Don't mind me, just having a chat.

A while ago, my all-time-favourite youtuber danisnotonfire ~Dan Howell~ uploaded a video that touched the very core of my heart and left a mark that sometimes forces me to watch it again. Because he might as well have just said it was about me. The relatability (is that a word? Now it is.) of this video is immense. For me, at least.

In the video he tells us that he talks to himself. And by talking to himself he means having imaginary conversations and walking around the house mumbling to yourself, making everyone around you think you're crazy.

I am not alone. That's the only thing I could think the first time I watched it. His conclusion at the end of the video just tells my story.

So, if you're wondering what the hell I mean by 'talking to myself', you think "there's more people doing this!" or you just want to watch a nice video, follow this link and enjoy. You'r welcome.

Danisnotonfire - I talk to myself.

Have a nice life
Xoxo
Winnie

This tells my story. Unbelievable.

Update. | DBTC

If you have read my pevious blogposts, you may be wondering what the hell is going on with my Don't Break the Chain 2014 project. Well, I'm proud to tell you it is actually going pretty good. I just have not taken the time to blog about it.

At the moment I'm on an 11 week continuous streek of drawing. I had some struggles in the first few months, which resulted in 2 missed weeks because I wasn't completely sure where I wanted to go with this. But now I get it. I'm much more relaxed with this project now. 

I originally started drawing from tutorial videos to try and learn new techniques, but I let that go. It wasn't working for me. For some reason I was looking up against doing the drawings every week, which resulted in a quick drawing on sunday night to at least have something. But that was not how I wanted jt to be. So I changed my own rules.

Now I just draw whatever I feel like. If I happen to feel like drawing a tutorial, I will. But of I feel like sitting in a park and drawing the gees I see in front of me, I will do that. I have even done some handlettering now. 

I'm really happy with where I am now with my project and like this I really don't mind to keep going for the rest of the year. 

Have a nice life,

Xoxo

Winnie.

Why I bought Knee Socks.

It's time for another music post.

So, a screenshot of my top-8 artists on Last.fm.
The exciting thing about this screenshot is one new band that joined not so long ago: Arctic Monkeys.

4 weeks I got back into them after I saw their performance at Pinkpop fest 2014. I already really liked their album AM, but never looked any further then that. Not until a month ago.
They were ~in my humble opinion~ so, so, so good at Pinkpop, that I had to hear more. So I went to Spotify and had a listen.

This innocent little listen resulted in ~at least~ a week of not listening to ANYTHING else but the Arctic Monkeys. (Ok, it was way more then a week. I would almost go as far as saying it were 2 weeks, but I'm not too sure about that. (Let's just say a pretty long time.))

Not very surprising, it didn't take very long until they were in my top-15. Then my top-10. And with so much joy, I watched them climb up in my top-8 up until the point they are at now. I don't see them moving up any time soon, so I'm happy they reached this point. (altough I wouldn't be surprised if they did climb up, seeing how much I'm STILL listening.)

Of course, with all this listening comes a 'most listened to song'. And not just a little bit. ~Don't get me wrong, I love So many of their songs and I would say "DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE FAVOURITES" but this is what the numbers say and I'm not complaining~ It even went as far as All-Time number 12 in one short month:

Crying Lightning. Welcome to your new family.

So, why díd you buy knee socks then, Winnie? you may be wondering.
Well, to any Arctic Monkeys listeners amongst you, this will probably be very obvious, but there is a song called Knee Socks and I happen to really really like it and when I saw knee socks hanging in H&M I couldn't contain myself. I'm not sorry.

Have a nice life,
Xoxo
Winnie.

Arctic Monkeys

Online portfolio.

I have been gone. For quite a while.
I have been gone for so long, I don't think I told you about my online portfolio.
Because, yes, it is finally up. It's on the interwebs for everyone to see.

I ended up making it with the website wix.com, which is  really nice and easy way to build a website of your own. The only thing not so cool is that it shows everywhere on your website. This is why I contemplated even putting it online, since it doesn't look very professional (for a graphic designer, that is). But when our internship periods changed and we had to go apply at companies right away, I decided to throw it on the internet anyway, as a temporary online portfolio, just to make it easier for them to see what I make.

In the meantime I want to make a more professional portfolio, which I designed and built myself. I put a goal for myself to have this done by the end of this year. Let's see if I'll make it.

So, in case you were wondering what my portfolio looks like and what became of the thing I've been writing about since februari, here it is:

My online portfolio.

Don't hesitate to take a look and tell me what you think and, if you have one, link me to your online portfolio. I would love to see what you make!

Have a nice life,
Xoxo
Winnie.

Dreams.

Traveling.

I think it's safe to say that's the thing my absently dreaming brain thinks about the most. Seeing the world, going on adventures, meeting people, photographing what I see along the way. Oh, if I could just leave right now, I wouldn't think again. I'd be gone.

