Album Review: Mind of Mine

     On March 25th, 2016, Zayn Malik released his debut solo album and it has a total of 18 songs on it. Now Zayn Malik is not new to the music industry, in 2010, he auditioned for the British X Factor, and was put into a group. As many people know that group is called One Direction. One Direction is a very successful band and released four albums as a five piece band, but in 2015 on March 25th, Zayn decided to leave the band and do other things. One year later, he has come out with 'Mind of Mine', and as a previous fan of Zayn, I have to say that this album is surprisingly really good.

     There were always rumors going around that Zayn never wrote songs for One Direction and when he did they were always rejected because the songs did not sound like One Directions 'type' of music. I believe that is where the title 'Mind of Mine' came from. Zayn finally got to write what he wanted to write, have whatever music he wanted. Everything on this album was done by Zayn, all of the songs were written by Zayn, the designs were by him, the music videos he has released came from his mind. You can really tell because in his first music video for his #1 single, "Pillowtalk", it was so creative, with the background designs, the makeup on the people in the video, it all had screamed Zayn.

One Direction

      When it comes to the actual music, it has that same creativity. Zayn went from being a pop singer to an RnB singer, and usually with RnB singers, there is more of a story and meaning behind everything. When listening to the lyrics, you understand the story Zayn is trying to say, he is telling you his experiences through each song. In an interview, Zayn, had said that when he wrote for One Direction, nothing was from experience, it was all made up. With "Mind of Mine", the stories all make sense and you know what he is singing about is all coming from his experiences. I believe Zayn did a very good job in executing everything he wanted to do with the album, it all sounds new and never done before.

Zayn Malik

     When Zayn announced he was going to release his album on March 25th, one year after he left the band, everyone was very confused. After thinking about it though, instead of mourning one year later over how talented Zayn was and what he brought to the band, Zayn made it a day to celebrate his turn around and show how his talent is so much better when he decides every aspect of it. In an interview, Zayn did say that he didn't know it was the anniversary, it just happened to be the day that worked the best for him to release it, but I like the celebration thought better.

   I really recommend this album to anyone who loves chilled/ laid back music that has deep meaning to it with some really creative music going on. The album has a lot of amazing beats in it that you don't usually hear. Oh and if you go to Target to get the album, there are two bonus songs!

    
    

Book Review: The Bell Jar

     I watched another video on YouTube of book recommendations, and Scarlett Turner, recommended the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I knew this book was about a girl who is depressed, but I did not know the severity of it. Actually I read this book over spring break on the drive to Florida, and a relative of mine saw I was reading it and she even warned me about how severe Esther's depression was. A little background behind the book, Sylvia Plath wrote this as a biography, but she changed the names, places, and dates, but everything that happened in the book happened to her in a way. The book was released in the 1963, so it has a lot of 'old school' writing, but it is actually pretty cool to read about the differences between the modern day now to back then in the 40's-60's.

     When I first started reading the book, it did not seem like her life was depressing because she was on a scholarship trip in New York for a magazine company, and she was living the life doing hard work by day and party by night. Esther and the other seven girls would have paid meals that were very high end, and they would go to fashion shows, they were living the life. At times Esther would be alone in her hotel room feeling depressed and alone, but that was all that really happened.

     There were a lot of flashbacks in the book to her collage days of living in a dorm and going on speed dates, having the biggest crush on a Yale student. Sylvia showed us what is was like to love someone for such a long time and then find out who they really are when the other person starts to show feelings back, and that throws Esther off completely from that person showing her what a hypocrite this guy is.

     It starts to get to the holy crap what happened to Esther part, after her trip in New York is over. Things start going the wrong way with school and it just seems like there is nothing for Esther, and her mother starts to notice Esther is not herself. That is when the first shock treatment happened, the shock treatment was suppose to make Esther feel like herself again but obviously that didn't work because why the heck would shocking yourself make life seem like ponies and rainbows? After the first shock treatment, things get much, much worse. Let's just say Esther had a failed attempt at suicide and was taken to multiple asylums, all paid for by a lady Esther had met in New York, who was very famous for her work, and the lady was very touched by Esther that she felt she needed to help Esther back to a healthy mind.

