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27.06.24
What's up, Neocitizens? It's been a few months, hasn't it?
Life has become more interesting for me, which explains my absence from this site. My interests have changed a lot in the past two years, so I'm not really sure if this site still represents me as I am today.
A lot of my older hobbies, like manga, self insertion, romance novels, etc. are no longer as prevalent in my life. Even though I have also made a lot of pages about my doll collection, I don't really care all that much about it anymore.
Mostly I just want to focus on my studies and my future career. I mostly just want to learn a lot and gain knowledge. I feel like there is a lot about this world I don't really know, so I want to spend more time reading books. I still need an outlet for my creativity, so I will never stop making websites. If I have the time I will work more on this site, or maybe even remake it completely. I am not sure yet. The only reason I am here is because I suddenly had an urge to mess around with HTML again.
I don't know what else to write here. Maybe I should remake this site, but entirely in French and updated to reflect my current personality/interests. I really don't care much for anime anymore, but the only graphics I use seem to be of anime characters...
3.2.24
Quand j'aurai du temps, je veux créer des pages seulement en français, même si mon niveau n'est pas encore comme un natif. Si je traduise tout mon site en français, ça va être trop ennuyeux et fatiguant. J'ai considéré de traduire tout mes pages de Barbie en français, parce que je crois que il n'existe pas beaucoup de sites web détailés à propos de ces poupées, mais... malheureusement les poupées ne m'intéresse non plus. Je voudrais écrire quelque chose de nouveau, peut être sur les langues ou quelque chose comme ça. Je pourrais écrire de mon propre pays peut être.
Je pense qu'il faut créer une autre section pour mes pages en français, car si mes visiteurs ne comprend qu'anglais et ils voient soudainement du texte dans une langue dont ils ne comprennent pas, ça pourrait être un peu irritant pour eux. Je le trouverait irritant aussi. Avoir un page avec un mélange de langues est un peu étrange, et pas juste aux lecteurs. Oui, je sais que ce texte-ci est en français et tous les autres entrées sont en anglais...
J'ai trouvé que Neocities n'a pas beaucoup de sites en des langues outre que anglais, il existe un petit peu de sites en français ou en espagnol, mais pas beaucoup. Parfois je trouve plus de sites en esperanto que les autres langues ! Il semble que la plupart des utilisateurs sont Americains, mais j'ai peut être tort. Parfois ceux qui ne viennent pas d'un pays anglophone vont écrire leur site en anglais pour attirer la majorité, car les visiteurs anglophones et les visiteurs parlant anglais comme langue seconde forment une grande partie des internautes. En plus, l'interface de Neocities n'est pas disponible qu'en anglais, et ce n'est pas parce que le créateur ne pense pas aux autres, mais parce que probablement il n'a pas les moyens de le traduire.
Écrire en français est devenu plus en plus facile pour moi. Parfois trouver des mots est difficile, ou j'ai des problèmes avec l'orthographe, mais je peux écrire sans beaucoup de interruption. Cette langue va trop bien avec ma style d'écriture, et le fait que l'anglais et le français partagent beaucoup de mots m'aide autant. C'est juste un peu difficile d'avoir la confiance d'écrire pour mon site, où j'ai peur que les francophones va me juger.
3.1.24
Do you ever just wanna write an X reader fanfiction of an anime/manga, but the dialogue never sounds right?? When I'm used to listening to a Japanese dub, even with English subtitles present I still struggle to come up with dialogue that really fits the characters. In Japanese there are so many different honorifics and ways of saying things, and each character has a unique voice that you can notice even if you don't know much Japanese. I know that you can probably come up with good dialogue in English... but it just never sounds right to me! I know when I read manga it's in English, but it's usually American English so my own dialogue still doesn't sound right. It's not like I use that much British slang, it's just that sometimes my writing sounds way too formal, and not in a good way. I feel that I write too many words so that my sentences are messy and use so many commas that I forget how the sentence even started.
When I wrote a Dragon Ball fic the dialogue wasn't too difficult, perhaps because I read the manga first in English before ever watching the anime and hearing the actual voice actors. However, with other manga/anime series it's so much harder. Everything sounds so wrong. For some reason when I think of it in French or even Italian, it sounds slightly more bearable, but in English my written dialogue sounds so cheesy.
10.12.23
Good morning/evening, dear visitors! I haven't been on Neocities much lately, mostly because this school term has been extremely busy. This is mostly because I am taking more classes than I need to, but I managed to do well regardless! I thought that my courses would be a lot less theory based this year, but they weren't. One thing I don't like about university (specifically social science, I don't know about other faculties) is that there is just so much theory. I know it is important, and it does help me to understand things better, but do we really need to spend that much time on it? I honestly don't care all that much about how Scholar A interprets something, I just want to learn the facts and think about it myself. Sometimes we spend more time talking about all these theories than actually looking at real examples.
I am also still trying to figure out how to read academic papers. Every professor likes to assign us pages and pages of articles to read, and they are all written in such a dry manner. Even if the subject matter is interesting, I still can't bring myself to concentrate on it for more than one minute. And a lot of it is just citing other scholarly literature and what others think on the subject, and then after about five pages the author finally provides something original. And the words they use are just so long. I thought I was fairly decent at reading and writing, but I guess not. Why do academics like to use such big words? I bet they could save paper/digital space just by simplifying their writing a bit. It would also be nice if I didn't need a Latin dictionary to read something that is supposed to be in English. I'm all for reviving dead languages, but mixing it into English just makes you sound pretentious. It's no different from a weeaboo using words like "kawaii" and "chotto matte" all the time.
Maybe I am not smart enough for this world of academia. I really enjoy going to university too. At first I thought that an undergraduate degree was enough, but now I hear people going on about how a masters degree makes you more hireable. I would like to go to graduate school, there's a programme that I would really like to do, but I don't know if I could handle doing research. They make people in my undergraduate programme take a whole course on research, and it was one of the most boring courses I have ever taken. I heard that in some master's programmes you have to figure out a thesis and write a paper to graduate. It sounds quite challenging, but I think they give you enough coaching to do it. I would like to try it, but I don't want to be one of those people who does it just because they are struggling to find a job after graduating.
