Target's photoshopped bikini models

EDIT: I have no clue what happened with the background colour on the text further down and I can't figure out how to change it.. Hope you'll all forgive my horrible computer skills!


Has anyone seen what Kjendis, the Huffington Post or the New York Daily News has written about Target's new bikini models? Well I have. Take a look at these pictures.

What the hell happened to her left arm? Who in their right mind photoshopped one of this girls arms to be longer than the other and decided that it looked good? 

The girl has got a spike in her armpit and on her hip! Seriously, if you're going to release a photoshopped ad for bikinis, at least photoshop it to look realistic! And that thigh gap? Thigh gaps are ridiculous as is, but this poor girl looks like she's had her lady parts cut out with scissors.. Honestly, I can't see what purpose this is supposed to serve. What on earth could be so wrong with this model that caused the advert agency to decide that she looked better without a crotch? 

What annoys me so incredibly about this advert (apart from the ridiculoussly bad photoshopping skills of the poor graphic design intern assigned this job) is that the "Xhilaration® Junior's Midkini 2-Piece Swimsuit -Leopard Print" is part of Target's JUNIOR line. In other words, it's for children. Let's be honest, aren't there enough young girls with eating disorders from having their minds twisted by media and marketing as is, without them having to see this as well? Do we really need to photoshop young girls? When are we going to start photoshopping babies for adverts? Or are we already doing that? When I some day have children and look in catalogs to find new clothes for them, will I see a 10 month old child with a thigh gap and a sexy pose? I really hope not.

When we're on the subject of me raising children. Will my daughter have to grow up in a world where the hottest thing you can have is a thigh gap? Because I'll tell you one thing. It does not matter how much you starve yourself, unless you have wide hips, you won't be able to achieve a thigh gap. Besides, if you haven't got one without the effort, why would you want one? The only positive thing I can think about with a thigh gap is that you don't get a rash between your legs from your thighs rubbing together when you're wearing a bikini, but that's about it. I mean, if you have a thigh gap naturally, then good for you, but I hardly think the rest of us should starve to get one? Personally, I don't think any of us should starve to get anything. Starving leads to eating disorders and an untreated eating disorder can, and will, kill you and that's not what you want. 

Any guy who reads my blog, can you comment, saying if you think thigh gaps are a must or not? Because I remember seeing this tweet a couple of weeks ago that said 

"Wow, look at the thigh gap on that one!

-No man ever."

And I think it had like 20.000 retweets and I can't find it now but I know it's out there, and please, guys, can you do me a favour and comment, saying what you think about thigh gaps? I would greatly apretiate it, because I don't get the whole thigh gap thing. 

Lastly, I want to specify that I'm not having a go at anyone who has a thigh gap from nature's side. If you're born with wide hips and you have a low fat percentage, then having a thigh gap is perfectly fine. What I'm trying to say is that I hope no one is starving themselves to get one. Chances are, you won't be able to. So let's just agree that we won't do that, alright? Splendid. 

Gifset: Health care

6 March 2014

Aasif Mandvi interviews Fox Business commentator, Todd Wilemon.

Talk about having complete lack of connection to the people you're referring to...

"To the well organised mind...

... death is but the next great adventure." -Albus Dumbledore

I wonder if the person using what sounds like an air pressure drill above my head at 8 in the morning when I have the day off, has an organised mind, because he might soon find death to be his next adventure..

Good morning!

Had to get that off my mind, can't believe they have to do that.. I wouldn't complain if it was 10am or 12pm or something, but at 8am in the morning? I'm sleeping at 8am in the morning and you better have a damned good reason to wake me up at that hour. Especially since the garbage truck made a racket outside my window as well, at 6am. I know I could close the window, but my room gets too warm... There's generally too much noise in my life. Maybe I should make a formal complaint? I might.

Nah, I'm just kidding! At least I get an early start and a lot of daylight today. Staying positive, no matter how little sleep I've had and no matter how loud the children in the nursary outside is yelling... I honestly can't wait to move out of this flat into a more quiet area. I know I sound like I'm 75 years old for saying that, but it's completely true.

Anyway! At the moment, I'm chatting to Camilla, who's at the hospital, getting her third round of chemo therapy. When she's done today, she's halfway through her treatment and we're hoping she's done and her tests look fine this summer. If they do, then Camilla, Kristine I are going on holiday to celebrate! Not that I can afford it at the moment, but damnit, if one of my best friends is finally cancer free, I'll borrow the money from mum and dad if need be.

