Much Ado About Ariana Grande (Also Featuring Wale, Ciara and Cece Winans)

Wow, I can't believe it's creeping up to three weeks since I was last on here! So so strange, but I trust that you, my lovelies, understand about the current exam season! It's funny because I've started and stopped writing so many posts to update you guys on anything going on but the posts always felt kind of weird... I guess I just haven't been feeling as talkative lately. Anyways, now that it's exactly 7 days till I see the end of this current exam season and the last 'exam season' of my whole life (See that daddy? No more school fees, ever!), I must say that I'm more than a little excited! Forget the fact that my next exam is sooner than I care to admit, I can practically taste the freedom!

This is going to be a relatively short post on what has gotten me through these particular strenuous times, music! In particular Ariana Grande! How on earth am I only just discovering her? Oh you don't know who she is? Allow me the pleasure of educating you! (can you tell how excited I am? I'm not sure this is normal) Ariana Grande is a singer/actress most famously known for her role on the Disney show Victorious amongst other things but let's skip the history lesson, you can go to her Wiki page for that. This girls voice is di-vine! I don't know how else to describe it really.. I've always been a sucker for the cheesy R&B/Pop songs think Mariah Carey, Britney Spears etc but then those two have long since stopped making truly awesome music so I've had to find compensation in all sorts of other genres, until I found Ariana. Her voice is phenomenal, plus she can hit the "Mariah" note! *sigh* awesomeness.. Actually, I'm just going to stop going on about her and post a couple of videos for you to enjoy!

The first one is my current fave! A cover she did to Justin Bieber's "Die in Your Arms", sadly I've never even heard Bieber's version, I just thought it was her song tbh.

And this one is her first single off her upcoming album Daydreamin' called "The Way"

These two songs have been on repeat since I discovered her over the weekend. What do you guys think? Did you catch the bug too or am i just a weirdo? Let me know, let me know!

Seeing as I couldn't make a whole post about just Ariana Grande I decided to give out honorable mentions to a few other people!

Wale for Love Hate Thing

Ciara for Body Party (Her and Future are SO cute in this video!)

CeCe Winans for No One

and my entire Afrobeats playlist of course! Nothing gets me out of a boredom funk faster than some Wizkid or DRB!

There's so much more to say but I will save it for now, the blog will be back to running full schedule soon whatever that was!, bear with me as I attempt to slay these final exams and to everyone that still in the same boat as me or having to meet some deadline or the other, good luck! God's got us!

Reni x

Exam Season: Procrastination and Distraction!

So I put this post up on my old blog ages ago, well at the last exam season really and unfortunately it's that time of the year again... 

I've been trying to go hard at the books because my goal is still to finish this masters degree with a distinction! (70% average) but today and yesterday haven't been the best days! I mean I hate exam season. I know we all do, but I really really hate it! Hours and hours spent reading material and learning things only for them to not come up in the exam! I know people say “No knowledge lost” but what about the time spent?  O ti so nu ni now! (It’s lost now!) It’s so unfortunate that I actually want to be an engineer, I would have dropped out of school and become a stripper, sadly I don’t have the upper body strength for their profession. So here I am, typing away while I really should be studying, who does that? Oh all of you you say? LIARS! You guys are busy hitting the books hard and I’m here, allowing the spirit of procrastination to take over my life, Lord be with me! I need to become more serious about my schoolwork, how else am I meant to get that distinction? **sigh** but seriously though, can school somehow be made more interesting? I mean there are so many other things I’d rather be doing, e.g. reading blogs, updating my blog, listening to gossip, Facebook stalking people, Instagram stalking people, twitter stalking even more people (yes, I know a lot of stalkable people), sleep, stare. I don’t know, anything but studying! Luckily for me after an average of 5-7 hours all these things lose their charm and I think, heck, might as well study… After I have dinner.

