July's Overused Things

Apparently the only time I blog nowadays is for a monthly favourites post. That's depressing because I have so much more to offer to the internet other than material favourites. Oh well. Someday maybe I'll get back to blogging about more intelligent subjects.

App: POKEMON GO
Yes, I play it, yes it is fun. Shut up haters! I am not going to bother explaining it because it's all that has been in the media for apps nowadays.

Music: Melanie Martinez/Icon For Hire/Avenged Sevenfold
Specifically Melanie Martinez's song "Dead to Me" is probably my favourite for this month.

Movie: I Smile Back with Sarah Silverman. I love her as a comedian and this dramatic film is absolutely amazing with her in it. It is very dramatic and isn't a super long movie so if you're looking to experience a whirlwind of emotion in a short period of time, pick this movie. It is not super off of the rails, but there are a couple of scenes that make it a "psychological thriller". Although personally, I found this movie had no lessons to learn from it, it was still very good and I do recommend it.

Makeup Product: I get a monthly ipsy bag which is a bag of samples/full sized makeup products. I have been getting it for over a year and a half now. It is less in american dollars but with shipping and the exchange rate to Canada it is approx. $20 a month. I calculate the value of what I get in each bag and typically it is between 30-60$ worth, usually closer to $60. This month I got a nailpolish and although I'm generally not a fan of nude nailpolish colours, or the colour pink, I have pretty much had Trust Fund beauty's "No Filter" nailpolish on all month. Check it out!
Also if you're interested in joining ipsy, you can join here with my referral link: https://www.ipsy.com/new?cid=ppage_ref&sid=link&refer=2gwei

Food: I have been addicted Summer Fresh's roasted red pepper dip. I found eating it with carrots is the best combination. I may or may not have been known to have finished the whole thing of it in one sitting. Despite Summer Fresh products being carried in many places around where I live, I have only managed to find this specific flavour at Walmart.

Tech Product: Mophie Case
My iPhone 6 is slowly losing its fucking mind in terms of battery (not just because of Pokemon Go) but my mophie case is a life saver. I usually have to constantly charge my phone at work, and I hate having my phone plugged into an outlet, I like carrying it around while charging so this case is a life saver.

I suppose that's about all I can rack my brain for tonight. Surely I'll post some actual good content on this blog someday. A lot of things have been happening in my life, I just need to reflect on them more before I put it on the internet forever...

See you next month!

June Favourites!

Although I am not going to use the same categories every month for my favourites, I will use some new ones, and add ones when there is something I have fallen in love with.

App: Sudoku
This app is pretty self explanatory, but I play it every night before bed. It helps me to fall asleep.

Music: David Bowie

I have been listening to David Bowie more and more lately and he is slowly becoming one of my favourites. My favourite song is probably
Rebel Rebel.

Food: Topper's Pizza's specialty pizza Thai Sensation. This pizza is so delicious, probably a third after my absolute favourites, Hawaiian pizza and pizza with mushrooms, green pepper and ham.

Makeup Product: Revlon's Holographic Pearls Nailpolish!
If you haven't here of holo nailpolish, you haven't been living yet. I am not a sparkly person but holographic nailpolish is like a rainbow of sparkly on your fingers. I've used it on black nailpolish and on tan nailpolish and both look amazing.

Piece of Clothing: I have these pleather shorts I ordered from Forever 21 last year. They just so happen to be my only pair of work appropriate shorts, but I love them so much. They are comfy, except for the fact that they make a small squeaking noise when you walk (hey they're pleather) but I think I spent like $10 on them. They were lost in my closet until recently.









Meme: I collect memes on my phone over the month, just because. So here is one of my favourites that I saved this month.

Youtube Channel: JacksFilms
I have been watching a lot more youtube this month than movies and documentaries, mostly just watching all of JacksFilms' YIAY videos. They're really good, check them out. Runners up: Cringe collections and Raw Alignment.


DOG:
I HAVE A DOG. REPEAT: I HAVE A DOG. His name is Riley, he just turned one year old and he is a goldendoodle. They aren't my favourite breed or anything, but he was a free dog. We traded our rabbit to my boyfriend's parents in exchange for Riley because Riley was becoming too much work for their family but is perfect for ours. He is such a mophead and is still learning, so he is much like a puppy right now. But he is pretty big, he is approximately 60lbs.

