Music Recommendation {1}

Hey Everyone!

So I thought I would do this weekly music recommendation, if anyone is looking for new songs to listen to. Music is a huge part of my life, so I might as well share some of my faves on here with you all!

This week I've constantly been replaying "Can't Remember To Forget You" by Shakira ft. Rihanna.

It has such a cool beat and these ladies together make magic. You can watch it below!

Thank you for reading!

- Aleks xx

Uni Life | First Year

Hey Everyone,

I'm almost done my first year of university, and I want to reflect on my experience. This is more for me, I guess, looking back maybe 5 years from now and seeing what I was like and what I was experiencing in the past. I've never kept a diary, so this is the next best thing.

I'm currently sitting in one of the many areas in my school to just study/socialize/eat. I have an empty Second Cup drink next to me, I'm far too lazy to throw it out, I'll do that when I get up to get to my next class. I'm listening to music, just going through things on the internet - as per the usual with me.

I recently was thinking about where I'm going with my life. Yes, I plan to be a lawyer one day, but until I go into law school, I just get a degree in any major I want. I'm doing Sociology, and i'm taking a bunch of random courses just to complete requirements. I sat down and thought about what I'm learning, and to be honest, I can't tell you. None of what I'm doing now is going to matter if I plan on actually being a lawyer. I am essentially wasting 4 years of my life (not to mention thousands of dollars) on an education that will essentially not matter and be non-existent in a matter of 5-10 years.

I've talked about this with my friend, and I've found that I'm not the only one who feels like this. Not only do I feel like I'm wasting away and learning nothing, I feel like I don't have a life in a sense. What do I do? I study, and procrastinate. I'm not doing anything crazy, as I see a lot of people doing. My dream is to explore the world, and while I am working to achieve the means to be able to do so one day, I feel like I'm only young once, I want to experience the world NOW.

I'm hoping to do a Study Abroad next year, and live somewhere on my own and just be my own person for once. I don't live on campus, and maybe that has something to do with my feeling this way. I still feel somewhat dependant on my parents, especially because I'm living at home and I don't have to worry about rent and bills to pay, just support my own "wants" which include clothes and any sort of luxury items.

I know a lot of people are going through the same thing, but sometimes I just feel so down, and upset that I'm not doing anything with my life. I am very happy and I understand that it is a privilege to go to University, a lot of people don't. I guess I just want to make my family and friends proud of me, and that sort of adds pressure to get amazing marks, and I find myself sometimes falling behind with things. I have to learn to understand that everything I do is for myself, and I shouldn't make choices depending on who else will be happy, but if I will in turn be happy.

This is yet another post that has gone to shit, but there we go, I just wanted to rant a little about that. I can't wait to read this once I've finished my undergrad, and see how different I am, if I am at all.

If you've read thus far, prove it by commenting and letting me know your thoughts on your own Uni experience. I would love to know what other people think :)

-Aleks xx

Celebrities and Why We Idolize Them (ft. Iggy Azalea)

Hey Everyone!

Sorry for the lack of posts. I see all these amazing bloggers and I just want to do a bunch of fashion blogging, but I don't have the resources (AKA a good camera) at the moment, so I'm just going to do whatever I want for now!

PS: I already made a video about this, but I'm going to go a bit more in depth here, if you care to read?

This past week, something out of the ordinary happened, but it's not earth shatteringly amazing. I saw that Iggy Azalea's new album, The New Classic, (Which you can pre-order here) finally was released for pre-order in Canada. I noticed that she was #5 on the Canadian Rap & HipHop charts, and decided to tweet about my excitement. As I said in my video, my tweets usually go into the Twitter abyss, and nobody pays attention to them. Not a minute later, I see a couple of people favouriting and retweeting this one tweet. I was confused, but I had hashtagged the album name, so I figured people just saw it from there.

No. Not at all.

Iggy Azalea herself retweeted me, and I almost lost my shit, but I kept my cool, seeing as I was in the middle of a lecture in school. My first thought was that she had retweeted everyone, but nope, only a couple of other people. I don't think my tweet really stood out, it was pure luck, I tweeted it at the right time, when she refreshed the page (most likely). 

Even though I would love to think she was already on my page and just loved me and thought she would retweet something. Boohoo, it's not that.