I literally knew nothing about university going in, so I've really had to learn as I go. I even didn't know that "optional" courses and "electives" were different, which means I have to go back and take a first year optional course in a subject I have already been doing for a few years. I thought that something being "optional" meant you didn't have to do it. It is my fault, and I feel really dumb about it, but I started during COVID when everything was online and nobody in my family had no clue how anything worked either. You sign up for courses online, and I feel like you can easily make mistakes sometimes. It's hard to explain, but because it's online when I sign up, I don't really feel like the stakes are that high and that messing up could completely ruin my course sequence. I just thought that you had your required courses, and then you can do what you want with the rest of the space. I was thinking: "Wow, there are a lot of spaces for electives!" and then they actually told me that my programme is the one with the least electives. Oops.
I am also discovering slowly how to make friends at university. Last year I didn't do that well, and in the first year it was online so all of my acquaitances were on Discord and I still don't know what they look like. Because most university classes are so big and impersonal, it's hard to make friends in them unless you are extremely confident and willing to strike up a conversation with those around you. I find that language classes are a good way to meet people, because they are smaller and there are a lot more group discussions. Not everyone can do those classes, however. The way to meet people is to go to events! I think most universities have a lot going on, but sometimes it's hard to know that they're happening. I know pretty much everyone on Neocities hates social media, but you really have to have Instagram to be social. Most of my school's events are advertised on here, and when you meet people they are likely going to ask what your Instagram username is. If you just use it for chatting to friends and looking for school events, it's fairly harmless.
Anyways, going to events is super important. A lot of the people will take your Instagram username and never send you a message, but a lot of people do want to stay in touch and hang out. Sometimes I have someone's contact details but am too afraid to send them a message, and they never send me one either so we just never speak again. I think I have to learn to take the initiative. I think the best thing is for one of you to lightly suggest doing something together in the future during your first meeting, and that provides an incentive to chat again. Sometimes I feel embarrassed to talk to people, so I just send them a message asking about whatever class we have in common just to get the conversation rolling.
I have met around four friends so far, at least one of them I hang out with regularly. A lot of them are international students. It makes me sad because they'll have to go back home one day, but at least I'll have contacts in many places around the world. Who knows, maybe I could travel and visit them one day. It's nice to connect with international students and help them get used to the area and the school, although I find that a lot of them already know the area better than me. I don't see too many international students from my own country (England), although you don't really want to hang out with someone just because you're from the same place. If you saw them in your home country you probably wouldn't look at them twice. You might not have anything in common except your nationality. Although, I suppose you could probably stick together and have interesting discussions based on your shared experiences and background in this new country.
I think it is also possible to meet people through group projects, but I have no luck with this. Most of my groups consist of people who only appear in the group chat the day before the project is due. There is someone in one of my groups who I would like to become friends with, although I'm honestly not sure if they feel the same way. They probably find me annoying because I ask too many questions when meeting new people. 
It's harder when everyone already has their friend group, or they live in the residences and can easily hang out all the time. If you live far away from the campus it's hard to be so easily available, especially if your commute is long and tiring.
The trouble is that even the non-international students mostly still come from somewhere else in the country, and will probably just move back after graduating anyways. There are luckily a lot of people who are local in my university. Still, I wouldn't not make friends with someone just because of that.
I was just sharing some tips just in case anyone here is having trouble in university. It is quite hard to figure things out, especially if none of your family members have been to university, so they can't really tell you what to expect. At least you are more likely to get bursaries because of your first generation status. I would just tell you all not to give up, even if things become difficult. A lot of people want to drop out or change their programme so quickly, I suppose you just have to make sure beforehand that you are going to study something you really love. Luckily for me I began to really love what I study, it's almost like a hobby now. For some of us, that's not the case. They just choose whatever will get them the best job or whatever their parents suggested, so studying becomes a pain. I think at least having a university degree, no matter what subject you studied, makes you more hireable anyways.
One final thing that really frustrates me about my university is that I don't like my programme's student association. My reasons for not liking them are not that justified, the people there are harmless. I am probably just jealous more than anything. This student association has these events that are really useful for networking, and also just generally interesting. However, you don't know that these things are going on unless you are on Instagram every five seconds. They don't advertise them anywhere else, they don't even put any posters up. Sometimes they tell you when there is an event going on with such short notice, literally two days in advance. How are we supposed to fit this into our schedules if you give us such short notice? Even if you are up to date and you can sign up straight away, the forms are really dumb and they ask stupid questions and the way they decide who goes to the event is in my opinion, stupid. And there are also usually only eight spots, so every single time you will get an email from one of them that says "Sorry, you have been waitlisted!"
I think I am just jealous because they are all pretty girls who have a lot of contacts and a Linkedin profile and probably get decent internships and will then likely get a very good job. It's bad to be jealous like this, but at least I am honest about it. Everybody feels like this from time to time. I suppose I could just join the association, but I think people have to vote for you, and I really am not that well known amongst the people in my programme. I think I get jealous easily because I always stress out about trying to find a good internship and networking so that I can get a decent job after graduating. It seems like getting a job is all about who you know, so if you're someone who is not used to socialising a lot, it can be extremely hard. Oh well, I'm sure I'll be fine. There are a lot of people in the same boat as me. I just need to keep a positive mindset, I won't get anywhere comparing myself to other people all the time.
It looks like I ended up writing a lot. Hopefully everyone reading this has a good winter break, with lots of rest before the new year starts. Happy Holidays! 
14.10.23
Hello everybody, and welcome back to another Misty reads/watches popular but controverisial romance stories episode! At this point, I should probably make a page ranking of all my favourite stories. Today I finally finished watching the After movie. It was the Québecois dub, and I'm pretty sure it was cut to fit a TV timeslot, but it was still After. Even if the mouths don't link up with the voices, it's still decent listening practice. (Although, it's not as useful as something that was originally in French.) I'm still debating on whether or not I should read the second book. There are two versions in French, the one from France, and the Québec version where the book is bigger and it's a lot more expensive. I'm not even sure if the text is the same. Anyways, I started the film halfway through because I couldn't be bothered to restart, so I forgot what some of the characters looked like. I confused Tessa's roommate (I forgot her name, sorry) with the other girl, Molly, which changed how I understood things a bit.
The film is a rather poor adaptation of the book. All of the depth of the original story is gone. I suppose it's hard to adapt 800 or so pages, but the film is quite shallow. Hardin and Tessa barely fight at all once they get together, in the book they literally have an argument every five seconds. And I'm pretty sure they just squat in someone's apartment, instead of them paying for it like in the book. And most of the bits about Hardin's family is gone, erased to make the relationship quite boring. The film is rated 13, so they had to tone it down a lot...
