Please Help?!?

Hello everyone!

Just when I started again and you'd might expect a happy/ funny post (although if you've read anything on my page, I just can't be funny really...), I'm actually writing this to ask you for your help and to help some of you (maybe?). 
This is going to be really weird to type, because I don't know any of you and I don't even know you care about this at all, but I don't really know who I can go to in real life. 
This is pretty personal and I don't even know if I'll put this on public to be honest, but let's just see how it goes. 

Lately I've been feeling a change in myself. Well I say lately but it really has been the last 3/4 years, so much for the word lately haha... But it really feels not that long, because I can remember my 'old' self so well. 

Let's just start at the beginning, because I always start writing randomly and you, as a reader, probably won't really know what's going on. 
It all started where so many of my things started. In the third grade of high school when I was bullied. (I won't go into detail about that, because I already wrote a whole post on that a while ago, so if you want to know what that was about, click here)
I started to lie, a lot. First only little white lies, but after I got 'the hang of it', I found out that it was so easy. And then it pretty much all went wrong. I began to lie to my classmates (not that they meant anything to me, but it still was/ is wrong), to my friends, best friends and in the end to my family. That was the moment I began to feel bad, really bad, because you should never lie to you family since they are probably (not always, but in most cases) the people who will love you the longest and who will always be there for you. 
This went on for about 3 years. At this time I had a few solid friendships that I did not want to risk ending, because of some stupid lie. I began feeling that I didn't have to pretend to be someone else and lie about things, since I was accepted for who I was by them and it felt great!
After that I began to really acknowledge just how many times I lied per week. So I decided to stop it for once and for all, but that was easier said than done. But slowly I made good progress and surprisingly gained even more friends, just by being myself. 

One of the things that kept me going the most was the good feeling I got when people commented positively on me being, well, me.

But most of all the feeling I got when I was being honest and that I didn’t have to think each time when I met someone, what did I tell them about this and that, because finally everybody got the same story, the true story. It was so relaxing and it made me feel so good.

I guess the thing I want to say with this post is: You don’t have to lie or pretend to be someone else, because (queue the cheesiness) you are good the way you are and people will eventually love you for being you. I know that this is something everybody says to these kinds of problems, but it is true! It’ll give you relaxation and rest, because you don’t have to put on a mask every time you speak to someone and trust me on this one, once you get through the tough beginning, it’ll feel flipping great!

Just try it out, it won’t hurt to just try!

Please let me know if you see a bit of yourself in my story and let me know in the comments (or privately, you can find my links in the about me section on my blog) if it helped you to hear a similar story, so you are not alone in this phase.

And if you're comfortable with it, share your story in the comments below, so I know I'm not alone in this :)

See you next time with hopefully a happy blogpost!!

X

Surprise....

I'm Back! Or at least I'm going to be back. 
Let's give you a little life-update. 
Since my last post I've finished High School, got a job, earned money and went to follow my dream. Which is what I am doing right now, living in La Paz, Bolivia. In short, a lot happened and I now find myself in the city that's called La Paz.
But let's start at the beginning. 
It all started 6 years ago when my cousin went to La Paz as a part of her course at University. I was pretty close with her, because she had been living in my town for 2 years and came to ours a lot. So when she was suddenly away I missed her a lot. She came back, but only to finish her course and left again because she met her future husband there. With her leaving I made a promise to myself: If I would be able to finish high school in 6 years, I would go and visit her for a whole year. Of course this wasn't anything serious, just a jokey promise I made with my 12 year old self. 
But then 3 years later is was pretty obvious that I had to double my year because my grades were too bad and I made a list of pros and cons of doubling my class. Obviously I won't get in too much detail about it but it also said that if I'd double my year I couldn't go to Bolivia, so I did everything I could (studying wise!!! don't you dare think something else haha) and passed my year. 
From then on it was kind of a goal to achieve and now I achieved it by being in La Paz...
However it isn't completely like the first plan anymore, because I needed to make some changes. So now it is for 5 months (4 months left) and instead of traveling a lot, I chose to make some friends and go out with them to explore that culture more than traveling all over Bolivia. Partly because I'm having the best time this way and partly because it is pretty expensive... 

All in all, I just wanted to say that I'm back from a long break and I'm here to stay (I'll really try this time!!) and that I will be writing about general topics again. So if you want me to write about something let me know in the comments below!

I'll now stop ranting about my life and let you get on with yours, so have a good day/afternoon/evening and I hope to see you soon!

X


P.s. Ironically I began to write this a few days ago and stopped as per usual, so we'll see how this goes...

Who Am I? Pt. 2

Hello everyone!

I wrote a post with the same title a while ago and I talked about a few facts about me. Today I want to go a bit deeper (so if you are here for a funny/light post, you might want to leave now, or stay of course, but you have been warned haha). I want to talk about who we are as a person and what we can do in order to be a good person. 
I am aware of the fact that the word 'good' has many different explanations and everyone fills it in their own way, so that's what I am going to do. I am going to fill the word in with my own description. 