MINI SIDE NOTE WITHIN THE POST (?what?)
I am in love with Iggy, listen to this song whilst you're reading this, it's her new song 'Fancy' featuring Charli XCX whom I also love and adore (Go check out her EP)

This is the first time a celebrity had retweeted me, I had only gotten a couple of replies from Icona Pop before (pre-100k followers). I felt special for a couple of minutes, and I started to wonder why. Why do we freak out when this person does this little thing that "acknowledges our existence"? Why didn't I flip when 20 other people retweeted me? I was full of questions, but no answers.

I've never been head over heels for a celebrity (with the exception of Harry Styles but then again, who isn't?), and I've only tweeted them a handful of times, but never along the lines of "HARRY STYLES GIMME SOME OF YOUR GRAVY", I am not thirsty.

This post has gone to shit, so if you've stuck around 'til now, you're my new best friend.

So thinking about why we put celebrities on this pedestal brings me back to why they appear in my dreams sometimes. We admire them, and the things they've achieved, and we sort of want to be like them. This, of course, is for the most part, sometimes I will thirst follow a celebrity on twitter just because they're cute, even though I know nothing about them (*cough* Dylan O'Brien *cough*).

The media brings so much attention to these people that are truly just like us, and they become so out of touch and far away from us. Thinking about it, I know many boys that look just like the boys from One Direction, but do I give them a second glance? No. I wonder if one of them became famous, would everyone who knew them from before look at them any differently? Probably. It's all about the hype, and if something gets hyped, everyone attaches said item/person like a leech. 

Given the attention, celebrities also have so much influence over us, and could probably command us to do horrible things. I once read a post that said something along the lines of  "If Justin Bieber ordered his fans to assassinate someone, they probably would form a plan and go through with it." This is so true, how many times have you purchased a song or something else that your fave celebrity "recommended" through twitter? I haven't really, but I'm sure many other mega-fans have.

This post has gone on for far longer than I intended, and if you've made it this far. Congrats, your interest in what I have to say is tremendous, or your attention span is longer than that of a goldfish, whichever one you prefer.

Also, I've noticed that on every comment I make/reply to on YouTube, I add "xx" at the end. I have officially turned into THAT girl. I apologize if you find it obnoxious, but my fingers now naturally just go towards that 'x' on the keyboard and I can no longer help myself.

I hope you're all doing well, and I will talk to you soon!

-Aleks xx

See what I mean? I didn't mean to type that on the end, it just happened.

New Video!

Here's my new video, I hope you enjoy it!

I will do an actual blog post soon, I've just been super busy with school so there's been absolutely no time!

-Aleks xx

New Video!

Hellooooooo!

I've just posted a new video on my YouTube channel, you can either watch it below, or click here!

YSL Lipstick in 17 (Rose In Tension)

 Hello Everyone!
So, I don't usually dare walk anywhere near the Yves Saint Laurent section in Sephora; their products appeal to me too much, but the price tag is just... not happy days (as my anthropology professor would say).

But, one fateful day, I was browsing past it, and I took a look at their Rouge Volupte lipstick line. I picked up many colours, swatching them, but they just weren't doing it, but this one stood out to me, and was 
practically calling my name.






This is #17 in Rose In Tension from the Rouge Volupte Shine line. It looks really bright on the packaging and in the actual tube, but because it is from the shine portion of the lipsticks, it comes off slightly more sheer on a swatch and on the lips.

The staying power is amazing, the colour sort of stains your lips, and stays on for your whole work/school day. I do sometimes touch it up, just because I like that shiny finish, but there is honestly no need to.

 The packaging is slightly heavier than your average lipstick, but the luxurious look is to die for, and the extra weight is not a big deal for me.

The price for this lipstick is $39 CAD, which is a hell of a lot of money, but I sort of convinced myself that I needed this lipstick, and that it will pay out in the end when I get compliments on it and I feel like a million bucks while wearing it.

There are no other cons other than weight and price, and I would definitely recommend this lipstick to everyone. I don't hear anyone talking about this shade in particular so I wanted to share my opinion.

 Thanks for reading!

-Aleks xx

My School Morning Routine!

My new video is up! Go check it out :)

Thanks everyone,

Aleks xx

Tribal/Aztec Nails

Hello Everyone!

So I really didn't know what to write about today. I did a tad bit of shopping and I picked up some beauty products which I will take pictures of soon and upload a review, so for today, I'll talk about how you can achieve this nail look!

