Favourite books, part one.

I'd been wanting to do a post on my favourite books for a while but could never truly decide which were my favourite, so today I just grabbed without thinking and took a somewhat blurry photo, (the light in my room is terrible and my white balance is set for taking photos in light conditions outside) and these were the books I picked.

1. Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

When I was in middle school, the librarian there used to recommend me books after I spent a whole lunchtime looking for something good to read and she asked if I wanted some help. I really wish I could see her now and thank her for really getting me into reading. I digress.

Although this is aimed at teenagers, I still love it and have lost count of how many times I have read this. The story is based in an alternate reality where black people are the superior race and white people used to be slaves etc. White people are not allowed in education after fourteen and live in poverty but the law changes and white children are allowed in higher schools if they past tests.

The main characters are Persephone, a daughter of a politician and Callum, her best friend who is one of the first to go to school after fourteen. I'd seen once someone wrote that it was like Romeo and Juliet but I'd never thought whilst reading it. The book flips between viewpoints, which is something that I love in books as it provides more depth then a single point of view. This book does deal with some serious issues, such as terrorism, which is surprising for a young adults book, but it carries it off well and the story world is believable. I don't want to give anything away from the storyline and this book probably isn't for everyone but I will always count it as one of my favourites.

2. One For My Baby by Tony Parsons

If you only read one book from this list, read this book. Again, I have read this too many times and it gets me every single time. All of Tony Parsons books are incredibly realistic and relatable, this like his others features a male main character. I hate trying to tell people about books because I never want to give anything away. But this is about man named Alfie trying to find happiness after a big tragedy. The first chapter in this book makes me cry.

3. Empress Orchid by Anchee Min

I'm a sucker for all things Chinese, I have been ever since I can remember. (Hence why I'm travelling round China and Japan in twenty two weeks!) This book is based on the last Empress of China, (second book has that very name) and how she came to be, problems with her husband, the changing power shifts in China and the world. A romanticised tale yes, but lovely nonetheless.  I don't know how I came across this but I'm very happy I did.

4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Maybe people should read this if they only have to read one book? Also I will be doing another posts as there are so many books I love and I just picked these randomly. Anyways.

This book is written from the view of Death. Which is just spectacular, the way Zusak portrays him is to good to put into words. The book is set in World War Two Germany and follows Liesel a young girl. I literally haven't read this for six years (I will start too after I have read the other many many books I have in a 'Need to Read' pile, such as the Dickens you can see on the left) but from what I remember it is a very well written book and very touching.

Well there you have some of my favourite books, as I wrote this all I could think of was other books I wanted to share. So I will soon. I haven't read any books in the last two years really, The Hobbit and Oblivion are the only new books I can think that I've read, because I spend my free time reading books for Uni. Which is actually really upsetting as I love reading and getting lost in another world. Sigh

LB

Daily Haiku

Daily Haiku

Old and New Things I Have Bought

Bit of a random post but decided to share the exploits of a brief shopping trip I had the other day. Brief in that, I am saving money so have reigned in a lot of my spending, and thanks to my brother for making me only get what I needed, sort of. I'd seen this cardigan/kimono wool thing in Primark ages ago and never got it, and it was reduced to £10. It's so ugly I love it and I wish I had more reasons why. Sadly they are getting rid of the studded shoes, which I adore, along with anything else studded, so I bought a pair in black (currently have light pink, which I will have to re-buy!). I'm going to do a separate post on all things boots own tea tree skincare range and also one when I dye my eyelashes. It's something I've always wanted to try but never got around to even looking at. I picked Eylure simply because I use their fake eyelashes.

In uni work related news I am so happy that I have finished my poems, all totalling 40 lines, one of which was 16 lines of iambic pentameter. I can't put them up until they're marked as it interferes with plagiarism software and doesn't recognise it could be the same person. Obviously I included a haiku in those lines, it would have been weird not to. Going back to my Lit module tomorrow as my fourth TMA is due in on the seventh! Time is flying recently.

LB

Hair: A History Of

My hair now with Dark Chocolate Brown Casting Creme Gloss by L'oreal

First things first, I am a big DIY-er when it comes to my hair. I would love to be able to afford to get my hair done in a salon or whatever but they are just too expensive for my ever changing needs and I think I have enough experience (once worked in a hairdressers/lots of internet reading) to know how to colour my hair. And I have a had a lot of hair colours. I've been blonde, black, brown, ginger, red, green, had blue streaks, purples streaks, dip dye, pink dip dye and probably some more.