For me 'being a good person' means that you are willing to help people when they need help, whether they ask you or not. The last part is obviously a hard thing and needs 'practice'. I'll come back to this later on.

In my opinion you can never be a completely good person, because making mistakes is human. However I do think that you should learn from your mistakes, so you don't make them again. This takes time and effort, but I believe that anybody can put themselves to it if they want to. 
That's the other thing. You need to want to change (if necessary obviously, but I can't think of anyone who is already perfect and needs no change) otherwise there is no point to doing anything. If you don't want to learn or improve, I don't see the point of it.

I want to take myself as an example (because that's why I named this post Who Am I). I am 17 years old, just finished high school and going to go to Bolivia in a few weeks. 
In the last few years I've learned a lot about myself. I learned that I am not really myself with everyone and that is starting to bother me, because why not? Why wouldn't I want to be myself around my best friends? The answer is just one word, rejection. A word many people will know how it feels. 
The fear of rejection didn't come for nowhere. It started around the time I got bullied (read the whole story of that here, because it is way to long to write again). If you can't be bothered to read it, it roughly comes down to this: I wasn't accepted the way I was and that made me very shy, which led to more teasing and other stuff. 

It started going down hill from thereon. I made up things to be part of the group, to no longer be different and weird (which are now in my opinion two great things). I said I had a relationship and kissed someone when in fact, I only dreamed about that. I only imagined myself with someone who wouldn't judge me for who I was. 
But the little white lies became bigger and more often than not I wasn't speaking the actual truth anymore. 
Eventually I met new people who did like me for me, although I couldn't and still can't get off the feeling that something is not going completely right and that I do not deserve these friendships. When in actual fact, everyone deserves true friendships.  
This also made me realize that I didn't have to pretend to be someone else for them to like me and I started cutting down the lies (which was very hard for me). It's already going much better and I hope I continue to do so, because living my own true life is much easier than living someone else's. 

I said that being a good person needs practice and that's true. You can't be a good person all your life and you aren't born 'good'. It takes time to know how to behave and for some people it is easier than for others (and that's okay!). 
I think I'm slowly starting to become that better person and I'm aiming for being a good person one day, but for now I'll take the way up to it.

Please share your opinions in the comments below. Do you think you are a good person or do you know things you need to change or don't need to change about yourself? Please let me know so we can help each other.

X

Calming down

Hello everyone!

Last week I graduated, and of course waiting for the result, whether I graduated or not, brought a lot of stress (so did the exams by the way). 
Since I'm a pretty stressed and nervous person anyways, I began to look for some calming tips and tricks and I wanted to share them with you.
So here are 14 tips to calm down when you're stressed:

1. Take a break.
2. Eat! (Something healthy and not too much sugar. That way you can eat it without feeling guilty and sugar rises your energy level which isn't good anyway)
3. Drink a cup of tea.
4. Listen to some music.
5. Go for a walk.
6. Watch your favorite YouTuber/ serie/ movie.
7. Read a book.
8. Go sit outside.
9. Write in your diary.
10. Write about what your feeling (whether it is in a diary, in your phone or just on a small piece of paper).
11. Talk to some friends.
12. Go do something fun.
13. Go through some old photos.
14. Listen to old music and remember the good times.

I hope this helped some of you going through exams right now or with exams later on or even just for a few relaxing tips. 
If you have more tips and tricks to calm down or relax, leave them in the comments below!

X

P.s. Obviously I didn't thought of all of these myself, so I don't take the credit for all of them.

P.p.s. I started a YouTube channel today and I'd love it if you could check it out. Not to subscribe per se, but just to see if you'd like it.

Holiday pictures

Hello everyone!
Guess who's back! (Back, back, back again... okay no).

So it's been a while since I've written a blogpost, but now I'm back home and ready to continue this blog.

I went to Mallorca with some friends to celebrate finishing high school and had some amazing photo opportunities while I was there. If you read my post about my love for photography, you will know that that made me very happy.

Day one:

The first day we explored the place we were staying, El Arenal, Llucmajor, Mallorca. It's was so lovely to just wander around the boulevard and just talking and taking in the first bits of warm sunshine. 

Day two:

 The next day we went to Palma de Mallorca which was only about 45 minutes by bus from where we were staying. 
We started at the Catedral de Mallorca. The cathedral was on top of a small hill and from there you had a beautiful view of the gardens, sea and the other side of the island. 
Then we walked to the city center to have a look around. To be completely honest mostly to shop. After our shopping and sightseeing (there are so many nice little alleyways in Palma that are not touristy and very beautiful), we had a drink at a local bar and went back to the hotel. 
I'd recommend, if you are planning to go to Mallorca, you go to Palma de Mallorca. Not to shop, but to just walk around and turn right and left here and there to get the real feeling of the city, instead of the tourist feeling. 
Another nice thing was that in El Arenal, where our hotel was situated, everyone spoke German or English and you hardly heard Spanish. In Palma de Mallorca on the other hand hardly anyone spoke English, so you had to communicate in Spanish. Which will sound horrifying to every non-Spanish speaking tourist, but for me, having had 5 years of Spanish class at high school, it was a dream come true to finally being able to use the things I'd learned. 
Around 5 o'clock we went back to El Arenal and chilled at the beach for a while. After we had dinner we watched the sun set and it was beautiful. (Another great thing about Mallorca, the sunsets were incredible each and every night we were there, so if you are a sunsetlover like me, you'll love this place).