I am, right now, the closest to broke that I've been since the end of November. I have about 150 pounds left and 175 pounds that mum ows me. I'm alright, really, I have a lot of food and no decire to eat it at the moment, so I'm good for a while. I did, however, decide that it was a good idea to empty my bank account because it's easier to manage money when you have it physically in your hand. Not a good idea. Now the funds to pay for spotify premium can't be withdrawn, so that's going to be shut down soon, and I can't buy new plugs from ebay, so when I get to 5mm, I'll have to stop until I get money.. I'm actually amazed at how quickly I've been able to stretch, I'm at 3mm at the moment, and by the end of the week I'll be moving for 3,5mm and later 4mm. I've been looking at some new plugs on ebay, and can't wait to get money again so I can buy them! Actually, what I can't wait for, is to get to 00G (8mm), there's so many cute plugs available for that size and upwards! I've got to say though, I'm anxious to know what my parents are going to say when they see that I've stretched my ear lobes. I might have a tiny faint memory of promising I wouldn't do that. Still, they haven't had any issues with any of my other piercings and has probably figured out that it's just how it's going to be for a few years and that when I feel done with my (very) late act of teen rebellionship, I'll come to my senses and take most of them out. By the way, I hope that's a relief to some of my friends as well, who have voices their concern that I'm sooner or later going to end up with implants to look like a unicorn or something like that. Don't worry, I care far too much about what people think of me to do that. Just give me a year or two to pay people to poke me with needles, and I'll give it all a rest, alright?

YAY! It sounds like the guy with the air pressure drill has taken the hint and left my life for the time being. Time to go back to sleep! Think I fell asleep at 4am this morning, and 4 hours is not nearly enough on a day off, so dream land, here I come!

Have a good day, all of you who are actually doing something productive!

My weekend

Friday started out by waking up on my own, with no need for an alarm. Friday's lecture starts at 3, so there's every posibility of sleeping in, which is fantastic! When my drag of a lecture was finally over, I headed up to Liva's for a bit. We were supposed to go to town to do some shopping, but I couldn't be bothered, so we didn't. I then went back home to change and tidy my room, since we were doing predrinks for Sharleens birthday and just in case anyone came into my room, it needed a bit of a shine. Which was good, because the entire predrinks ended up in my room. Me, Liva, Sharleen, Rhys and Emma (one of Sharleens friends from Reading) sat in my room, drinking, playing drinking games and laughing. Rhys is one of the guys I'm living with next year and friday was the first time I saw him drunk! He doesn't really drink that much, but he was a laugh when he did!

Oh Rhys, haha! 

Me and Liva then went to Alfies when Sharleen, Emma and Rhys went to Southampton. We had a good night, but I have to say, I miss being able to get drunk! I know that sounds stupid and I know I have to look after my health, but I'm a first year uni student for fucks sake, I should be able to drink! 

Saturday, me and, you guessed it, Liva went to town to shop. We went to poundland to get some stuff that we didn't really need or could afford, and I ended up with three black storage boxes to keep makeup and skin/hair products in, making my room look a lot tidyer! Sounds silly buying stuff to decorate the flat a month and a half before I move out, but I guess it's better late than never! Liva also bought a box of the same kind as well as a pink/white polkadot shower curtain that she was more than satisfied with. You should have seen her face when she was finished putting it up! 

We then made tacos and had a two person pre drinks while getting ready before heading back into town to Alfies. I really like that place, because there's so many people (guys) there that we never get the chance of meeting when hanging out at county arms across the street from me, because that's a student pub so we basically already know everyone there. Alfies also play the most random music imaginable, everything from Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and Wonderwall by Oasis to Circle of life from The Lion King. 

Today I haven't really been doing much. When I woke up, I watched a few episodes of Dexter, which is freaking amazing by the way, before actually being bothered to get out of bed. When I finally did start doing something productive, I realised that I lost the ball of one of my helixes at Alfies last night. I have some spare balls, but putting them back on is a struggle with capital S. Not to make things easier for myself, I also decided to change my nose stud to a ring, which wasn't really that much of a hassle, but when I was done with that, I took out the ring in my rook as well. That's always a pain to put back in and I then payed 45 minutes in front of the mirror to put another one back in. 

One arm over the head to support the ring, the other trying to put the ball back on

(or trying to take a picture, what evs).

I spent 45 minutes in this position. Got to love it! 

Nose ring! 

When I was finally done with that, I had breakfast. Mexican, actually. Norwegian mexican mix with Norwegian Jarlsberg cheese on top. Homesick? Not in the slightest. 

When I was finished, I decided to see if I could stretch my ear lobe just a little. It was 2,5mm and I have some plugs that are 3mm, so I put one in and it turned out to work fine! I then changed the pug to a 3mm eyelet, simply because I like eyelets better than plugs when they're this small. Can't wait to get to 00G, there are so many cool plugs to buy for that size! Anyway. I don't know if I've mentioned this earlier or not, but last time I stretched I ripped the earlobe. I didn't realise that the taper I was using was a 4mm and not a 3mm and without knowing it, I tried to stretch directly from 2,5mm to 4mm, and I can tell you, it HURT! It was bleeding and stuff, not good at all! I learned from it though, so from now on I'm always checking that I'm using the right size before trying to shove anything into my earlobes. I guess that is sort of self explanatory, but some of us are clearly a bit slower than the rest.. 

Right. Now I'm heading down to Cyber Italia, my second home, with Liva. She's revising finance math for her test tomorrow and I'm going to try to finish my weekly wiki on hate crime and start the Police and Police work essay which is due on the 24th. Hopefully, I'll get a lot of stuff done so that I can relax at the end of semester, but knowing myself, I don't have high hopes for it. Like my brother says, "procrastinators unite! ... Tomorrow."

