In the last few years, I have developed a huge adoration towards cinema, and I would love to share some of my favourite films with you all. These are ten of the movies I love the most, in no particular order:

1. Edward Scissorhands
As a big fan of both Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, I feel like crying a little bit every time they work together. Edward Scissorhands being one of the first Tim Burton films I ever watched, has remained one of my absolute favourites ever since, making me cry every single time.
The design on the movie as a whole is super pretty as well, it makes me wish I could live in a neighbourhood like Peg's one day, and hopefully meet a human, if that's even what he should be classified under, as lovely as Edward himself.




2. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Not gonna lie-- I never knew this movie was based off a book until a long while after I'd watched it for the first time, and even though I've been dying to read it ever since I learned this, I haven't had the chance to get myself a copy yet, so I can't compare the two. I have to say, though, I am a sucker for Michael Cera and everything he does to the point where I am willing to kiss the ground he steps on, and that's the reason I ever watched it in the first place. That being said, the soundtrack on this movie is one of my all time favourites, which makes it just that little bit better; in my case, a "little bit" meaning a huge lot better.
Honestly, if you like music as much as I do, you need to watch this.




3. Donnie Darko
I love all alien/supernatural/dream-meaning stuff, so Donnie Darko is a must for me. Either way, I truly believe this is one of the films everyone should watch at least twice in their lives. I say twice because, every time I see it, I notice something new. It makes you think and concentrate, which makes me only be able to watch it when I'm in the mood, but that doesn't make me love it any less at all.

"If you die you're completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on. I'm not afraid of dying. Total peace after death, becoming someone else is the best hope I've got."

Happy 48th Birthday, Kurt, you were an asshole, but damn, were you one clever asshole. We could blame the drugs, but you probably would have passed away anyway due to your illness. From what I gathered througout the years, I would have shared so many of your views when it came to life, but, from the bottom of my heart, I feel like you wanted to live so badly, life itself killed you. You were so desperate to feel alive, you ended up dead. You wanted to have the most interesting life anyone had ever lived, to the point where you admittedly made up some parts of your it. You were a selfish bastard, refusing to work for your own bread, and yet, somehow, you managed to make it all work out. You loved being a victim, an outcast, and you also loved to complain about everything and anything, but never did anything about whatever was bothering you so much.
You never let yourself admit to like anything at all, just wishing to be as uncool as you could be, to the point where you could not even compliment your own music, the one you'd composed yourself. In all honesty, I blame you for all those music snobs who believe hating everything and everyone is the way to go. You were a hypocrite, but we forgive you, for you seemed to have a very troubled mind, and even though I believe you did do a shit tone of things wrong, you also did speak some truth every once in a while. You were not afraid to be yourself, and taught a lot of people to do the same.
One of my favourte Kurt Cobain quotes is "Punk is musical freedom. It's saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster's terms, 'nirvana' means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that's pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock."

One of my favourite things to do ever, is to make playlists. As you might have already guessed by all those music posts I am a huge fan of music and its history, and having the right soundtrack to everything I do is quite important. The last couple of weeks I have had to travel on my dad's bike quite a lot, for about an hour every day, and listening to the right music makes it just that much more enjoyable, so I made myself a playlist-- which you can listen to clicking here. Some of the songs are the most cliché, some others aren't, but they're all some of my all time favourites I only ever really listen when I'm home but wish I would listen to more often.

Hiya! I'm back with one more "Underrated artist of the week", which is easily becoming my favourite subject to blog about.
 ALSO!! Check out the bottom of this post for updates on The Maine's album situation and their new single!
This week I would like to introduce you to Echosmith, to me one of those little bands you keep a warm, speacial place in your heart even if you don't talk about them 24/7.

Echosmith formed in Los Angeles back in 2009, when the four Sierota siblings decided to start playing music together, having Sydney as their female lead singer. As far as I know, they started off posting covers of bands such as Coldplay and Mumford and Sons, but reached their peak when their single Cool Kids was released. Cool Kids has been welcomed to the world by tons of different people with different music tastes due to it being this really nice pop/indie/rock mix anyone would enjoy, having The Smiths as one of their biggest influences-- the same happens with their album Talking Dreams, which you can listen to on Spotify.

Last night I was home alone and felt like having something sweet to eat, and because I'm too lazy for pancakes and too broke to go get crap food, I decided to try out the mug cupcakes Georgia keeps talking about. The one I made turned out pretty well and tasted hella good, so I can't wait to try different recipes, but for now here's the one I used!

 All you're going to need to make the loveliest chocolate cupcake is:

• 4 tbsp of self raising flour
• 4 tbsp of caster sugar
• 2 tbsp of cocoa powder
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp milk
• 3 tbsp vegetable/sunflower oil (I ran out of it and used olive oil, and it probably did make a difference but I honestly could not tell)
• A few drops vanilla-- any other essence will work just as well
• 2 tbsp chocolate chips, nuts, raisins, etc. (These are optional)

One of the questions I have been asked the most in the last couple of years is about what I do for a living. I've come across loads of people interested in knowing how au-pairing works so they can decide whether they can do it themselves or not, and others just want to know out of curiosity, so here's a post with everything you need to know based on my experience!