My favourite Pin: I haven't tried this yet, but I literally watch the office everyday, so I probably should.

See you next month!

Recommendations for May!

May Favourites?

Inspired by some of the makeup gurus I occasionally watch on youtube, I am going to start doing monthly "Favourites" of things I have enjoyed the past month. Why should you care, you ask? Because obviously I am an expert of all things absolutely amazing. Actually, it is because sometimes I just love things so much I need to tell everyone about them. Here's the rule though: I will never just post something that I like but haven't really used or can't really say much about. I'll actually write about new things or things I am actually enjoying that month. So here goes!

App:
"BBuzzArt"
It can be accessed here. I just started using it recently. Basically, it is a social media platform for artists. I love just looking through every once in a while and it makes me feel like I actually care about culturally significant creativity, as opposed to just scrolling through Instagram looking at people's selfies. You can save things to a bookmark and look at them later, which is probably my favourite part so I can look back at things I like and get a second glance at them.

Movie:
"Dogtooth"
If you are a lover of weird/creepy movies that really make you think, psychological thrillers and whatnot and do not mind subtitles, watch Dogtooth. It is essentially about this alternative family/universe/something that is fairly controlled by the father of the household but they all seem to be willing participants in the weirdness of it all. Different words are given different meanings, for example the word "Zombie" means "small yellow flower". It is very odd, very sexual, and probably one of my top 5 favourite movies of all time. Although if you don't like weird, creepy, sexual movies that make you think, you will hate it. Just to give you a small sense of what it is about, I found out about it after asking a friend "what is a movie I can watch that is going to fuck me up while drunk".  Here's the Trailer:

Documentary:
"Requiem for the American Dream"
If you enjoy philosophy, Noam Chomsky or things that make you think, watch this. Noam Chomsky is a very interesting intellectual and I have been interested him more and more lately, so when this documentary got added to Netflix, I watched it in the week.

Music:
The band I can't stop listening to: Evanescence
There is no particular reason. Just every time the last few weeks that I have wanted to listen to something in the background, it has just been all of Evanescence's discography on shuffle.

The song I can't stop listening to: Avenged Sevenfold: I Won't See You Tonight Part 2
(disclaimer, this song makes me cry half of the time but is totally worth the listen)

Runner Up: Melanie Martinez
Almost every time I am doing my makeup, I have put on Melanie Martinez.


Food:
I have been absolutely 100% addicted to Tim Hortons french onion soup. I have been super close to calling up all of the Tim Hortons in my area just to find out which one has it so I can go there and get it. As far as french onion soup goes, it is pretty good, considering the price especially.
My advice? Before you leave, check to make sure they have put the cheese and breading in before you leave if you are getting takeout because they just have the onion and broth on at all times, and forgot to put in the cheese and bread once. It was still good, but it was very depressing.







Drink: I found a hard root beer that is absolutely delicious. Try it for yourself if you can find it. It is by a brand called "Crazy Uncle" and it does not taste alcoholic whatsoever. I really want to make a root beer float with it. Fucking A+.





Instagram Account:

Whenever I am bored, at work, at a party, whatever I always pull up this account and show everybody. Essentially it is just very poorly done and hilarious tattoos. Some of them are well done and sexual, which I feel like this account shouldn't post, but the sexual and terribly done ones are absolutely hilarious.

https://www.instagram.com/snake___pit/

Makeup:
NYX Liquid Suede Cream Lipstick in the Shade Sandstorm
NYX products are becoming more popular in Canada now which is awesome. I got one of these tubes in my Ipsy Bag a month or two ago in the shade "Kitten Heels" which is a super bright red colour, which I don't wear bright red lips too often, although this is now my go-to for when I do want red lips. I also own this product in the shade "Sway" which is a bright purple colour. I have yet to have the opportunity to wear this shade, and hope to wear it to a party or event soon. It is too dramatic to just wear to work. I have been absolutely in love with nude shades of lip products and definitely own too many but this product in the shade Sandstorm is definitely my favourite so far. This product goes on very thick and I find it does not smudge or come off too easily and I don't have to re-apply to often throughout the day.

http://www.nyxcosmetics.ca/en_CA/liquid-suede-cream-lipstick/NYX_201.html?cgid=lipgloss


Clothing?
I have a pair of Pineapple shoes. They are awesome and make my mood 100x better when I wear them. They were $5 and I bought them back in January and have been waiting very patiently for the snow to be gone so I can wear them. I bought them from West 49. Sometimes if I am feeling especially fruity, I will pair them with my orange socks.