Children having children

I've always wanted children. A little girl and a little boy would be perfect, but as long as they're healthy, that's of course what matters (don't panic, mum, I'm not pregnant). I have, however, always wanted my children to be born at the right time, as I'm sure most people want. But I've had different opinions of when the right time has been. When you plan these things, your future typically looks like this:

1. You've finished your education

2. You have a husband/wife

3. You have a home of your own

4. You have a stabile income to provide for your family

However, things doesn't always work out the way we want them to, as we all know, and since I became 15-16 up until now, I've thought a lot about the consept of children having children. Teen mums and dads trying to raise a child on their own, and I've had a lot of opinions on how I well I would manage if I did get pregnant at a young age.

At 15 years old, I thought having children was no problem. "I've babysat before, I could be a mum now," was the thoughts that went through my 15 year old mind. "I can do anything I set my mind to." It's a nice thought, but no, sweetie, you can't. I cannot begin to describe how glad I am that I didn't have a child at that point. The learning curve would have been so steep I would have cried myself to sleep and I would probably not even be a proper mum, as my parents would have had to do a whole lot of the work for me. 

I then turned 16. I had started on a new school and in less than a month from my birthday, I had a boyfriend. With becoming sexually active, came the pregnancy scares. We talked about it and tried to act adult about it, but as far as that went, I think he was the most adult of us. At the time I thought that he was being an irresponsible idiot for wanting to have an abortion if I became pregnant. I thought that "if you think you are old enough to have sex, you should be old enough to deal with the potential consequenses. Three years later I see how right he was. I was the irresponsible one. Keeping a child at that point would be unfair to the child. We wouldn't be able to take care of it on our own and we wouldn't be able to get the education we wanted becacuse of that. The scariest thing is that it would have been my choice, and if I had become pregnant, there's a possibility that I would have been stubborn enough to put him through the one thing he was dead scared of, just to prove to him that I was right, that we could do it. That thought has haunted me. Having a child out of misfortune and spite, instead of love. Of course, we would have loved that child, but the circumstances of how it came to be would have been dreadful. How could I think that at 16, we would handle becoming parents if we had to? 

I turned 17. About four months after my birthday, I became single. I grew up a lot that year and started to see things a bit more clearly. I understood a bit more of the burdens of having children. I still thought that I would have been able to handle it if I did become pregnant at this point. I mean, after all I was 17 years old. I saw that it wasn't easy, that it took a lot of work and money, money that I had no chance of getting hold of, but I still thought that I could have done it. I probably could have, but not in the way that I would have wanted to. 

I turned 18. Got my drivers license. I worked a lot and that was probably the point in my economical history where I would have been most likely to handle having a child. I would have had to keep living with my parents if I became pregnant at this point, but the thought of having children started to appeal to me on another level. The thought that someone would be completely dependant on me to survive and become a decent human being was endearing to me. However, there was something else that put a definite stopper to my positive thoughts. I wanted to move abroad to study. I had been single for about a year and had no plan changing that, since moving to England would mean meeting a lot of new people. And now that I had a definite plan about what I wanted to do for university, I knew that if I did get pregnant as the result of a one night stand or something, I would have to make the decision of having the pregnancy termintated. I had no issues with that, seeing as there were little to no chance that I would get pregnant. 

I moved to England and I turned 19. I'm now 19 and 5 months and I have 7 months left as a teenager. If I get pregnant now, I'll be 20 before the child is born, as long as it's not premature. But you know what? The thought that was so inviting a year ago, scares me to death at this point. The thought of someone, a small innocent child, being completely dependant on me to even survive is so frightening that there has been times lately that I have thought "do I really want to bring a child into this world someday?" Because it is a scary world. Between the government corruption, overpopulation, my own congenital heart defect that I don't know if is genetic or not, and the amount of complete and utter idiots that inhabit this world, I'm scared to put another human being onto the world and having to take care of it and take responsibility for it's actions until it turns 18 years old. I'm not sure if I want to put a child through the suffering it is to live in this world.

At some point, in 6-7 years, I will be ready, but not yet. The words do not exist that are strong enough to explain how extremely happy I am that I didn't get pregnant while my head was in the sand. If I had, I wouldn't have been where I am today. I would have been somewhere else, somewhere equally or more exciting and wonderful, but I wouldn't have the same oportunities. I would be able to watch a small, beautiful child of my own grow up to discover the world that I have come to fear just a little, but I wouldn't be able to do the same. I wouldn't be sat in my own room, in a flat that I pay for, writing this stuff to procrastinate to get out of doing an assignment that's actually quite interesting! I wouldn't be learning about how the world works from a criminological point of view and I wouldn't be able to go to class and learn about things that has fascinated me my whole life. I would be changing diapers, working a minimum wage job and living life day to day, not living abroad, doing what's going to give me the chance of getting a high end job, making me able to single handedly care for my future children. I think I'm better off as I am at the moment. 