Sylvia Plath

     The Bell Jar, is a very serious read, there were so many things that had happened to Esther that lead her to the deep depression she went into. When my relative saw that I had been reading this book, she had to told me to keep away from another relative because it might give them the wrong ideas, but really I think this book shows you what could happen if you entered this kind of depression, and what you could do to prevent it. I am not saying, if you're are thinking of harm yourself you should read this book about another girl who is harming herself. I am just saying that it could give you a different look on how things could go if you really steered yourself from it. I recommend this book to people who can handle graphic things, and hard situations, but I would keep this book away from the younger side of teens, because going through the teen phase is a hard time, so once you know who are as a person, this book is a good read.

Spring Break in Florida

     Recently I just had my spring break, and if you don't know what spring break is, it is where there is one week off of school. It is basically so you can recharge and power through to June when school ends. I always think of spring break as the final stretch of the school year because it is our last major break and that is when I generally start to take studying more seriously for my upcoming AP exams. Spring break you can do whatever you want, you can stay at home all week and hang out with friends or you could go on road trips with family or friends, or just anything you want to do.

     For spring break I went to Florida with my family because basically my moms entire side of the family lives down there. We drove down there and that is usually a 21 hour drive. My family drives every time we go to Florida because we have family that lives in the states we travel through, and also it is pretty expensive to fly four people down there twice a year.

     Every year my family goes down to Florida for spring break and it is usually a jam packed week. We always try to make it to a Yankee's spring training game at George M. Steinbrenner field in Tampa. Then we like to spend at least a day with my sister Rachel who lives in Jacksonville with her three kids and husband. Then we go to my grandpa's house in Kissimmee for the rest of the week. We used to go to Sea World and Busch Gardens but we got a little tired of it so we changed it to go to Caladesi Island in Tampa for a day to relax and walk around the beach. My parents like to dedicate a day to go to the Arnold Palmer golf tournament also while my sister Shelby and I, go shopping and explore. It is a pretty fun trip to do every year, and it is always nice to see my family down there.

Spring Candles

     Recently I re decorated my room for spring, and when as I was putting up decorations I realized that all of the candles that I had were for fall and winter. Automatically I thought of Bath and Body Works, and thankfully they were doing a sale on the three wick candles (those are the best), so I decided to get three different candles that I thought were perfect for spring. Also you are going to see a trend with the three candles, I may have bought candles that the titles were of popular cities all over the world.

      The first candle I found was 'Venice'. The color of it is a peach color and the scent also smells like peaches. Now I have never been to Venice so I don't really know if it smells like peaches all of the time, probably not. I got this one because I feel like the scent peaches are a really spring/ summer scent and it would nice to burn it on a hot day so then you'll think of peaches and eat some instead of thinking that you are going to melt from this heat.

     The next candle I bought was 'Amsterdam'. This candle is a kind of medium blue and the scent of it is white tulips. When it comes to spring time, the flower that always pops into my head are tulips so I knew I had to get it. Also I think it smells really good but when I had my mom and sister smell it, they thought it smelled like cleaning supplies. I don't think it smells like that, I think it is the perfect spring flower scent.

   
     Now the final candle I got was 'New York'. It is a lime green color and its scent is called "beautiful day". Personally when I went to New York, it was hot and smelled liked foot, but I guess if I would have spent more time in Central Park, it might have smelled nicer. I bought this candle because I did go to New York and it is always nice to light this candle and have memories flash back. For me it smells clean, kind of like fresh cut grass, and other things, I am really bad at describing candle scents.

    Those are the three candles that I bought to put around my room for spring, and I really recommend buying at least one candle for a theme in your room because it is the easiest way to decorate and your room will smell amazing. Also I like the fact that these candles are named after popular cities, they appealed more toward me because I want to travel the world some day, and yes I do know that none of these cities actually smell like the candle.

Book Review: Unbroken

     I am currently in my junior year of High School, and one of the classes I am taking requires me to read books off the AP Scholarly list and the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand happened to be on there. I had heard good reviews of the book from my teacher and fellow classmates about so I thought I would give it a go. The last book I had read off of the list was; The Scarlett Letter, and let me just say that I have never read a more boring/ ranting book ever, so yeah, my hopes were not very high to read anything else off the that list. Warning, there will be many spoilers.



Louie Zamperini

     The book Unbroken is basically about a man who was a very rebellious child and when he discovered running, he turned all of that rebellious effort into effort to succeed in running. Louie Zamperini then went onto compete in the Berlin Olympics and did very well in it. Though once WWII started, Louie had to stop his running career and become a bomber for the United States Air Force and then eventually became a POW (prisoner of war) in Japan. I found it really interesting to read about how nobody liked Louie as a child but once he started to put his talent of running into good use, people loved him. Then when he went to the Air Force to fight, people would remember what good of a runner he was and how it was a shame he had to stop.



