Music of the Moment

Today I wanna share with you some of my favorite songs. Songs I've been listening to lately and songs I can always listen to and never get bored of. I love old school music, and a little alternative music. But mostly old school. Especially the 80's music, so I hope you can appreciate my taste in music and maybe you like some of the songs too.

John Parr - St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)

Not a very well known song, but it's actually really good. John Parr didn't write this song but just sung it for the film's soundtrack. But still very catchy and I think it's awesome.

 

Phil Collins - You Can't Hurry Love

One of my favorite songs ever. It's just so catchy and cute, and of course it is sung by one of my favorite musicians ever!

Fun - Some Nights

This music video is SO awesome! Just the whole civil war feeling and the soldiers and the music, amazing!

Imagine Dragons - It's Time

This song is actually one of the soundtracks of the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I haven't seen the movie yet but I'm very excited to go and see it!

 

Ed Sheeran - Give Me Love

I am a HUGE fan of Ed, and I could probably dedicate an entire blogpost talking about him, but I won't. So this is one of my favorite songs by him. It's also a very cute music video. You should definetely check Ed out! He is amazing. When you go on youtube search for 'You Need Me, I Don't Need You', 'Lego House' and 'A Team' (you probably know them already) but then search for 'captured in the live room'. It sounds incredibe!

 

Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas

And last but not least, my favorite christmas song ever! This is the original Band Aid (1984), which I really love. In this clip you see a lot of artists I listen to and who I think are amazing. Fun fact: Paul McCartney also sung in this song, but he sent in a voice clip which was edited in the song, so that's why he's not in the video. Same goes for some other artists.

Last Saturday, November 24th it was exactly 28 years ago since they recorded this song. I was planning on giving a shout out to the video last Saturday but I completely forgot haha.


Alright. This blogpost wasn't long at all, but I was gone all day, because of school and work, but hopefully you liked it. Tomorrow I'm gonna buy presents and make my 'surprise' for Jessica, whose name I drew for Sinterklaas.

Days left till Sinterklaas: 5
Days left till Christmas: 25

Books and being busy

Since my exam week is coming up, my teachers apparently decided to give us as much homework as possible. The exam English will be a voabulary and reading exam, so I already learned almost all of the words I have to learn for this test, but reading tests are very difficult to me, because the entire test is multiple choice questions, and that's just what I find very difficult. So for English I decided I'd prepare myself for this test by reading some English books. Of course I already read the entire Harry Potter series in English, but that was a while back. So I went to the shop, because the English books were on sale, so I bought a couple of new books:
- Well DUH, by Bob Fenster
- The Girls Guide for Hunting and Fishing, by Melissa Bank
- The Good Thief's Guido to Amsterdam, by Chris Ewan

I hope they're all good! I didn't have much time when I bought them so I read the back of the books quickly and just threw them into my shopping cart.

For Dutch we have to read 2 books: 'Aslander', by Rien van den Berg, and 'The Dark Room of Damocles' by Willem Frederik Hermans. Good thing that 'Aslander' is a thin book with 128 pages, but unfortunately 'The Dark Room' has over 300 pages, and I am just at page 70. I have a lot of reading to do the next couple of weeks haha. But it's almost vacation! And then I'll have plenty of time to read (:

Since a couple of months, I work at the library, and I like my job, but it's quite annoying that right after I finnished school, I have to cycle straight to my work, and I have to bring my heavy school bag with me. So yesterday, there was a lot of wind and I was already a bit late, so I cycled as hard as I possible could and made it just on time to the library. But apparently it had been very crowded that day, so I had to clean all of the bookcases and shelves, and place ALL of the books right. And a thing little children always tend to do in a library is to push back all of the books on the shelves, so I had to push all of the books back again. Great, so I had two times as much work to do than I usually have to. But oh well, I get paid for it so don't mind that much. (:
The good thing about working in a library is that when you see a book you fancy, you can bring it to the office, and when you're done working you can borrow it from the library. So that is very nice! Always when I see a new Young Adult book or a book that I think is nice I bring it to the office so that I have fresh reading nutrition for the upcoming week haha.