Don't misunderstand me, I have nothing but respect for those that choose to go through with their pregnancies when they are teenagers and I think that if I would have had to, I would have embraced motherhood gladly and never looked back. I mean, since I've never had children, I don't actually know what I'm talking about, but I have a feeling that when I do have children, I will thank myself for doing it the way that I always planned. I think that when I have children and I get to experience all the things that comes with motherhood, I will thank everything that's holy that I didn't get pregnant as a teenager. I think it's brave to have children as a young adult, but these are my thoughts about my life, and I'm glad I haven't gone down that road yet, even though I'm sure I wouldn't have regret it if I had.

Just as a little side note at the end, if you've read through all this mess, first of all, I can't believe you could actually be bothered following my mess of a thought process all the way here. Second of all, I want to say that if you have read all of this, it's probably going to seem as if I do nothing but think about babies. I do. You do a lot of thinking from the age of 15 to 19, and I don't think about starting a family as much as I seem to, just so that it's been said.

Celebrating Hollies birthday!

I've spent most of today outdoors, which was really nice for a change. It's Hollie's 21st birthday today and me, Line, Liva and Amanda wanted to do something fun with her to celebrate. We took food, sweets, cake and soda and had an outdoors picnic!

Before leaving the flat where Line and Hollie lives, we decided that we should do a flower girl theme, so we all borrowed flowery head band thingy's from Hollie and I can safely say it's the first time I've ever walked around in public with anything that even remotely resembles purple flowers on my head. It was really fun though, and here are the pictures that I know you are all just dying to see! 

When we were leaving Queens Road.

Picnic! 

Line and me.

FLOWERPOWER!

Amanda and me! Ignore my face, don't know what I was trying to pull off...

Went to a cosy little pub to have a drink or two after the picnic, which is when this picture and a lot more like it, started being taken. 

My birthday present to Hollie was a home made card with this text in it:

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday to you

You look like a monkey

and you smell like one too! 

I normally wouldn't write stuff like that in a birthday card, but Hollie has a great sense of humour, so I couldn't contain myself. I also gave her some piercings that I'm never going to use and that I thought would come in handy for her. They were obviously never worn and I cleaned them before putting them in zip lock bags, just felt like that should maybe be mentioned. 

Anyway. After I came home, I haven't really been up to much. I hand-knitted an infinity scarf, which was fun, and it actually turned out quite nice as well! I would post a picture, but I've gone to bed and it's way too cold to remove the covers now, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. Sorry, I know you're all dying to see what I get up to.. (by the way, I'm often quite sarcastic. Ignore comments like that). It's black, grey and dark blue and took about 45 minutes to make. I won't lie, as I was sitting there, watching the second series of House of Cards and knitting, I couldn't help but wonder if my nan would be proud if she could see me. She would knit 50 pairs of socks each year and were really good at it! I think a lot about family lately. Don't know why, but I do.

I feel like I've been calling home a lot lately as well. I do know the reason for that, though. I'm used to not seeing him that often, but I haven't seen my dad since the 2nd of January. Before that, he was home since just before chrismas, and before that I obviously hadn't seen him since I moved to England. Anyway. I think the reason why I'm calling home so often is that I know I won't see him for a long time still. When I get home for spring break in april, he's at sea. He comes home just after I go back here. I won't see him until late may/start of June. That's 6 months straight without my dad and I can easily say that's the longest I've ever gone without seeing him. It doesn't feel right at all. As I said, I'm used to not seeing him that much during a year, but 6 months straight without seeing my dad when we have as good a relationship as we do, is nothing but hard. Of course, it'll make seeing him in June that much better, and knowing myself, I'm probably going to be trailing him like a dog the first week, just because I miss him. But let's be honest, when a girl hasn't seen the superhero in her life for 6 months, is she not allowed to? I think she is. 

Just so it's been said, I'm not saying that I have it hard, not seeing my dad for 6 months. There's a lot of people who haven't even met one or even both of their parents, who have lost a parent or have a parent in the same situation as me. I'm nothing special, I'm lucky just to have two loving parents who's still together, who work well together, who takes good care of me and gives me whatever I need and want. However, it's still hard not seeing him for ages. The point I'm trying to make is that, no matter how great your life is, no matter how lucky and privileged you are, there's going to be things in your life that's hard, and it's okay to have hard times and you're allowed to miss your dad when you haven't seen him for 6 months, even though you are one of the luckiest children in the world.

Right, got that off my chest! I'm going to sleep now. I have a meeting with Student Services tomorrow and then I have a group meeting thing and then we have a lecture 12-1 and seminar groups 2-3. I think. Busy schedule, but I'm hoping I'll have the time to get some piano playing done in the middle of it all. Haven't played properly for ages and I really miss it! 

I'm probably going to have some trouble sleeping though, seeing as I just went up to 8G on my left earlobe and I have a healing conch piercing in the right ear. Might be a fun night!

Update: Woke up and realised that it wasn't the fact that I went up to 8G that made my ear hurt. It was the fact that I went too fast and managed to rip my earlobe.. Kids, don't rush when stretching!

A blogpost about everything.