When I eventually get down to studying after eliminating the demon of procrastination, a second gargoyle rears it ugly head; distraction! I’ve finally opened up the books, I’ve even read the first few pages then all of a sudden, I read something and my mind wonders down a completely different train of thought, so I pick up the phone and text my best friend the funny thing that just popped into my mind, this leads to an hour long conversation about nothing in particular with me saying “I really should be working” every 10 minutes or so. Ha! It’s ridiculous really! But I feel better because the books are at least open, that’s step one complete. After chatting to my friend and updating her on everything she’s missed over the last hour I finally resume studying. Just that I’ve forgotten what I just read, so back to the beginning I go. Surely you guys can see how this is a vicious cycle? I mean, I get to the line that made my mind wonder the first time and my mind wonders again! Sometimes even down a completely different path, which means I have to relate this NEW information to the bestie! **sigh**

Luckily I’ve found a means of combating this cycle, I have to say it actually works! Well except today where I’m just really allowing the laziness to take over! But it works on a regular day :) Here’s what I try to do:

Eat

The number of times I get up to “find a snack” while I’m trying to study is insane! So I just cut the crap and eat something! Hey! Listen! This is not the time to chow down some pounded yam or other carb heavy food that just makes you sleepy oh! Something small and relatively filling should do the trick. It also helps if you plan your snacks and put them on the table so you don’t have to get up eventually, as long as you don’t gobble them all at once like I would, hehe.

Plan your study time

I recently started this thing after a suggestion from a friend and I’ve found that it really combats the distraction. I get my watch out and place it somewhere visible, then I study in on-off fashion. So basically, I study for 60 minutes straight, then take a break for 15-20 minutes. Study again for another hour, break for another 15 minutes. Obviously this method needs some tweaking depending on what you’re studying, sometimes it’s possible to do 90 minutes straight then 15 minute break, the key for me is to not take too long a break, the whole distraction thing just comes back if I decide to spend 30 minutes on Facebook/Instagram and I lose the flow! 15 minutes is just enough time to pee, reply messages, quickly check Facebook and breathe. Sometimes in the break if the flow is going to good to be broken, I review the work I’ve just done to actually help me remember stuff. I’m working on maybe taking shorter breaks? Maybe.

Don’t Get Overwhelmed

Staring at the mountain of books waiting to be read is not helpful, if you’re anything like me all that does is put you in panic mode and then that makes you unproductive, then you get depressed about how unproductive you’re being and then depression sinks in and you feel like doing no work. If you’re lucky this only lasts hours but sometimes it can last days! I’ve found that making a timetable is really helpful but if I don’t meet the goals I’ve set for myself then I start panicking about falling behind and we all know what panic does… What I’ve been trying to do instead is set mini goals for myself from when I wake up or possibly the night before. This helps me break the work up into bite size pieces and the mini goals for the day are usually more realistic and achievable than the timetable I made two weeks ago! Being overwhelmed causes you to lose focus. Just think baby steps, little drops of water make the mighty sea.

My current to-do list for today and tomorrow. Sincerely hope I finish all those mini-tasks!

Well, after churning out all this advice I believe it’s now time for me to take some of my own advice and get a moving! It’s time to resume studying and stop faffing. Right after dinner. **wink**

Good Luck Everybody!

Reni x

As a Real Yoruba Girl: Aso-Oke Love

Okay I know what this looks like, you think I have once again desserted you and neglected my baby but I promise I haven't! This time I have a legit excuse, I've been out of the country and without wifi for about a week or so; I went to the heart of Ondo Kingdom, Nigeria for my granddads' funeral and though it was generally  time of extremely mixed emotions let's focus on the not so sad shall we? My Warrior Angel would have wanted it no other way!

It's been more than a while since I last dressed up in the full Yoruba attire but this past week I must have worn all the different types of aso-oke (top cloth) in Ondo! from the lovely purple and pink in alari, to the subtle gold in sanyan and the deep blue of etu!

