Reading Challenge 2016

Hello again!

Before I begin, I wanted to discuss a schedule with you guys! I was thinking of trying to post on Sundays, and maybe Thursdays? While school is in I'm not sure how well that will work, but I would like to try. Then, once the summer starts, I was considering posting Sunday-Wednesday-Friday every week.

What do you think?

Anyway, getting to the reading portion of this post! As I mentioned last week in my Goodreads post, last year I attempted to do a reading challenge. While I didn't fail miserably, I didn't finish the challenge, either. So, I want to try to do the same one this year!

A picture of the challenge that I did is at the top of this post, but I'm also going to be typing them out individually so that I can cross them off as I go. I think that between this post and Goodreads.com (once again, no affiliation), it's really going to keep me on track as the year goes on.

By the way, I don't know who originally created this challenge. I'm not doing this to claim it as my own, because I didn't make it. If any of you know, please let ME know so I can give credit where credit is due. Thanks!

Without further ado, this is my reading challenge for 2016:

- a book with more than 500 pages
- a classic romance    Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontè

- a book that became a movie     Paper Towns by John Green
- a book published this year
- a book with a number in the title
- a book written by someone under 30
- a book with nonhuman characters
- a funny book     Seriously... I'm Kidding by Ellen DeGeneres
- a book by a female author
- a mystery or thriller
- a book with a one-word title
- a book of short stories
- a book set in a different country
- a nonfiction book
- a popular author's first book
- a book from an author you love that you haven't read yet
- a book a friend recommended
- a Pulitzer Prize-winning book
- a book based on a true story
- a book at the bottom of your to-read list
- a book your mom loves
- a book that scares you
- a book more than 100 years old
- a book based entirely on its cover
- a book you were supposed to read in school but didn't
- a memoir     Girl in the Woods by Aspen Matis
- a book you can finish in a day      Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
- a book with antonyms in the title
- a book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit
- a book that came out the year you were born
- a book with bad reviews
- a trilogy
- a book from your childhood
- a book with a love triangle
- a book set in the future
- a book set in high school
- a book with a colour in the title
- a book that made you cry
- a book with magic
- a graphic novel
- a book by an author you've never read before
- a book that takes place in your home town
- a book that was originally written in a different language
- a book set during Christmas     Girl Online by Zoella
- a book written by an author with your same initials
- a play
- a banned book The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (here is my source for where the book was  banned)
- a book based on or turned into a TV show
- a book your started but never finished

Whew! When you type it out, it feels pretty daunting. It's alright though, all I can do is try my best. Being an English student in this situation, in my opinion, is both a blessing and a curse; you have less free time for reading, but if you're lucky you'll enjoy the stuff you have to read for class anyway. I'm pretty lucky like that, and I usually tend to like the assigned readings that we are given.

My plan is to cross things out as I go and write in italics which book(s) I read to fulfill the requirement.

I'm so excited guys! This is really going to keep me accountable for my reading challenge, I think.

Are you doing a reading challenge? How far along are you so far? Please let me know in the comments.


Thank you everyone, and happy reading!

Bryt

Goodreads

Hello World, long time no see!

I'm not going to make excuses, but here I am, back and better than ever (hopefully).

This is going to be my first book-related post! I think that talking about something that I'm actively involved with on a day-to-day basis, because of my program at school, will make it easier to keep my blog up-to-date.

I'm very excited! I think that my biggest challenge is going to be writing in more of a blog form than an essay form, but I'm interested to see how my writing develops.

Now, onto the books!

In 2015 I attempted to complete a reading challenge that I thought covered some solid ground. It worked out to be a book a week, and I think that for a first try I did pretty well with it. I wish that I could tell you how many books I actually read, but I didn't end up keeping track throughout the entire year. Woe is me, I guess. If I ever figure it out, I'll be sure to post about it!

Recently, I went home to Northern Ontario for my Winter Break. During the trip it was mentioned to me that as someone who likes to read, I should check out Goodreads.com. When I finally got around to checking the website, I fell in love. Not only does it enable you to keep track of which books you've read and which ones you want to read, but you can also create a digital 'shelf' that ends of being a compilation of the books you own.

I don't mean to brag, but I have a lot of books. So many books that sometimes I have a hard time remembering which ones I own and which I don't. Editions of books are another problem entirely. But now this problem has been solved! Thank God for Goodreads! I can't believe I hadn't heard of that website before.

I'm still learning the site, but if any of you would like to see a post about it, let me know!

At this point you might be asking yourself what Goodreads has to do with my reading challenge, and I don't blame you. My favourite thing about the website, I think, is that it enables you to mark when you finish a book that you're reading.

When I signed up for the website, it immediately asked me how many books I would like to read in 2016. Going with my 2015 goal, I entered mine as 52. Now I am able to keep track every time I finish a book, and Goodreads lets me know whether I'm keeping up with how much I should be reading to stay on track.