This weekend was a hectic one. Not that it was a lot of stress or anything, but with 2500 words to write, not a lot of time to do it and no clue of how to start, it became quite hectic after all. However, its' done now and I've had today off and I have tomorrow off as well, so the plan is to sleep a lot, hang out with friends and catch up on the tv series that I watch. Granted, tv series should maybe not be a big part of my life, but it is and I don't think that's all that bad. Another thing I will be doing, is keeping myself updated on the conflict going on between Russia and Ukrain.

I obviously don't know if any of my readers have been paying attention to the Russia-Ukrain conflict, but as it has the potential of launching a critical hit to the world economy or in the worst case scenario, a situation of war, I have been keeping myself in the loop. The US and other G8 countries has made threats about sanctioning Russia, stopping the trade market between the countries if Russia doesn't admit defeat. Luckily, Russia and Ukraine has commenced political communication and the situation seems a lot more stabile now than it did yesterday. There's still a chance that it will escalate and that sanctions towards Russia will have to be launched, which will have a massive impact on the economy, driving oil prices, among other things, sky high. Hopefully, though, Moscow will have to realise that the western revolution has reached Ukrain with the downfall of Janukovich and that the majority of the Ukranian people wishes for democracy and a pro-western government, rather than the one Putin poses.

I don't know what it is about these kinds of situations, but they interest me to the moon and back! I don't think I could have ever been a politician myself, the sacrifices you have to make and the game you have to play would have been to much for me, but I like to keep my self informed and to discuss with others. After all, if you don't know what's going on in the world, how can you play a part in changing it for the better? I know that sounded remarkably similar to that of an aspiring politician, but I have no intention of entering either the Norwegian or the UK parliament. I mean, I could, if I wanted to. Probably. Maybe. However, the way that the UK parliament is run, with all the members having practically grown up together, 85% having been in class together at Oxford or Cambridge, I not only doubt that I as a foreign woman would have stood a chance of getting in, but I don't think I would have wanted to. Politics is too much ass kissing and back rubbing for my taste.

Enough politics. It's now past 2am. I should be sleeping, but I'm not. When I should be awake, I'm not. My entire sleeping pattern has been turned up side down and it's down right scary. I have a theory that the most important things I can do to protect my heart is

1. Eat healthier
2. Exersice more
3. Remeber to take the medication
4. Don't drink too much alcohol
5. Get enough sleep.

So far I've been able to do the first four, but keeping a stabile sleeping pattern is, to me, just as easy as breaking into Fort Knox.. I'm able to get up and go to lectures and stuff, I still function even though I don't get the amount of sleep I should on a regular basis and at the correct times, but getting that routine is really hard. I've been thinking of trying to put on an alarm at 10am every day, and actually force myself to not sleep any longer, maybe that would help. It would be nice to get that routine down, haven't had a proper sleeping pattern in about a year..

Right. 2.30. Maybe I should try to get some sleep. Tomorrow (today, depending on how you look at it), we're celebrating Hollie's birthday! If I have the time, I'm also going into town to et some yarn (yes mum, you heard me), I've seen this great youtube film about how to knit your own scarf, so I'm going to try that, maybe I can finally get the scarf that I've been looking for for years! But mainly, we're celebrating Hollie's birthday. I'll try to take some pictures and post them on the blog tomorrow night!

United Blood Nation - did you know?

Cyber Italia again. Feel like I should just bring a pillow and move in here, I'm here so much lately.

I did finish the fictional story yesterday. I also changed a few major details to make it easier to write. I'm sure this isn't even remotely interesting to any of you, but after changing the gang that my main character is in, I found out some stuff about that gang that really blew my mind, so I thought I'd share it with you anyway.

The United Blood Nation, or UBN, is the east coast "branch" of the gang I was talking about yesterday, The Bloods. What really struck me about the gang was something I found out from a History Channel documentary about the bloods. Apparently, in the 90's, the gang was really taking over the gang activity on the east coast, and they became especially big in New York. They identified themselves by wearing red clothing and especially bandanas on their head and around their wrists, obviously making the job really easy for law enforcement to track down the members on the street, but that's not the point. The point is the initiation process you had to go through to become a UBN member. They have a notion that is common for most violent gangs, the idea of "blood in, blood out", usually meaning that to become a member, you have to kill someone, and the only way to get out of the gang was being killed. Once you were in, there was no turning back, essentially. Anyway, the UBN did this initiation process a little different from the typical gangs.

" 5 poppin', 6 droppin' 
Crip, kill it, or my casket drop
5 alive, 6 must die
rest in peace, the OG tie." 

If someone wanted to become part of the UBN, they had to go up to so called "neutrals", meaning a non gang affiliated person and ask "What's poppin'?" As the neutral, if your answer wasn't that little sing song rhyme, you would recieve a "buck fifty". The aspiring gang member had to cut you in the face to the point where you would have to get 150 stitches. The thought behind it was that instead of having their prospects killing a rival gang member for initiation, they would leave the UBN trademark of the buck fifty on the face of a neutral person, for ever reminding them and other members of the general public of the actions of the actions of the UBN.