Louie on the right competing

     There are so many things that happened in this book, but the one thing that stood out the most for me was not his amazing running career, or his rebellious childhood, it was how he survived 47 days on a raft with two other people. Those three men had chocolate, water, fishing equipment and the clothes are their backs to survive off on that boat. The whole time those three men were out there they had to find a way to capture rain water to drink, how to catch fish, keep the sharks from eating them, avoid Japanese shooters in helicopters and survive a typhoon! Not only living on a raft for 47 days, on the 47th day, they were captured by the Japanese and taken to multiple POW where they were beaten, given back braking labor, and fed inedible scraps of food, and also tormented by the guards. It was truly heartbreaking to read about how all of these men were treated and tormented.

Louie with his B24 plane

     Throughout Louie's time in being a POW, it was crazy how many times he avoided death. The first POW camp Louie was sent to was Kwajalein , the nickname for the camp was "the death camp". Louie went through experiments and testing's, usually after being interviewed and tested on, the people are sent to their death but Louie was sent to another camp. I believe he was sent to another camp and saved was because of his background as the famous Berlin Olympics runner. They later tried to use him as propaganda for Japan.



Louie reuniting with his family after being rescued

Laura Hillenbrand; Author

     Unbroken, seem like a history book, and usually that turns people away immediately, but let me tell you, this is not a history book. This book is about a man grew up with exceptional skills and then had survive multiple POW camps, it is a journey of how Louie Zamperini did not give up on life because it was too hard and unfair, it showed how strong a person can be. This book made me cheer for joy and it made me disgusted with human beings, your emotions will go from the happiest they can be to the most disgust you have ever experienced. I recommend this book for anyone, it is truly life changing and eye opening. I know I missed a lot of parts of the book, and that is because there is so much going on, and I could write for hours about it but I'm not. If you have not read the book, please give it a read, you will not regret it.
    
**all images were provided by Google
    
     

Healthy Breakfast Part 2: Egg Edition

In my last post I wrote about my favorite healthy breakfasts to have in the mornings and I had mentioned eggs on avocado on toast. Now those eggs were cooked in a pan, so that took me about five minutes to do. I found ways for n mornings when you feel rushed and think you have no time to make breakfast, I can change that thought and give you two ways to make quick and easy eggs to throw on toast.

     The first quick and easy way only needs one nice sized mug, two eggs, and whatever seasoning you like. You crack the two eggs into the mug add whatever else you want in it and heat it up in the microwave for 2 minutes or until it is completely cooked. You don't have to deal clean up of a pan, all you have to do is clean a mug and you're done!

     The next egg cooking method is for if you want to throw the egg onto a piece of toast. You will need to saucer plates, like the ones you set tea cup's on. On one saucer you will crack an egg or two and mix it, then you place the second saucer on top, and heat it up in the microwave. Now you have a perfectly shaped egg to go onto your toast.

     Those two ways save me so much time in the morning when I am feeling rushed. I recommend this for anyone and it is so simple it is fool proof. No excuses now!

**picture provided by Google

Healthy Breakfast Ideas

     Being in school it makes it tough for me to eat breakfast every morning because I love any extra sleep I can get. Though once I realized how tired I was throughout the day I knew I need to make breakfast more of a priority, but I still want to get as much sleep in as possible. It took me a little bit to figure out what I wanted to eat in the morning and was super quick, but I finally have a nice rotation of foods to have every morning.

     My go to breakfast is usually a bowl of cereal but I got bored of it after awhile and wanted to spice it up a bit. The usual cereal I reach for is Honey Bunches of Oats with almonds, but now I add these ingredients, variety of fruits; blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. Then I like to add some cinnamon with a bit of honey, a little smaller than a tablespoon of flax seeds or chia seeds and finally some almond milk. I like to add these ingredients because by adding fruit I can count that into my daily fruit total of the day, and then the cinnamon gives it that hint of spice kick. For the honey, I just overall love honey so I try to find any food to incorporate it into and flax seeds has a ton of health benefits to it. Now instead of a boring bowl of cereal and milk, I have multiple ingredients that will give me 10x the more energy throughout the day.

