Life as a Vegetarian (2) - Rainforest destroyed by soybean cultivation

Hello beautiful people!
A few days ago (actually it was just yesterday) we watched a short documentation in class about the cutting down of the rainforest in Brazil. To be honest I had already seen the film before but it was good to see it again. Before the film started I already thought of how proud I was to be a Vegetarian so that I'm not that guilty in the destruction of the rainforest.

There is more space needed for the farming of soy for animals then for farming soy for Veggie products

A few years ago we had learnt in school how the soybean cultivation needs more and more space and parts of the rainforest have to be cut down. Our teacher's solution was that we shouldn't eat that many soy products. At that time I didn't have the knowledge I do have now and so I believed him. Actually this is not really true though. If people really want to save the rainforest then they should think of something else. What happens to the soy after it's harvested?

Most of the soy won't be used for Veggie products. Most of it will be used to feed animals.

Yes, you heard me right. Soy is a cheap way to feed pigs or chicken and the farmers have to keep their prices low, so that they don't really have a choice. Maybe you think that they do have a choice. But the truth is that most people don't want to buy the expensive meat. They can't have good quality meat for low prices. And by good quality I mean meat from animals that had a life as free as possible without being hold in galore. If nobody is ready to pay more for good meat than industrial livestock farming will always win. And if that's the case then there is no way to save our world.

Gladly that's not exactly the way it is. I know many people who are vegetarians or try to only eat meat once a week. Also I know many people who want to know where there meat is coming from so that they only buy meat from a local butcher.
Nevertheless there are many people who still eat meat almost every day without caring about our future. I don't say that everyone should become a vegetarian, this is totally up to everyone themselves. What I want is for you to think about the information you just received. Think about yout lifestyle and think about if this is what you want. Maybe you can eat less meat and it'll make you feel better. Years ago eating meat was something special since the prices were so high, but now that they're that low everyone can afford it. But this is going into a different direction and maybe I'll write another post on that specific topic.

To come to an end I want to say that I'm proud for being a vegetarian for almost a year now. When I saw that film I knew how guilty I would've felt if I ate meat.  

The rainforest are getting destroyed and we have to do something against that.

 Please leave a comment telling me your opinion. And I'd love if you could comment some topics I should discuss in my next posts. (They don't have to be about being vegetarian but it would be nice)

I will talk to you soon,

Norina xx

Paper Towns - Book Review

Hello beautiful people!           

A few weeks ago I finally started reading the book Paper Towns by John Green. I've wanted to read it since I read his book The Fault In Our Stars last year. Since I was now pressured to read Paper Towns before the movie comes out I read it in only two days. (And I haven't even been to the cinema to see the movie yet). Normally I don't read books that fast but this book just got me so good. And that is the reason I thought I should recommend it to you today. This is my first book review/recommandation though, so don't be too mean (Even though I don't think you could be mean to me, since you are all such lovely people)

Content

The novel "Paper Towns" by John Green has been published in 2008 and was his fourth book.
The story is about Quentin, mostly called "Q", who seems to be an ordinary guy in his senior year in High School. He is what probably many people would call a "nerd". When he was a child he had this friend called Margo Roth Spiegelman but she is one of those "cool" girls in High School, so that the two of them aren't what you'd call friends anymore. That's  probably something many of you can relate to. She is one of those girls where you would be like: "Wow, this girl has experienced many adventures in her life! I'd love to be friends with her!!" To Q she is kind of the perfect girl and he just can't keep himself from loving her, even though they barely talk.

One night Margo is suddenly standing outside his window and asks him to help her with something. When he finally agrees to come with her, he doesn't know that this night will be the best of his life. So many things happen and he thinks that everything could chane and Margo would maybe like to be friends with him again, maybe even more.
As he goes to school the next morning Margo is gone and nobody knows a thing about it. Quentin couldn't be more sad since he thought that things would finally change. That's when he sees a piece of peper in Margos window. He instantly knows what to do and starts to follos that clues that Margo left. Will he find her? And more important: Is this what she really wants?

