thank you for the music ...

Yesterday, I had a bit of a revelation - as long as I have musical accompaniment, I can (almost) always accomplish/finish something. I've always been a girl whose longed for a musical soundtrack to follow her around everywhere she went - or to have Morgan Freeman narrate my life. Instead, I listened to a mix CD and then the best of U2 while baking cookies (using my sister's recipe!) as an early birthday present for a friend ... and for once, I didn't mind washing all the dishes afterward as I sung along with Bono (this song still remains one my favourites, I don't know why).

Does music motivate you too? What keeps you going? :) 

This week I also realized some others things: 1) I'm actually not that bad at baking/cooking and I want to do more(!) and; 2) I've realized the difference between talking to and talking with someone. To me, the latter means you have an ongoing conversation, you geniunely love talking with someone, hearing feedback, hearing what's going on with their life, responding to it, and then having the conversation flow. On the other hand, talking to means that I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall, someone whose eyes are dazed and it feels like they aren't listening to a word I'm saying and as soon as a few seconds of uncomfortable silence kicks in, they launch into a completely unrelated story. At least pretend you're interested, or something. Ah wells!

It's been one of those weeks where, before you know it, it's already Friday. TGIF!

What are you looking forward to this weekend?

And now, a segway of things that made my week before I move on to questions!

It's been forever and a day since I last promised to answer the Ask Nikolett questions, so here goes! If you have any more regarding advice-related questions or things about me, don't hesitate to ask :)

Monster Girl asks ... What are your top five things in your life that are better than coffee to you? :)

I should've seen this coming haha. And I feel like my answers are a bit boring but here goes:

1) Cuddling with The Boy.

2) Laughing with my friends so hard until I'm snorting and we're all crying. 

3) One of those delicious meals that after you finish it you go, "Whoa, I wish I had eight of those." 

4) Feeling the sand between your toes (it's a natural exfoliant!). 

5) Singing along to music at the top of my lungs.

Krissy asks ... What song can you dedicate to me, and why? :D

Right now, I totally want to say "Survivor" by Destiny's Child - you're such a trooper in all that you do, all you go through in your life with people and what recently happened to you (I'm so sorry that you had to go through that, but again, I'm so thankful that you're okay!). 

Oh, and "Ang Gando Ko" by Sandara Park, because it was the first Filipino pop-ish song I heard and me and my friend (who has the same name as you!) sing this, complete with dance moves :) Oh, and because you have long hair haha.

Andhari asks ... If you could have a little menage a trois with two super hot celebrities, who would you choose and why? 

Hmms, umms ... I love your questions, lady hahaahaa. I'd say Henry Cavill and err ... I think that's really all I'd need. Maybe throw in some Tom Wellings, or Chris Evans, or maybe one of the Supernatural brothers (wait, scratch that, just Jensen Ackles). You know, Matthew Goode is pretty good too (haha, Goode - good). But mostly Henry Cavill ... because, look at him (+ his accent, his charm, his outfits on The Tudors):

I had to crop myself out of the right picture, sorry about that ;)

Thank you for the questions! :) I hope you all have a great rest of Friday (or Saturday, or whatever day you might be reading this on) and have a great weekend!

ask nikolett

Earlier this month, I wrote about having an 'official' Ask Nikolett post for you to ask questions instead of randomly inserting them into another entry. So here goes! 

While I could have a formspring or something, this is more meant to be something along the lines of an 'agony aunt' (which works, since I'm an aunt tee-hee) ... though I'm by no means an expert at life (at. all.) But, if you have questions about life, things you want to throw out there and you might not know who exactly to ask or who to turn to ... I am your lady.

If you have personal questions about me (like say, for instance, what my favourite Skittles flavour is*), you can feel free to ask those, too. If you have questions about how to approach that certain someone, things to do with friendships, about exercise, or jobs, things like that ... I'd love to answer them over a cup of coffee, but I hope having a blog post every once in a while answering your questions will also do! And then, if anyone else has any input, they can throw it out there, too. Okay, I'm starting to rhyme now and that's scary (boo!).

Hopefully this doesn't fail(blog.ORG!)

Without further ado, ask away!

*It's the green ones.

therapeutic thursdays: ask nikolett #2

It's time for another:

 

This time, it's just a few random questions which is good since I really want to watch the women's figure skating, with only a couple of advice-related questions but I hope you enjoy 'em nevertheless. I'll probably make a permanent Ask Nikolett post so you can continuously ask questions and about once a month I'll pluck 'em out and answer them! Yahoos! And I'm going to have a small giveaway soon before all the lovely guest blogs, so stay tuned for that, too!

