Making and keeping friends, not always easy...

Hi Guys! I've just finished a really stressful week with loads of big assignments and tests and now I'm enjoying a short break before I'll have to start studying again for the exams in January. 

Making friends and keeping them is something I've struggled with my entire life. I don't have great social skills and I'm working on myself every single day. By now, I've already gone through a lot of pain but I've also gained a lot of widsom. I want to share with you my insights on the importance of friendship, but also what's actually not that important about it.

Keep giving

I cannot stress enough how important this is! Even when you're going through a tough period in your life, even when you feel like no one loves you, you need to keep giving. You need to keep loving the people you care about. The point is, you never know what your loved ones are going through, or where anyone is basically going through. Always try to spread kindness and try to not judge people and when you can't say or do anything nice, just don't say or do anything at all. Eventually, your loved ones will give back to you and everything will be okay, just don't wait for it. Happiness is not something people can give to you, you need to create it yourself. 

Friends come and go. Yes, even the true ones!

This one is still really hard for me to accept, but at the same time this gives me peace. You still remember that amazing friend you had in primary school that would always stick up for you? I know I do. The thing is, I don't have that friend anymore, even though it was a true friend. He was the friend that I needed at that time in my life. Now, I have new ones, some I've only met a couple of months ago, and I already love them! :) Always love and appreciate your friends, you never know when they might leave or when new friends might come along the way. 

Focus on the positive

When you're like me and you often feel lonely and feel like no one understands you, this is a really important tip. Because of feeling like an outsider so often, I started having depressive episodes. I would focus on every little aspect that was wrong with me and simply couldn't see the good in people anymore. Not that it was an easy task at that time, besides struggling with maintaining good friendships I was also being bullied for reasons some fake girls in my school had invented. But now that I'm in much more healthy, I can see the good again. Don't only look at the big things, but also the little things, like watching a snowflake melt on your fingertip or looking at the leaves falling off the trees. 

Through all of this, be your own best friend

Love yourself as much as you can, no one else will do it for you! There will be dark times in your life when there's no one to support you and you're going to have to heal yourself all on your own. Choosing a best friend does not only make you very clingy when with that person, it also gives you expectations that that person can never fullfil, leaving you nothing but disapointment. Don't be so hard of yourself, and when feeling horrible, comfort yourself. Because at the end of the day, when you keep spreading kindness, everything will be okay.

I hope you liked reading this post, I'm sorry if it's a bit all over the place, I've a lot to share with you on this subject. Enjoy you Christmas holidays!

xoxo Lien Bee

Dorm Life: Making that nice hot chocolate whenever you want!

This week I had to get my biggest coat out and we all know what that means, the winter is (already) settling in.

I live in a dorm where I share a big kitchen and have my own fridge, which creates a lot of cooking possibilities. Sadly enough, cooking an amazing meal isn't always an option when you have limited time and only have to cook for yourself. 

This is an easy and quick way (duh!) to make a nice hot chocolate which is almost completely vegan.

Your traditional ingredients: Milk, chocolate and a sweetener as an extra option

Instead of using cow milk, you can use almond milk, which tastes just as good, in my opinion even better. For chocolate, use one which has a really high percentage of cacao. The highest one I could find in the nearest supermarket had 84%, but there's chocolate which has up to 98% cacao in it. To make it completely vegan, you can use pure cacao powder, but I would never be able to use all of it and it would only take up a lot of space in my dorm. As a sweetener, use about one teaspoon of honey.

First I heat up the milk a little bit in the microwave. Next I add chocolate and heat up the milk again. Last, I add honey as a sweetener and stir well so there's an equal amount of chocolate everywhere. 

Drink it like a pro:

- While reading a book and listening to your favourite Christmas music
- While watching your favourite youtuber, movie, series,... 
- While wearing your most christmassy pyjamas
- ...

 

I'm starting to get in the Christmas mood, really looking forward to celebrating it together with my friends and family :)
I hope you enjoyed this blogpost and are having a wonderful day!

xoxo Lien Bee

Laptop crashed...

Hi guys!

I've got some sad news... After I went to London with my friends, I wanted to update my blog but sadly, my laptop has crashed :( . Right now I'm working on my tablet and the devices of others, but I can't update my blog the way I want to. Please stay tuned, I will update the moment my laptop is fixed!

xoxo Lien Bee

Back to school part I: study tips

Hi guys! Since I'm in the middle of my retakes at university, I thought it would be a good idea to give you some study tips. Soon I will upload a back-to-school-look and makeup-look as well. 

Make a planning and stick to it!

I know this is probably the first tip people give you, but that's because it's extremely important, especially at university. I myself study Dutch and English linguistics and literature. Throughout the whole year, we've had almost no tests, no tasks, just nothing. The point is, if we don't study during the year, we will NEVER be able to get everything done before the exams. I have to read a lot of books and have to study a lot of the theory by myself. When making a planning, it's important you add breaks to it and also add extra moments which I call Buffer-moments. During those moments you can take a break OR finish off the work that you haven't done yet but should have. Make sure your planning is realistic; first make a try-planning before the year starts in which you plan out how you will spend your day.

 After a couple weeks, take a week in which you write down every 30 minutes what you're doing to figure out if your planning actually works. Maybe studying those words only takes up 30 minutes instead of an hour, or maybe making those exercises actually takes far more time than you first expected. Or maybe, you can't focus really well in the morning and shouldn't study in the morning or  should try studying a different subject with more exercises, where more thinking has to be done, where you have to read more,.... 

Now you can make your actual planning which will actually fit your life.

Summarise

An important tip that probably saved my exams more than once. Everyone seems to have their own way of summarising, so get creative and find a way that suits your brain best! I will mostly summarise by writing down all the titles and will then add names, dates and definitions. I'm a person that's really bad at learning things by heart, so most of the time I will look at the title for extra information but will never learn it by heart. 

For all you other people out there who might also suck at learning things by heart, here comes my very important tip! Analyse whatever your subject is (history is best for this) in different categories instead of learning it as one big thing. Add every little piece of information to a different category. Now read all the theory you have to study BUT actually study the categories. I know this method takes time, but it will work every single time because you're actually trying to understand the theory instead of just learning it by heart. 

I can't focus ... AAAHHH

We all have it sometimes; you're trying to study for that really important test but today your brain decided to act like sh*t. Sadly, sometimes, there's simply nothing you can do about it., but I have some little tips that might ease the pain just enough. The two previous tips about planning and summarizing should already help a great deal. Don't plan to study a subject you hate or a difficult subject on moments you can't focus. Instead, do a subject you like or make exercises that force you to think. 

When studying a long text and you just can't seem to focus, summarize it by using the 'category-technique'. Another way of summarizing is by reading a little part of the text and straight after that making a mini-summary of it. 

If you can't seem to focus for any longer than 30 minutes, then only focus for 30 minutes. Normally I can study up to 4 hours straight without a break but now, in the middle of my retakes, I'm just not that motivated. What I do is I study with full focus for 30 minutes and then I take a break for 10 minutes. Use the alarm on your phone to indicate when the break is over and use a really loud and annoying sound. 

When your mind is clouded with thoughts about all things but studying, take a little note book in which you write down where you're thinking about every time you start drifting away. That way, you won't forget it and can think about it later.

I hope these tips will help you! Enjoy your day (or what's left of it ;) )

Welcome to my blog

Hi guys! This blog will be about how to accomplish the fancy lifestyle. You will not only read about fashion, makeup, food, ... But also tips that will help you to become a better version of yourself and tips for everyday life. I will update this blog at least once every 2 weeks so stay tuned, you won't regret it! :)

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Lots of love, Lien