When I heard this, there were chills running down my back. I mean, it's bad enough killing a rival gang member to be initiated into a life of violent crime, but that rival gang member had probably done the same at some point and would in my eyes be more "deserving" of the fate than a peaceful law abiding citizen that just didn't know enough about the gang to be aware that remembering four lines of gangster rhymes would keep them from being dismembered for life.

At some point, I might post the story I wrote on the blog, but since I haven't handed the essay in yet, I can't do it now. The university check the assignments we write against the internet to find out if the piece we've handed in is plaguarized (not sure that's how you spell plaguarized. Plagurised. Plaguariced. I don't know).

Anyway! I have 800 words left on the assignment and then I can go home! Looking forward to it already. I have lectures at 9AM tomorrow and really hope I'll be able to get a descent amount of sleep before that. 6 hours of lectures is pain when you're sleep deprived!

Update: I should probably also mention the meaning of that rhyme I was talking about. The Crips are the main rival gang of both the UBN on the east coast and The Bloods on the west coast. The Bloods and the UBN identified them selves with five pointed stars when they graffitied their gang name on the city walls. The Crips used a six point star. This is why the UBN wanted you to reply "5 poppin, 6 droppin" and "5 alive, 6 must die".

The Bloods, The Crips, Cyber Italia.

At the moment I'm in Cyber Italia down on campus. It's this pizza restaurant with loads of computers where you can do your course work. It's really convenient, because it's open 24/7, so no matter how much you're procrastinated before starting your essay, you can come down here and actually have to be quiet and do your work. Or write a blog post, what ever.

The essay I'm writing is for the module called Portrayals of Crime and Deviance. It's not that difficult, but the first half is supposed to be a fictional story and since I haven't written a fictional story since year 10, which is four years ago (I feel really old now by the way), it's taking me for ever to write. The story is supposed to incorporate all the things we've learned about in lectures, like for instance the language of crime, the relationship between criminals and law enforcement and depictions of organised crime. In other words, the story has to show how criminals, especially criminals with history of gang crime and other forms of organised crime. I have to show the relationships between the gang members in one gang, the relationships between gang members from different gangs and the relationship between gang members and law enforcement. It's harder than it sounds, but now that I've done a bit of pre work, like writing a background for each character and deciding to use the location, name and criminal history of real gangs to limit the amount of information I actually have to torture my imagination to come up with, it all became a lot easier. Maybe I'll post the story on the blog when I've finished it?

The gangs I've chosen to work with are the San Francisco gangs, The Bloods and The Crips. Apparently, after a quick google search, they are rivals. Which is perfect, because the older brother of Chris, the main character in my story, was killed by a rival gang member. The start of the story is the dialogue between Chris and the police detective that brought him in for questioning after a 16 year old girl had been killed when she tried to run away without paying her drug dealers. So far, so nearly good. Meaning I've already finished that part. Later on, I was thinking I could do a time jump to talk about when Chris' older brother was killed and then go to the conversation between Chris and the gang leader, who hasn't got a name yet, to show the relationship between the gang members of the same gang. The gang leader tells Chris that The Bloods wasn't running any drug deals that night because their shipment didn't come through, so they were out of stock, and go on to say that it must have been a member of the rival gang, The Crips, that was dealing on their turf that night, trying to infringe The Bloods. Don't know how well it'll turn out when I can only use 1250 words, but time will tell!

I think that's enough procrastination for now, hopefully I'll get this done tonight. Deadline is on monday, and I can't be bothered doing an all nighter tomorrow..

THE SEX TALK

I came across this video while procrastinating on Tumblr. Seriously, watch it! Takes you about 6 minutes. I might only find it funny/informative/whatevs because it's really late, I'm really hyper and I should be doing something useful, but there you have it.

THE SEX TALK

The best thing about this film is that it gives a clear definiton of the constitution of rape.

"Any sexual activity where one part has not giver their consent or has revoked it, is sexual assault or rape. What is consent? Consent is a willing, sober, continous YES."

"Well, that's sex. 1. use protection. 2. Don't break the law. 3. Remember, you're normal, what ever you're into. Even if that's nothing. Good luck getting lucky!"

Stretched ear lobes

I've been thinking about getting another jewelry box just for my tapers, plugs, eyelets and so on. I've got about a million piercing jeweleries already (I'm exaggerating, don't worry mum, I spend my money on food as well, promise), and since I'm going to have to buy bigger jewelry the bigger my earlobe gets (only stretching the left one for now), it will take up more space and I should probably get another box.

This is the box I have now. 

Top row right to left: straight barbells (tongue piercings), blue straight barbells, nose piercings, taper set, plugs+eyelets

Mid row right to left: curved barbells (belly button piercings), curved barbells with decorations, circular barbells, CBR's, labrets, spare labret balls, industrial/scaffolds

Bottom row right to left: locks for 'regular' ear studs, big ear studs, mid sized ear studs, small coloured ear studs, pearl ear studs

In the "stretched ears" department, these are the stretching tools and jewelry I have at the moment:

Taper set, 14G (1,6mm)-00G (8mm). The 10G (2,5mm) taper is 

missing from the picture because I'm using it.

One thing about tapers. They are not jewelry. You're not supposed to walk around with them, you're supposed to use them as a tool to stretch the piercing to become big enough to put a plug or an eyelet through it.