There was another film I saw advertised called Beautiful Disaster, it looks super cheesy so I'm not sure if I want to watch it yet. It looks super similar to After (I think the films are made by the same people), even the heroine looks a lot like the actress who plays Tessa. I think I'll probably just watched it dubbed in French again, if I do decide to dive in.
I did watch another romance film that doesn't deserve to be in the same league as these two, because it's actually really good and the bloke isn't a scumbag. It's called L'estate più Calda, or The Hottest Summer in English. The film surprised me a lot, there were a few twists that caught me off guard. There doesn't seem to be much of an English speaking fanbase for it, which is a shame because it's so good. I'm not sure if it's based on a book, but it seems like 90% of romantic films are. The only complaint I have is that it was much too short. To tell you a bit about the plot, it's about the unlikely encounter between a girl and this guy who's about to become a priest. The tone isn't all that serious, it's actually a comedy. Anyways, it's a wonderful film.
I haven't been reading many books lately, although this summer I did read one other romance novel. This one was The Darkest Temptation by Danielle Lori. It's one of those Kindle self published stories. Literally anyone can publish a book on there, but the quality was very good. As the title suggests, it was quite dark. The love interest is in the Russian mafia, which makes for some drama. There are other books in the series, but you don't necessarily have to read them to get the plot. Sometimes the author made the characters speak Russian without translating it. That was pretty cool for me, as a language nerd. The Kindle dictionary wouldn't work on it because it was all written in the Latin alphabet, so sometimes I missed the meaning of some of it. Most of the time she did write a translation, but there was one passage that looked like it meant a lot, but I had no idea what it translated to. I could've just looked it up, but I was too lazy. This was quite enjoyable. I like the mafia stories because they have high stakes and plenty of drama. The college/high school stories mostly have relationship and family issues, but with the mafia setting you can do a lot.
It's quite hard to talk about these stories without spoiling them for everyone. I think I'll try and rank them all, although some I can't really rate because I haven't read the full series yet... I don't really want to read all of the After books though, especially since they're all super thick.
18.9.23
I did change the index page GIF from Ciel to something Pichi Pichi Pitch. I will never ever finish that anime nor the manga, (I am still looking for pirated or physical copies of volumes four onwards!) but the whole series is just so pretty. Rina is my favourite character from that series, but Hanon is also super cool. My first website was peppered with Pichi Pichi Pitch blingees, even though I didn't even know what the series was. I would recommend the manga, the anime is also good but it's long and a bit cheesy. Sometimes when I'm bored I'll watch it. The songs are also super fun, except in the French dub they're not all that good.
The Spanish language has been seducing me lately, I keep wanting to learn it again but I know I have other things to think about. I've had to put Italian and Romanian on hold because of school, it's hard to remember to study them when you have a billion other school things to do.
I wish every student on Neocities a happy and successful return to the classroom. Even if you're not studying, I hope your autumn goes wonderfully! I'm actually super happy to be back on campus, this year I have such interesting classes, and I've been talking to so many people. I think for me, 2023 has been an excellent year so far! 
26.8.23
I was thinking of adding more to the language learning section of the Cyber Cafe. Most of my page ideas are similar to guides, where I give advice on how to learn languages. I've decided not to go ahead with them, because A: I am not an expert, B: advice is not universal for all learners, and C: I don't want to be like those polyglot YouTubers who make all these videos saying how you can become fluent in three months without much effort. I actually do watch some of those videos, but most of the time I never actually follow their advice. I just watch the ones where the creator has an aesthetic view of them studying with all these pristine desks and stationery.
I do have a good idea for a page though. I was thinking of writing a page about French, and why it's so interesting to me. Maybe it's sort of like an encouragement to other people, to ask them to give the language a chance. You may be thinking: "Misty, French is such a popular language! Everyone's studying it! I was forced to study it at school and it sucked!!" It is true that la langue française is studied and spoken by many people, however, I feel like it is overlooked.
With (some) language learning nerds it's just that easy starter language, the real languages to learn are the complicated or rare ones like Thai or Greek or something like that. It's always called the "easiest" language for English speakers to pick up. In my opinion, French may be easy to start, but it's certainly hard to master. Any Anglophone could probably read a basic sentence and make out many of the words. However, if you hear a native speaker speak the sentence, it would likely be a lot harder to understand. Listening and speaking French are probably the harder parts for me, whilst a lot of the vocabularly and grammar isn't all that difficult with practice.
For a lot of the general public (at least where I live), French or Spanish are those languages they made you learn at school. It gets a bad reputation and people think it is hard, probably because most of their classes were probably spent doing boring grammar drills. Even I used to have to do those classes, and sometimes it would be quite overwhelming. Sometimes the teachers would focus more on grammar than actually learning how to speak or learning about the culture. I've spoken to some Canadians, and a lot of them stop taking French once it's no longer mandatory. Or some of them do French Immersion all throughout their school career, but they don't really use it outside of the classroom. To some people I've spoken to, it's just really a thing they have to learn to get a good job with the government, nothing more.
There are still a lot of people who love French culture and thus want to learn French. And some people joke about French just being associated with baguettes and the Eiffel Tower and very stereotypical French things. The French language doesn't just open you up to France. Like English, you can find all sorts of different varieties all over the world, and not just in Europe. Learning French has helped me discover a lot of Canadian media and culture that I probably wouldn't have known about if I just used English.
The French language pops up in countries that you wouldn't expect, like my own country, England. I've learnt a lot about my own first language from French. Some archaic words or phrases I can understand easier because they have origins from French or Latin. For example, I saw in an older book some sentence that included the past tense verb "essayed". Maybe to some people this verb is easy, but I wouldn't have known what it meant if I didn't already know the French verb "essayer" (to try).
It's not just the immense influence of French on the English language that I learnt, but also that the French language was even used in England at one point. (I think I wrote about this before somewhere on the site...) Apparently in British parliament, sometimes they still use Norman French for certain things. (There's more info on that here.) And also, on the coat of arms of the United Kingdom, where you'd usually expect Latin to be, is French, of all languages. There are other places that surprised me to have some kind of relationship with French, like Russia. At one point all the nobility preferred to speak the language over Russian. And even Romania is part of the Francophonie, which is sort of like the Commonwealth but for French speaking countries. I'm still not sure why it's part of it, but I do know that there are quite a few French loan words in their language. There are probably other examples of French appearing where you'd least expect it, but these are the ones I know off the top of my head.