Since this is something I think about a lot, I thought I'd just list what countries, cities, places I want to go to. So here you go: My list of travel dreams. (this could be a long one)

- London
- Manchester
- The English countryside
- Ireland
- Scotland
- Chicago
- New York
- Texas
- Los Angeles
- Alcatraz
- Vienna
- Berlin
- Scandinavia
- Venice
- Rome
- The Acropolis
- Australia
- New Zealand
- The White House
- Hawaï
- Rijksmuseum
- Argentina
- A full on road trip through America
- Canada
- Indonesia
- Antarctica
- Salt Lake City

I don't know what you are supposed to do with this information, but for me it is now nicely put down and kind of slightly out of my head.
I want to travel. A lot. That's what this comes down to.

Wauw, what a great blogpost this is. I'm sorry.

Have a nice life,
Xoxo
Winnie

Website struggles.

So well here I am again, in need to write.

I told you about the online portfolio I was working on ~and super excited about~. Well, I decided I wasn't going to use the website I made there because it constantly shows the 'free website made with Wix' pop up thing and that annoyed me. I don't want to be known as the designer who can't even put up a proper website (even though I literally can't). So I started looking around for other options.

But I quickly walked into the problem that it's pretty fucking hard to build a website.
I also quickly found out that I am not very good at learning myself or just figuring out how it works. I guess I just don't have the patience or something, i don't know. It just won't work and that annoys me. Apparently I'm not able to just make what I want. I just can't put it together and that makes me feel like I'm a total failure.

I'm trying. I really am. But I just can't make it my own and make it pretty. Damnit.

So, I asked a friend (who has some experience with building websites) if she maybe wants to help me and she does. So I now put myself the goal of having an online portfolio up and running before 2015 starts. I would say that should be manageable, right?

Do you have any tips and tricks that could help me? Don't hesitate to let me know. I need them.

Have a nice life,
Xoxo
Winnie.

Confusion.

So, like. Hey, I'm back.
I guess.

I'm sorry. I'm just in the middle of a really weird and confusing time. My internship is almost over and I'm (thank god) almost going back to school. I can't wait. I'm so looking forward to going back to my normal life and not be afraid to give a bad impression to the people at the company thing I work at. Just go back to my usual environment, with the people I know, and the people who know me. Where I can just wear whatever I want and not have to worry weather it's appropriate for the job. Oooooh what a bliss it will be.

Bliss. That's a good song. Let's listen to Origin of Symmetry again. Oh, hear the sound of the piano intro of New Born. What an amazing peace of music this is. Yes. 

Getting back to what I was talking about.
You can maybe understand why my head is in all sorts of places. Or maybe you can't I don't know if it's understandable, really. All I know is that I don't really know what the actual fuck is going on anymore at the moment.
My biggest problem at the moment is my constant doubt about me as a human being. Everything is feeling wrong. I feel like I'm a pretty annoying person. I don't know how my friends keep up with me. I feel bad for my colleges, who are forced to work with me. I feel like I don't do them justice or something. Does that make sense? Like I'm a really bad friend. I just don't know what to say most of the time. Not when they are happy about something, not when they feel bad about something. I try to say things to maybe make them feel a bit better but afterwords regretting that and feeling like I said the complete wrong thing and that now they will hate me. Like I feel they originally do. Like, why would you even like me? I'm not a fun person to hang out with. I will just stop all the conversation on you. It happens way too many times that I feel like I'm too tired to even talk or be nice to someone. Wow that's not very good. Can't say it's one of my favorite things about myself.
The problem is, I don't know how to change it. At least now I don't. I'm hoping that once I get back to school, once I'm around my friends every day of the week again, I will figure something out. Because I don't really want my friends to have to be dealing with someone like me.

There were good things that happened lately as well, though. It was my 18th birthday, at which I had an amazing time out for dinner and afterwards for drinks with my friends. I had a blast. Never want to forget that day.
I went to the Tefaf with my mum. This is a big art exhibition, originally meant for selling art but very very interesting for an Art&Design student. They had Damien Hirst. I saw my first Damien Hirst artworks. I was so happy. I had (as my mum likes to call it) 'a Jonas Brothers moment'. I was SO extremely excited to be there. I was shaking. I would almost say butterflies in my stomach. As you can imagine, taking good pictures was kind of hard with shaking hands, but at least I saw it. And it was amazing. And I only want to see more. Damien Hirst exhibition, where you at?! (If you happen to be reading this, I very wouldn't minde Relics to come to somewhere near the Netherlands. Thank you in advance.)
Lastly I went to a little exhibiotion of a dutch Graphic designer, Boy Bastiaens. It was very interesting. I really liked his designs. I was in LOVE with the designs he made for the K. Karl Lagerfeld collection. Really amazing.

I just kind of moaned when I heard the first notes of Bliss. Fun fact for you there. Music gets to me way too much. Oops.

My DBTC has been going, well, in a way, good. Yes, in a way. I did miss one week (sorry don't hurt me I hate it so much) but now I'm back on track and I know what I'm doing. When I went to the Tefaf, I saw some pretty interesting things that showed me how I should áctually doing this, so I've taken that to heart and went on a completely different road. Maybe I'll show you some when I feel like it.

Ok. I'm very sorry about this. I will stop now, since this has become way too long.
I'm also very sorry if none of this makes any sense. I just needed to get this off off my chest. Just needed to write. So here we go. Thanks for reading, if you got this far.
If you did, I love you.

Have a nice life,
Xoxo
Winnie.