 

What is love? - Little Miss Tiara

Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me ... no more~ I remember in high school when I was a part of video club and we had this whole segment in our end-of-the-year video where we got people to sing that song and ... anyhoos, off-topic! I think love is probably one of the most complicated topics of our world ... so much poetry, songs, books written about love. 

To me, personally, love is something that can often get blown out of proportion, or can be severely underrated. With my relationship with The Boy, love doesn't mean being in that 'honeymoon stage', but rather finding something new to care about every day. It's about making those feelings last, getting through the hardships together because you love each other. Love is holding on even when the ship starts to sink a little, because you know it will sail again. Enough cheesy analogies, hehe. It's comfortable with just the right amount of daily excitement. And from personal experience, love is having a relationship with more happy times than sad (or as I like to put, more happy tears than sad tears). Love is a many-splendoured thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all we need is love ;)

 How do you get yourself studying when the fear of failure is too much because there are too many expectations attached to it? - Nahl

Story of my life, right now. I've felt like giving up on studying on so many occasions lately because of fear of failure but there are certain things I try to keep in mind to motivate myself, which hopefully work for you:  

1) Do it for yourself ... not doing the studying at all is guaranteed to make you fail anyway, so do it for yourself to satisfy yourself and say, yes, I got through this ... make that a reward rather than all the other expectations;  

2) Remind yourself why you're doing it ... getting through the studying/assignments/tasks ahead of you is a choice only you can make. I've found myself crying because I felt I would disappoint my parents with my results ... but again, you have to do it for yourself; 

3) Try to find fun in it. I know that might seem impossible with so many due dates and the like. Most of the time though, we're able to choose what subject we're studying, so try to remember why you like that subject so much and try to find the fun in it, rather than automatically thinking about the end result. Hope this helps!

If you could compare the boy to a movie character, which one resembles his personality the most? - Jessica

Oh man, this was a toughie. When I asked him the question, he actually said Jim Carrey (no lie) and I have no clue why ... and then I re-asked the question and he realized what I meant, haha. Together we decided on a mix of Jonathan Trager from Serendipity and Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Jonathan Trager because of the serendipitous way that me and The Boy met ... it wasn't necessarily love at first sight (since I don't believe in that), but it was new and exciting. Jonathan seems to find delight in the little things (figure-skating, drawing constellations on arms), much like The Boy does. Aragorn, on the other hand, is a bad-ass who people take for granted. Half of the first movie is spent with people underestimating him until they found out he's the true King. I find it's the same way with The Boy ... people underestimate him because he's an immigrant, but he's accomplished so much. And, like Aragorn, he has a tough exterior but a lovey-dovey side, like with Arwen.

Oh, and I'm also throwing in a touch of Borat, because The Boy is a little crazy and has an accent, haha.

What's the stupidest thing you did done when you were drunk? - Andhari

In all honesty, I've only been drunk about twice in my life ... the most recent one was the charity ball earlier this month where I apparently snorted-while-laughing a lot plus kept saying, "Ja? JA!" repeatedly (I sound like a hyperactive mess haha). 

But the stupidest thing was probably going out either The Boy's birthday or his friend's at this restaurant-entertainment place and I was really heavily tipsy. There was a hanging light from the ceiling, so I kept touching and poking it until it started swinging and went, "Whoooooa." Then, I saw another light coming into my eyes from somewhere else but I thought it was me and went, "Woooow so many liiiiights" but, it was actually the bouncer flashing his flashlight at me to get me to stop what I was doing ... ahh, so lame. A pretty tame story I know, but that's probably the stupidest thing!

What would your dream wedding be like? - Little Miss Tiara

Haha, my sister answered this perfectly in the comment below this question: "she has no idea, I'm planning it", which is pretty much true! In all honesty, I haven't given too much thought about it ... maybe because I've only attended one wedding ceremony in my life. Though I do watch a ton of wedding movies, don't get me wrong.

All I have is mind is -- hopefully an amazing groom, probably going to be at a Church, and I'd like it in the spring or summer because I just love those seasons. And, I already have a place in mind for that thingy that happens after the ceremony ... the reception? (I've never been to one LOL.) It's this beautiful garden in my city that has a quiant restaurant and outside of it is just gorgeous flowers, ponds, and the like. The Boy took me for my birthday there last year, and there's a set of steps that I told him I could see as steps that a newlywed couple would stand on for pictures (which freaked him out a little, hehe).