14G (1,6mm) plug.

12G (2,0mm) plug

10G (2,5mm) single flared eyelet. 

Eyelet's are what some people call tunnels. You don't put a tunnel in your ear, you drive through it. The hollow thing you put in your ear is called an eyelet, capiche? 

Two 8G (3,2mm) plugs and a single flared 8G eyelet.

Eyelets can be either single or double flared. You couldn't tell too well on the other picture, but if you look closely on the eyelet in this picture, you can see that it's wider in one end than the other and that the other end has got an O-ring on it. If it was double flared, it would get wider in each end, but you need to have a looser piercing to wear double flared eyelets. 

Single flared 4G (5,1mm) eyelet.

At the moment, the short term plan is to get to 10G (2,5mm), and that's what I'm doing now. I'll have to let it rest for about a week or two before going further to prevent any tearing in the earlobe. (I'll get back to that). My long term plan is to get to 00G (8mm). I'm not sure if I'm going to go bigger once I get to 00G, because it's hard to shrink back to regular size when you go bigger than 00G, and seeing as I'm aspiring to work with crime scene investigation, I'll probably want to have a more professional appearance. At least I know my mum would want me to, haha!

Anyway, back to the original issue. Since I have 21 piercings and therefore need all the other jewelry as well, I'll probably need to buy another box when I've been stretching for a while. I'll be buyng bigger plugs and stuff, and they'll take up a lot of room, so I might as well, right? Luckily, they're not all that expensive, I think I payed £5 for the one I have on Ebay. I get most my piercing jewelry from Ebay, by the way. It's cheap, it's delivered quickly and as long as you stick to metal stuff and don't go wandering into the world of plastics, you will probably not get cancer from the stuff you buy there. 

Right, I'm going to stop procrastinating. I have an assignment due monday and so far all I've done is research and spider charts and whatnot. Have a feeling that sunday night is going to be a long one if I don't get started today.. 

Having a bad day?

We all have bad days. Days when everything goes wrong and you can't seem to do anything right. Those days you when you wished you hadn't gotten out of bed, but had stayed in with a cup of tea, chocolate and a good tv series or a book. However, there's something you can do to improve your mood a little on those days.

Make a crappy day-jar!

Write down the good stuff that happens in your everyday life on little notes and put them in the jar. This way, when a day comes along when you just want to curl up under the covers and eat your weight in chocolate, you can read about how amazing your life is and it'll make everything a little bit better.

Here's some of the things that has made it into my jar.

Kristine was the Norwegian girl that lived in out flat last semester.

Make your own crappy day-jar, I swear, it works! :)

Isn't this just the cutest thing you've ever seen?

These postits were all over the mirror in the girls bathroom in one of the buildings on campus today. They are made and put up by an organisation called Heads Up Winchester, who's working to "encourage positive mental health and promoting the wellbeing services that are available to our students."

Check out their facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/groups/331101693676954/#!/HeadsUpWinchester

My days with Kristine!

I know I haven't been writing a whole lot lately, but I don't have that many readers anyway, so I hope not too many people have been upset.

Anyway! the last few days has been a lot of fun. Kristine and I went to Southampton to shop, we went out drinking (she and Liva drank while I watched haha) and we've been out to eat, a lot. As I've already said (I think), we went to Southampton to shop on wednesday, which were a lot of fun, I think we probably cleared out about a quarter of all the clothes in Primark, haha! We went to Nando's for dinner that day, and if you read this, Sharleen, you are right, Nando's is heaven on earth!

In Southampton I also had my Conch pierced (I think I might have mentioned  this before), but because my phone has decided to act like an idiot, I can't show you a picture, unfortunately.. Some day, when I get a phone that works properly, though!

Wednesday night, we had a quiet night in my room with some girl talk, facials and other stuff. Lots of fun and the sort of thing I wish we had the time to do a bit more often, just hanging out looking horrible together! 

Thursday, we went to my lecture. It was fairly interesting, to be honest. It was about female criminals and how they are treated very differently to male criminals. The bad thing about the lecture was the fact that the lecture room was so hot you could fry an egg on the chairs in there.. Anyway. Afterwards we went home to mine to get ready and go to the pub. Kristine got to meet some of the very, very special people that hang around in there sometimes as well as some of my closest friends. All in all, a good night, I think!

Me and my ginger before hitting the pub! 

We also went to Southampton saturday night for a night out. We started at the Hobbit, a bar that's inspired by the Lord of the Rings. They have 8 pint sized drinks named after characters and such from the movies and it seemed like a really fun place to hang out! I had a Gollum, which was really good! I'll write down the recipe for it in the end of the blog post. We then went wandering around looking for a couple of places that Live had been reccommended, but we couldn't find it and ended up getting the bus to the train station and then we went home to Winchester. Finally back, we headed down to Alfies, one of my favourite pubs in the whole world! We had a lot of fun and I love that Liva, who's one of my best friends in England and Kristine, who is one of my best friends in Norway, went along with each other so well! I love them both to bits and being able to hang out with both at the same time was amazing!