Overall, I think it's wonderful! I can't wait to explore the site more and find out even more crazy-awesome new things.

For now, I'm going to end this post, but I do plan on reviewing the books that I'm reading this year, so please keep an eye out!

Don't forget to look on the bright side.

Ciao for now,

Bryt

*this post is not affiliated with Goodreads.com in any way. They have no idea that I've written this post. :)

Colourpop Cosmetics Haul & Swatches (including their LIMITED EDITION Birthday Girl shadow)

I cannot begin to tell you all how excited I am to have gotten my first order in from Colourpop Cosmetics! Not only is the brand cruelty-free, which is very important to me (more about that later), but they're also super affordable and come in so many different colours that it'll make you dizzy!

Now, as far as I know, Colourpop doesn't have any kind of store set up just yet, and is strictly online. They're also based out of California, so all of their prices are in USD. However, even with the exchange rate into Canadian dollars, I still think that it's a really good deal for what you get.

There is a catch though, which I think is important to mention. Most standard lipsticks are about 3g each for a full size, while Coloupop Lippy Stix contain 1 gram of product. When you do the math, in order to get the same amount of product in a Lippy, you would need to buy three of them, which equals out to $15 USD instead of $5. This ends up equalling the same as, for exampling, a Mac Cosmetics lipstick and/or a lot of the lipsticks you can find at Sephora.

That being said, I DO NOT think that this takes away from the products at all. The way that I look at it, unless you REALLY love a colour, most people aren't going to go through an entire lipstick anyway, whether because you're not in love with the colour or the formula, or because we have so many in our collections. With the Colourpop Lippy Stix, you get less product at once but for the same price as a full lipstick you can get three different colours. In that sense, you can (potentially) get just as much bang for your buck, or you can take the chance to try some new and maybe more daring shades.

For someone like me, who is slowly building her makeup collection (if you can call it that), Colourpop Cosmetics' products are pretty ideal, especially when it comes to the Lippy Stix. As I said before: So. Many. Colours. - for my haul today, and to place my first order, I narrowed it down to 7 Lippy Stix and the Limited Edition Birthday Girl shock shadow that they were offering for free to celebrate their first birthday.

The Lippy Stix that I chose were:

- Brunch (described as a mid-tone coral with a satin finish)

- Frida (described as a warm mid-tone nude pink with a satin finish)

- Lumiere (described as a dusty mauve pink with a matte finish)

- I Heart This (described as a red based fuschia in a matte finish. We just f**king love it.)

- Flawless (described as a deep red-violet in a satin finish)

- Dalia (described as a deep warm burgundy wine in a matte finish)

- Bichette (described as a deep red wine in a matte finish)

PLUS the Limited Edition Birthday Girl eye shadow that came with every order between May 21 and May 25, 2015. As you can see, it's taken me a while to get myself organized and to have a good enough camera to complete this post!

Birthday Girl is described on temptalia as a slightly muted, medium-dark brown with lighter gold and bronze shimmer and bronze glitter. To me, it's pretty much molten gold gorgeousness. I even waited until I had a picture of its perfection before dipping my finger in for a swatch! I'd never seen a Colourpop Super Shock Shadow in person before, so I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.

Here is Birthday Girl:

My order came pretty quickly, especially considering I live in Southern Ontario and the order was coming from California. I think that this is because I placed my order as soon as I found out about the deal, rather than waiting a few more days to do it.

Also, I didn't get any of the lippie pencils, because in my May 2015 Ipsy bag I received an Urban Decay 24/7 Liner in Ozone, which is a clear, universal liner that'll work with any lipstick! It retails for $16, but if it's something that might work for you, I suggest that you get it. Once my Ipsy review for May is posted, I'll add a link here so you can read all about it. :)

I will also be creating a post of my review of all these products, so keep an eye out, and happy shopping!

Tips for Pulling an All-Nighter (Be Exhausted, but PREPARED!)

The title of this post is, to say the least, self explanatory. Recently (read: last night) I stayed up all night, with a grand total of 0 hours of sleep. Why did I do this thing that some people would consider crazy, or even blasphemous when compared to the deep love all young adults seem to hold for our beds? Well, the answer to that comes in two parts.

First, since school ended and since I quit my job, my sleep schedule has slowly but surely suffered. Day by day, I've been waking up later little by little. It had gotten to the point where I could go to sleep at midnight and sleep until 11:30am the next day, and still feel tired. Needless to say, for my health and wellbeing (not that catching up on sleep is a bad thing in my opinion, as long as it's in moderation) I decided that it was time to make a change, and the only sure-fire way I knew of was to simply stay up all night.