 

I could picture there being white and silky open tents (just in case it rains lightly, and if it rains heavily, most of it could be done inside the little restaurant). Since it would be spring/summer, the sun would set a little later and I could just picture watching the sunset while eating dinner, and having a first dance just as the sun starts to fade the stars start to shine ... and that's the extent of my imagination haha. As you can see, no real details haha. *comes back to reality*

Thanks for the questions, ladies! Now I'm off to watch some skating and massage my poor feet ... anyone want to send me some warm, durable winter boots so I don't have to walk in my heeled boots anymore? :( 

Hope you've all had a good week!

And share any wedding experiences you've had so I can feel like I've actually been to more than one! :)

 

therapeutic thursdays: ask nikolett

It's almost the weekend, and all I'm thinking about is schoolwork and stress and just wanting to see Leap Year already. But I'm also thinking about your questions! About half of them had to do with advice, while the other half were personal questions about me. So I'm going to divide it into two sections, whoopah!

Welcome to the first edition of Ask Nikolett!

I'm no Oprah or an advice columnist, but I do have a whole lot of coffee in my system and I am taking an Oprah seminar, so I'm slowing learning her ways (bwahaahaha). But here goes with your questions :) Hopefully you find the answers therapeutic and if not then, umm ... ...

So in your opinion after a bad break up, how do you get your heart back in line with your head? - Witty

It's hard, that's for sure. Everyone around you keeps telling you so many different things (there's plenty of fish in the sea, 'he/she was a jerk anyways') until there's so much going on in your head. Your heart, on the other hand, is still damaged. According to Sex and the City (I think), it takes you twice as long as your relationship to get over someone. I don't think it's necessarily true, but it does take a while to sort through the thoughts in your head before you can even begin to fix the heart.

In my opinion, it all came down to realizing what went wrong, what caused the break-up. Instead of focusing on all the great things (oh, but he/she was so good to me!) I thought about what we did, on both our parts, to cause the relationship to go sour. Then, I try to work on the heart. It's hurt, because of all the things you've put it through ... but once you realize that you're most likely better off without this person, your heart can begin to mend. Tell yourself you deserve better (because you do!), and you'll believe it. And then, your heart can start to believe it.

Assuming that time (lots of time) isn't healing this particular wound, how do you get over a great lost love? -notthatkindofgirlblog

OK, so I put these two questions next to each other for a reason. Because I don't believe you can ever really get over a lost love. You can realize that maybe you weren't great for each other, and maybe you'll find that next person who makes you so much happier, but there will always be wounds there from previous lost loves. I don't think it's necessarily a matter of trying to heal the wound, but to get to that point where you don't mind that it's there. It's a battle scar, something you got through that hopefully made you stronger in the end.

Instead of focusing on how much time has gone by or about the person who caused that wound, though, just think about how much your life has changed since you got that wound. Our minds always tend to go back to the people in our past to the point where it can be hard to completely forget that person, but just remember that things happened for a reason, and be happier today about where you are.

My question is... well, my boyfriend is flushing out the gophers from the yard, but I think gophers are so adorable, how do I stop him from doing that? And if I do stop him from flushing out the gophers, how do I make the gophers leave? - Cheryl

I simultaneously laughed out loud and went "aww" at this question. And then it reminded me of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when the Weasley brothers flung out gnomes from their backyard by whipping them over the fence. But yes. Apparently, you can pour some undiluted liquid Lysol concentrate into their tunnels they go away...they don't like that smell at all. As well, fencing in the area is the best way to get rid of gophers (according to this site). And on the single comment on that site, the girl recommends getting a pet to poop in gopher holes. But if you don't have a pet, I'd suggest getting your boyfriend to poop in the holes as a payback for him flushing them out like that. Karma is a biatch? But yes, I just spend the last 15 minutes researching gophers, and I hoped that helped somewhat. Good luck!

You forget you have a date with a real hot guy, in 5 minutes. You haven't showered, brushed your teeth, shaved ( LOL) and prepared clothes to wear, what do you do?- Andhari

Instead of having a major panic attack and/or cancelling the date (which I think would be the most common answer to this), I would say -- make sure you brush your teeth (that way, even if you don't look your nicest, at least you have amazing breath and can impress him with your hot make-out skills). Next, I'd suggest buying dry shampoo, that way your hair can at least look a little less greasy. Next: wear pants and a shirt that won't reveal your armpit hairs. To find this, I'd say either go into your closet and look for your favourite go-to outfit or run to the laundry room (if you have one) and grab whatever is clean (and dry!). Finally, wear deodorant and spritz on your favourite perfume to mask any odour. If you still have a few extra seconds and you happen to have a bare face, I'd say just put on some moisturizer and your favourite lipgloss. Et voila! ... hopefully that takes 5 minutes.