I'm making it seem like French is really unpopular and unappreciated, which isn't that true. In Canada especially they try and do a lot to promote it. Some universities will give you big scholarships if you come from a Francophone country or you decide to study in French. I basically said most of what I was going to put on the new page here, I just wanted to show how French is super interesting, and it's still cool to learn. You aren't more of a hard worker for choosing to study Arabic or Mandarin Chinese over a Romance language that's close to English. And the French language doesn't just mean "oui oui croissant" all the time. It's still a useful thing to learn, even if a lot of government people are scared it's losing out to English. Paperback books from France are somehow a lot cheaper, so you'll at least save money if you like to read! I wasn't paid by anyone to promote the language, I just genuinely love it. I turned from being sort of indifferent to it to becoming so passionate about it.
Now I don't even need to make a new page, cause I've already written most of what I wanted to say here. Even if I convince one person to learn French, that's fine by me. I just wanted to write about my obsession somewhere.
Also, go and watch the French dub of Emily in Paris. It's very interesting. The actress who does Emily's voice is great, she puts on an American accent whilst speaking French which is funny. It also makes her voice somehow clear and easy to understand for learners. I actually like the series despite the fact that Emily STILL can't hold a conversation in French after this long, and also the fact that it's just false Hollywood stuff. They literally go to a McDonalds in one episode and marvel at how cool it is. There was a cliffhanger at the end of the last season, I'm really hyped to find out what happens next.
22.8.23
My quest of reading all the popular but controversial romance novels continues! Basically, my hobby right now is reading and watching all those romance stories that are like Marmite, you either love them or you hate them. This time I came across a Spanish film on Netflix called Through My Window. It was very good! Originally, I thought it was going to be some boring PG high schooler romance, luckily it far exceeded my expectations. The romance was quite interesting, and even the last part was rather unexpected. I don't really want to spoil it, so I won't go into too much detail. In the end, I'd say it deserves an 8/10. Out of all the movies I've seen so far, I probably don't like it as much as Twilight or 365 Days, but it's still super good. It's certainly miles better than After or the Fifty Shades movies, both of which I couldn't finish.
Through My Window is unsurprisingly based on a book, it's actually another Wattpad novel. This time the story's (as far as I know) entirely original, and not fanfiction in anyway. The English translated version was cheap for the Kindle, so I decided to read the book. Yes, I know you can read them on Wattpad for free, it's just that I hate reading on a tablet/laptop, so I'd rather just get it on the Kindle. Also, the published version has probably been edited and extended slightly.
First off, the setting in the book is entirely different. The movie is set in Spain, so I came in expecting another European set novel. Well, it turns out the book is set in the United States. The author is actually from Venezuela, but she lives in the US now. This change in setting doesn't affect things that much. I'm guessing perhaps the book is super popular in Spain, so that's why they decided to produce the film over there. Or maybe the Spanish government was giving out huge grants to film producers. I don't know. There's not really that much information floating around about it. Even the author's Wikipedia page is only in Spanish.
I think the film and the book are both equally good. Personally, I prefer the novel because it is more fleshed out. The plot between the two does differ at times, and even some character arcs have been altered in the movie. There were also a lot more characters in the book, in the film they obviously only had a certain amount of time to tell the story so a lot of it had to be cut.
Speaking of the characters, I liked Ares a lot, it was nice reading about his relationships with his family and just his general character arc. Yoshi is a character who I didn't like at all in the movie, in the book he was a lot different and you could sort of understand his motives a bit more. The heroine, Raquel, is quite unique, compared to a lot of other main characters. A lot of them are always super perfect good girls, whereas Raquel is a bit of an obsessive stalker at the beginning.
I watched the trailer for the second film before reading the book. I found out later that the sequel is not really an adaptation of the second book. In fact, the continuation of Raquel and Ares' post high school life is just a little bit at the end of the first novel. There certainly isn't much there to adapt into a movie without making stuff up. The second movie, Across the Sea, is in fact mostly made up, with some bits and pieces of the second book probably thrown in there. That's because the second book is about the romance of Ares' brother. Usually it's annoying when you are used to one set of characters and then it suddenly changes, but I'm super excited for the next story. I will hopefully try and get it if I have the chance.
The second movie is also quite good, it was certainly a very seasonally appropriate thing to watch. I liked the setting, although the conflict was a bit annoying, and the ending also sucks because I have to wait for the next film to see what happens. I don't know why they didn't just adapt all of the second book, but then I suppose that would be a bit annoying for general audiences who like Ares and Raquel and want to see more of them.
I should probably group all of my romance novel thoughts together. They're spread out across this blog-like section of the site. It's starting to become some sort of recurring series here, probably one that nobody really cares about. I wonder, what's the most popular section on my site? Maybe the doll section? The language learning section is where I'd go, but there's not that much decent content there yet, despite it being my favourite hobby right now? Maybe they just go to the news/blog section? We'll probably never know, unless I do a poll...
15.07.23
I've never had much of an interest in Germanic languages, but recently I decided to check out Dutch on Duolingo. I'm gonna be going to the Netherlands briefly, even though it's only for a connecting flight I still want to be at least somewhat aware of their language. It's honestly amazing how similar it actually is to English. Sometimes it sounds a bit like someone speaking English with a thick accent. Some words are obviously different, but it's very clear that the two languages are related. Even the accent sounds quite similar to our accents in the UK. This probably isn't true, but I feel like it'd be easier for someone from the UK to speak Dutch with barely any accent, just because they sound so similar.
This brief foray into Dutch made me want to try out Duo's German course. A lot of people tell me how German is "ugly", I think it sounds cool. It also has similarities to English, although to me it doesn't sound as similar as it is to Dutch. It would be nice to speak German, but I only have so much time. Learning too many languages at once isn't the best idea.