Review

I can proudly say that this book got me at the prologue (haha, see what I did there). Sometimes it takes time to really get into the story, but after the first few lines I was already in love with the book. It's just the way that John Green writes combined with this amazing plot. If you've read any other book he wrote you probably know what I'm saying. There is something about the way he writes. I really thought that it was some teenager telling me the story. Also, he is so good at mentioning psycholgical things or theories as if they're the easiest things to understand. I like that this is one of those books that makes you think. Even though this exact same story probably wouldn't happen in real life, it is still somehow realistic. It's also easy to identify with Quentin since he's just such a nice and shy human being.

As you can probably see by now, I don't really know how to explain it to you. All I can really say is that I want all of you to go read it and see for yourself. Personally I think that this was one of the best books I've read in a while now and that I am really excited about seeing how they transferred the whole plot into the movie.

Make sure to leave a comment about your opinion onn the book.
Also I think about doing review on the movie as well, so comment if you want me to do that.

I will talk to you soon,

Norina xx

Last First Day - High School

Hello beautiful people!
I knew this day was coming for a long time, but now that it's finally time I just can't believe it. I couldn't do anything to stop the time (and I also didn't want to fail last year) and so today was my last first day in High School. It's crazy, isn't it? We go to school for such a long time and then all at once it's our last year. I don't know if any of you reading this is about to start the last year of school or if you already have a job or something, but jst let me tell you: It is an extremely weird feeling.

I didn't really realize this was my last first day until my friend and I watched Teen Wolf together (Anyone else with a Teen Wolf addiction here? No, just me? Ok.) In one of the new episodes it was their first schoo lday of the last year and they called it their last first day. At that moment my friend and I realized that today would be our last first day as well. This thought made us a little melancholic.
Our friendship started exactly 11 years ago on our very first school day and since then we experienced every first day of school together. Whenever school began after the summer holidays we were really excited to meet everyone again and to see if there were any new kids in our classes. Yes, I think excited is the right word to describe the way we always felt. Today was different though. We were more nervous than excited. We didn't know what teachers we would get and if we even had any classes together. Furthermore this year we will have to learn so much. Every grad now counts. If we want a good job we have to be really ambitious and get the best grades. Even though today was our first day it was very obvious how some students were already really stressed.

There are so many things in my head right now. I have to think about what I will learn when since it's not enough to only learn right before the exams. I' thinking about what I will learn with whom. In some classes I already know that I can learn with my friends but in others I only really know like two persons. I have to think about changing classes since I don't know if everything is the way I wanted it to be.

Another thing I'm really anxious about is my blog. Don't worry, I will definitely continue blogging. But with all the learning and using free days to meet my friends, I don't know how much time will be left for my blog. I really hope that I can find enough time but I could be that there are weeks without a new post because I will probably have about two or three exams in just one week.

I want to motivate myself to stay organized and motivated for school this last year and I would love to share some tips with you. A few months ago I already wrote a post about Motivation on Schoolwork and it really helped me and hopefully also some of you to be more focused on homework and learning. I will also started a little in a book I got some time ago (How to become a Straight-A student). Until now I haven't read all of it, but it seems to have some really got and realistic tips.

This is everything for today. I hope you got a great view on what is going on in my head. This post was a more personal post about my thoughts but I still hope that you enjoyed reading.
I would love to hear about your experiences.
Did you already have your last first day in school/university or anywhere else?
How did you feel about it?

I would love to get some responses in the comments or even on Twitter.

I will talk to you soon,

Norina xx

Do more of what makes you happy (7)

Hello beautiful people,
today it's time for another 'Do more of what makes you happy'. For the month of August I've asked a lovely blogger who I met through Twitter and then instantly fell in love with her blog. Go check out her blog here. So she has sent me this mail with the list and a little text which was originally directed to me. Nevertheless I really enjoyed reading the text and I thought you would to and so I just left it as it was. This text showed me that she really thought about those ten things and this is exactly what I want people to do. That's why I started this project in the first place, so that people think about what makes them really happy so they can do more of that. So before this post gets to long I leave you alone with her post and I will see you again at the end.


So, you asked me to write a list of ten things that make me happy.
Initially I thought this would be pretty easy. I'm not naturally the happiest person in the world, so over time I have learned to recognise the things that bring me joy and make sure that I have them in my life.
I came up with things like listening to music and drinking tea, I also came up with things that I thought make me happy, like heavy metal music where the singers scream so I don't have to, but the more I thought about it the more I realised that in those moments I'm not really happy. Those hyper active or peaceful moments are actually much closer to self destruction and depression than happiness.

