Happy Birthday Lily Mae

Greetings earthlings, 

For those of you that have read my post  'In which a four year old teaches me how to live' (click here to read it)' you'll know who Lily Mae is. Lily Mae Morrison was diagnosed with Stage Four Neuroblastoma(a rare childhood cancer) in June 2012. 

Lily Mae has bravely fought a war very few of us would be brave enough to face. But enough about cancer, today is not about cancer. Today is about Lily Mae and the 5 years she has lived. In these five years she has achieved more than most of us can ever dream to. She has inspired a nation and thought us the true meaning of courage. 

Lily Mae has taught me to appreciate life, I will always be grateful for this gift from this little legend. 

Lily Mae, I hope you have the happy birthday you deserve and many, many more after this one. Hope you like the purple writing and the dinosaur train cake!
XxX 

CHRIStian guilt??

Greetings earthlings,  

Today's ramblings shall revolve around the following two words: Chris Brown.
The infamous Singer, Dancer and of course......girlfriend beater.

I have recently found myself listening to, and dare I say it, enjoying his music. There's only one problem: the guilt. Is this the so-called Christian guilt catching up on me?  Everytime I listen to his music the little angel on my shoulder reminds me what he has done and that I shouldn't be supporting that kind of man. But then the devil on my shoulder pipes in reminding me how catchy this song is and that damn, this guy can really dance.

 I'm pretty much obsessed with his latest single Fine China. The ode to MJ in both the music and the dancing had me hooked instantly.

Should I forgive and forget as Riri has done or should I forever hold it against him and boycott his every move?




This my friends, is my predicament.
He claims he was young, arrogant and hot tempered(obviously) at the time and that he has since become a more humble man. I'd like to believe this but I can't help but think that all his handlers etc have fed him these lines to say in a bid to clean up his image. But then again, maybe he himself really does want to clean up his image, for the right reasons.

Its so very hard to know, and I guess I never will! Unless I somehow find myself in a situation where I get to be a friend of Chris Brown's and get to know him properly. Who knows, maybe if you all keep reading my ramblings here on Planet Lo that may just be the case!

What do you think of Chris Brown? Have you forgiven and forgotten?
Click here to listen to Fine China and let me know what you think of it. :)

Stay classy,

Lxx 

ps- My college exams start tomorrow. If I fail, I'll blame ye all xx

Let's be twitter friends xx

We've been nominated!!

Greetings earthlings,


Apparently we've been nominated for a Student Media award?!
I say 'we' because I like to think of us all as some weird little clan, without whom I would have long ago stopped writing this blog.

Planet Lo has been nominated in the People's Choice Category, the only category where the public pick the winner. Ok so here's where I need yer help: I need you to vote please. 
Here's the link to vote:
 http://www.oxygen.ie/smedias_2013_people_s_choice_award.PAGE6094.html

Voting closes at 5pm tomorrow April 10th

You have to register with the website to vote. I know this sounds like a big ask but in reality it only takes a minute or two. I will be eternally grateful if my earthlings come through for me and vote! Winning this could really help get more people to join our weird clan, the more the merrier right?!

Sorry for the begging, now go vote!(please!) ;)
I'll buy you all a big bar of chocolate if we win.

Stay classy,

Lxx

HIPSTER ALERT

Greetings earthlings,

I don't like hipsters. Then again, nobody likes hipsters, even hipsters don't like hipsters. Why am I talking about hipsters? Because what I'm about to write is very 'hipsteresque'. I promise this won't happen again but it has to be done, just this once.

I have liked the band Bastille for way longer than most people. There, I said it.

I'm not normally like this when it comes to music but when it comes to Bastille I'm oddly protective of them. I first discovered them last Summer when I saw someone retweet something about them on Twitter. I decided to check them out and I've been hooked ever since. 

The first song of theirs I listened to was 'Overjoyed'. Its definietly still one of my favourites. 

Weird as it may sound I felt like I had a private relationship with Bastille. They were never played on any of my local radio stations and my friends never discussed them. It was just me and my boys. 

Things however, have changed. With the release of their latest song Pompeii they boys have been catapulted to stardom. Although I am happy for them I feel like our private relationship has ended. Pompeii is constantly being played on radios, something that kills me inside. 

I know they don't belong to me and that they don't even know I exist but I can't help it, I wanted them all to myself. If I were to look at myself I would hate myself, I hate people like this, but alas I can't help it.

On the bright side, they're more likely to do more concerts now so hopefully I'll get to see them. 

