I’m so ashamed at my lack of posting anything for so long! When I was unemployed I had all the time in the world to write and to post whatever came into my mind, but as soon as I started full-time work I kind of let it all drop. Here’s a round-up of some great things I’ve found on the net recently.

+ Carpe Diem Daily is a great place to go if you want to get your imaginations going, as it offers you a different creative task daily. Today’s was “If you could live a novel, which one would it be?” Doing one little creative thing every day is evidently something I need to work on considering how long it’s been since I posted, so this site should definitely help!

+ Intelligence Squared has a great archive of videos featuring some pretty influential speakers (the Dalai Lama, Simon Schama and David Starkey to name a few) discussing all sorts of issues. Here’s one of the more interesting videos I found:

Virginia Woolf on Words

+ Another great video to watch is Will Smith explaining the merits of running and reading!

Will Smith – The Key to Life

I used to work a few shifts at the gift shop in The National Museum of Wales during my time in Cardiff at university, and I remember finding some of Raymond Peynet’s lovely illustrations one day. Due to my bad memory, I completely forgot his name and after fruitless searches online I never thought I’d find his illustrations. Now that I’ve finally discovered them again, I thought I’d post them!

I haven’t been to China since I left there in November 2008, and I’d love to go back and visit soon to see what massive changes have gone on there since I was last in Shanghai. Here are some of my photos taken from when I lived there in 2008:

Me at Tianmen Square

This was taken around sunset in the lovely city of Nanjing.

The Chinese people were, by and large, so friendly and warm. I love this lady’s eccentric hat!

We camped near this stunning tea farm near a town called Anji.

View from the steps of Dr Sun Yat-Sen’s Mausoleum, Zhonghan National Park.

Chinese man on pavement, holding silver metallic boxes and wearing a big smile!

I’ve discovered a radio show, I’ve Never Seen Star Wars that asks a well-known celebrity or public figure to try five new cultural experiences and rate them. Examples include:

1. + A bikini wax
2. + Colonic irrigation
3. + Eat some odd seafood
4. + Place a race-horsing bet
5. + Having your eyebrows threaded
6. + Changing a baby’s nappy

Here’s my list of things I have never done but would love to try!

+ Learn how to meditate

+ Bake cupcakes that look like this:

+ Learn how to knit.

+ Do my make-up like this:

or:

+ Switch to a 100% paleo diet (no wheat, legumes or dairy, but basically just meat, eggs, veg, fruit and berries!)

I’m going to try and attempt at least one of these things in the near future What would you do if you were given the challenge to try something completely new to you? Are there any books that you really should have read by now, a type of food that you’d love to try, or a place you’d love to visit?

     

When debating dying my bleached blonde hair red, I did some searching online and couldn’t find much information or help. I went into a hairdressers and they offered to charge silly amounts to dye my hair a semi-permanent colour that would fade after a few weeks… so I decided to just go for it and see if it worked!

I walked into Superdrug, and anyone who has ever tried to choose between all the brands will know it’s not easy to choose which brand is the best. I settled on a shiny new shade called hot cinnamon by Schwarzkopf Live Color XXL as part of their new Hot Reds range.

I was aiming for the colour exactly like the one on the packet, and it went a few shades darker! It’s nothing like I thought it would turn out, however I’m going to keep washing it non-stop until the colour starts to fade.

As you can see from the expertly-taken picture above (ha!) my hair has gone a LOT darker than the colour indicated, and in daylight my hair looks a dark cherry colour. I left it on for thirty minutes so I would advise anyone dying light bleached blonde hair to maybe shave a few minutes off of the developing time. This has happened to me a couple of times with hair dyes and it must be because of how porous bleaching your hair makes it.

So, let’s hope in the next few weeks it starts to fade a little because I never intended it to be so dark!