Granted my hair has not been in the best condition all the time, but over the past year it has improved significantly (minus me deciding to be blonde for the summer, again) and I take such good care of it now.

Dark brown/ black hair 2011/2012

My first hair experience was when I was 14 and I in my young emo days, desperately wanted black hair. To this day I don't know how I got away with it, my father forbade me to dye my hair (and hates piercings and tattoos, oops), so I somehow did it at 3am without waking anyone in the house up?

Since then I usually go back to having really dark brown / black hair after I've done something extreme. My hair is naturally a brown colour? So it always helps it get into a good condition when I go back dark. I used to use permanent dye until about two years ago when I discovered the L'oreal Casting Creme gloss range and how semi-permanent hair dye is a lot better for your hair as it contains no ammonia. Since late autumn I've been using Dark Chocolate Brown from this range. Which does come out really really dark.

Something that I wouldn't recommend for anyone to do it bleaching hair. There are so many things that can go wrong with it, hair snapping being one, that only after a lot of strand tests and reading should it be attempted at home. I have gone blonde twice. The first when I was about 16 and second last summer. The first attempt was very trial and error and came out extremely patchy and bright orange to began with and never truly went blonde. 

Blonde, summer 2012

I decided to really give it a go last year as I think that hair should change with the seasons. 

Spring: Mid-light brown

Summer: Blonde

Autumn: Red 

Winter: Dark

Every year you can guarantee that at least two of those rules will be followed. Before I bleached my hair I stripped out the dark using colour b4, to show my natural brown for the first time in years, I dip dyed the ends pink first and then decided to try my hand at green hair. The pink was some brand from superdrug like hi-lights or something, it was years old in my room. 

The reason I chose green is because I wanted pastel green hair, but didn't want to bleach it to get it that way. It ended up really dark, which I loved as it reminded me of Sailor Pluto's hair from Sailor Moon.

But obviously is not pastel! I learnt afterwards to get pastel, you need to mix white conditioner with the colour to make it weaker. After a bleaching disaster and having bright green hair, which I do not have pictures of. (It lasted a week. It was awful)

Yeah right...

Anyway. I used Russell Jerome bleach powder and cream, the powder at 40% I believe. To get rid of the horrid green. Tips I have learnt about bleach. 

1. Never leave it on for more than an hour, this will kill your hair

2. Make sure your hair is in the best condition before you attempt to bleach it. 

3. Don't bleach your hair straight after doing so, leave it a good while, and when you think you have left it long enough, leave it for another week or too. 

4. Use oils to help your hair, olive oil heated up and put on for an hour is a very cheap option.

5. You will have to cut the ends off, do so immediately, leaving it cause the splits to go up the hair making the damage a lot worse. 

6. Do not use any heat styling etc on your hair until it is in good condition again. Be nice to your hair!

I really, really liked my hair blonde and I put pastel blue and purple on the ends, can't find any photos of it though, I just never had the courage to do a whole hair of pastel which I now deeply regret. I'm thinking of going a deep purple for the time being, going to start with the ends first and move the whole of head of hair. I don't really want to bleach my hair, so if it doesn't go as bright as I would like, I'll strip my hair again to rid some of the semi permanent dark chocolate. 

I'll be using La Riche's Directions Violet, I think, I have used two of their green dyes, alpine and apple, lagoon blue and also there silver toner for blonde hair, helps stop it looking rusty. 

I'll put a post up of the process when I do it.

LB

Daily Haiku

Daily Haiku

Django Unchained: A Review.

*Warning this review will contain spoilers. Probably*

I'm a little rusty on my reviewing skills but I will try my utmost to give a full bodied account of Django. 

The director is none other the Quentin Tarantino, whose roster contains Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds. When his name popped up at the end of the trailer, (which incidentally I saw whilst waiting for The Hobbit) of Jamie Foxx being all badass I was sold. It took me a while to get around to seeing it however, a.k.a last night. But to be honest I was quite disappointed. 

Tarantino makes his usual cameo...

