leona-laughs

[leona-laughs]

I found out very recently that people call “pitbulls” “pibbles” and that makes me very happy :^)

[leona-laughs]

pick a plant if you’re having a bad day:

🌼  don’t hate yourself for relationships and friendships you lost or sabotaged - accept that you built walls or adopted some coping mechanisms. be gentle with this and acknowledge that this has happened, but you are able to grow into a wiser person and have meaningful relationships in the future because of this. don’t mind-read others and think they hate you - that’s a lie. you can still make genuine friendships, you’re still a loveable, valuable person.

🌺 you will find something else you love, new friendships, new hobbies, new music, new obsessions, new things that give u meaning. when one thing ends another one begins, so  don’t dwell on people who aren’t in your life anymore or things you don’t enjoy anymore. those might be in the past, but don’t give up on searching for new things that could be even better. 

🌷bad days and bad weeks always end. there are good things ahead. please don’t conclude anything about yourself or your life from a temporary time. it won’t always be like this. 

☘️  there is always a chance of success and there is no one path to happiness. you’ve already come so far from where you started and you should take a moment to be proud of yourself. you never know what great things can happen. don’t lose hope 💛

🌸 keep going through tiredness and there will be something beautiful and new that will fill the emptiness you feel right now. document and romanticise your life. you’ve had days where the world is bright and soft and kind and you will have those days again. 

🌱take your time. it’s ok to rest. stay in bed, drink water, take plentiful breaks, do nothing but breathe. when you’re ready, pick yourself up and piece things back together. there is no pressure.

🍄 pay attention to influences that make you feel bad and try to remove those from your life and thoughts. sometimes things like too much social media, untidy room, too little sleep, too much time in your room, or spending time with someone who doesn’t appreciate you can wear you down. make sure your environment helps you thrive.

🌻 you’re not invisible or forgotten, even if you feel alone. someone appreciates your smile, someone wanted to speak to you but was too shy, someone remembers you fondly even though you haven’t spoken to them for a while. you’re not  insignificant and alone. maybe you can reach out first and you’ll see that you were loved all along. remember, if you’re alone for a long time you will think you’re unloveable, and this is the biggest lie in the world, so try to force yourself to interact with others in a nice and fulfilling way even when you feel scared of embarrassing yourself. people who matter won’t judge you.

🍁 sometimes the hardest, but most worthwhile thing is changing everything you do or think. if you’ve been spiralling, maybe it’s good to assess what you’re doing that is making your situation worse. sometimes your thoughts and actions can be the problem but those can be changed. the first step is accept that your past moulded your current reactions to situations, then make a conscious effort to change every negative thought that you believe in. changing habits and mindsets like perfectionism, self-hatred, procrastination, jumping to conclusions, believing everyone will hurt you is really hard but it can be life-changing. take one step at a time  it’s hard to change what you’ve always known but you can do it, and don’t forget there is help out there. I hope happiness will play a big role in your life one day.

[leona-laughs]

i know that this may be hard to believe, but:

you are not a burden

you deserve happiness

you deserve to be listened to

you are so strong

you are kind

you are amazing

your situation right now is not your forever

it’s going to get better

your best is good enough

you are good enough

you are beautiful

you deserve to live your best life

you’re working so hard

you’ve gotten through everything that has been thrown at you so far; you can get through this too

you are worth so much

you are wonderful

you can choose positivity 

your past does not define you

your mistakes do not define you

your grades and achievements do not define you

your mental health does not define you

your struggles do not define you

it’s never too late to try again

it’s never too late to start

you are cared for

you are valued

you are so important

i am so proud of you

you’re going to be okay

[leona-laughs]

even if you don’t love yourself yet, you are still lovable

[leona-laughs]

3 days ago I drinking water with a plastic straw and I got a dirty look from some chick can you tell why?

fun fact: only 0.025% of pollution is from straws but 71% of global emissions are from just 100 companies so society shouldn’t solely blame the civilians but instead those corporations

[leona-laughs]

dear leona.

twenty nineteen

september first

[leona-laughs]

dear leona. (september first, twenty-nineteen)

dear leona, 

thank you for learning to prioritise yourself, and learning to be a better person towards yourself. you haven’t done everything you could have, but you did enough for today and all that matters is that you’re one step closer. 

it’s been a long year, hasn’t it? losing plenty of people, and losing yourself. but then picking yourself up and teaching yourself that it doesn’t matter who you lose, as long as you don’t lose yourself.

