3 simple steps to making resolutions you will actually keep

Happy New Year lovelies ♥

I don't know about you, but I'm the kind of person that makes 3824802 resolutions every New Year's Eve only to forget about all of them by January 15th. But I never waver in my optimism: every December 31st, for a short few hours, I am ready to start being a whole new person: strong, smart and confident. The girl that goes to the farmer's market on Saturday mornings to buy kale and to spinning before work five days a week. The girl that does brunch with her friends on Sundays at noon and date nights on Friday. The girl that reads Tolstoi and Rousseau before bed.

Come February and I'm the girl who agrees to a second date with the guy from Tinder who stood her up (because he needed to take his ill pet gecko to the vet or something), then, when he turns out to be a sexist pig, eats a family-sized four-cheese pizza in one sitting while listening to "All By Myself" on repeat.

(It's not actually that bad.)

Anyway, this year I've decided to be a bit more realistic, and I came up with quite a simple three-step procedure for generating useful goals.

7 Things To Do Over The Holidays

Hi lovelies ♥

What I love most about the holidays is that absolutely no one does anything during them. So it’s really the perfect time – and sometimes the only time you get all year – to relax completely and do all of the stuff that you don’t get round to in your hectic day-to-day life. Like...

The Grinch's Guide to Christmas

Hey lovelies ♥

Do you like Christmas? I’ve always preferred birthdays. My birthday is my very own personal special day. Christmas just seems like a random day on which we have collectively agreed to spend time with people we may not actually like all that much, simply because our DNA happens to be slightly more similar to theirs than to other people’s. 

One thing I do like about Christmas, though, is that even with the rampant consumerism and the awful commercialization, it can slow people down. In a culture where being busy is glorified incessantly, at Christmas, enjoying life a little is actually socially acceptable. I’m constantly worried that I am Not Doing Enough, and yet the other day I actually made Christmas cookies.

They were delicious.

On Male Privilege and Just Eating the Damn Cake

This week, I decided to work on my relationship with food. My goal was to have three healthy, reasonably-sized, balanced meals a day, and I would allow myself a small amount of chocolate at around 3pm. 

This was a plate of Costa Rican food I had. nomnom <3

On the face of it, that seems like a stupidly mundane goal to set yourself. Surely that’s just what everyone does. Or, as I've been asked several times before, mostly by men, “Why are you so weird with food?! Why can’t you just eat normally??”

Sure, let’s “just eat normally”. Would you like some fries with that male privilege?

Book review: The 6 things you should REALLY do before you’re 30

Hello lovelies ♥

After two weeks of ridiculous amounts of work and exam preparation (it turns out a 40+ hour job, a degree and some semblance of a social life are not easy to balance at the same time), I am finally posting… drumroll please … my first book review!

The book is called The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them Now, written by clinical psychologist Meg Jay. It’s a great book and I recommend it warmly, mostly because it sparked a lot of ideas for me. I’m going to share the six most important ones with you. 

The main lesson I took away from the book is to be deliberate, in the way you spend your time and in who you spend it with. More specifically, the following suggestions seem particularly useful to me:

The One Interview Question You Should Ask Yourself

Hello beauties ♥

This time, I'd like to start with a story.

When I was at high school, I went to interview for a place on the Social and Political Science programme at Cambridge University. The very posh, intimidating lady conducting the interview mustered a half-smile, which I assume was her attempt at being encouraging, as she handed me a sheet of paper with a few lines printed on it. 

How TEDxVienna Helped Me With My Quarter Life Crisis

Hello lovelies ♥

It’s Sunday a.k.a. No Makeup Day and I am in my pyjamas on my couch (obvs), and meant to be writing an essay for uni. Instead, I’m going to tell you a little bit about my Saturday, because it’s a more interesting story to tell.

I went to a conference yesterday called TEDxVienna. I assume a lot of you know TED talks. Essentially TED started as an American non-profit that gives really interesting people a stage for 18 minutes. That is all the time they have to share their “ideas worth spreading”, and to tell the audience about an idea, a thought, a concept or a project that they believe people should know about. Speakers include Bill Gates, Salman Khan, Monica Lewinsky, and a bunch of other household names. TEDx events are held all over the world in that same format and host equally amazing and interesting people, but they’re also an opportunity to meet the other attendees, who usually turn out to be insightful and inspirational people. 

so many people!!

Why You Should Read Something Really Stupid This Week

Hey beauties! ♥

I just got back from a long weekend in London and it was wonderful :) I got to hang with some of my favorite people in the whole wide world, drink cider, eat shortbread and a Sunday Roast and Dominos pizza and crackers and all the British-y unhealthy things in the world, play Cards Against Humanity, discover the Wellcome Trust Reading Room (which is A-MA-ZING), and speak (rather broken) Romanian to the lovely owner of a cute salon in Aldgate.

There's me in London looking and feeling very happy ♥

How I Spend My Mornings

Hi lovelies ♥

I hope you all had the best weekend. Mine was great, but unfortunately it’s back to work and real life tomorrow. 

Which brings me to my question for tonight: How do you spend your mornings?

I like to do three things in the morning: 

Why helping others is the best thing you can do for yourself

Hi lovelies! ♥ 

Today’s post is going to be a bit more serious. Austria is currently overwhelmed with an influx of refugees unlike anything we’ve seen in our recent history.  This has obviously brought about a variety of reactions, from people saying we should secure the borders and quit letting anyone in to others working their fingers to the bone 50 hours a week to ensure all those coming in have food, warm clothes and some form of shelter until they continue their journey. 

I’m somewhere in between. I’ve taught and organized a few German lessons and taken some food, drinks and hygiene products to train stations, where it’s needed most. I might have helped more if I didn’t have a full-time job and a degree to finish, but I did as much as I felt I had the time and energy for. And I felt happier for it. Suddenly, I thought, who cares if I don’t have a career in the traditional sense or if I end up unmarried with four cats. Today, a small child who has been through unspeakable things is going to have cake for dessert, and I bought that cake. And that matters. 

Here's how much sleep you really need

Hello lovelies! ♥

My blog now has a facebook page, and everything. It’s very exciting.

I hope you had a lovely weekend just like I did… And now it’s time to go to sleep so we’re all well-rested for tomorrow! But how long should you actually sleep for? 

Why you should laugh first thing in the morning

Hi lovelies ♥

 

Have you ever been in a really shitty mood, have someone tell you “oh come on, smile!” and then wanted to claw their eyes out?

Or maybe I’m the only one with homicidal fantasies.

Either way, turns out they were right.

Hello World 2.0 | Confessions Of A Twenty-Something

Hi lovelies ♥  

At first, I thought this blog was going to be about positive psychology and self-development. I knew I wanted to write about something, I enjoy reading about those things, they appeal to a wide audience, and god knows I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to “be better”, whatever that means. But the more I researched these areas and trudged through the literature and tried to come up with topics, the more I thought, who am I kidding? I don’t have the first clue. 

I cannot with a clear conscience write about studies that suggest the best way to start your day is with a meditative yoga session and a tall glass of water. Not when I start it standing in front of the mirror with panda eyes, probably wearing two different socks, cursing whomever thought the winged eyeliner trend would be a good idea.

So instead, I’ve decided to write about the only thing I can reasonably claim to know anything about. I’m going to write about what it means to be a twenty-something in 2016.