The plot is simple enough, Django (Foxx) is a black slave to be sold at auction but he is bought beforehand by bounty hunter Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz) who, for the time the film is set, does not demean or belittle his slave. Dr. Schultz is looking for people and Django is the only one who can help him. Over a camp fire meal an agreement is made. 

If you help me find these people, I will set you free and find your wife. 

And such, the film goes on, showing audiences the travels of Django and Dr. Schultz, Django's growth into a bounty hunter, the barbarity of slavery and finding out that Django's wife is on Calvin Candie's (Leonardo DiCaprio) plantation. 

The Good

I loved the character of Dr. Schultz, for me, he was by far the best character throughout the whole film. And I hold Leo in the highest esteem. From the get go I didn't really know what to expect from his character and when and how it is uncovered that he is a bounty hunter was so unexpected it was awesome. His character is funny, doesn't get boring and is impeccably dressed.

                                            

Leonardo DiCaprio is one of my favourite actors and he played Calvin Candie amazingly. 

Humour wise, the writing for this film is really good and it pokes fun at itself subtly, which I liked. There are some outrageous scenes where all you can do is laugh because they're so offensive to an audience. 

I liked the soundtrack.

The Bad

This film is way too long for the content within it. Two and half hours wasn't really justifiable and I was getting really irritated towards the middle and end because there isn't enough going on to get engrossed in the movie to forget about my stupid restless legs. 

There were so so many long shots and close up shots of Django and Dr. Schultz riding their horses to music it was ridiculous and this is probably why the stupid film was so long. How many different places did we really have to see them riding to?

The Ugly

One of the main subjects of the film is slavery. I've studied it before, I know how brutal it was. But this film showed it off in the extreme. I did not want to see two men fight to the death and had it been in Tarantino's usual style, not taking itself too seriously, it might have been alright. But it was disturbing and what annoyed me was that, had this been a serious film, it would have worked. But because there was the humour and also some classic blood exploding when it shouldn't death scenes it didn't fit right. I think that the film was too blurred in this aspect as it was funny but wasn't funny enough, just something about the balance wasn't right. There was a scene when a slave is basically begging for his life and I almost cried I felt awful. 

Overall I'd say 6/10. Last night I would have said like 2 I was so tired and said the words, 'That was one of the worst films I have ever seen'. Thinking about it more it wasn't that bad but I wouldn't recommend it and I know a lot of people will disagree with me.

LB

Busy Bee.

Hii

I've been so busy recently with work, volunteering and uni work that I have completely neglected this blog and I feel bad that I've then kind of just ignored it. Oops. But I have decided that trying to post every daily haiku isn't going to happen. I don't have enough time every evening or several to be able to keep up with it all and I want to present them nicely but I cannot do it with every single one I write. I'm not going to stop doing them, I just won't be posting all of them on here.

That said I do plan on posting some of my other writings over the course of time and just generally getting a grip on my schedule, which sounds ridiculous I know. Technically I am meant to be spending thirty two hours a week studying and I spend on average thirty six hours plus a week working. 

Doing some math, minus time spent sleeping I have about six hours a day to myself. Not including any getting ready/travel times. Blah blah, anyways, that is boring. And I would like to begin writing some of the ideas I had. (I may have forgotten one or two...)

LB

Daily Haiku

I had forgotten

Just how intoxicating

Your smell is to me

LB

I'm sick *cough*

Hey guys

 I haven't posted in a while because I've been majorly ill with some stomach bug thing. I still have it and so this will be a very short update as all I seem to do is spend 90% of my day sleeping.

1. Haikus, at the moment I won't be putting any up, probably until tomorrow? And I'm thinking of a new way to present them. Also missed moleskine monday. Sadface.

2. Post ideas. I have SO many ideas and just no energy to do them at the moment. I am literally drained, I have been off work since Sunday and feel awful! I haven't had any energy to even study properly.

3. Speaking of, almost finished The Sign of Four, and still need to write this forsaken poem, so if there is more of a delay on posts, I apologise. Deadline is the 21st. AHHH.

