My Tunes -- October 2015

     Wow... It has been so long since I last blogged! I guess I've just really been busy with school, but I do want to try making blogging a regular thing again. Let's see if I can actually do that :)
      Anyways,  today I wanted to talk about some of my favorite songs of the moment. I really love music, and it is pretty much always on in my room. Whether I'm doing my homework or running... I'm always listening to something. Here are my favorites for October 2015:

1.      Camouflage - Selena Gomez (Revival)

To be honest, I wasn't really impressed with Selena's new album, but I really liked this song. Out of the 11 tracks, this is probably my favorite and the only one I actually listen to.








     2.  Coming Down - Halsey (Badlands)

I honestly love this whole album. Almost every song from this album is in my playlist, which is saying something, because rarely will you see this many songs from the same album in one of my playlists. But this whole album is great... and Coming Down is one of my favorite tracks from it right now.

     3. Mustang Kids - Zella Day (Kicker)

This is another one of those albums that has pretty much every track from onto my playlist. And Mustang Kids certainly isn't the only song from this album that I love. Zella Day's voice is just so pretty and I love her music. This is definitely another one of my favorite albums, and I just love Zella's music! 

     4.  Jet Black Heart - 5 Seconds of Summer (Sounds Good Feels Good)

I have no words. I love this song :)

     5.  EASE - Troye Sivan (WILD)

Troye Sivan has always been one of my favorite singers... ever since TRXYE came out last year. His collaboration on this song with Broods is amazing. The entire EP is awesome, as always. I have always loved Troye, and WILD is a great EP that he released. 

     6.  Hotline Bling - Drake 

Drake's at it again with a great new single :) I heard the version of this song with Charlie Puth and Kehlani on the radio, but it's not on Spotify... I honestly loved that version much more. Does anyone know where I can find that?

    7.  The Hills - The Weeknd (Beauty Behind the Madness)

Again, no words. The Weeknd is just amazing right now. 

     8. The End of all Things - Panic! At the Disco (Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die) 

I know this song is really old, but Panic! has become of my favorite bands right now. And this song is really different from everything else on this list. I have a lot of other random favorite songs from them, but this one is probably THE favorite (if that makes any sense) 

    Of course, these aren't the only favorite songs of mine. If you would like a complete list of my playlist which features all these tracks, click here. 

    

     P.S. Halloween is coming up! Do you have your costume ready? I don't know what I'm going to be yet but I'm so excited for that last day of October. Hope everyone is enjoying fall... although where I live you wouldn't be able to tell that summer is over :) 

Oahu

     Me and one of my best friends/sisters (and families of course) just visited the island of Oahu in Hawaii. It was such a marvelous trip and I just got back from the airport earlier this morning. I got zero sleep of course, courtesy of the red eye flight. I just can't sleep in a plane...
    Anyways, I had such an amazing time while on vacation, and I tried to take some good quality photos (still working on my photography skills at the moment...don't expect too much!) And I did some vlogging along the way, which you can watch right here:

    My vacation was filled with excitement ranging from daily beach trips and learning how to surf to hiking through the muddiest trail in the world to see a spectacular waterfall (with the company of mosquitoes of course). Our hotel was located right on Waikiki Beach Walk, which if you don't know is basically a huge street filled with high-end shops: Louis Vuitton, Chanel, etc. Of course, I didn't go shopping there, but I had a great time browsing around and adding items to my "want list" :)
 

     Day 1: Arrival
Our flight landed at the Honolulu airport at around 11:00 am, so we had plenty of time to spend. Unfortunately, an hour or two of our time was crunched waiting for the "Speedi Shuttle" to drop us off at the hotel. All I'm going to say about it is that we didn't really have a pleasant experience with that shuttle company. Our hotel was absolutely amazing...right in the middle of all the shops and liveliness of the city...just how I like it :) After getting settled into the hotel room, we set out for the beach at around 5:00pm for the first time on this trip. The water was amazing, and we had a blast taking pictures with our waterproof camera.

    Day 2: Relaxing
Since Hawaii is 3 hours behind Californian time, we were able to wake up bright and early and head to the beach at around 9:00am. We were trying to avoid the sun... After coming back at around 11:00-12:00, we explored the malls a little bit. Then, we just relaxed in the hotel room for an hour or two.  By then, our other friends had arrived on the island as well. We went down to meet them, and made beach trip #2 for one day.