Today I spent a bit of time with my doll collection, which inspired me to add a new Barbie page to the site. I honestly can't believe how much press the Barbie movie is getting. It seems the whole world is talking about it. The soundtrack is on the radio all the time now, well at least the Dua Lipa song is. I actually never liked her songs that much, they have always been super overplayed. I also thought that she sounded terrible live. Now I'm starting to like her, she has a few good songs at least. Her songs are always fun and upbeat. The track she did for the Barbie movie is great, the video is also cool. I love the outfit she wears in it, I wish they'd make that as a real doll! I heard two other songs from the movie's soundtrack. The Nicki Minaj song is OK. For some reason it says that Aqua are featured on it; this is a lie, they only just sampled Barbie Girl. Perhaps there was a special deal made that they had to credit Aqua properly. The video for this song isn't really to my taste, at least the colours are bright. Two custom looking Made to Move dolls are featured there, I wish they'd release those too. There's also a Billie Eilish song, I don't like her music very much, but once again the video features Barbie outfits that I wish would be released for us to buy.
The Dua Lipa song sounds like something that would fit with the animated Barbie movies, the others not so much. It seems like there's going to be a disco theme running with the movie. I've never really associated Barbie with disco, but it seems to be trendy right now... Even though nobody asked, my favourite Barbie songs are.... On Top of the World from Princess Charm School, Two Voices, One Song from Diamond Castle, I Need to Know and At the Ball from Island Princess, and also Free and The Cat's Meow from Princess and the Pauper. That's a lot of songs. I'm surprised at how many big pop stars they've got for the soundtrack for this film, honestly I didn't expect the movie to be this expensive and well publicised.
The collection of dolls Mattel have released for this movie are actually quite nice, at least in the promotional photos. I particularly like the one in the gold jumpsuit. There's even a fashion pack which has some adorable outfits, shame the price isn't as adorable. It's fifty American dollars, which is already quite expensive, but in other countries the price'll be a lot worse. The Ken dolls are also nice. Some people don't like the face mould they used for Barbie. I suppose they wanted to try and make it look like the actress. It looks alright, if they'd used a Millie face it probably wouldn't have been movie accurate enough for the fans. I wonder if people will customise them to make Harley Quinn dolls? Probably not, since the movie dolls are quite pricy.
There is also a car they're releasing, that doesn't interest me at all. The only Barbie car I've really ever liked is the Fiat 500, and that's just because I like the car in real life. I've never liked Barbie's convertibles because they're unpractical, they can only fit two dolls! I have a Mustang for my dolls, I always used to have to awkwardly stuff loads of dolls into it. At least the car for the movie collection has four seats, well, the expensive version does. I wish that one day they'd also release a car with boot space for Barbie to fit all her stuff in the back. Why am I even talking about Barbie vehicles anyway? I thought I was supposed to talk about the film...
11.07.23
I feel like this site doesn't have much substance to it yet. There aren't really that many interesting pages here. This blog/news section of the site does have a lot of meat to it, but other than that, there's not that much. The doll section is rather cool, with some decent pages, however I rarely feel like updating it. I'm not as big into doll collecting anymore, so writing about it takes a certain mood. Also, working on that section of the site makes me have to remember and reminisce a lot about the dolls of old. It's fun to write about Barbie history and such, except every single time I do so, I end up thinking about my childhood a lot. I get fed up with nostalgia all the time. I want to make pages for my newer hobbies, this seems to take more effort. There are a lot of page ideas I've had that I've either forgotten or dismissed as not interesting enough. I also want to create things that aren't just "here are my opinions on some media I watched lately".
Maintaining a website is hard, especially if you don't have a specific theme from the start. If you had a fansite for a specific thing, then you've got content guaranteed - you've just got to make pages on whatever new release of that thing comes out or just more information on that thing. More personal websites are a bit different to that. Sometimes I don't like writing too much about my interests, because I feel like it gives people a lot of details about my personal life. But then again, I end up writing a lot here that I feel might be too personal. I've been toying with the idea of deleting some of my older entries because of that reason.
I am glad at least to see that the flag counter on the homepage is getting populated! Most of my viewers seem to be American, or they are using a VPN to make it seem so. I'm not really sure how many of the views listed are real or from bots. It used to feel like everyone online was from the US. A lot of people on Neocities are, it seems. I think the USA just has a big population. We've had two visitors from the Netherlands so far, too. Hello, people from the Netherlands!! I will be visiting your country briefly very soon... There's also someone from France. I hope they didn't cringe at my terrible French writing skills. There has also been someone from New Zealand, which is nice. I feel like I'm personally picking on people here... Some people from my own country, the UK, have come too, as well as some from Asia and one from Eastern Europe. It's nice to know that my site has potentially been viewed all over the planet and not just on my own computer. The flag counter doesn't seem to match up with the views Neocities say I have, but it's still a nice gimmick to have.
In other news, I will be flying on a plane soon. I haven't flown in a long time, and that's not just because of the coronavirus. Sometimes I go through periods where I'm lucky enough to fly multiple times in a year, other times not. I'm actually quite nervous. My relationship with air travel is strange. I love airliners and airports and everything to do with them, but on the other hand, I'm slightly scared of them. For some reason I am more nervous on flights that go across the Atlantic than I am with short flights across land.
Airliners are super fascinating to me. (I literally have a whole page on this site dedicated to pictures of them...) I'm not that knowledgeable about the mechanics of it all, I just like the livery and the stuff inside and spotting ones from different airlines. Military and private planes don't interest me at all. However, I do find the aircraft of government officials or royal families quite interesting. It's fun to watch them all land in one place for some kind of special event somewhere.
I find I can get quite interested in transportation methods. I'm always that person who knows random trivia facts about my city's bus network. Boats aren't that appealing to me, but bus lines and roads and such are fun. I like cars, except I'm not that knowledgable about speed and all that. I mostly just like cute small vehicles, with some exceptions. I could probably write for hours about this, but I'll stop now.
10.07.23
This is probably such a first world problem, but my acne is being super annoying at the moment. It always crops up at the worst times, and on the worst parts of my face. When I go out in public, I realise that some people have it a lot worse than me. At least my acne isn't so bad that I have to see a doctor. Although, at the same time, I look at other girls and get jealous of how perfect their skin is. They're probably actually just wearing a lot of make up to cover everything up. I know spots are a fact of life, and they're completely normal for young people, but they still make me feel ugly. I think the main reason for this is because of the fact that you don't see it represented in the media that often. If there was someone cool on TV who had bad spots, then I think a lot of us would feel better about our skin.