If you are one of the few that are yet to hear of Bastille here's a taster of their excellence

Click here to listen to Overjoyed 

Click here to listen to Pompeii   

I hope you've enjoyed this insight into the very talented Bastille if you had never heard of them before this. 

If you think after reading this that I'm an annoying wannabe hipster, you're right, I am. However I plan on coming out the other side of this phase soon. 

Stay classy, 

L xx

A bonus treat:  Overjoyed Acapella 

What if Facebook died tomorrow?

Greetings earthlings, 

Ever heard of a website called Facebook.com?

Facebook has changed the world. It has over 1 billion users and it's creator Mark Zucerbeurg became the world's youngest billionaire at only 24. For many of us, its hard to imagine life without facebook. Right now, I have my trusty facebook tab going on my laptop. Its another world on facebook. We can now socialise from the comfort of our bedroom, regardless of the state of appearance. But the question is, is it really socializing? Are people really themselves or is it nothing more than a hub for alter egos and their photoshopped photos?

What do you think would happen in Facebook died tomorrow? The apocalypse? World War 3? Possible, but  the most likely answer is tears, lots of tears.

Tears from 13 year old girls whose lives no longer seem to have a purpose, tears from the guy who runs the 'Humans Of New York' facebook page and tears of joy from those of us who no longer have to socialize because the only point of a night out was for the facebook pictures. Wow that was a long sentence.

A visual representation of a teenager after  discovering that facebook is gone..

I often wonder how long facebook will last for, will we all still be using it in 10 years? I think the thing I would miss the most if facebook died tomorrow is the photos. Not the embarrassing nightclub ones(although I will be glad to have them in years to come when I look even worse) but the cute one of your cousin's baby or of your family in America. I'll miss people sharing their lives. What I won't miss is people over-sharing their lives. The phrase 'it's facebook not your diary' comes to mind.

Here's a weird thought: will we still be on facebook when our kids are? At the moment most of my friends have to block their parents on facebook...how weird will it be if we have to block our kids?!

I at least hope facebook lasts for the rest of my college career. Considering thats only two years, I'm not worried.

Unsure whether you'd be upset if facebook died tomorrow? I guarantee you if deactivate your account for 24 hours you'll know pretty quickly how much you'd miss it!

I deactivated my facebook for a few days before my exams two years ago.....they were the longest few days of my life. I felt there was a hole in my life. Sad, but true. I found myself with so much spare time. An actual chance to be productive? Could it be? Alas, I was not productive. I spent my new-found spare time thinking of all the 'fun' everyone else was having on facebook while I was stuck at home, social network-less.
Talk about first world problems.


Comment below if you've ever deactivated your facebook, let me know if your experience was as bad as mine!

Stay classy, 

L xx

25 Facts About Me

Greetings earthlings,

Apparently it is a 'thing' amongst bloggers at the moment to write a '25 Facts About Me' post so I decided I'd hop on the bandwagon. Also, I shall once again apologise for my lack of posts over the past few weeks. Turns out the whole 'college' thing can actually take up quite a lot of one's time! Fear not, I finish lectures next week and then I'm all yours! So without further a due, here are 25 facts about me :)
 (I've included a photo of me and a drawing I did recently because I don't want to photo-less post!)

1. I hate bananas.
I'm sorry to start this list on a negative note but I can barely put into words how much I hate bananas. I hate everything about them.If we're going to be friends earthlings you need to know this.  Although my Mother claims she fed me bananas as a baby I have no recollection of ever consuming one and she has no evidence to back up such an accusation.

2. I love the smell of petrol.

3. I have green eyes.(sometimes, other days they're grey or blue) 

4. I can appear shy when I first meet people but after a while I warm up to them and they soon realise I am in fact, insane.

5. I have a collection of thousands of contact lense cases that I began collecting when I was 11. I'll put them to good use someday..

6. I love the fact that the Harry Potter books are always around if I ever feel like nipping into Hogwarts.

7. I'm doing my college course through Irish.

8. I can't wait to have kids. (Not for many years though!)

9. The sun makes me really happy.

10. I used to have a terrible phobia of dogs but now I love them.

11. I don't sing in the shower, I perform.

12. I'm hoping to get my first car this Summer and am extremely excited about it!

13. I'm rarely seen without a bottle of water on my person.

14. I love Gilmore Girls, and I mean love.

15. I saw Coldplay at a music festival in 2011 and spent the entire concert screaming at them to stop playing. (I was severely dehydrated, among other things.)