     Another go to breakfast that takes little time is a bagel, but not an ordinary bagel. This bagel has blueberry cream cheese, blueberries and blackberries, with a drizzle of honey on top. You no longer just have a bagel with a slab of cream cheese, you have a bagel with tons of energizing ingredients on top that will leave your taste buds going crazy. I like to have this breakfast on days where I can take it with me on the go because of time constraints.

     This breakfast idea takes a bit more time in the morning but it is so worth it. You start with a piece of bread and throw it into the toaster and toast it. While that is toasting you will go over to your pan that has heated with some butter or oil in it and crack two eggs. I like to cook my eggs over easy but this breakfast will work with whatever you prefer. After the bread is toasted, you will take out ripe avocado and cut in half, take out half of the avocado and spread it onto your bread as substitute for butter. Once the eggs are cooked, you just put them on top of the avocado and bread and you have egg avocado toast. This breakfast will leave you feeling full until lunch time and it gives tons of energy to make it through your morning classes or work.

     The last breakfast idea have also takes a bit more time but it leaves you extra for the next morning. This is the classic bowl of oatmeal or porridge, but instead of ripping open a packet and throwing in some water or milk and heating it in the microwave, you will make it yourself so you know exactly what it is you are eating. I like to take 1/2 a cup of old fashioned oats and put it onto into a sauce pan on medium heat, then you add 2 cups of water. Stir the oats until it starts to boil up and kind of makes air bubbles. After it starts bubbling you can turn it to medium low heat and continue to stir until hits the consistency you prefer. Next I'll put it into a bowl and that is when I add a splash of milk, some cinnamon, tablespoon of flax seed, honey, and what fruit I have on hand. With the extra oatmeal I throw it into a container and re-heat it the next morning. This breakfast definitely leaves you full until your next meal.

     I know not everyone likes to eat breakfast in the morning for different reasons, but if you do make it a priority you will immediately tell the difference energy wise. I noticed on the days I skipped breakfast I was falling asleep in my morning classes, but on days when I did eat breakfast, I was awake and ready to do what was going on in class. Breakfast does not take much time at all in the mornings and it is very easy to make time for breakfast, it just takes motivation. These ideas I have written are perfect quick and easy breakfast ideas for anyone.

**Images provided by google and Anna SacconeJoly's blog 

Book Review: We Were Liars

     We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, was a book that I bought on a whim, I had some extra money I wanted to spend and the book sounded good. I had also heard from a couple of friends that the book was interesting but a bit weird/confusing. The summary gave off the impression of this rich family that get together every summer and live their perfect lives on the outside, but the inside is a big lie. After reading the book though, I have a different view on it.

     This book followed a character who did live the perfect life with the amazing beach house to escape to in the summer and live it up with family and friends and then go home to your mansion home without ever really having to work. All the money comes from the grandparents and their parents and now these people are just living off that money. The family is described as all blond/white perfect hair, and tan white skin. As you go into the book more, you see the main character start to downfall. Her dad leaves her and her mom, and during one summer the girl had an accident that gave her memory loss of that summer and thus the end of the perfect family.

     There is the cliché romance in the book, but it is kind of different with this book. The boy is a family friend, so he comes down with one of the cousins every year, and he is Indian. The grandfather of the perfect family wants to keep the blond and white skin gene running through forever, he against any other color 'imperfection' ruining that gene. So the romance is kind of forbidden I guess.

     The weird/confusing part happens near the middle of the book, and you don't really see it coming. It is one of those situations where you are reading a book and all of a sudden you get slapped, didn't see it coming, and have to re read while thinking am I reading this right? Once you figure out, yes this is right, but it doesn't make sense. I feel like this book is one of those books you can't put down but you really want to and when you finally finish it, you want to burn it or throw it out a window. Personally I hate reading these kinds of books and wish I had researched it more.

my feelings exactly

E. Lockhart

      I didn't want to write about the confusing part because it is better if you read it yourself, and you probably wouldn't believe me if I wrote what it was. I wouldn't recommend this book to many people because I felt like it had left out parts that needed to be put in. It felt chopping and I was being thrown around trying to get my head around what it is going on. Some parts of the book you'll be reading one scene and out of nowhere it throws in something completely different and you have to re-read so many times. But if you do like these kinds of books, then I fully recommend it, just make sure you have some sort of head pain reliever with you.

**images provided by Google
**gif provided by http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16143347-we-were-liars