Hm. This blogpost was pretty much all about reading, I hope that's fine with you. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have more time to write a blogpost, but I can't promise you anything. Tomorrow I'll be working late, so maybe it will be online a bit later. I am thinking of doing a TAG for tomorrow. ^^

Days left till Sinterklaas: 6
Days left till Christmas: 26

My Christmas List

First of all, thank you so much for visiting my blog! The amount of viewers has increased a LOT the past 4 days, so thank you! I don't really know what to talk about today, so I figured I'll tell you guys what's on my Sinterklaas/Christmas list for this year. Normally I have enough on my list, and I can always think of something I want really bad. But this year, the only thing I could think of was a turntable. I've wanted to have a turntable for SO long now! It's so retro and I love to play original LPs in my room. So after some research I decided which one I wanted to have, but it was quite expensive, so I'll pay a part of the money, and the other half my parents will pay for. It's the Lenco L-82 Turntable. Here is a picture:


Isn't it a beauty? I know it's not very vintage looking, and I originally wanted an ACTUAL vintage turntable, but those were just too expensive and they won't work most likely. So I went with this one. I am so happy with it! We already bought it, and it's not mine yet, but I can look at it, and just the sight of it makes me happy. My LP collection is not very extensive, but I already have some classic LPs. Here are some of them:

From left to right: A Single Man - Elton John, Against All Odds - Phil Collins, No Parlez - Paul Young.Excuse the bad quality of the picures. But hey, they aren't called golden oldies for nothing, aye? (:
Okay, back to the point. My wishlist. Other than a turntable, I couldn't think of anything original, since I have enough stuff. Don't need any makeup, don't need pens or stationary or things like that, to be honest I have everything I could wish for. But of course, you can never have enough books!
Even though my bookshelves are entirely full and I can't fit another book on them.
Some books I still want are:
- To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
- The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
- Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
And the above books are just a small section of books I still want to have. ^^

Furthermore, there is nothing very special on my wishlist. Just the standard stuff: a bracelet or ring or necklace or a movie or CD is always fine with me, and I like to be surprised, to we'll see what I get!
So this was today's blogpost. Not very long, but I hope you enjoyed it! And a small personal update: My hair is so short now! I really need to get used to it, but I do really like it. It is way more practical now and I don't have irritating locks of hair hanging in my face all the time haha.
Also I made a new layout for my blog yesterday. What do you think of it? I hope you like it because it took forever to made! But I'm very satisfied wth the result. Do any of you know a better url for this blog? To be honest I'm not entirely satisfied with the url but couldn't think of a better name at that moment. So if you have any suggestions, let me know!

Days left till Sinterklaas: 7
Days left till Christmas: 27

New haircut and Thrift Stores

Well hello there! Maybe you noticed, but since today I have a profile picture on my blog. It's not very big, actually it's very tiny, but this was the only decent picture I could find, haha. It's not very recent also, this picture was taken in the plane, by a stewardess, at January 4th 2012. When this was taken we were about to fly home to The Netherlands, after me and my family had spent a week in China. Maybe I'll blog about China and my experiences there sometime.
Yesterday I promised to show you a picture of my new sweaters, but the lightning was terrible today, so I just used two pictures I found online:

So these are my new sweaters! Don't you love them? They look quite 80's, don't they? I already wore the brown one today to school, and it is super comfy.

Also today I got a new haicut! It's pretty much the same as it used to be, but I REALLY needed to get my hair cut, since the last time I cut my hair is almost 7 months ago. I know, terrible. But I am very pleased with it. It's a bit shorter and my 'bangs' (I don't have bangs, but lets just say the front part of my hair) is about 2 inches shorter so it curls more and I am very happy with it!

Since it's almost sinterklaas I figured it was about time to go out and buy presents. We did 'drawing names' with our group of friends (me and 3 other lovely girls) and the girls whose name is drew didn't really know what she wanted (oh man I really hope she doesn't read this haha) so I just went to a thrift store to see what I could find. She really loves vintage stuff (so do I, but she is more 40's) and I thought maybe the would have a vintage radio or something in that atmosphere. But unfortunately I couldn't find anything for her, but I did find some amazing books there! I bought three books and some dvds and some christmas decorations for myself. So I am very happy with my purchases (:

That was today's blogpost! I hope I'll be able to post as much as posible, preferably daily, so we'll see how that goes! I am thinking of doing some tags in the near future. Thank you so much for reading!

