laura x

The change in new beginnings

So here I am, throwing myself onto a new blog. Hooray!

What else could I possibly talk about in the first blogpost of a new blog, rather than about beginnings? Nothing!

New beginnings. New beginnings are difficult, but are really easy at the same time. You get to free yourself from whatever you were doing before, you cut loose. You jump into the next moment, embracing the future with inocence and hope.

This is what I'm doing in a way now. I'm starting a new blog, even if I don't really know where it'll lead me. Don't get me wrong, I still love my old blog, but I somehow needed this. I feel like I'm at the breaking point between past and future, between reliving old memories and creating new ones. So this is what I'm going to do: create myself.

Even tough it's still August, I can see the shadow of the new school year peeking off the next corner. This September I'll be starting English Studies at uni, what will change the next four years of my life. I don't want it to only be what I'm studying, I want to go deeper, I want to see farther than that. That's one of the reasons why I decided I would create a blog in english, because from this moment english will be a really important part of my life. So I want to share a little bit of me through this language!

In this blog I'll be posting book related things - such as reviews and book-tags - my own writtings, and other stuff like movie reviews. Do you want to follow me in this new path?