Pink, pearls and alari, excuse the messy room in the background, that is what happens when you put six females together AND make them rush to get dressed quickly everyday! This is a typical yoruba traditional outfit, the head piece is called a gele, the top is a buba and the wrap around skirt is called an iro. I'm missing my iborun in this picture which is another piece of cloth, the same as the gele that is wrapped around your waist but you can kind of see it on my Aunt in the background. Trust me when I say there is no rushing this outfit! The gele (head piece) will be tied to perfection!

Gold, corals and sanyan and the massive necklace around my neck is called an 'igbaku'. I think it's only used at funerals if I remember rightly.

My brothers and cousin in sanyan agabadas (the long gown over the trousers), filas (men's hats) and igbakus. Those agbadas are heavy! I never realised how much so until I tried using one as a duvet!

Cute lil cuz in his own mini agbada

The girls in lilac and purple, honeslty I don't even remember what this outfit was for!

Sleeping in church. tut-tut!

After this trip I have a really deep love for aso-oke now! I always hated wearing it before but I think I have been well conditioned to it, I've even gone as far as daydreaming on what my aso-ebi (family cloth) for my wedding will be made out of and what colour it will be! just have to learn to tie my own gele so that poor Aunty Toju doesn't have to tie about 20 every morning the next time the whole family gathers God bless her soul! Once again I'm sorry I left you for so long! Hopefully you see that I haven't just ditched, thanks to all my readers for always coming back and to my favourite anonymous commenter and all the readers in Russia, thank you especially!

P.S: Posting this month might continue to be sparse as I prepare for summer exams but I will try very hard to not leave for too long again! Blogging is a nice study break. :)

Reni x

A Little Sunshine on A Rainy Day

So this post initialy started on an ever so jovial note on the day it was originally meant to be pubnlished but now.... now I just don't know. My lecturers are certainly trying to drive me to insanity! Why on earth will you increase the weighting of coursework from 10-20% less than 48 hours till the deadline, 20% coursework requires significantly more effort to do than 10% coursework! And to think I had toyed with the idea of just not doing it at all so I could focus on a bigger project whose deadline is also imminent! HA! Well that plan's out the window! Anyways I'm on a  little break from number crunching and hair tearing and remembered that I hadn't put this post out yet so what better way to rest my brain than remember all the positive things happening around me. Like the fact that Spring is finally here! I was skeptical about posting this last week or before that because I was certain the warmer weather and sunny-ish ouside was just a phase but it's been a little while now and the sun still comes out to play almost everyday! There's something about good weather that just puts me in an instantly good mood, I'm so happy I can finally ditch the boots and scarf and turn the heating in my apartment down (bye bye nasty electricity bills!).

 

Sometime in my last MIA periods it was one of my besties birthday and she had a surprise party at Navajo Joe's in Covent Garden, London.It was a really great day and I think she was actually surprised (or maybe just afraid?) when we all jumped at her! It was a really fun day and even though the food wasn't fantastic there's nothing better than being around good company for a few hours on a lovely day! Here's a couple of pictures from the day. We took a couple of random bits and bobs inside the restaurant

 

Birthday Girl in her white dress looking gorge!

 

 

But decided the weather was too awesome not to have a couple of snaps outside!

 

Ayo loving the effect of the wind on her 'cape' !

 

We  even found a lovely porch to play about on even though the boys were getting a bit tired of us by now! Jacqui (in orange) couldn't stop posing even if her life depended on it! Don't you love her bangs though??

 

 

We eventually stopped taking pictures, kind of, amd made it to My Old Dutch for some dessert and some more chit chat!

I had a hankering for a cup of tea which is really weird because I never drink tea! And waffles always go down well with me! I even forgot to take a picture until after my first couple of bites! My favourite part about this post and Spring in general is all the pretty colours floating around, and the trees are finally not going to be naked anymore! Whoop whoop! Writing this has significantly cheered me up, I think I can go back to the number crunching and other boring stuff again. Here's looking forward to the weekend!

 

NL to BSL in 12 hours or Less!