Days left till Sinterklaas: 8
Days left till Christmas: 28

Cozy Sweaters

Monday. It was COLD today! This morning when I walked outside I decided it was finally time to pull my self made beanie out of my closet and wear it. And that was a good decision I made. It was very windy, and I had to cycle upwind this morning. But I survived!
School was school, nothing interesting. Actually I have nothing to blog about today... Oh wait, maybe I have. Last saturday I went to Utrecht, to an 'open day' of the Utrecht University. You could visit classes to get a better look of how university works, and professors explaned a lot about all the studies you can attend there. The program took almost the entire day, but it was a very fun and instructive experience. While we were walking back to the train station, I convinced my dad to go shopping with me. I bought a very nice and warm sweater, since I didn't really have any warm clothing for the winter, but when I came home I found out that it wasn't long sleeve! It was about three quarters sleeve. Oops. Maybe I should have tried it on. But no, I was perky and didn't want to. Well here's the result, a sweater with way too short sleeves. So after school I went to the mall to return the sweater, when two adorable sweaters caught my eye. I had been looking FOREVER for a vintage, knitted sweater. But of course, I couldn't decide. It's a horrible habit, I know, but I just can't decide easily. The first one is light brown, with small dark red stripes, and the other one is red with very cheerful pattern. I am in love with the 80's, and retro and vintage stuff, so of course I want to dress like they did in the 80's. I immediately fell in love, and bought them. (And this time, I did try them on haha). I'll maybe take a picture of them tomorrow and post it in this blogpost.
So, this is my story of the day. Not very interesting, but that's all I have to tell for today.

Days left till christmas: 29
Days left till sinterklaas: 9

Looking forward to the holidays

Last thursday it was Thanksgiving in America and Canada. Here in the Netherlands we don't celebrate Thanksgiving, unfortunately. I wish we did, I have never ever tasted turkey or gravy in my life so I'm very curious. Could someone tell me what it tastes like? Is it any good?
And oh my, Black Friday, it sounds insane! I saw some videos on youtube where thousands of people were waiting in front of stores to get in, it's ridiculous... The highest number of people I have seen waiting in line to get in a store is about 10 >.<

Also, I want to go to America for the holidays so so so badly! Just to experience the holiday feeling. Decorated houses, christmas lights and christmas trees everywhere. Walking around at Times Square. Watch the ball drop at midnight, on New Year's Eve...I have seen way too much videos of  youtubers who make daily vlogs in the holiday season, it just looks like such a happy and cozy time.
Alright, enough about my dream to go to America.
What I wanted to talk about is how much I am looking forward to Christmas! It's only a month! Time goes by so fast, it seems like only yesterday when it was New Year's Eve... On that note, have you guys seen that movie? At first I thought it was just a cheesy movie but when I went to see it is was actually pretty good (: Very cute movie.

Pity that I am so busy with school. Around this time of the year it just seems like teachers want to torture us with the insane amounts of homework they give us. I have barely any free time lift. Oh well, I just make free time haha. Internet is way too addicting! In just a couple of weeks I have Test week. Or exam week, I don't exactly know what it's called in English. I think you could compare it to the American SATs? Anyway, in that week I have 2 or 3 tests a day, for a week long, and after that it's vacation! Can't wait! I already bought some christmas decorations a couple weeks ago. I have a fake christmas tree and I can't wait to decorate it, but first Sinterklaas has to be over. If you don't know what Sinterklaas is (or Saint Nicolas, in English), it's a Dutch holiday, it's pretty much the same as Santa Claus. In fact, Santa Claus is a rip-off of Sinterklaas! I bet you didn't know that. But in fact, it is.
On the evening of Sinterklaas (december 5th) you hang out with your family and have a good time and then you open the presents. Traditionally, children believe that 'Zwarte Piet'  (Black Peter) brings a sack of presents, and then knocks loudly on the front door, and leaves before you can see him.
I absolutely love Sinterklaas, having a good time with your family and OF COURSE the presents (:

Only 10 days left to Sinterklaas, and after that 20 days to Christmas. Let the countdown begin!

By Lack of... an original name

Alright, so when I finally decided to start a blog, I immediately encountered the first problem: a blog name. Great. I just started and already don't know what to do. I figured I should just brainstorm some things and then decide what to name my blog.
-one hour later-
Still don't know how to name my blog. Almost every (what I thought was) original name is already taken. But what does it matter anyway? It's just a blog name, right? Oh wait, it isn't! You can't change the name after you made it. What to do?!

Finally, I came up with this name. It is not the best name ever or anything, but it will do. And it's very appropriate for my blog (:

And here it is! My first blogpost ever! I know I'm not a very good writer, but I do like to write, and I think this blog will help me improve my writing skills. Hopefully.
Maybe it's nice to tell a little something about myself. My name is Anne, I am 15 years old and I live in the Netherlands.
I will try to update this blog frequently. So please stick with me!