Alright. That is it for now. I am going to attempt to write more often. I am taking two online courses this summer from June 20th until whenever 6 weeks after that is, mostly just for shits and giggles. I don't need to take them. One is a visual arts credit called "Sex in Art" and the other is a Gender Studies credit called "Social Activism in art". Apparently I am getting artsy.

Let me know if you try any of these things that I have loved so much in May (and currently) and what you think in the comments.

Until next time,

Sarah

I DON'T KNOW!

I only know that I do not know. Thank-you Socrates for giving me this.

As a philosophy major, I recognize the lack of importance of philosophy majors, as well as the need for them. In general I would encourage people to not necessarily major in philosophy in university (let alone go to university, let's face it, college is the job-maker nowadays). But I do consistently encourage people to spend their spare time studying philosophy. It is super important to maintain both sane and embrace your insanity at the same time.

I find myself consistently learning and embracing the one thing I have known since philosophy in high school: Socrates proclaiming "I only know that I do not know". If you are unfamiliar with this quote, essentially it is interpreted as meaning that essentially everything is uncertain and everything s questionable, therefore the only truth that is knowable is that you do not know.

I hate this quote and love it and live my life by it because every time I learn something new I bring skepticism to the table which makes everything 100x harder but makes everything 1000x more worth studying due to the unknowingness of it.

My point about this quote is that it does bring a certain amount of frustration to my life. I feel since I have learned of this quote and the philosophies surrounding it, that I have become more frustrated and more uncomfortable with everything I encounter in life. Not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing, just that it is different and makes life harder to counter on a daily basis.

So why mention this quote now? Because I don't know.

I really just don't know. It is not about facts and what is learned in books, it is about the way I conduct my life and the method in which I will earn money. I think the most valuable lesson I have learned in university thus-far (other than certain aspects of philosophy) is the importance of survival and the responsibility it takes. Yes, I am 20, I am a youngun, but seriously, I work part-time at a local store and part-time at the local library and essentially scrape together rent, my phone bill, insurance, etc., and have some money left over for non-essentials (usually clothes and makeup... whoops). Money is not my strong suit but sometimes you just have to fucking get by. I know so many people not in school just dragging themselves along in part-time minimum wage jobs, that get you nowhere. I want a house someday, and if I don't find success with the education I am trying to complete, that is impossible.

Minimum wage is definitely not enough. You CAN survive but you CANNOT be a middle class family, owning a home, paying it off over 25 years, maybe having a kid or two and retiring. That makes me sad. Oh how I envy the Scandinavian countries. I would move to Denmark if it was not for the fact that I value warm weather more and would much rather live in a place with no cold ever, or at least British Columbia (reminder, I am Canadian, and do not necessarily want to leave my country). I don't know.

I don't know.

I really don't fucking know.

I am trying to pull myself together this summer. I am catching up on certain books of philosophy I have yet to experience to the fullest, attempting to bring myself to start writing a book I have had bumbling around in my mind the past while, and trying to get more active and eat healthy again.

Bleh.
Life sucks and then you die.

See you soon (people who still follow my blog, I love you guys).

I wish I wrote more on here. But sometimes I just forget, or don't find the time. I haven't given up yet, fuckers. Love y'all. Fuck I hate myself for saying y'all. Someone stone me, please?

Oh Hey! I'm alive.

2 essays
1 take home exam
1 final
until I'm done 3rd year university.

I've neglected my blog due to philosophical disability (i.e., writing too many essays for my philosophy major). Also 1 too many dogmatic slumbers. HAHAHA okay no. Seriously.

So whats new?

I have a new tattoo, a new apartment, a new understanding of my personal undisclosed handicaps, and I am broke as fuck (but I suppose that is not totally new).