So to cut a long story short, I actually found this list quite hard to write. I didn't want to come up with a list of things that I like, or that I enjoy when I am already happy. I want to think of things that actually MAKE me happy. Things that make me smile when I was in a really bad mood, or that give me that floating an inch above the ground feeling.
So here is what I ended up with.

1. Doing things to help other people/making other people happy

2. Stepping on a really crunchy leaf.

3. Being in the mosh pit at a concert surrounded by all those jumping people and actually being being to feel the vibration of the music in my heart.

4. The way my horses ears flick forward when he hears the sound of my voice. And also the way my horses smell like home.

5. Spending time with my family.

6. Meeting people who love the things I love and getting to talk about awesome bands and piercings and things.

7. My body mods.

8. The way my dogs get really excited to see me when I get home from work and the way they run to me when they are scared because they know I'll keep them safe.

9. Learning something new/mastering a new skill.

10. Cuddling up in bed and hearing the rain outside.



Yup. These things make me happy.
Thanks for prompting me to do this and making me think about this stuff. :)

Xx Sasha


Yup, this is the original text I got from her (no wait, I actually added the photos but left the rest as it was) and I couldn't be happier about it. I want to say a massive thank you again to Sasha for not only writing this post, but thinking about the deeper meaning behind this list.

If you want to share your list with meor your thoughts about this project, then make sure to send an e-mail to: nonomue6@gmail.com
I post those lists every month and maybe yours will be the next one.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I did reading/writing it. And don't forget to check out Sasha.

I will talk to you soon,

Norina xx

Does our age really indicate how mature we are

Hello beautiful people,

wow, it feels really good to be back. After posting as often as possible on my vacation it was very weird to not write something in about four days. But in these four days something very exciting happened. (Okay, I'm totally exaggerating here, it wasn't really exciting.) It was my BIRTHDAY, yey. 

Well yeah it was my birthday and I had a really nice day with my family. But this also made me think about age. No, this won't be a post about how I don't want to get older or anything. This will be a post about age in a different way. I want to discuss how much your age really matter. So here's what I thought about:

Since we were young our birthdays were celebrated every year. Personally when I was younger I loved my birthdays, but now they are mostly just days, where I'm busy to prepare everything for the party in the evening. Anyways, our age always mattered. When we got three, we were old enough to go to Kindergarten and when we got six, we were finally old enough to go to school. These are just two examples of things you can only do when you are old enough. 

But does our age really indicate how mature we are. 

This is what has bothered me in the past few days. On paper I'm a year older now but I didn't really change that much in just a day. The day before my birthday I was technically just a day younger. So in Germany you can buy any alcohol when you are eighteen, but the day before you can't. Let me tell you a secret: You as well as your body probably won't change that much in a single day. Also every eighteen-year-old is different, some won't be able to control themselves while drinking and others will.  

I also don't think you can really say that you've experienced more because you are older. There are people that are 40 and haven't experienced anything like love or loss. And then there are people that are 20 happily married and lost their parents when they were a child. These experiences make us stronger and most of the time more mature. 

A person that has experienced more is mostly more mature.  

I like to imagine this as an inner age. I doesn't count in numbers, but it indicates how mature you behave, talk and feel. This age doesn't rely on how old you are. And this is, in my opinion, your real age. It can't say how old you are, but how experienced and mature. I honestly don't know if any of that makes sense to you.

In the end I think that your age is good for law, since it is some kind of clue on how mature you are and how much you are allowed to do. But other than for the law I personally don't see that much meaning in age. How old you are and your inner age are almost completely independent from one another.

Well, now you either agree with me or you think: Wow, what is going on in that girls mind. But this is just what was really bothering me the last days.

I would really love to hear about you opinion on that topic in the comments and if you dis-/agree with me. 

I will talk to you soon,

Norina xx 

P.S.: I hope you understand where I am going with this post. Truth to be told, I could've written a whole essay about it, giving you examples of relationships with an age gap and much more, but I think it's better to stop before I write to much. If you want to say something about that though, feel free to leave a comment.