TWO OTHER OPTIONS: You can be a girl who makes the guy wait half an hour for you. But he might be more impressed that you got ready in less than five minutes. Or, you can make sure your date is in a dark area with lots of smelly candles (ooh la la).

-- Okay, I just rambled hardcore. Now onto the 'personal' questions, which were pretty random and I love them.

As for my question, this is cliche, but I want to know where you see yourself 10 years from now :) - krissy

Hopefully alive and still enjoying my coffee addiction, haha. It's so weird trying to picture myself as a 31-year old ... not because it's old, but because so much can happen in your 20s, methinks. Hopefully I'll be with someone who I love and who loves me, and maybe enjoying a steady, happy career and having a wee little one running around in my backyard full of an amazing garden and a gazebo (I love gazebos). Might be a cliche answer, but it's true :)

What are some qualities about yourself that you really love....and how do you think you attained them? {...experience..just in your nature...or someone gave you huge words of wisdom once that you took to heart}- Iva

Oh wow ... umm, I guess I like the idea that I've able to do so many things at once. I don't mean multi-task, but just that I try to do so many hobbies (graphics design, writing, playing instruments, etc). I think I've gotten that from my mom, who can be knitting, cooking, and playing video games all in one day. And I've started to appreciate how sensitive I can be ... my friend told me that it's not bad that I'm sensitive to things in life, because it makes me more understanding, plus I can try to help others out. Hence ... ask Nikolett? Haha.  

If your boyfriend asks you to buy a lingerie and surprise him, what kind will you buy? Explain. - Andhari

So-so-so scandalous! (5 points to whoever knows that song.) Interestingly enough, when The Boy went away for a month for vacation, he missed my birthday. When he came back, he had a present for me: my first set of lingerie. Since then, I've just bought myself slips that are comfy. But if I were to go on a lingerieque shopping spree, I'd choose anything with lace, a little femininity (and absolutely no leather), and nothing with a thong. I'm sorry, I know the guys love it, but it just hurts my bum-oley. 

I find that something on the left breaks the stereotype of black-and-red lingerie, plus it shows off the cleavage while still leaving a little to the imagination. Plus, it'd be comfy while still giving off a sexy flair.

And I've found that looking at lingerie websites in a student center is probably not the best idea -- LOTS of stares from people walking by. And on that note ...

How long have you and the boy been dating? - Nicole

One year and 8 months. It'll be two years in May, though it feels like it's been longer (and I mean that in a good way!).

Do you think that life exists on other planets?- Manju

I adore you, Manju. I do believe that at least one person lives on each planet. For example, I think Sailor Saturn lives on Saturn until she came to earth because she realized it was too cold on her home planet. And Sailor Pluto came because well ... her living area is no longer declared a 'planet' (poor thing).

In all honesty, I'd like to think there would be some other species (whether it's human or otherwise) on other planets in some distant galaxy. I've watched too much sci-fi TV shows and movies to not have some suspcision that there might be. 

What is your absolute favorite activity? - Ocean Dreams

This. Is. So. Hard. My absolute favourite? Would probably be ... being with people. Not necessarily physically, but in any aspect. That's not to say I don't cherish my alone time, because I do. But I like having relationships with people. Talking with people on the blogosphere has been amazing, talking on the phone with The Boy is always a favourite time of day, and being with friends makes me happy. I love having that connection, so any time I get to be with someone is a favourite activity.

You could pick 3 celebrities to have sexy times with and your boyfriend isn't allowed to complain, who would you choose? - Andhari {I'll answer your other ones next time!}

When I read this question to my boyfriend, he replied with, "Please don't tell me who you choose" (since I know he'll secretly compare himself to them). But he didn't complain about me choosing, so here goes:

Henry Cavill, Matthew Goode, and Jensen Ackles/Tom Welling.

Henry for: his accent, his smirk, and his body (unf at that first Tudors episode)!

Matthew for: his charm, his accent, and his goofy expressions.

Jensen/Tom: for their shirtlessness. And being super(natural) and super(man).

Thanks for asking all these questions! Please let me know if you like this little installment -- I'll probably be doing it once a month if you do ... or umm, once a year if you don't.

Hope you've found these answers either therapeutic or laugh-worthy (because laughing is therapy, haha).

And be happy: the weekend is almost here!