Day three:

 The third day we went to Cuevas de Drach, the caves around Porto Cristo. 
Thinking it would only be about a 30 minutes bus ride, we stepped in the bus and sat down. After about 45 minutes we figured out that we calculated the time completely wrong and we ended up driving for 1,5 hours to get to the caves which were apparently on the other side of the island. 
When we finally arrived at our destination, we got our tickets and went in the caves. They were unreal. The size of the cave and the thousands of stalactites and stalagmites were unbelievable. 
After the walk and a concert in the caves, we went back outside and wandered around for a bit. We spotted a man standing on a cliff a bit further away and decided we wanted to do that as well. So we began walking over the rocks along the seaside and eventually came at the cliff. The view and surroundings were absolutely beautiful. The seawater was bright blue and green, and the plants and rocks looked like they were supposed to be on a postcard you'd normally sent to your family with the message: "This isn't what we saw, but apparently it should be like this...". 
After we had lunch on the rocks, we went back to the busstop, only to find out that we just missed the bus back, so we waited 2 hours in the sun just chatting about everything and anything. 
After the same 1,5 hours back we went to the beach to relax and enjoy the sun and slight breeze.
And after dinner we saw yet again an amazing sunset (they just don't get any less pretty, even if you see them every night...).

Day 4:
We didn't really do anything special that day haha. We just chilled on the beach and walked along the shore for a bit, because it was our last day there. 
So I'll leave you with a few more sunset pictures (Why you might ask? Because I really like them and they were fricking nice, okay??)

  Now I'm back home I'm planning to get more into blogging, so if you have any ideas you want to see me blog about let me know!

X

P.s. I know there are a lot of pictures in this post, so sorry if your phone, computer or internet crashes haha. 

Holiday & A New Direction With My Blog

So I realized that my last few posts have not really been what you'd call 'uplifting' or 'happy' and I want to change that. I didn't start this blog to complain or be sad. I started it to be myself and to have a place where I can write how I feel. This turned out to be sad and full of anxiety and that is not the full me. The full me is also very happy and cheery. 

I had in mind to be posting regularly every Monday with a new post, so there would be a regular 'postingsystem'. 
Then I remembered that I am going on holiday upcoming Saturday, so I won't be home next Monday to post, since I am going to take a break of the internet. 
I will be in Mallorca for the next 6 days to relax with 2 other friends, since, here in the Netherlands, we finished our final exams which means that we have a 3 month break. Then I'll be going to London with my aunt until Tuesday which means I'll miss another Monday (please don't take this as bragging about my holidays, I just want to explain why I will be gone for 2 weeks). 

Therefore my goal to post every Monday is starting in 3 weeks and then I will try my hardest to post every Monday. 
My next post will probably be filled with photos of my holidays so keep an eye out for that!
And from then onwards I will be mostly posting happy, cheery and funny posts to make your day a bit better and maybe a more serious post here and there ;).

I hope you will still be here when I'm back.

Let me know what plans you have for your upcoming break/ summer in the comments below.

See you in 3 weeks!

X

P.S. The same is for my Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram.

A Letter To My Future Self

The idea of this post came from this video from Troye Sivan. I loved it a lot and it inspired me to write this. 
I hope that in a few years time I will be able to say "I have done these and I'm proud of them".

I am not one that writes goals in the beginning of the year, because I already know I won't be able to achieve them. However, this way is different. For me, these aren't goals to achieve, they are motivations or drive. I hope they will keep me going and achieving my longterm dreams.

So here we go:


Dear Laetitia of 2020,

Have you graduated? How was living in Bolivia? Have you spent more time with friends and family (because Laetitia from 2015 wasn't very good at that)? Have you started studying International and European Law yet? Have you finished your master? Have you found a job that pays your rent? But most importantly, have you found a job that you love? 
Have you made some new friends? Have you been resting enough? 
Are you eating healthy? What's the name of your boyfriend? 
Have you turned off your phone for a week? 
How was Asia? How was Australia? 
And last but not least:
Have you stayed true to yourself?

Hopefully you will read this and think about these questions. If the answer is yes, write a blogpost about what you experienced. If the answer is no... What are you waiting for?

All the love,
Laetitia of 2015


I inspire you reading this to do the same. To make a list with things you like to achieve, but give yourself a realistic time frame. 
There are many ways of doing this; by writing a blogpost, by making a YouTube video or by making a list in a diary. Choose your own way and make it happen!

I hope you liked this and that it encouraged you to make plans for the future too. And as always, let me know if you liked this and send me links if you did the same. I'm sure I can learn from you guys!

X