The main reason why I ever started aupair-ing is because I absolutely adore travelling, and this was such a great opportunity to do so. My job as an au-pair consists in looking after the family I chose to work for's children as well as doing some housework for a maximum of 30 hours a week, the rest of the time is off. It is very important to discuss what your tasks are when you speak to your potential host-families and make a wise decision, because if things are not arranged beforehand, they could ask you to do a lot more than they should once you move in with them. Keep in mind it is your right to work for a maximum of 30 hours a week, if you work more, you're considered an Aupair Plus and should be getting paid quite a lot more. Your working hours would usually be from the time the children wake up to 9 when they go to school, and from 4pm until their parents return home, unless you're looking after younger children, in which case you need to come to an agreement with the family. Two days a week off are another one of your rights but you will be asked to babysit every once in a while.
When it comes to salaries, you should be getting between £60 to £100/110 per week plus food and a room for you to live in. Each family will offer differet pocket money rates, also depending on whether you work less than those 30 hours a week or don't do any housework, or work the whole 30 hours and do loads of housework. Do not accept less than £60 though, considering the amount of free time you get you will be going out a lot and even if it's just for a coffee, once you've paid for your transport, your beverage and maybe a sandwich if you get hungry on your way home, you will be left with nothing by the end of the week.

Because sometimes I struggle finding things to post about, and one of my goals in 2015 is to listen to at least one new band every week, I figured the best thing to do would be to start an "Underrated artist of the week" section on this blog. For this first week, I would like to talk about one of my all time favourite bands, The Maine.

The Maine are five boys from Arizona who have been making music together since early 2006. One of my favourite things about their work is the fact that you can't really label it as anything-- every album of theirs has a complete different sound to all the others, but somehow, it still sounds like The Maine. They definitely have made pop music in the past, they've gone through an indie sound, and more recently they released Forever Halloween, my favourite album of theirs so far, which sounds a lot more like rock and roll. Even when it comes to covers they have the most versatile sounds and choices; they have played songs from Big Jet Plane by Angus and Julia Stone to Roses by OutKast.

Hiyaaaa!! I'm back and typing from my phone so I apologise for bad picture distribution at least until I get to use my laptop either tomorrow or on Monday, buy anyway, I feel like my skin has been getting soooo much better recently which is great news considering I tend to suffer really bad breakouts whenever I'm home in Spain, so I decided it was time for a skincare routine post!

My biggest problems when it comes to my skin are acne and really big pores. The second problem I found easy to solve once I discovered Poundland facial exfoliating wipes were a thing and wiping my makeup off with those instead of my regular wipes every night helped loads with black heads and all that jazz, so nowI makeup is much easier to apply and I don't even use primer. Note I don't use that much makeup either though.

The second problem I found quite a lot more persistent, but now it is most definitely solved. 

I use different products every other day, but this one is always the same: 

Every night after I wipe off my makeup I cleanse my face throughly with Lutsine E45 Bactopur. What this does is it helps keep my pores clean as well as make my skin a little bit less greasy. 

The second step though, varies every other night. One day I'll use Peroxiben Gel, and the other I'll use Rosehip oil. The first works miracles on pimples and breakouts, making the redness disappear almost instantly and the pimple be most likely gone the next morning. The Rosehip oil I use for scars. One of my biggest regrets is ever popping my pimples because I now have to face the consequences and those are the ugly ass scars on my cheeks and underneath my lips. What the oil does is it regenerates the skin and trust me it works. My mum was told by her surgeon to use it and he was right when he told her.

Throwback to June 2014.
This is one of those ridiculous decisions you only make when you're in your twenties and seeing as I would absolutely despise to forget about it I thought I might as well write it down.
Basically, my friends and I thought it'd be a good idea to camp for the Summertime Ball festival at Wembley. If I'm honest with you, the only reason I ever decided to go to that festival even though the music that was going to be played was not my thing at all was because 1) I thought it'd be a lot of fun to go with Georgina, Aimée and Georgia and 2) one of my favourite bands, 5SOS was playing -- click here to check out their cover of What I Like About You by The Romantics yo!!
Long story short, we are very irresponsible teenagers/young adults and bought a shitload of alcohol just to make the night pass by smoothly. Needless to say that plan didn't work out. We made friends with some people in the queue, honestly they were really nice, but I'm 98% sure they didn't like us by the end of the night, and I don't blame them. I ended up getting wasted on piña colada and Georgina puking in a portaloo. We also somehow managed to get to the hotel where bands like The Vamps were staying and had one of them record us as we yelled out the lyrics to some of 5SOS's songs, whom by the way, to top it all off, had been parked about 50 meters away from us all night long without us realising.

1. What is Your Name?
    Vanessa
2. How old are you?
    20 !
3. What does the url to your blog mean?
    It's All Time Low's album's name
4. What is your height?
    1,82m / 5'10
5. Do you have any siblings?
    Two sisters
6. What is your eye colour?
    Brown
7. What is your hair colour?
    Naturally, dark brown
8. Do you wear glasses or contacts?
    I do indeed! Only need them to watch telly or when I'm on my computer though
9. Are you right handed or left handed?
   Left handed
10. Do you have any piercings?
    Yep!

Happiness
 ˈhapɪnəs/
noun
  the state of being happy.

Happiness plays what I consider the most important role in life, and seeing people putting it in someone else's hands makes me so uneasy.
I believe each one of us should be responsible for our own well-being, and sometimes that requires a little bit of selfish-ness. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should all just do what we think is best for ourselves without keeping in mind anyone else's feelings, that is not the right thing to do, but in certain situations it is important to know how important we are. I learned the hard way making others happy is not my responsibility, and when someone tries to make you feel bad about not being up to their expectations and keeping them content, they're not worth your time. Having to worry about your so-called-friends as well as yourself is mentally draining and unhealthy. Those are toxic people and they're poison. Walk away from them, you don't need them in your life. And if you really were so bad to them, I'm sure they would have stopped being in contact with you a long time ago.