16. I love to draw. 

17. Disney movies are my game, to be forever young my aim.

18. I have enough hair on my head for about 4 people, this can be good and bad.

19. I'm blind as a bat and can't leave my bedroom without glasses or contact lenses.

20. I'm an over-thinker. Something which I hate and have been trying to put an end to.

21. I did ballet dancing for 13 years and its  still something I love.

22. I have 52 first cousins, its fantastic and means I'm never stuck for a friend.

23. I sit on a bus for an hour and 15 minutes every morning to get to college.

24. I've recently started watching the BBC programme Sherlock and I'm hooked.

25. I've recently tried to stop 'bitching' about people and have discovered it makes life a lot nicer.


Well, that's that! 
I hope you enjoyed this post and feel you have gotten to know me a bit better. I will be back soon with something of more substance.

Stay classy,

Lxx

Click here to be my twitter friend xx

Diet Coke Detox

Palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy...I haven't had a drop of diet coke in over two weeks.


Greetings earthlings, 

After finding myself guzzling the stuff on a daily basis and being pretty sure I'd bleed diet coke if I got a cut, I decided enough was enough. But my God was it hard. There are no nicorette patches for diet coke addicts, nothing but willpower and sparkling water.

Seeing as I don't drink coffee or tea I was dependent on diet coke for my caffeine intake. Any student knows that caffeine is right up there with oxygen when it comes to essentials. Because of the lack of caffeine once I stopped drinking it I was experiencing what I describe as 'guinea pig' headaches. Imagine a guinea pig is shoved into where your brain is supposed to be and it continuously jumps up and down. This is what a 'guinea pig' headache feels like. Why I choose a guinea pig I know not, but what I do know is that they hurt, a lot.

Another withdrawal symptom, the one that would probably be the most obvious to the on looker is crabbiness.
I.was.like.a.bull.
I was so knarky, everything and everyone annoyed me. Imagine a cheese grater grating on your bones, that is the way I felt about everything.
Why did I subject myself to these withdrawal symptons? Two words- kidney, failure. My sister had been reminding me of the ill effects of diet coke to your health, which include kidney failure. I guess it makes sense, I was pumping this sweetened posion into me and asking my poor body to make sense of it. Something it can do for only so long.

A knarky bull, sounds pretty rough right? It is. But, it gets better. After about 5 days I felt much better. However, getting through those five days is a lot easier said than done. Because of the headaches involved it can be a lot easier to knock a can of the good stuff back to ease your pain, after all, you have a life. This may be the tempting choice to make but if you suffer the withdrawal you will soon get to enjoy your new life post-diet coke.

Suddenly, the cravings are gone. The urge to run to the nearest shop and get ripped off for a bottle of the stuff are gone. And one of the worst things, the sugar cravings, are gone. I had heard that diet coke made you fat, I never believed this. I never believed this cause I used think 'how can a drink with only three calories in a 500ml bottle make you fat?!' Plot twist: its not the diet coke that makes you fat, its the sugar it makes you crave that makes you fat. Its only after giving it up that I realized how true this was. I used to crave sugar non-stop. I used choose a packet of jelly tots over a proper dinner, normal food just didn't appeal to me. Now however, I don't find myself wanting sugar has as much. Suddenly I want normal food, I even found myself sitting down eating an apple yesterday, something that would have been previously unheard of. I now find that sweets make me feel sick, I feel lethargic after them now so I just don't bother. Obviously I'll still have the odd treat at the weekend but on a whole what  I really want now is good food, because it make you feel good.

Another nice little bonus of life post-diet coke is the moola. I've saved so much money since I stopped buying it. I find myself opening my purse to see tenners that used to be fivers and 2 euro coins that used to be 50 cent coins, not the worst situation to be in.

Despite the fact that I am now free from my diet-coke induced aspartame and caffeine shackles, I still want the fizz. I love fizzy drinks, always have.. I blame my Mother, she craved sparkling water throughout her pregnancy with me and from day one I've wanted fizz. Don't worry, I haven't turned to Fanta or something similar to fulfill my fizz needs. I have instead turned to the miracle that is sparkling water. Whenever I want a bit of fizz I gulg back a bit of sparkling water and all is well.

For those of you that have glanced down at your ankles whilst reading this to discover that you too are wearing diet coke shackles, stop. Put the diet coke down my friends and its onwards and upwards from here.

(If you need an excuse, its lent, do it for Jesus)

Stay classy,

L xx 

Let's be twitter friends xx