    Day 3: Boogie Boards
Me and my friend, Kita, and all the fam of course rented boogie boards the next day, and we had so much fun cruising the waves. We just hung out for the rest of the day, and did some crazy things like swinging from Banyan trees :) For dinner, we went to a place called  "Cheeseburger". The burgers were simply amazing. Loved them.

    Day 4:  Trolley Tour 
Morning protocol: beach trip. The afternoon was well spent on two trolley tours, in which we saw most of the island that we hadn't before. We visited places such as Diamond Head Crater, and other historic sites. I spent the evening watching the Pretty Little Liars finale, and to be honest I was very upset by the reveal. What were your theories? I'd love for you to tell me in the comments :)

    Day 5: Hiking 
I think this was the most exciting day...me, Kita, and her parents went hiking to a huge waterfall. Although the path was muddy and we were totally unprepared outfit and shoes wise, it was well worth the hike. If you watched the vlog, you would see how much fun we had and how silly we were being along the trip :) The evening, yet again, was spent at the beach. Although this time we stayed a little later past the sunset, which could have been potentially dangerous. But hey, I'm alive (and Kita is too) to tell the story so...all was well :)

    Day 6: Explore
This was our last day on the island. After checking out of the hotel in the morning, we rented a car and explored the northern part of Oahu. Our first stop was Dole Pinapple Plantation, and we had Dole Whip there! That part just made my day. After spending an hour or two there, we drove up to the north shore beach. It wasn't half as nice as Waikiki beach...and I wouldn't recommend swimming there because you can't go out too far. Regardless, we continued on throughout the north side of the island, which is much more green compared to the concrete jungle that is Waikiki. It did rain a bit and the humidity was pretty high, but it just added to the scenic views. Our flight was at 9:30 that night, so we said our goodbyes and left the island.

Back to School Chatting & DIY Notebooks

     I'm pretty sure most of you (if you're in school) are already back to school or are going back to school fairly soon. I go back next week, and I'm not exactly thrilled about it. Sure, I'm dying to see my friends again and all that, but I don't want summer to end :( I guess I can speak for most people when I say that,  haha.
     I've also heard from some of my friends who are a year or two older than me that the teachers I got assign loads of homework, and that is definitely something I'm not looking forward to. On top of all those honors classes, I'm going to be juggling weekly piano and guitar lessons, two hour tennis classes twice a week, and being a human and writing on this blog and posting Youtube videos. I guess you can see that I'm going to be crazy busy this school year, and I just wanted to give a quick heads up as to why I might be seeming MIA from my blog and Youtube channel.
     Saying this, I do realize that I haven't posted much on my blog or Youtube channel very much this summer, and I honestly have no excuse for that. I was really looking forward to having consistent uploads this summer, and I guess I just got kind of lazy. With school starting up again, I really wish I had uploaded a lot more during these past couple of months, but it is what it is. I will try my hardest to upload at least once every week or two weeks, but just bear in mind that I have a huge amount of work to accomplish this school year, so I might have to be out of schedule for a while. That being said...let's try to get a bit excited about school starting up again!

 I uploaded a video a couple weeks ago called "What's In my Backpack", and you can watch it here:

 
     One thing I quickly wanted to mention is that in the above video, I showed two blank composition books that I said I would DIY to make them look better. I did do this with one of my friends, and I wanted to show them to you. This is what they turned out like, and I'm so excited with the final result.

Left Notebook: Full Page Image + Text
Right Notebook: Collage Notebook
All Images Taken from National Geographic Travel Magazines 

   I also quickly wanted to share how I made these:

1. Find any magazine clippings that you like. (it could be a full page or you could make a collage) you could also cut out some text, or just anything that you find that you would like to be on your notebook cover. 
2. Arrange everything on the cover of the notebook so that you can see what it will look like once you glue it down. Make sure to trim everything to size so that your design completely covers the notebook cover and it fits perfectly. 
3. Glue on all your magazine clippings. I used Mod Podge, but any strong holding glue will work. 
4. This step is optional, but if you would like to make your book look a little more professional and make the cover less flimsy, you could put clear tape over the top of your design so that it looks laminated, and your clippings are less likely to peel off. 

     These are so customizable and I love how it turned out. They could easily look like notebooks that you'd find on Tumblr and have to buy at Urban Outfitters or someplace expensive, but in reality they cost less than $5 to make! 

     I think that having school supplies that you actually like are so important because you'll be encouraged to use them more. For example, with these customized notebooks, you might be more encouraged to actually take notes, which can greatly affect your study skills and test grades. Also, who doesn't like customized and cute supplies?