At Alfies, you can buy these wristbands (the pink one was for last semester, the blue one is for this semester) that gives you a lot of great discounts if you show then to the bartender when ordering drinks! I'm collecting them, haha!

From saturday when we went out in Southampton. 

This is the dress I was wearing! Got it at Primark in Southampton, 

think it was £7 or something. 

Yesterday we didn't really do much. We ordered some food for breakfast and then we slept for another 2-3 hours. I was really tired since we had been up all night and Kristine was really hungover, so it took a while before we were able to function properly. However, when we finally did, we went down to Queens to ask Liva if she wanted to hang out and then we went to Wetherspoons to have dinner. They have the most amazing double bacon cheese burger and I know that I'm supposed to be eating healthy and all, but I really needed that! When we finished dinner, we went down to Alfies again just to hang out and wait for the coach that Kristine was getting to Gatwick to get there.

All in all I've had some really great days with some of my favourite people, so I'm very happy at the moment! Really looking forward to visiting Kristine for a few days in Oslo before going home for easter, we are going to see Oslo Ess live at Rockefeller, it's going to be AMAZING! We've been to see them once before and they have jsut come out with a new record, so that's going to be one fantastic night!

Today I've been trying to be a bit productive. I've cleaned my room since two girls in a single room creates a lot of mess. I started taking all my clothes out of my closet to fold them so that they'll be easier to find in there when Liva sent me a message asking if I wanted to go to Cyber Italia with her around half 5-6. I then abandoned the clothes on the floor and went to make dinner. I thought I'd post the recipe for this amazing little dish on here, so that you guys can try it out for yourself, because this is simply too good to keep to myself!

Looks amazing, right? It was! 

Chicken stirfry with mango chutney sause

What you need (2 portions):

Stirfry

1 pack instant noodles, chicken flavour
4-500 g chicken filet
300 g oriental stirfry mix (peppers, onion, sweet corn, bean sprout, sweet peas)

Mango chutney sause

2-3 tbs mango chutney
4 tbs soy sause
2 cloves of garlic
1/5 lime
rosemary
ground cumin

What you do:

• Put on the noodles like it says on the package.
• Dice the chicken filet. When you're done with this, the noodles should be done (especially if meat knife is as dull as mine..)
• Cut up the garlic and mix with mango chutney, soy sause, the juice from the lime and spices in a bowl. Put the vegetables into the bowl as well and mix it all.
• Fry the chicken in two batches in a frying pan until it's brown and crispy. when the chicken is done, put it in a pot.
• Put the vegetable mix and noodles together in the frying pan to mix it and heat it up a bit. When you've done this, if your frying pan is big enough, put the pieces of chicken back into the frying pan to mix with the sause and vegetables. If your frying pan is the same size as mine (too small, that is), put the vegetable/noodle mix into the pot with the chicken to mix it.
• Serve! 

If you want to serve it with a really cool drink, here's how you make a Gollum! 

This is what you need:

Bols blue

Orange juice

Sprite or lemonade

Ice

Here's what you do:

• Put ice in a big glass (pint)
• Pour 2 oz (or as much as you want really) of bols blue into the glass.
• Throw in some orange juice until the drink has a lovely green colour.
• Top it all with lemonade or sprite.
• enjoy! 

Right! I'm heading down to Cyber Italia with Liva in a little while, so I'm going to put my face (mu make up) on and then go do some real work. 

Southampton with Kristine!

Kristine is my favourite ginger in the whole entire world. We went to school together for three years and know a lot of the same people and I'm really grateful that we've been able to keep in touch as well as we have, even though I've moved to England and she's moved to Oslo. Yesterday evening, she came to visit and she's staying until monday morning, and I think we're going to have a lot of fun! 

Today, we've spent the day in Southampton, shopping. Love shopping. Can't really afford it, but who gives a shit, I can starve for a month or so, no problem! I think the thing I'm definitely most pleased about is the dress I got. It's black, blue and white and I would post a picture but it's in my dresser and I can't be bothered getting out of bed, haha. Also got this pyjamathingy, look how cute!

Yes, the camera on my phone makes everything look green... I'm having it fixed in june, though, so hang in there! 

Kristine got a penguin onesie, and looks hella cute, wouldn't you say?

I also got my conch pierced today! Haven't taken a picture yet, because getting a new piercing has kind of stopped being that big a deal, to be honest. Not that I'm not freaked with exitement over it, because I am, but it's a usual thing by now, if that makes any sense. 

When we came back to Winchester and had put all our stuff away, we changed and did our makeup and then headed down to the pub. I think it's some kind of curse or something, but the people I have had visiting me have had to meet the weirdest people that Winchester has to offer.. I mean, the originals give the place a bit of charm, but it's a bit too much charm in one go, by my opinion. 

Tomorrow we're going to my (favourite) lecture and then we're going into town so that Kristine can see the beautiful place that Winchester really is. She came yesterday evening and today we've been to Southampton, so she hasn't really seen that much yet. 

After a day of walking around Southampton, we're both really tired, so I don't think it will be that long until we turn off the lights and say goodnight.