The second reason I had for staying up all night is because I've been wanting to go for a jog with my boyfriend in the morning before he goes to work. Now, the problem with this is that he wakes up at 5:00am to do his jog before going to work a 12 hour shift at the factory he works at, like the crazy person he is. I thought that it would be a good idea for me to go with him most days, if not every day that he works. With the sleep schedule I am/was on, it would have been impossible for me to join him in his morning exercise. However, because I didn't sleep last night, it enabled me to not only wake him up for once instead of it being the other way around, but to go with him on his morning jog as best as I could.

All this being said, I'm not a newcomer to staying up all night, or 'pulling all-nighters' as I've always heard it said. For the first year and a half of high school I would stay up all night every Sunday like clockwork for the sole purpose of reading. Not even for school, either. I'm talking about books and, most of all, fanfiction (ahh fanfiction, how I miss you sometimes). If I wasn't staying up to read, I was staying up to work on homework that I had left to the last minute (like always) or to give myself some extra study time before an exam.

Over the years, I have picked up some pretty good tips if you need to stay up all night, and would like to share them with you. As I'm so sleep deprived at the moment, it seemed more than appropriate. Without further ado, here are my tips for pulling an all nighter!


1. Don't do it unless you absolutely have to.

This tip is pretty obvious, but I feel like it is important to mention nontheless. When you don't sleep, you're messing with your body, literally. From a scientific point of view, aside from depriving your body of the sleep it needs in order to rest and recharge itself, you are also messing with your circadian rhythm (which is really interesting and worth reading about) and are also affecting your metabolism, appetite, brain, and mood. If humans don't get enough sleep, they die, plain and simple.

Sleep deprivation is different for everyone. For example, a study was done that showed that people who go multiple days without sleeping can begin hallucinating. Personally, I've had small hallucinations after only one night without sleep. It's not a good idea guys, and  I only recommend not sleeping if it's a last ditch effort. With that having been said now, I'll continue with my other tips and just assume that you have no choice but to stay up all night for one reason or another.

(as an unnecessary aside here, I really recommend reading a book called The Family Who Couldn't Sleep, which is about a family that has a genetic disease that causes them to be unable to fall asleep, which in turn causes early deaths in the family one by one)


2. If you need to stay up overnight, try to avoid driving at all costs the next day.

Driving while sleep deprived is just as bad as driving drunk, there's really no other way to put it. I learned this one the hard way myself, when I stayed up all night once for an exam and then a shift for work shortly afterwords. Not only do I have no memory of driving to or from my exam, but I have no memory of writing the exam itself or any of the conversations I had with people that day. I was so sleep deprived that I literally have a day missing from my memory. Also, even after all my effort, I failed the exam and, consequently, the class. So I recommend that you ask yourself, is/was it really worth it?

3. Do what you have to do to stay awake (caffeine,  hot/cold showers, music, motivation)

If you've resigned yourself to staying up all night, make sure that you commit to it. Caffeine is the best option for me, along with making sure I'm eating properly for the situation. My stomach feels very acid-y when I don't sleep, so throughout the following day I try to eat foods with carbs in them to help counteract this feeling of indigestion. Crackers and toast are two of my favourite things to eat when I'm sleep deprived, because they help keep me from feeling sick. If you start to feel nauseous or dizzy, or too much of anything really, then go to sleep.

4. Keep yourself busy.

I always try to write a to-do list, that way throughout the night/following day I'll at least be able to track my progress with what I've been doing and how much I've gotten done. Here's an example of the to-do list I created for myself today, in order to help prevent myself from falling asleep: 

 Anything that involves standing is probably a good thing to do. If you have to sit, try to sit in such a way that you won't get too comfortable and fall asleep wherever you are. For example, instead of sitting on my bed wrapped in a blanket with a hoodie and slippers on like I would like to be, I'm sitting at the desk making sure that I'm straight backed and therefore less comfortable, and am making sure that I'm more cold than warm. I'm also making sure not to rest my face on my hands or arms, as that's a surefire way to fall asleep.

5. Keep in contact with people.

I'm lucky, because it's Saturday which enables my boyfriend to be able to text a little more often than usual at work. Keeping in touch with someone throughout the day is a good idea, because they can help make sure that you're awake as long as you need to be without falling asleep. Having a short nap might not be worth it in the long run if you've stayed up all night, because it'll make you groggy and more than likely grumpy, too! However, every one is different, and the most important tip I can offer is to...

6. Listen to your body.

At the end of the day, no paper, exam, or deadline is worth your mental health and well being. In my experience, teachers/professors/employers are a lot more understanding about doing things such as giving extensions than you would ever expect. The most important part is to try to manage your time, and if that's not possible then honesty is always the best policy, in my opinion. If you're trying to stay up all night and you begin to feel sick, or begin to feel dizzy, then go to sleep, it's as simple as that. A little sleep can be better than no sleep at all, and I think you'd be amazed on what you can do on an hour or even thirty minutes of sleep compared to none at all when you really need to. Tearing yourself apart mentally and physically and/or causing and unbearable amount of stress for yourself isn't worth it in the long run, no matter how much it may seem like it at the time.