After this upcoming Friday, I will be done 3rd year and I will begin to focus on new things for the summer. Since this *might* be my last summer without an official full-time adult job, depending on whatever the hell life is going to throw at me, I want to use the extra time I have from being unable to get a job anywhere ever because of the lack of jobs where I live, to write.

I want to keep up with my blog, as per usual. I want to write a novel as well, or at least start to. I have a growing list of ideas for books. I'm not too sure what I'm going to do, but that is what the summer is for. The third thing I want to work on this summer is an academic paper. I want to write something and attempt to get it published into a student academic journal. I'm thinking something related to the Kama Sutras, but I am not 100% on what I am doing there yet, either.

I've actually been doing some thinking on it and have been considering applying to schools for a masters in philosophy once I am done my undergraduate degree. I am almost 100% sure I am applying to the program at Queens University for the fall of 2017, but if I do not get in I am going to redouble my efforts and apply to schools in British Columbia for the following year, or the year after that and move out west with the love of my life. I need warmth and a change of scenery. Canada does not really do it for me, but British Columbia seems just so beautiful, I want to go to there. (30 Rock reference)

If I decide to do a PhD, if I do a masters degree, I'd love to do it in California. But that's way into the future and I've realized I need to stop looking that far ahead with a microscopic perspective upon life. I don't live in the moment, but I also don't want to live just thinking into the future. This is a problem for me, actually. I am always thinking ahead way too far and it gives me anxiety for today. Will I be with the love of my life in 5 years? Will I be dead? Will I be in school? Have a job? I need to stop thinking like this and just put effort into now.

The problem with this type of thinking is that it is totally contradictory to my philosophy in life. I am pretty much a huge nihilist. To quote the T.V. show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, "The trick is not caring whether you live or die". Kimmy Schmidt is an overbearing optimist, so coming from her, this is kind of an amazing quote. I am a huge pessimist but I am trying to just be a realist instead of just negative. I am not into all of the positivity and meditation that millennials are suddenly super interested in all of a sudden, although there are good lessons in the philosophies. I just know that if I keep acting so negative that I am not even going to be living anymore. I'll just slowly become a part of my bed and never get up again. Which is depressing as fuck, but hey, I warned you how negative I am.

The biggest thing with functioning nihilists is to find meaning in your life, usually for most people this just means doing what makes you happy. Unfortunately, what makes me happy is literally doing nothing, which too much of this makes me unhappy. So I need balance. But the problem with "needing" and "wanting" is that it just disables you from being happy, ever, because then you just enter a never-ending cycle of desiring. Now I am preaching buddhist philosophies, apparently, but I think it to be a true idea. Desire is just... I don't really want to get into this right now. But essentially desire is what makes the world go around.

I'm trying to re-embrace my nihilism and have been putting a lot of energy into thinking about it. Most people meditate on positivity, I just meditate on my nihilism. I always find myself going back over my old philosophies from since I was maybe 16 and analyzing them again and deciding whether I still believe in these philosophies. At one point atheism was my most important philosophy because I meditated on it all of the time. I am still an atheist right now, but I probably could not defend to you as well as I could've 3 years ago exactly why I am because I haven't meditated on it in a while. I could much better defend why I am a nihilist to you because I have been thinking on it more, and recently read some Nietzsche and Schopenhauer too, which helps.

Anyways I still cannot fucking spell Nietzsche on the first fucking try and I am three years into my philosophy degree, so that fucking shows a lot. But I did spell Schopenhauer right on the first try just then. Jesus fucking christ.

Anyways. I suppose that is all. I have no idea where the hell I was going with this post, but I sure did go no where. Haha, like life, am I right?

Eh. Who knows. Who cares.

Peace. Find eternal bliss in pizza. Amen.

Updates + Happy New Year!

It has been quite a while now, hasn't it?

Let's just get into it. What's new with me? Firstly, I have started drinking more responsibly. It's really hard for me. What I mean by responsibly is that I am only drinking when it is socially acceptable to drink. In other words, no more getting drunk at random parts of the day, no more drinking alone, and no more drinking too much that I can't function. It's hard for me because I am so used to just drinking whenever I want. I realized it's not healthy and so I've stopped doing that.

