Nude Nails 2.0 and a bunch of updates

Oh boy. Once again, I've been lazy with posting. I'm always coming up with ideas for things to write on here but my problem is that I always think of things at really inconvenient times— in the shower, at school, in the car, while I'm doing homework. So this post will probably be jam-packed with the exciting things that I've been up to. And to make things easier for myself, I'm going to number them. Deal with it.

1. My Nails! 

Yes, yes. I know that it's not Friday... or even Saturday. It's Sunday! It seems like Nailday isn't really working out too well. To be honest, I did plan on doing it and I painted my nails on Friday night but it got late and I got am lazy. Remember, late is better than never! 

So as you can see, it's not very exciting. But it's still more interesting than plain beige! At first, I was going to keep it simple and go for nude nails but similar to the situation with my Valentine's Day nails, I got bored with it. To jazz things up a bit, I added gold triangle-ish things to the tips of my nails. My only disclaimer is that the flashes of gold are really distracting when I move my hands so paint with caution! 

2. LUSH!!!! 

For a while now, I have watched "beauty gurus" on YouTube talk about how much with love Lush products and I have always wanted to try them out. Well, the other day, a friend of mine mentioned that she went to the Lush store at our local mall (with is HUGE) and I was confused because I know most of the mall stores and I have never noticed Lush (once again, because the mall is HUGE). So yesterday, I went to the mall with my mom to sort out some prom dress issues and I decided that I absolutely had check out Lush. After finding a mall directory, I spotted the Lush store and headed straight to where it was. I wasn't surprised that I hadn't noticed it before because the store is located in an area that I don't usually go to. When I stepped in, I was overwhelmed. The soap! The lotion! The face masks! The solid shampoo! I wanted it all.

After testing out a few things and smelling almost everything, I ended up walking out with a soap and a solid shampoo. These products smell amazing and while I was a bit skeptical of the solid shampoo, I was impressed by it when I showered last night. I didn't expect for the shampoo to lather very well because it feels very solid—it does crumble or anything like that— and because when I rubbed it in my hands to get some bubbles, my hands had barely anything on them. But, when I started to rub my hands into my hair, THERE WERE SO MANY BUBBLES!! It lathered perfectly and I could definitely see myself using the solid shampoos from now on.

3. The Hunger Games
I'm going to keep this one short because it's less exciting than nails and soap. I haven't read the books yet but everyone seems really into them. As of now, I'm almost half way through and I'm not blown away but it but it's interesting. We'll see. Hopefully, I'll get around to a review.

4. I'm a crazy person
Last night, instead of getting work done or posting anything on here, I cleaned out my bathroom countertop. To those of you who have never been through my bathroom— so everyone except my sister who shared it with me until she left for college last September— the countertop is cluttered with half empty bottles of products that don't get used anymore and containers filled with old junk.

Now, the unused and very old products have been thrown away, the junk-filled containers have been emptied, and things are looking a little better. Also, I emptied out an organizer that was on my dresser collecting jewelry from my middle school days (junk) and moved that into my bathroom to use for nail polish storage. The top compartment now holds things like nail clippers, files, dotting tools (pens and pencils covered in nail polish), and nail art pens, and the three drawers hold the polishes, arranged by color. Top drawer: neutrals including black, white, greys, and glitter. Middle drawer: warm colors. Bottom drawer: cool colors.

I think it's because of the Lush things but I now have a really strong desire to redo my bathroom. It also doesn't help that the walls are a watermelon pink and lined at the top with a wallpaper that features sail boats and smiling suns— a tragic choice made by the people we bought the house from.


I guess I'm done for now. I could have talked about Draw Something Free or the weather but this post is getting too long. 

Palm Sunday, Ash Wednesday, Black Friday

Growing up as a Baha’i, I didn’t have much exposure to Christian traditions other than Christmas and Easter. Even with these two holidays, all I knew about when I was younger was that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus, Easter has something to do with His death, and on both days, people get presents. I didn’t know because no one had really taught me. My parents probably told me what these various days celebrated but I felt too excluded by my lack of a tree and inexperience with egg hunting to take any of it in.

Then I heard about Palm Sunday and Ash Wednesday. I have read about these on Wikipedia and I know that they relate to the crucifixion of Jesus and I have asked my classmates about them but I don’t have a good idea of the spirit of these days because of my lack of exposure to them. Are they holidays or holy days? How significant are these days? Do different sects celebrate them in different ways? I really don’t know. 

Hearing about Palm Sunday and Ash Wednesday brought the opportunity to learn about Lent. In elementary school, kids would talk about giving up chocolate or Rugrats for a period of time but that was it. No one talked about why they gave up these things or what it meant. 

In middle school, I learned about Black Friday. To a fifth grade me, it was another Christian holiday named by an adjective and a day of the week. I had no idea what it was but I knew that stores loved it. Hearing people talk about “participating” in Black Friday really confused me and asking what it was embarrassed me. To be honest, I didn’t know that it was a day dedicated to America’s obsession with material things until a few years ago.        