Hey hey,

I know, I know.. I did one of my famous disappearing acts again and didn't post for over 2 weeks but life has been a little less fun these days! I had a massive deadline on Tuesday and tons and tons of work to do before I go for my Grandad's funeral so I've been a busy little bunny. But I like to think that some people miss me at least a little bit! So I'm back to give a quick little update about how I went from neck length hair to bra strap length in 12 hours! Haha, here's what happened, I started my wash process at about 10.30 pm

I pre-pooed my hair with Jamaican Black Castor Oil (JBCO) on my scalp for 30 minutes.

Shampooed with Elasta QP's Creme Conditioning Shampoo and rinsed. (I ran out of this and had to get a new one and they seem to have a "new and improved" version, I'm so skeptical about trying "new and improved" things. I hope they haven't changed too much)

Did a green tea rinse!! I was so excited for this part, couldn't wait to see the benefits the tea rinse would have on my hair. It made it kind of hard like most people say it does but I opted to not rinse it out and put my deep conditioner on over it.

So I deep conditioned with ORS Replenishing Conditioner while doing an Insanity workout video so like an hour. I figured since I don't have a steamer I might as well use some body heat to 'steam' my hair! Then when I'm done I wash my hair and shower at the same time! Although I'll have to admit, it does feel quite silly sometimes jumping around with a shower cap on your head!

My hair felt really nice and soft but strong after the deep condition so my thinking is that the tea rinse worked some magic! I was then convinced by my aunt to go with her to the salon the next day, you see she sells weave and was trying out a new seller and needed a guinea pig ( a willing me!) for quality control but seeing as I really really wanted to do a length check on my next wash day I had to speed up the process and do it then instead! Side note: someone really needs to tell me what order moisturiser and heat protectant need to go on your head! It makes sense with blow drying because you just moisturise after! But with the flat iron do you moisturise, then seal, then heat protect?? Anyways that's what I did but my hair felt pretty weighed down even though I tried to be light handed... it was weird! Tips appreciated! So anyway after painstakingly flat ironing my hair, I did a length check! It's grown! I think I'm slowly graduating from neck to shoulder length! Do you think I can get a length check t-shirt now?? The bf always teases me that I'd need a special turtle neck edition :( but now I might be upgrading! Whoop whoop!

Top left: Before my hair cut in Jan '13. Bottom left: After Jan '13 hair cut. Right: March '13. 

Up close: I guess wearing a black t-shirt wasn't the smartest thing but I was just tryna rep DRB!

Now here's where the real magic happened! After waking up the next morning at the crack of dawn so we could get to the salon first, my aunt, cousin and I had a nice little stake out of the salon to make sure no-one could claim to have gotten there before us. Being first to an african salon is very important! There are no appointments, it's a girl eat girl world out there, especially at the weekend! We waited, bored and kind of hungry for over an hour before the hairdresser finally arrived at 10.30 when the shop was meant to open at 9! Bloody Africans.

Her shop is the blue one in the middle. Real professionals we were, sitting in the car and staring at every girl that passed by!

But we forgave her when she was done installing our sew-ins! I'm now full BSL *yipeeee* and my cousin got some really cute bangs! No pictures of my Aunty who was transformed into a modern day Goldilocks! (literally, her hair was blonde) but all in all it was a successful trip to the salon!

I have NO idea what I'm doing with my face. It felt natural at the time! Haha, I love the side swept bangs.

Crazy cousin! I'm not sure she likes this picture but I love it! Really shows off her personality! Hehe.

So that's it! How I went from NL to BSL! And a random little update on one of the things I've been up to these past two weeks.

Love, Reni x

Slightly Burger Crazy? Maybe.