In advertisments for fashion and beauty products, they're trying to show a lot of diverse body and skin types, but I still haven't seen someone with terrible acne. There are people with lots of freckles, still never someone with spots. And then when they have an advert for some kind of anti-acne product, they show some person who has like two pathetic spots on their face go on about how awful their skin was and how it's now "cured" thanks to whatever thing they were paid to advertise. It would be nice to see people on TV with awfully spotty skin like the rest of us. Covering it all up with stage makeup makes us have a wrong idea about ourselves, and we end up thinking that acne is abnormal and ugly. Maybe there are better things to complain about, but I do want to feel more accepting of my face.
19.06.23
A few posts down I said that I was reading Anna Todd's famous Harry Styles romance, After. I finally finished it today. While it was enjoyable and the French translation was easy to read, I'm still not that sure what I would rate this book. Sometimes the relationship was a bit annoying, and the main character was a bit too naive for my tastes. The ending, however, was actually surprising. I don't want to spoil it, though. Even though I wasn't planning on reading the next one for a while, the cliffhanger made me want to. Instead of waiting to buy the next novel, I found that you can still read it for free on Wattpad, albeit with annoying adverts.
I don't think the French version is even on Wattpad, so I just read the first few chapters in the original language. The published novel version is probably professionally edited and more fleshed out, or at least I hope it is because the writing isn't that good. It reads like most other fanfictions, with bad grammar and short paragraphs. I understand that it was probably written on a phone and it was just someone's hobby, but still... I can't really say much though, since I don't even edit what I write on this website. I'm surprised the series got that popular, although people often overlook grammar and good writing when it's fanfiction, especially if they just want to read some steamy romance. Hopefully the novels are better. The French version was good, obviously I am no native speaker but it still seemed quite professionally written. What am I even trying to say here? I feel mean criticisng someone's work like this, although the comments on Wattpad are much worse. If the commenters hate the characters that much, why did they read all the way to the sequel?
Speaking of the sequel, I read a few chapters and decided to call it a day. Maybe I'll return one day, maybe not. It's not that pleasant reading on a tablet anyways. Although I enjoy drama, sometimes there is too much drama and I get fed up. That's why I sometimes have to take a break when I watch Netflix Dynasty or Riverdale. Sometimes there is way too much conflict and backstabbing, as soon as one thing is over, they move immediately onto another thing with no break. In After, there was a lot of fighting and sex. It all got on my nerves eventually. I liked the side characters and some of the bits with Hardin's family, however. Once I read the first few chapters of the sequel to find out what happened after the end of the first one, I decided it was all too much and put it down. Honestly, I just miss 365 Days. The drama in that was good, and the setting was exotic. Sometimes all I want to do is read about rich people and their extravagant lives.
After my sudden disinterest a few months ago for all things otaku, I started reading some manga again. Just one series, mind you. The only manga I still really have an interest in is Black Butler, but I read up to the most recent volume released in English. Instead, I've been reading the Cain Saga, even though I forgot what happened in the first two volumes. This series is a bit similar, however there's a lot less comedy. The joke in Black Butler isn't one of my favourite aspects of the series. Although Black Butler is quite dark at times, the Cain Saga is probably more so. Kaori Yuki's art is also gorgeous, likely one of my favourite manga art styles. Artwork of pretty characters in dramatic poses always appeals to me.
Even though a lot of manga and anime set in Victorian England aren't the most accurate, I still love them a lot for the aesthetics. This period of history was grim, although I still like fiction set in this era. This is 100% because of Jacqueline Wilson's Hetty Feather books. They were my favourites growing up. Even though they're kids books, not everything's all flowery and romanticised. These books didn't exactly paint the 1800s as the nicest place to live in, still they managed to make me interested in that time period. I think I have it all romanticised in my head, I can't help but imagine pretty dresses and handsome vampires all the time...
18.06.23
Il y a trop de langues que je veuille apprendre ! Si je peux étudier les tous, ça serait très bon, mais je sais que c’est probablement impossible. Je ne sais pas combien de langues on peut savoir couramment, la limite est environ quatre. C’est très difficile de ne pas avoir envie de commencer une autre, même s’il faut que je me concentre sur mes trois langues principales. En étudiant une nouvelle langue, je vais perdre du temps utile pour améliorer mon français ou mon chinois, et donc je n’aurais pas un bon niveau dans toutes les langues sauf l’anglais. Je pourrais être une « jack of all trades, master of none ».
Récemment j’ai beaucoup de difficultés avec le subjonctif en italien et en français. Avant que j’aie appris cette nouvelle méthode de conjugaison, la vie était plus facile. Mais maintenant, je ne sais pas quand je ne dois pas utiliser le subjonctif. Est-ce qu’il faut que on l’utilise chaque fois avec « que » ou « che » ? J’utilisais les deux souvent avant que j’aie appris le subjonctif, et je me souviens que mes professeurs ne m’avaient dit pas que j’aie commis des erreurs. Souvent je disais « je pense que » sans le suivre avec le subjonctif. C’est trop confusant ! Même dans ce paragraphe, je l’ai utilisé beaucoup, probablement avec des erreurs !
Il y a le subjonctive en anglais, mais à moi, ça ne paraît pas si difficile que dans les langues romanes. Pourtant je ne sais pas la difficulté d’apprendre la grammaire anglaise, parce que c’est ma langue maternelle.
Je voudrais écrire plus sur ce site en français, même si mes visiteurs sont majoritairement anglophones. À bientôt !
09.06.23
I am super obsessed with this remix by Eiffel 65, my favourite group. All of their remixes are addictive, this one in particular is very pleasing to my ears. I like songs that make me feel like I'm drifting away, this is one of them.
There isn't much information on the artist behind this song, "superEVA". Going to the website shown at the end of the music video, "supereva.it", just takes me to some news portal site. I think it's another one of those uncredited Italian dance music acts where you don't even know who the singer is, you just know the DJs who produce the tracks. It's a bit like Jenny Rom and most eurobeat acts where one artist uses multiple aliases. The name SuperEVA was literally just used for this one song. The original song is OK, but Eiffel 65's remix is just amazing. The video is cool.
I was going to list some of my other favourite Eiffel 65 remixes, but there are way too many. I mostly like this one, this one, this one, and especially this one because it's Aqua.