rather than hopelessly pleading with brick walls and hoping for compromises, thank you for walking away. communication is pointless without comprehension; so don’t pour your heart out for someone who doesn’t want to catch the droplets. save it for the one sitting patiently with a bucket. 

you are not just eye candy, a trophy for collection purposes. thank you for knowing when you deserve better and walking away. you deserve to be happy, not just to make someone else happy. do not settle because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. it’s not a false dichotomy; you can be happy as well as them, it does not have to be either their happiness or yours. do not let yourself fall victim to the mentality that in order to be a good person, you must always yield or put yourself through pain to make others more comfortable. 

if you don’t love yourself, that shows others how easily you can be manipulated and used. so take care of yourself and love yourself. but above all, forgive yourself because how can you love who you are today if you can’t learn to love who you were yesterday? remember, you may not have liked her, but she would have loved you; you make her proud of who you’ve become. thank you for taking her dreams and setting them into the stone of reality. 

this may not be forever but it’s a forever within a niche, and that will suffice for the time being. thank you for opening up your heart again, and forgiving. forgiving them for what they did, but also forgiving yourself for pushing them away from you. you really do deserve happiness, so you deserve to ditch the things that don’t give you just that. 

thank you for trusting in your own ability and judgement. for being more self-reliant and putting in the effort to understand yourself. thank you for setting goals and working towards them, i’m sure this coming year will be a testament to that. 

sincerely, 

leona. 

[leona-laughs]

explore jonquière - summer ‘19

last month, I was in an immersion program in québec.

(check out my blog post on my july bujo spreads)

took place in a small town called jonquière, part of a large cluster of towns called saguenay. most residents were Caucasian (but only some were racist. more on that later)

we paid around $275 for a registration fee, and we also were responsible for our own transportation to/from. for students like myself with a bursary, we did not need to pay for tuition, meals, or lodging. 

living options

residence: furnished with a desk, fridge, clothing cabinet, single bed, and sink. washrooms with toilets and showers, as well as kitchens with stoves, ovens and sinks were communal (shared with those on the same floor). from monday to friday, three meals per day were eaten at the cégep‘s cafeteria. on weekends, students would have $45 deposited into their bank accounts. around one hundred or so students of the one hundred fifty chose this option.

host family: this was the option I had selected, and the family I lived with was a five minute walk from the cégep (two or three minutes). I ate every meal with them except for lunch mondays to fridays (we would eat at the cégep cafeteria). around fifty students lived with host families.

on fridays and saturdays, we were taken to quite interesting places nearby (for the most part, within 45 minutes on a school bus)

cap trinité, a hiking trail that is quite vertically challenging (yes, I brought my bujo to take pictures)

old québec, they filmed some goblin scenes there (remember the cute christmas shop?)

chicoutimi, sort of like like a fancier downtown toronto (sorry)

mashteuiatsh, a reserve

parc national de la pointe taillon, a cute beach. I recommend renting out a kayak with a friend, it’s super fun and should be less than $15 each between the two of you. 

negative experiences

some jonquière residents were racist, as students began to see signs posted up around town saying, “jonquière: ville blanche”. as well, throughout the duration of the program, several students had come forward with allegations of racist slurs or remarks, most of which were dismissed with a simple, “then don’t speak English”.

from my personal experience and those of my other female friends, catcalling was a common issue. oftentimes, men driving by would roll down their windows and yell obscene remarks at us while honking.

communication between the administrative staff and students was barely there. most of us heard things through the grapevine instead of through the adults.

students who were drinking were not punished as mentioned in the contract at the beginning of the program. interestingly enough, several facebook posts and meetings discussed the issues of dirtiness in communal bathrooms and kitchens, even though the drunk students were often the students who had caused these problems. long story short, students were not expelled for underage drinking, 

positive experiences

since I lived with a host family, I was also living in close proximity with two other girls for five weeks. there is just something to much more intimate about living with a host family than in residence, and that basement remains a beautiful place in my memory. 

(thank you to the colocs for doing everything together; peddle boating, cooking, baking, renvere-ing the tea, sunbathing after making whirlpools in the small little pool, and giving each other advice as well as better eyebrows). 

tbc.