So after I put up the picture of one of my cheat meals some time back in Insanity Month 2, I really started craving burgers but I wasn't allowed to eat any fast food as part of a week long exercise and clean eating challenge my friends and I put together, I shouldn't be eating fast food anyways but all those additives in the McDonalds are giving me severe withdrawal symptoms! So I decided to do something a little cheeky and make a burger, I tried as hard as possible to make it healthy without removing all the fun-ness (clearly not a word) from it! So here's how I did it, it's such a simple straight forward recipe! It looks a little long but really doesn't take that much effort! You will need:

• Lean beef mince meat (600 g makes about 6-8 burgers)
• 1 medium brown onion (chopped finely)
• Seasoning to taste(salt, ground black pepper, maggi etc.)
• 1 egg
• Burger buns (I got Kingsmill 50-50, healthy you see!)
• Veggies for the burger (I had lettuce and cucumbers, even more healthy!!)

And if you're feeling not-so-healthy add some bacon and cheese to that shopping list!

So what you do is, you put the mince, onion, egg and seasoning in a bowl and mix it all together with your hands, mashing it all up like you're playing with play-do (but you're not so be a little careful!) when it's all combined, divide them up into 6-8 patties and make them round and a little flat with your hands

Put them on a tray lined with foil (you can also use greaseproof paper), cover with cling film and put in the fridge for 20-30 minutes. This step allows the beef to 'rest' and avoids crumbly patties too making an overall more tender beef.

'Resting' Patties

Pre-heat the oven to about 200-225 degrees C and then pop your patties in. Leave them in there till the juices run clear and the meat is thoroughly cooked.

In the last 10 minutes of cooking the patties, put some bacon in the oven and allow it to grill till it's nice and a little crunchy.

Cut your burger bun open and pop in the oven for a  minute to heat it up, if you're being a bit cheeky layer the patties with cheese while they are in the oven and allow the cheese to melt all over the patty.

Bring out the buns and the cheesy patties. Lay your veggies on the bottom bun, followed by the patty and then the bacon and lastly the top half of the bun. Don't forget the ketchup!

Serve with a side of fries/salad, on it's own or even deconstructed (no buns) and enjoy!

Yummy!

Definitely went in on the food! Plate is very nearly licked clean!

And if you feel bad when you're done be like me and have some fruit! LOL.

Hope you enjoyed the recipe, let me know if you try it or have any other ideas on how to make the burger even more delicious by dropping a comment in the box below.

See ya!

Reni x

April Goals and Bloglovin Love

Hello everybody and Happy Easter to you all!

I finally got my act together and created a brand new "About Me" page on the blog so you can see a little overview of my life also Google Reader is closing down for good soon and even though not that many of you follow me on there I thought this might be a good time to introduce you to Bloglovin. Do you hate the feeling of visiting a blog you love only to find that the writer hasn't posted anything new up? And then you keep checking back frequently till you eventually lose interest and stop? Then finally one day you go back to check and see that he/she has three new posts you have to catch up on? Annoying right? Well this is where Bloglovin comes in, it's basically ONE website where you can follow all the blogs you want at once and it's automatically updated each time one of your bloggers posts something new, I just started using it and it's the best thing to happen to my blogging experience, no more crushed dreams and false hope as I hold my breath waiting for the page to load, all my favourite blogs are just one click away! I keep adding new blogs everyday it's my one stop shop for blogs. So yeah, follow me on Bloglovin to keep up to date with LTV! Link is to the right of this page, the same picture as below

Okay now that that's over, in an effort to take my own advice in this whole healthy lifestyle thing, I've made up a "goals list" for April to start tomorrow and I'm excited to see what happens if I keep it up properly!

Hair:

• Apply Jamaican Black Castor Oil (JBCO) to edges nightly and scalp every other day to increase thickness.
• Do two protein treatments to try and combat shedding/breakage
• Try a tea rinse/ Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) rinse one wash day for fun!

Fitness:

• Finish Insanity on time (7th of April)
• Drink at least 1 litre of water a day
• Try and have a side of vegetables with lunch every day
• Start new workout regime including Hip Hop Abs and maybe swimming (?)

What's on your list for April? Drop a comment in the box to let me know. Hope you all have a lovely long weekend!

Reni x