I'm a huge nail polish junkie, I love doing nail art and all that stuff, but I'm not the most creative person out there. I usually see pictures online, and copy them almost to a T, but this was something I've seen before, but I used my own colours and designs and I'm proud of it.
Here are the steps to achieving this nail look:

1. Put a base coat on (I use Seche Clear Base Coat)
2. Two layers of a base colour, could be whichever of the ones I used, but my base was the dark taupe/purple colour by Sephora by OPI (which is discontinued!) Metro Chic.
3. Either using a nail art brush, or just the brush in the nail polish, apply 3 more colours in various horizontal/vertical stripes.
RED: Maraschino by Jenna Hipp
BLUE: Pixie by Urban Outfitters
NUDE: Elegant by Revlon
4. Using a black nail polish (mine is specifically designed for nail art, so I have a striper), line some black in between each colour to separate them and make it look more visually appealing.
5. Use any design for each little segment, mine vary from dots (which I used a dotting tool for, but you can swap this out for a bobby pin or an empty ballpoint pen), to arrows, to slashes, anything really. Be creative!
6. Once you have finished the design, seal it in with a topcoat, I used Seche Vite Top Coat. It is the best topcoat on the market, it dries quickly and gives your nails a gel sort-of finish.
7. Using a pointed q-tip and some nail polish remover, remove excess nail polish that might have gotten onto skin. This is the most important part, your nails will not look as good if they are sloppy-looking.

And there you have it! Pretty easy, takes a while, especially using your non-dominant hand to draw, but it is worth it in the end!
Let me know if you want step-by-step pictures next time, because I will be sure to do that for you!

Thanks for reading, and if you try this nail look, hashtag it on Instagram: #marinaleks
-Aleksandra xx

Midnight Memories Reaction Video

Hello Everyone!

I am currently in school, doing a test, so I thought I would schedule this to be uploaded for your viewing pleasure. I love 1D, and I love watching their videos, so I will now be doing videos like this for every time they have a new video out. 

I hope you enjoyed it, sorry about the volume, I didn't realize quite how loud I had put the music on, so you can't hear me when I mumble sometimes, but I hope you get the jest of it. (Is that how you spell jest? I don't know anymore)

Have a wonderful day, enjoy my beautiful reaction face(s)!

-Aleksandra xx

ICONA POP Cover!?

YES!

That is me on the bottom right corner of the new Icona Pop "Just Another Night" Remix Album!

They recently reached 100k followers on twitter, so they decided to have this contest for the fans!

I've been listening to their music since late 2012, unknowingly through TV (*cough* Snooki & JWow *cough*) since even earlier. I followed them when they had a mere 12k followers, and was lucky enough to get a couple of responses.

This was an amazing thing to be a part of, it really made me feel like they care about us fans, and gave us a chance to experience being a "model", seriously though, I had to sign a modelling contract in order to be a part of this. Lots of struggle because I hadn't turned 18 yet at the time, but the lady figuring all of this out was VERY nice and sent out a personal form for me and had my mom sign as well.


Pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but still pretty cool. I saw them in concert recently, and brought a poster to show them that I had won! I got a wave and thumbs up from both of them, they're just so sweet and make the best music - an amazing combination. I'll be seeing them live when I go to the upcoming Miley Cyrus concert for her Bangerz album, so I'll probably make a sign again. 

I do realize that the sign looks like I had one 100 thousand dollars, so who know, maybe they thought I won the lottery and were happy for me? The whole hashtag couldn't fit, so this had to do. Shoutout to my brother for finishing colouring in the outlines of the letters I made, because I procrastinated on this and made it about 30 minutes before leaving. 

You can go and buy the album here; just letting you know, I am not getting any compensation from the album or its sales. I'm merely one of the lucky 100 fans who are on the cover, so I'm in no way pushing you to buy it, but at least check it out, the remixes are amazingly done!

Love these girls to bits, they are my favourite music group at the moment, and I don't think that will change for a while. I hope everyone is having a great day, and I will see you all tomorrow!

-Aleksandra xx

Girl's Day Out

Hello Everyone!

So I've been playing around a bit on polyvore, and I came up with this little day look. I promise that once I get a better camera, I will post pictures of myself and my outfits, but for now and the quality I have, it's just not worth it.

I've been loving the boyfriend jean look, and I think my favourite way to style it is with a fancy-ish blazer, because it dresses it up a bit!