If I think of any more tips, I'll add them, but for now I think that's all. What do you think? Are there any tips that you would like to add? Do you agree or disagree with what I've written? Please let me know.

Thanks for reading!
Bryt

Upcoming Posts and an Announcement

Getting ready to move, exams, and other life-y things have kept me from posting longer than I would have liked, but I'm back! I thought that it would be a good idea to lay out what I would like to do in my next few posts, so that people are aware of them. It might also make me feel responsiable for actually posting more, which would be a big plus. So, here goes nothing!

BEAUTY-RELATED

- February 2015 Ipsy Glam-Bag Review
- March 2015 Ipsy Glam-Bag Review
- April 2015 Ipsy Glam-Bag Review
- May 2015 Ipsy Glam-Bag Review 

 I would also like to do a post of what I receive in my Ipsy bag month-to-month, and a separate post (like those mentioned above) that are specifically reviews for the products from the previous month. I feel like not very many people go back and review the items they have received, and I would like to start doing that.

- Shopping Hauls
- Favourites (monthly!)
- Nail polish-related post(s)
- Tag posts

BOOKS

Books are my life, and almost always have been. I have the time to read for pleasure (AKA when I'm not in school, though I do enjoy a lot of those books too), I read voraciously. As such, I would liek to share my readings with everyone here on my blog. These will probably be updates on what I'm reading at the moment as well as (hopefully spoiler free) reviews once I have finished them. I think that this will be an especially good thing to post about as it's summer for me right now, and I've been reading a lot!


The aforementioned topics/items are ones that I would like to cover regularly. Some of them may be repeated on my YOUTUBE channel, which I'm pleased to say I'm finally going to be able to start making videos for next month! Hooray! Of the two, my blog will probably be a little more long-winded and have some extra information, which I think will create a good back-and-forth between my blog and  channel. Or at least that's what I'm hoping for!

I'm going to be starting to work on some of these posts today, so hopefully I'll be able to start actually posting them soon! However, my posts aren't going to be limited to one or two subjects like those that I mentioned, and will include other topics whenever I find something interesting or something that I think people need to know about. I hope to share my findings with all of you, and I hope that you enjoy them.

Thanks for reading!
Bryt

The (hopefully-not-so) Typical 'About Me' Post

At first, I wanted to start this post – the first post of my first official blog – with something deep, clever, and meaningful. But then I thought to myself, why? So I can show anyone who’s reading this who I am? So that that person may think that I, in turn, am deep, clever and meaningful? So that I can ask more rhetorical questions?

Nope, not me.

So, here it is; my first post. Which, to all effects of predictability, is an ‘About Me’ post.

Hello there!

My name is Bryton, like the city in England. For anyone who knows me well though, it’s just Bryt. Like ‘bright’, only fancier. Kind of. 

I was raised in a super-duper small down in the middle of nowhere (otherwise known as Northern Ontario), so I won’t bore you with the details of small town life right now. If you would like to be bored at any time though, don’t hesitate to ask!

Currently, I’m a third year English student at the ripe old age of twenty one. In the fall I’m also planning on taking some art classes, in order to gain a second teachable subject if I decide to apply to teachers’ college (yet another boring topic for most of you, I’m sure).

I live with my boyfriend, as well as our hamster, Millie. My dream is to own a pug named Pippin, but alas, that will have to be time permitting. Also, I’ll have to convince my boyfriend of it first.

Now, on to the (more) interesting stuff! I’ve wanted to start a blog for a long time, but just haven’t had the time/confidence/motivation/inspiration. I also want to start posting video onto my YouTube channel, instead of just creeping on other people’s videos 24/7, but that’s another thing that will have to be time-permitting. I’m also going to need a webcam, or some sort of decent camera. If you have any suggestions, please let me know!

I have many interests, some that have gained ground recently, and others that I would like to put aside time for to pursue more passionately. On this blog, I would like to write about beauty related things including nail polish, organizational stuff, traveling (when I get to do so), as well as books and crafts. I don’t get to read many books outside of school anymore, but I think that just makes the ones I do read all the more special.

I also love photography, so I’m looking forward to just taking pictures of the things I post about. Haha, I can be so nerdy.

Anyway, I guess that’s all for now, folks! If you have any questions or (even better) suggestions, please leave me a comment, or e-mail me at thebrytside@gmail.com.

Thank you for beginning this adventure with me, and let’s see where it takes us!

Xo TheBrytSide