[leona-laughs]

tea parties should be more common. let’s sit down and enjoy the afternoon with sum tea n lemon cookies. maybe wear pretty dresses or lovely suits or groovy overalls, yk? in the tea party, we r safe and loved. have a cookie.

[leona-laughs]

bujo spreads

July 2019 

(monthly + weeks twenty-nine and thirty) 

Jonquiere, Quebec

Explore Jonquere ete 2019

[leona-laughs]

july ‘19

another school year over, and another summer I have yet to enjoy. 

this is my first monthly spread I’m posting. I’ve always been insecure about my bullet journal due to the fact that I’m not diligent enough to write neatly or consistently. I was also quite insecure with my imperfect bullet journal, but now I’ve grown used to and dare I say, learned to love, all the flaws (including the fact that my sleep tracker remains uncompleted and my spending tracker is not updated). 

however, I would like to give an enormous shoutout to my friends who hype me up, this truly could not have been possible without you. thank you to Jessie, Ishani, Angel, Deston, Martin, and Shruti!!

quick recap of the month. I was off in Quebec (Jonquiere, to be precise) doing a French immersion program called Explore. summary: tired, poutine, , colocataires, crêpes. check out my review post for more details!

for the monthly (or month at a glance) spread, I had a:

calendar to plan out the month. for instance, due dates (an article for our program review, a project on an artist - of course I chose Mark Lee!), events (costume night, talent show, e.t.c.), trips (Old Quebec, hiking, the beach), and my exams. 

spending tracker, self-explanatory but necessary. (yes, once I spent more than $100 in a day.)

to-do list for this blog, reading ahead for chem and math, and purchasing my things for the following school year (thank you to Charlotte for her grad robes!! saved me a pretty penny)

weekly spread for week 29 (July 14-20), and week 30 (July 21-27)

week twenty-nine

thank you to Emma (mon colocataire) for colouring the rocket ice lolly. I love you for that. 

(mid-term) exam week!!

we went to Old Quebec and I took some cute pictures, and ate the best poutine ever (seriously, I’m buying it again when I head back)

week thirty

h o m e w o r k 

we went to a beach and I tanned burnt because this big fool forgot to reapply sunscreen after swimming. literal bare mans headed into the sun to kayak and came back looking like a strawberry melona bar 

[leona-laughs]

movies

A Stray Goat (눈발, Nunbal) - produced/directed by film students. this stars Park Jinyoung from GOT7, which is why I was initially drawn to this work of art. in my opinion, this is quite an intriguing film, as there is quite a bit of interpretation and critical thinking to be done in order to understand the metaphors presented. social issues such as sexual assault, peer pressure and the exclusivity of Christianty are presented in a satirical manner, critiquing the irony of social institutions. if you’re looking for a fun, romantic movie, you’ve come to the wrong place.

The Witness - kind of a thriller? also crime, horror. explores human selfishness (as well as other aspects of human nature). the story is centred around one of two witnesses (hence the title) of a violent crime in his apartment parking lot, of which the police cannot find any witnesses for. watching this movie was frustrating for me, someone who is often outspoken and bold, but it made me a little bit more understanding of the bystander effect. a scene that left a big impact on me is when the witness returns to his apartment around in the early evening, screams for help, and is ignored despite the fact that nearly one-third of all lights are on.

Mononoke-hime - animation, Studio Ghibli. somewhat similar to The Lorax in terms of the environmental conservation aspect...but a little bit stronger in themes (graphic imagery, hence the pg13 warning). this is actually my all-time favourite movie because of the attention given to the antagonist, which most films usually neglect. there is no romance cliché (something that Hayao Miyazaki has spoken out about), only a strong friendship that one can only crave. plus, the character development piece is absolutely beautiful, following the self-discovery and friendship of two individuals from two very different childhoods.

Miracle in Cell No. 7 - just over two hours in length, but this film left me speechless (which is rare for this chatterbox). spanning over the course of around twenty years, Miracle in Cell No. 7 follows the story of a loving father-daughter duo. the story begins when a mentally disabled man is convicted of the murder of a high-ranking legal official’s daughter, through an unfair and unbiased trial. after his conviction, the daughter is sneaked into the prison where her father is held, changing the lives of other inmates and the prison staff. if you like comedy, criminal law, and emotional roller coasters, I have a movie for you.