4. In my life. I have done nothing thanks to this bug. Was going to muck about with my hair, I bought a pink semi permanent dye randomly to do my ends about a week ago. Had drinks and pizza on the friday and the was ill saturday night/sunday morning until now. On sunday I came home and slept. All day. Apart from when my mum checked on me (bless her) and when I was sick (ew) I was sleeping. Due to a lack of social life, there aren't many photos from the week. 

I'm going to sleep again now.

LB

Daily Haiku

February 7th 2013

You cannot have me

I will not love or wish to.

You cannot make me

LB

Daily Haiku

6.2.13

Peacefully sleeping

For the briefest of moments

This too, will not last

LB

Not all those who wander are lost

Hiiii.

This should only be a small update as I have too much to say but need to sleep as I have to be up early tomorrow. :( But after dumping a few haikus I felt it would be rude not to add anything.

First good news, I got a very high second for my Literature assignment, so happy! Who has the last laugh now Wordsworth? I just feel that if I can accomplish that without fully understanding one section, then I can achieve a lot more if I put in more time and effort.

Secondly, I got a tax rebate which can go straight to my travel savings. I always find putting money into context of my travels makes me less likely to spend it. For example my tax rebate is equal to a quarter of my flight home. It all adds up. (:

Finally keeping up (ish) with this blog, my uni work, work work and my life and managing to save large amounts is all coming together. I have to read The Sign of Four for my Lit module and may have had a brainwave for my poem assignment but it's all not stressing me out as much as it used to, which has made me quite ill in the past.

Anyways, that is all for now, I must sleep. More post things will be up soon, probably book related.

Au revoir

LB

Daily Haiku

LB

Daily Haiku

LB

Daily Haiku

Apparently I still can't get used to it being 2013..

LB

Moleskine Monday

Notes from the poetry section of my creative writing module. 

There are many different forms of poetry, iambic pentameter and the sonnet are just 2 of them, obviously I am well aware of the haiku.

  

I am inclined against Shakespeare simply because many people think he is the god or whatever of Literature and people do not give credit to others that paved the way for his work. *cough* Marlowe *cough*

Despite this bias, I do prefer the Petrarchan sonnet.

LB

Daily Haiku

LB

Daily Haiku

LB

Daily Haiku

31

Even your stinky

Gym clothes, smell so good to me

is this M.H.C?

LB

Daily Haiku

30

Do you ever think?

That we are just as stubborn 

as one another?

LB

Daily Haiku

29

Green eyes mask the blue

Engulfs my mind. I am not

Me, just jealousy

LB

Daily Haiku

28

Fingers through my hair

Sending me to sleep again

Quiet in the night

LB

I had a dream I moved to Paris.

Hi all.

I've a bit lax with the haiku updates as I've been reading Wuthering Heights (which by the way, all I have got so far is the main character doesn't like dogs) and trying to think of a subject for my poem. I've got an idea, although I never like telling people in fear they will steal it, which I know to be a problem for a lot of creative people I have spoke to, to begin with I was so hesitant about my haikus being out in the open, I still kind of am, but I think it's a step that needs to happen for a lot of people, whether it be writing, drawings, photographs or music. Anyways that was more deep then I was planning. The next few haikus will be without doodles or whatever, as I haven't had time to make them look all pretty. 

I haven't done an awful lot this week. I've been out for food a couple of times, worked and slept a lot. I've been trying not spend a lot of money at the moment, as I can be quite frivolous. My big thing is cosmetics, hair and beauty products. If I go to a drugstore I usually spend a minimum of £30 and I always end up buying snack food, as you can see from previous photos. And obviously I'm also saving for travels, 25 weeks to go! It's annoying, cause there are so many things I want to go out and do and things to buy, but I know it will be worth it when I don't have to worry about money when I get stuck in Tokyo. 

Things I'll be doing this week:

1. Making coffee

2. Finally get to start volunteering at a Nursery. 

3. Reading, reading, reading.

Thoughts to be pondered on:

1. ALL the TV shows I watch are coming back to the screen.

2. Really? More Star Wars?

3. I haven't even been to the cinema in so long I don't know what's out. Someone fill me in.

Just a note to say, if you haven't tried it yet, I definitely recommend Blueberry Red Bull. I'm a big Red Bull fan and blueberry fan anyways, so the two merged together. Well I almost had a heart attack. The best part, is that they don't actually have that after taste of acid down your throat. 

I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore

LB

Week Photos