There aren't really many other groups that sound like Eiffel 65. They have such a great sound, the synthesisers are particularly pleasing to my ears. Their songs make me just want to fly amongst the stars. I could honestly just listen to them forever. Even though "Blue Da Ba Dee" is very overplayed, I still listen to it a lot. It's one of my favourite songs ever, because it just sounds great and it also introduced me to eurodance. There's a lot of pressure to like something obscure and unknown, but it's perfectly fine to like something that's so big it's a household name. These things become popular for a reason: usually because they're good. Blue (Da Ba Dee) still technically gets a lot of airtime with the new David Guetta remix/cover. That song is played at least ten times a day on my local radio station. At first I didn't like it at all, but now I turn it up whenever it comes on. Spotify always plays it whenever I shuffle my playlists. I think it's because the shuffle algorithm just wants to promote newer songs. It's just nice to have more songs on the radio that are about nothing more than partying and having a good time.
David Guetta was also an artist who was one of my introductions to the wider world of electronic dance music. He used to be on the radio so much and he collaborated with literally every single major pop artist back in the early 2010s. The song he did with the Black Eyed Peas and Shakira last year was very nostalgic, and it reminded me a bit of older eurodance songs. The Black Eyed Peas were also probably responsible for my love of more electronic sounding tunes. I don't think a lot of their early 2010s stuff has really aged all that well, it used to sound like the most beautiful music in the world when I was ten, now not so much.
I don't know why I'm talking about my old childhood favourites, maybe it's because I've been relistening to a lot of Nicki Minaj lately. She also used to be my favourite when I was young, even though a lot of the songs I liked the most were not exactly appropriate for children. This song in particular I listened to on repeat when it came out. I don't really know why I liked it so much, I think I remember thinking the video was cool. I knew the lyrics were quite sexual, but I didn't realise how sexual they were until I relistened to it recently. And when I relistened to it, I also felt the urge to listen to it five times in a row. I don't know what it is about this song that makes it so addictive. The lyrics aren't the most flowery, nor is it an upbeat dance track like what I usually like. It's just one of those guilty pleasures.
I don't like everything Nicki Minaj does, however I still think she's actually quite talented. Her fashion style and the way she rapped was what drew me to her all those years ago.
If I'm going to share some more old favourites, I would like to end with this track. I still listen to this one a lot nowadays. The music from this period was great. At one point I used to be one of those people who hated today's pop music, always claiming that the "old days" (read: ten years ago) were better. Eventually I found that if I stopped judging new pop songs as all "bad", then I would actually find some things that I like, instead of turning off the radio all the time. It's true some new songs aren't that good, but there are still some decent tracks out there. Not songs I would actively listen to in my own time, but still decent stuff. It at least makes listening to the radio more tolerable. I still don't like the instrumentals that the majority of newer tracks use. And why do so many "rap" songs consist of some kid just whining with autotune? And a lot of songs seem to be about being depressed or messed up or whatever. At least happy disco tunes have made a comeback...
06.06.23
I'm trying to find hobbies that don't involve me staying in the house. Language learning, writing, and reading is fun and all, but I feel like it's not good to stay inside all the time. I do like to go swimming from time to time, but that costs money and I also have to actually drive to the pool. I feel guilty doing anything that involves a screen, but as long as it's productive, I should feel fine... I watch a lot of YouTube still, but unlike a few years ago I actually watch factual videos, and the news.
My conclusion is that if I want to go outside more, I shouldn't go alone. I used to go out alone all the time, but it's actually more boring than you think. I know it's "cool" to be a loner and it's apparently liberating and independent if you go and do things by yourself, however in my opinion it sucks. My whole teenage life was spent this way, and in the moment it wasn't so bad, now I regret it. That is why I am working hard to meet other people so that I can get more enjoyment out of life. Humans are supposed to be social creatures, if I remember correctly, so it makes sense that things feel a bit lacking if you spend too much time alone. It's fine to be solitary sometimes, although it feels so good when you meet someone who you can have interesting conversations with.
The Duolingo Italian tree updated recently, and they finally improved the stories! Before they were awful, with robotic text to speech voices instead of real actors. Now they've made them on par with the French and Spanish stories, so I'm happy! The voices are all great, I think they're done by real humans. It's getting harder to tell nowadays. For some reason Junior's voice sounds nothing like how he sounds in the actual lessons, that's probably because in the lessons it's an AI voice instead. The stories are my favourite part of Duolingo, back when they had the old system I used to work really hard to unlock them all.
For me, language learning is a lot more fun when the textbook has a plotline and characters instead of making us learn from out of context dialogues that have no connection to each other. It's much more entertaining this way, and it helps me learn better. Duolingo's characters are fun, and my Chinese textbook also has a particularly entertaining cast that inspire memes and even joke fanfiction. Learning doesn't have to be boring, it should be made entertaining. A lot of people I speak to never continue studying French after the school forces them to, because they have the impression that it's just hours of conjugation drills. They could just not be interested in languages anyways, but the way it is taught doesn't help sometimes.
When I'm studying something, I try to make my notes as colourful and interesting as possible. I used to draw cartoons in my notebooks to explain difficult science concepts that I never would've memorised otherwise. I know it's a bit childish not being able to learn something unless it's all brightly coloured and filled with cutesy characters, but that's just the way I study. If I created a textbook (which'll probably never happen), I would also fill it with illustrations and humour so that people actually want to read it.
It is the summer holidays right now, I'm supposed to be excited about that, however I'm actually hyped up for the classes I'm taking next year. Only a couple of years ago I hated school and learning, it's weird how far I've come. It just shows how you have to study something you're interested in, otherwise you'll never enjoy learning. I don't want to waste the summer, however, so I'm going to try and find an interesting hobby. This time of year always makes me think of pool parties, despite never having been to one in my life. Maybe one day, someone'll invite me...
26.05.23, part two...
Why do I snack on Tic Tacs like they're crisps? They taste good at the start, but after they've dissolved or I've crunched them down, they leave a horrible taste in my mouth.
A few months ago I finished watching all the 365 Days movies. Don't judge me, they're cheesy but highly entertaining. I just like to see the nice cars, exotic locations and expensive fashions, and also the hot men... Anyways, these movies inspired me to go on a quest to read some of the most popular but also controversial romance novels. You know, the ones where they get a lot of hate, but also have big fanbases. The ones where the main love interests are often questionable, but they end up somehow attracting billions of fangirls. I didn't really get very far, because after about five books, I'm fed up. Even though I'm in the middle of a book now, I've decided to take a pause in the middle of it. I will still detail my experiences so far for those who are interested.