This look is perfect for a day out with your girlfriends, it looks like you put a lot of effort into it, but you really didn't! Trust me, I suck when it comes to figuring out accessories and all that sort.

Let me know if you have any looks that you've been loving recently, and why!



Thanks for reading,
Aleksandra xx

New Blog Layout/Design, New Me!

Hello Everyone!

So I've been lacking on this blog for a while now, and so I figured that I need to make it look prettier!

I have these friends (twins) who have started their own blog as well, and they've been doing many modifications to it to make it ultra-spectacular, you can check it out here, and it inspired me to tweak mine a bit.

I'm still not completely satisfied, but it's a lot better than before, I even got my wonderful friend Melissa to help me out and draw a little sketch of me for the banner. I am eternally (I almost wrote internally, that would've been awks.) grateful that I have such an awesomely talented friend to help me with artwork. I'm sure I'll be bugging her in the future for other sketches and such! Sorry, Mel!

I hope you like the new look, let me know if you do, or if you'd like me to change it some way? It's not just for my viewing pleasure, but for yours as well! Please do comment on posts, I would love to know the people reading this, and to assure myself that the views aren't just coming from me.

Thanks so much for reading, expect updates on the daily!

-Aleksandra xx

Gingham Aline Skirt Loving

I've recently eyed this skirt on the Topshop website, and I am truly in love. I don't think I'll be doing any shopping soon, as I'm saving up for a camera, so I thought I would pretend as if I'm making these cool outfits to go with it, that I can wear.

I don't know how you can define my style, I'm definitely all over the place, and I dress for myself, not for anyone else; so I guess I'm not really seeking trends of any sort?

This is how I would possibly style this skirt, let me know if you have any other ideas? If you would like to know where any of the items of clothing/jewelry are from, send a comment my way and I'll be sure to let you know. (Read: I'm a Topshop addict so you can probably guess where the majority is from.)

I like making little outfits like this, so I'll be sure to make more in the future, maybe just monthly favourites and things like that! 

Thanks for reading,

Aleksandra xx

MAC Lipstick in 'Lickable'

Hey everyone!

Hope you're all well, sorry for not being on this blog as of late, but I am back! Be ready for more posts!

I've recently depotted a bunch of MAC eyeshadows, so I thought I would Back 2 MAC them and get a free lipstick or eyeshadow! I was actually debating whether or not I wanted to get a lipstick, because I've been building up my eyeshadow collection so I was in this funk where I just wanted eyeshadows. Nevertheless, I haven't bought a lipstick from MAC in about a year so I thought I would go ahead and do that.

I went in blindly, I haven't been keeping up with MAC lipsticks as of late, I've been loving Topshop and Rimmel London lipsticks recently. I wanted a bright pink because I knew MAC would deliver on quality (I have 3 other lipsticks, and I love them), and I don't have a bright pink lipstick, surprisingly. 

 This one stood out amongst the rest, and it was the first one I picked out. I swatched it at the counter, and I fell in love with the colour. I then asked the MAC lady to clean it so I can try it on my lips, and it was actual love at first sight. It's called Lickable, and it is a cremesheen finish. The MAC website describes it as a "Bright clean blue pink" which I think is pretty spot on. It has a bit of a cooler undertone to it, which looks great with my cooler skintone. 

This swatch is beautiful, and I just can't stop looking at the colour. It's my new favourite lipstick, and I can't wait to wear it on a daily basis once the weather gets warmer (It's more of a springtime/summertime colour). It's staying power is actually pretty amazing, I had the swatch on my hand for about 5 minutes, and when I went to take it off with a wet-wipe, it removed most of it, but there was a stain left behind. I have yet to test out the staying power on my lips, as I was waiting to make this post before swatching it, but if you would like to know, just comment below and I will update you on that!

This is how it looks like on my lips, hopefully that gives you a clear view.
Go check it out, if you're into bold pinks, because it's a colour that I don't hear too much about, but is amazing.

Thanks for reading! I've been off of the blog for a while, focusing on my YouTube, but I am back in action, and will be posting more regularly!

-Aleksandra xx

PS: I know that the quality isn't too great, but I am eyeing a new camera, and am saving up to buy it. It'll be my new YouTube camera as well, so I'm super hyped to save the money and buy it in a couple of months! :)