On Wednesday when I saw a black cross on a forehead for the first time that year, I had to do a double take. Every year, I see people displaying the symbol and every year I have to ask in order to remember what it’s for. After only seeing it on two athletic girls before lunch I thought, “spirit day?”. Upon seeing it on a parent volunteer and a few guys later in the day, I rushed to my next period to ask people in my class. I then proceeded with a brief interrogation with my peers about the origin, significance, and execution of this tradition. 

It’s strange to me that people don’t like to talk about religion. Because it is one of those topics that everyone has some sort of connection to—whether or not one believes in God— I see it as an important factor in someone’s identity. Why have I only been exposed to the materialistic side of Christian holidays? I mean, really. I knew about Black Friday before I knew about actual Christian celebrations. And for some reason, I’m capitalizing it even thought it’s not a real thing!  If people talked about religion, maybe I would know more about these holidays and maybe others would know about Baha’i holidays, making it less awkward to sneak away during lunch for three weeks while I fast. 

Then there is the other angle on this issue. Once a year, Christians abstain from partaking in something that they enjoy, draw a symbol of religious devotion on their foreheads, and prepare for the coming of an important day with a period of reverence.  So then why are some people so weirded out by fasting, religious clothing, and periods of reverence when expressed by an unfamiliar faith?

There are so many themes that connect each religion and so many similarities that get looked over. Instead of being afraid of offending others by expressing differing beliefs, people should be open to–respectfully- talking about God and faith. We all have a personal relationship with religion and whether it is a positive or a negative one, we all have something to say and something to agree about.

Kissy Kissy!

Happy Valentines's Day!!

I'm never really excited about February 14th because in my mind, people who love each other shouldn't need a day to remind themselves of that love but at least I get candy at school. See, there is always an upside to even the most useless of days. For example, don't think President(s/'s/s') Day deserves a day off from school? Boom! Wrong! Presidents(s/'s/s') Day is the perfect time to buy a mattress.  Once again, another perfectly good reason to "celebrate" something that doesn't mean anything and in my opinion, Hallmark should jump on the President(s/'s/s') Day bandwagon and make some patriotic cards for people to send to their patriotic friends.

But back to today, I guess I'm more comfortable with V-tine's Day when it is more about things that are cute, lovable, and generally adorable than "love". Because aren't kittens and Zooey Deschanel more enjoyable than sitting near people using pet names?

P.S.  I have a challenge for humanity: come up with something that allows people to change the color of their lips (not like lipstick, I'm talking about a pill or something that grants magic powers) just by thinking about wanting to change lip color. If this happens, I will no long need to fumble around with stupid tubes filled with whatever gunk they put in lip products. Also, it would be cool.

P.P.S. I left my phone on the school bus today and that makes me sad.

P.P.P.S. Click here for the PERFECT love song to share with a soon to be special someone

P.P.P.P.S. Should I be putting periods after the post script abbreviations?

The Fault In Our Stars

I finished reading John Green's most recent novel, The Fault In Our Stars, about a week ago but I have been putting off writing anything about it. As a nerdfighter, I decided to preorder the book to ensure a signed copy but I wasn't too into reading it. Most of the reviews of John's previous books that I had read and heard from people who don't watch is Youtube videos were fairly negative. They said that his writing was inconsistant and came across as if he was trying too hard and I could see where they were coming from just by listening to him talk a couple times a week in his videos.

I hated the first chapter of TFIOS. I was immediately bored and really considered closing the book and giving it a permanent place on my bookshelf. I felt that the characters were empty, the descriptions were unprofessional, and overall it didn't grab my attention. However, while on Facebook on the day that I decided to stop reading the book, one of my Facebook friends wrote a status about how much she loved the book. Because of that status, I decided to read on.

The following chapters weren't very interesting either and I'm pretty sure I only finished the book out of boredom and loyalty to nerdfighteria, the community of people who watch John and his brother Hank on Youtube. I never got to like Hazel or Augustus, the two main characters. Their personalities were annoying that the fact that they kept quoting some fake book the whole time really bugged me. They tried to act really philosophical because they were those kids who excused their loneliness with being too cool and dying of cancer but none of anything they do would ever really happen. And the shtick about how some infinities are larger than others— yes, I agree but you don't have to mention that in every other page!  The book repeated itself a lot and not many things were catching or unexpected, making it hard to care about the relationship between these two teenagers.

I felt that Augustus 1.has a name that sounds really bad out loud so I would always skip over it while reading 2.needed to stop comparing Hazel to Natalie Portman 3.should stop putting cigarettes in his mouth "metaphorically" because it was a stupid and pretentious thing to do and 4.was never properly, or at least memorably, described so in my mind he remained a stick-figure with one leg.

Hazel wasn't much better. She owned a knee-length dress from F21, which never happens because everything there is either mini or maxi, and for some reason that really bothered me. I also didn't like the way she spoke or anything else about her.

Whenever I read or watch anything, I always pay attention to the way children treat their parents. Hazel was really moody and the only thing she told the reader about her dad is that he cries a lot and Augustus's parents were about as relevant as house plants. Neither of these are good things.

All in all, I didn't like the book. I think that its a meh read for John's fans but people who don't watch the Youtube videos should stay away from it. The only exception to this is tweens because they will fall for anything and see the improbabilities as romantic.