I already finished reading Twilight ages ago, and I absolutely adored that series. Even though I don't like Edward Cullen that much, I still like the world and all the vampire stuff, and especially the side characters. I heard a lot about Fifty Shades of Grey, and how it's actually a Twilight fanfiction. So I decided to read that first. That novel is not as terrible and scandalous as people make it seem, nor is it as romantic and "liberating" as the cover and its fans claim it to be. In the first few chapters it was really obvious that it was based on Twilight, just in the character descriptions and some of the events. Although, I actually prefer Christian Grey to Edward Cullen somehow. The romance happens super fast, and there are way too many sex scenes for my liking, but I actually didn't hate this book. It was actually enjoyable. The ending was completely unexpected for me, but it didn't entice me that much to immediately pick up the next book. I liked Ana's roommate a lot, I think she's supposed to be Rosalie in Twilight who is also one of my favourites. The other day I went to watch the film adaptation, I stopped halfway through because I was fed up with romance novels at that point.
After that, I decided to read every 365 Days novel in French. I managed to learn a lot of... inappropriate vocabulary. My expectation was that they would be almost identical to the movies, but they are in fact completely different. The films completely leave out some of the best parts of the books, and a lot of key plot points don't even happen, which completely changes the entire story. The novels are also 100 times more problematic than the films, if they put some of the stuff that happens in the adaptations, it would probably turn more people off. Once again, the romance happens way too fast, and most of it is just sex, but there are good bits also. I feel like Laura and Massimo don't really have anything in common at all though. When I watched the movies for the first time, I started to dislike Massimo by the second film. The same thing actually happened with the books. In the first one, I liked him despite his many flaws. In the books he is a lot worse, if you like him, I would honestly recommend avoiding the third novel. The main "villain" in the second movie (I don't want to spoil it for anyone) is also in the book, but the whole conflict with him is resolved in the first hundred or so pages. The movies were probably changed so much because they had only a limited amount of time, and because they probably needed to shove in more sex scenes to make it appealing to mainstream viewers who just want to watch it for that stuff. The weirdest thing is that in the books (or at least the French translations), Massimo doesn't even call Laura "Baby Girl", it's Nacho who does that...
But anyways, I actually really really love 365 Days. It's just enjoyable to me. Yes, sometimes I don't agree with the heroine, but if I only read books where I completely liked every character, then I wouldn't be reading anything. It's just one of those series that puts you in a summer holiday mood, and makes you want to fly away to some beach resort.
The next book I picked up was After, which was originally some kind of AU Harry Styles romance from Wattpad. I'm taking a break from this one, because I think I'm burnt out with romance for now. Even though this book was originally in English, I'm reading it in French. I didn't expect to enjoy this one as much, but it's good so far. Somehow I read a hundred pages on the first day. These kinds of novels are easy for me to read, probably because of the more familiar daily life setting. Like Twilight and Fifty Shades, I'm pretty sure After is set in the same part of the US. And the heroine is also interested in literature, like Bella and Ana. I don't think After necessarily took this from those other two series, I find in a lot of books the main characters always seem to like books so much because the of the author's interests. If you're writing books for a living or a hobby, you're obviously going to be passionate about reading, so you're more likely to put that into your characters. A similar thing can be found in Jacqueline Wilson's characters, there are a few of them who seem to enjoy writing and reading. Comparing Twilight to the other three series I've mentioned feels a bit weird, even though it's popular but also controversial, it's technically different because it's written for a slightly younger audience.
Anyways, After is good so far. Again, the romance proceeds way too quickly. You can tell it was originally posted online because the chapters are really short and some of them have cliff hangers so you wait until the author uploads more. Somehow this series has around five books, and a lot of movie adaptations also. I find the main love interest quite intriguing, I keep wanting to find out more about his past. And the heroine, Tessa, she's not so bad, although I question some of her decisions regarding some of the other characters in the story. I also like the university setting, it's better than reading about high school all the time.
I will probably read some more romance books once I feel like it again. I'll likely just go for the rich mafia guy genre again, cause that's just what catches my eye more. These novels are better than reading X Reader fanfic all the time. It's not that I haven't read romance novels before, they just never appealed to me as much as things that you could self insert yourself into. You can still self insert yourself into these types of books, it just requires more brainpower... I'm also just desensitised to some of the dodgier love interests, because of my previous fixation on otome games.
26.05.23
It seems like everyone is talking about Hollywood's Barbie movie that's supposed to be releasing soon. Honestly, I'm surprised it's getting this much attention, but the main cast are very famous so it makes sense. A lot of people are asking my thoughts on it, since I'm probably one of the only Barbie nerds within a hundred mile radius. In my opinion, the casting for Barbie and Ken is great, and the costumes and set design is perfect. But also, I feel like from the trailers that the film looks more like a parody of what Barbie is. It feels more like Aqua's Barbie Girl than an actual real Barbie film, like one of those parody skits you see on TV. Yes, I know a core part of Barbie is all the pink and glamour, but I dunno, I just feel like Barbie isn't just that. And also, I feel like the director or whoever just looked at a top ten list of most iconic Barbie outfits. A lot of the costumes from the film represent older Barbie looks from the 80s and 90s and even 60s. Yes, those outfits are a big part of Barbie's identity, but it's strange when you grew up with 2000s Barbie. Even the logo of the film is from the 80s. I thought 2000s nostalgia was in right now? Maybe the film will include some of that too, but it's just not in the trailer. I was surprised that they included pregnant Midge in the film, that's actually cool.
At the end of the day, it's just a fun summer movie that you see with your friends. I don't think I should be too nitpicky about it. And at the least they're bringing out dolls for the film, dolls that actually look like they're good quality. Hopefully some of Barbie's other friends and her sisters will at least make a cameo. I'd like to see Raquelle in live action, but I doubt the producers even watched Life in the Dreamhouse.
In other news, I have been working on making a sexy CV to apply to spend half a year studying abroad. I try so hard to make my CV detailed, but then when I look at examples online, they just use bullet points and not even full sentences. What even am I supposed to put on this thing anyways? I doubt a foreign university will care about my work experience. Most companies don't even look at the other half of my CV anyway, you can tell because they ask you questions afterwards about stuff that is clearly written on my CV. Maybe it's better to keep things brief...
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