[leona-laughs]

2019 favourites

may favourites

[leona-laughs]

may ‘19 favourites

MUSIC:

highway to heaven (NCT 127): part of the “SUPERHUMAN” album releasing May 24, gives off a “stargazing at night” vibe and the music video is simple but beautiful

jamais vu (BTS): as a Jin stan, I’m very proud of Jin’s growth as an individual and artist (the vocals really jumped out)!! I once looped it and accidentally studied for 3 hours straight. 

spinning top (GOT7): the second album I’ve heard where I loved all of the songs, the first being 7 for 7, also by GOT7. though it was a tough decision, my ultimate favourite from the album was “ggeut” (meaning “the end”). plus, all members participated in producing and songwriting!

DRAMA:

he is psychometric: starring Park Jinyoung (from GOT7) and Shin Yeeun (from A-TEEN). quick rundown: the main character has the classic “tragic and mysterious past” but the cliché ends there, as he is also able to read memories through touch. he uses his powers to uncover his past, and the plot never fails to disappoint, with unexpected plot twists at every corner. (l definitely recommended it to my friend who likes animes with action/fantasy. disclaimer: I am not responsible for any tears shed)

BOOK:

arming and disarming (a history of gun control in Canada) by R. Blake Brown”: though I intended to read this for an English assignment, I found myself reading sections I didn’t need to out of pure curiosity. this book was really insightful and gave me a better perspective on Canadian gun issues, tracing back to colonial history and relating gun violence to things like gender issues. I definitely recommend this book, whether it be for pleasure reading or for learning something new. 

OTHER:

changli fluorescent highlighter: appears to be exactly the same as the stabilo swing cool highlighter. I have a lavender version that isn’t too neon (I prefer pastel highlighters), and I may need to purchase a new one after exams. 

pilot frixion ball (black, 0.5): as someone who makes mistakes often, an erasable pen was the solution to nearly all of my problems. it’s light, pretty, and not flimsy at all. however, sometimes it railroads, and I found that I went through this pen relatively quickly. fortunately, it carried me through my titration lab, so I suppose I owe my good mark to it. I’m also looking around for a refill, as I’m trying to reduce the plastic waste I generate. (see: summer ‘19 haul)

[leona-laughs]

sometimes u just gotta say “okey dokey” and just like.. rely on urself.. take things as impersonally as u can.. love and let go.. move on.. try and find all the good things, soak those in. and that’s all u can do! and sometimes, that’s enough

[leona-laughs]

skincare tips

some of y’all ask me about my skin so I compiled a list of my best tips:

don’t be quick to hop on a trend!

K-beauty has become really popular, but you should keep in mind that Korean skincare products cater to Korean climate; factors like humidity and heat have an impact on the texture/ingredients. 

if you do want to incorporate said products into your routine, make sure to read descriptions to avoid drying out your face or overloading it. what works for someone else doesn’t always work for you; everyone has different skin types and needs. 

I recommend buying products formulated for people in countries close or similar in climate to yours. I use products mainly from the Body Shop, which has a big following in England and North America. 

spending tons of money on K-beauty is not always the solution to improving your skin, as it can prove to be both expensive and futile (see below). 

lifestyle > skincare products

things like exercise, diet, sleep, habits, are all SO important (dare I say, more important than actual skincare)

exercise is good for blood circulation, but don’t forget to do some skincare afterwards, since keeping sweat/oils on your skin for a prolonged period of time can lead to breakouts. 

sleep is very important, not only to the appearance of your undereye circles, but also because while you’re sleeping, your skin cells are repairing themselves and regenerating. the brightness/dullness of your skin is directly correlated to your sleep. 

apart from the “don’t touch your face” thing, make sure to let your skin “breathe”. this means that you need to keep your hair away from your face (you should do this as often as you can - I use a cloth headband). trust me, your forehead bumps will be greatly reduced. 

dairy

dairy is something I’m always watching out for; the hormones are usually what causes my breakouts. though it’s common, there are plenty of great alternates out there

I recently traded cow’s milk for oatmilk (my go-to recipe will be posted) and soymilk, both of which I make at home...though I’d love to try making rice milk

use frozen bananas in your smoothies to mimic the texture of ice cream/Greek yogurt. they’re definitely a lot cheaper and there’s no added sugar

TL;DR

trends aren’t always worth investing in...do your research

exercise, sleep, drink water, tie up your hair and REPEAT

stay away from dairy

[leona-laughs]

hey y’all, please fill this in for my English project (worth 15% of my final grade!!). thank you!