I decided to just become a philosophy major instead of doing my double major with psychology. It is for a number of reasons, but the main reason is that I have pretty much decided I want to get my masters in philosophy. I am not in love with psychology as much as I used to be. I still love it, it's just not enough for me to want to major in it in university any longer. So when I graduate (hopefully in 2017) I will have an honours (again, hopefully) BA in philosophy with a double-minor in english studies and psychology. Perfect.

What else... oh, I have been finding it hard to hit the gym as much as I used to. Again, it's because I am quite busy. Although I've realized that half of the time I say I'm busy I'm really not and I could just change my priorities. Although I have been procrastinating everything in my life lately so now that I am changing my priorities, my priority right now is finishing my 3 essays due in a week, which is what I will be doing after I publish this post. The first essay I am working on will be the hardest, I am breaking down and identifying fallacies in correspondence and/or coherence theories of truth. Yeah, it'll be difficult. I am also writing a paper on the yin yang symbol, essentially talking about how it has been reappropriated, the history of the symbol, what it means, etc. The final essay I am writing is for my criminal justice class I have and it's just talking about psychopathy in criminals and whatnot. That one will be super easy.

I'm so excited to start next semester as my first semester with just philosophy courses. I am taking the second half of my Eastern philosophy, modern philosophy and reason and logical argument classes and also taking a political science class on power that counts as a philosophy course and a topics course in philosophy on security. It should be a more enjoyable semester.

Anyways. I thought I'd leave you with something I wrote down the other day on a sticky note:

"A lack of certainty is the same as strength. To be uncertain and maintain composure is the most noble way of becoming stronger"

Just a bit of a thinker.

Talk soon,

Sarah 

New Tattoos!

INK!

Recently I have gotten a few new tattoos. For those who have forgotten, I have one tattoo, the word "fuck" on my lower left back.

I still don't regret it. I love it so much. 

Anyways, a few days ago I got this tattoo:

It's a series of blue lines wrapped around my right forearm with a red line through it, like a piece of lined paper. I got it because I like to write, I love writing by hand. I love to learn. Plus I thought it would look rad. Even the artist who did it said it is one of the most unique and cool pieces she has done. So boo-yah. 

I got two other tattoos done recently. The first is the name "Pheidippides" in greek whose existence is argued, but the story of him is most known in the battle of marathon. 

He was sent around Greece during the war to deliver news, travelling hundreds of kilometers and eventually dropping dead with a sweeping declaration that they won. I got it because 1) I love ancient history and 2) I ran a marathon and his running is essentially the creation of the marathon. 

The third tattoo I got is my favourite. I think. I don't know. 

It is an eye. Not much to it. Not much meaning. Or at least, not much meaning I'd like to discuss. It is kind of personal to me. But the actual image of the eye has a story. It is from the cover art of Art of Dying's EP "Rise Up". I wanted to get an image of an eye on my pointer finger but I wasn't 100% sure of the image I wanted. I wasn't going to get something super detailed because finger tattoos apparently hurt like a bitch, but I figured fuck it and do it anyways. 

Turns out, out of all of the tattoos I have gotten so far, they don't really hurt that badly. Although I am pretty much a pin cushion apparently. I don't cry. I just kind of lie there and take the pain. There are some points that really hurt. When she was doing the page lines and near the sides of my bone, that hurt. Actually, "Pheidippides" hurt quite a bit, overall it probably hurt the most out of all of the ones I have gotten so far. The eye felt really different. Getting a finger tattoo is kind of how I imagined the pain of all tattoos to feel like. It really only hurt the closer she got to my hand, though. The pain was the same, I just kind of felt it more. That makes no sense. 

Anyways, I plan on getting several more tattoos. But for now, I am good. Mostly just because I can't afford anything right now. I just scraped by on getting those (all together the three cost $200). 

I want to get a half sleeve done next summer. I want a thigh tattoo of a flower. I have some other ideas, I want to get memorial pieces, whether small or big to all of the animals in my life. 

I don't know. Tattoos make people more interesting.

The funny thing is although tattoos are becoming more socially acceptable, I have already started noticing glances from people, especially while I am at work. Oh well. I knew it would happen. 

I just can't wait for them to heal now! I hate feeling like I am tiptoeing around trying to avoid infection. 

Until next time,

Sarah