That Time I Cut My Hair Off.

So I said in my last post that I would make this one. (Not that anyone read my last post :( ) But I thought I'd tell you about the time last year when I donated my hair to charity.

I've always been a big lover of my hair, it's the way through which I express who I am. That probably sounds crazy but I am a very shy person so my hairstyles sort of talk for me. I love love love braiding and make up hundreds of weird and wacky hairstyles, I've even done some of my school friends hair for school formals (I'll make a post on this later). But anyway, I wasn't brave enough to shave all of my hair of, so instead I only cut some of it.

Basically the point of this charity is you would donate your hair (it had to be at least 22cm long) and then send it of to this charity and they would combine your hair with other donations in order to make wigs for people who are living with cancer.

Around the time that I did this, one of my friends lost her mother due to cancer so I'd like to think it was my little contribution to say "I'm thinking of you."

So anyway here are some before and after photos: I never actually realised how long my hair was before I cut it! And I'm about jealous of it's length now, but never fear because my hair is currently growing back very fast and I'm sure it'll be that length again soon :)

So there you go. What do you think of it? Have you/Would you ever donate your hair to charity?

Over and out,
Erin.

The Princess In Her Tower.

I've been flicking through some of my old photos recently and it's made me realise how often I used to set up little random photoshoots and take hundreds of photos only to get 5 good ones. It reminded me how much I love doing it!

So I've decided to keep you updated more frequently with some photos of my life, starting with a brand new section for my hairstyles. I absolutely love love braiding but I stopped doing it for a while after I donated some of my hair (my hair was just too short!) But it's now finally getting back to the length where I can do something with it again so I'm starting up my "weekly hairstyles" section. Every week (or however often) I'll upload any new hairstyles I came up with that week. Sound good?

Let's get started.

The first braid is the bandana braid. I just made this one up this morning! It's basically like the Katniss braid (From the Hunger Games) but I braided my hair over the top of my bandana. It adds a little something to the hairstyle and you don't have to worry about your bandana falling out! I've recently fallen in love with bandanas and I think this little monster one is just the cutest!

(Please excuse my hair falling out a bit, I've had this braid in all day)

The second braid is my favourite of the two and I called it the Princess Braid. (Doesn't it just remind you of something a princess in the 1700's would wear?) This one was really rushed because my sister was yelling at me to hurry up and get ready for uni, but I love love love it and I will definitely be redoing it again soon!

If you want any instructions on how to do either braid I'd be more than happy to give them!

Over and out,
Erin.

Ps. I might make a post about donating my hair shortly :)

Saving Silver Coins.

So reading back on my last post I sounded like some flustered crazy lady ready to sprint away into the wilderness at a moments notice. While that crazy Erin is still me, the other half of me had been out in force today and I think I should call her "Practical Erin". Realising that I can't just leave at a moment's notice, that I actually need this small thing called money is quite an upsetting thought when you come to think about it. So this is where practical Erin comes in.

I'm pretty good at saving and I hardly ever splash out on luxuries (emphasis on the hardly, I do still like to treat myself from time to time!) and I've been keeping money boxes since I was little, when I was younger I'd save up all my pocket money to buy something yummy from the school canteen every now and then. But since I stopped getting pocket money a long long time ago I have to use my own money to save up, which is much harder. At the end of last year I came across a money box that I hadn't put money in for a long time and found that I had a whole $80 stored away in there. Naturally, I went to the bank and then spent all of it and a little more on some new clothes. But it made me realise how easy it is to save money, provided you have the mindset that you can never take money out of your money box once it's in there (until you decide of course).

So practical Erin would now like to introduce my TRAVELLING JAR

Now I know what you're thinking. "Erin, that jar will fit about $50 max in it" and that's probably true, but the concept behind this is that whenever the jar is full I will take it to the bank and get it exchanged into notes, then I will store those notes in a top secret place and I'm not allowed to spend them until I can use them to go TRAVELLING!

Good idea right? I have some rules that go with my jar too:
1. I can only put silver coins in it (this makes it easier for me to put coins in more often)
2. Whenever I spend money and get silver coins as change I cannot then spend those coins, I have to come home and empty all the silver coins out of my purse and into here each night.
3. DO NOT REMOVE MONEY! I know it's tempting, but it'll be better in the long run if I don't.

I know this'll probably take me a while to get anywhere near enough money to go on a small trip but I'm going to keep using it until I do :)

Let me know what you think!
Over and out,
Practical & Crazy Erin.

Wanderlust.

With university absolutely consuming my life I keep drifting back over and over again to my favourite daydream of just packing up and leaving. The thought that I'm spending so much time doing things I don't like when instead I could be out learning from the world instead of learning about it is weighing on me heavily. I dream of wild places where there's nobody to judge me, nobody to tell me I am any less intelligent than the next person. I dream of waking up in the morning, looking out my window, or the door of my tent, or simply opening my eyes and seeing a beautiful sunrise rising unobstructed by buildings or cars or anything man made. I don't belong in this society. I belong in the world, and I feel like every day I spend trapped in this place I hate is a day of my life wasted.

I keep telling myself that one day I will do it. But am I too scared? Am I that afraid of change that I'm willing to give up what I want most for simple comfort?

I need to escape.

Over and out,
Erin.

Does Lonely=Alone?

So I've been doing a lot of thinking whilst on my university breaks recently. (I'm on one right now, hence this post which probably won't make much sense).

Thoughts of lonely, and alone. Are they really the same thing?

I've come to find that I can be sitting in lectures filled to the brim with 700 students and yet not feel a connection to a single one of them. Like they are all strange creatures and no matter how much I study them, I can't seem to work them out. I feel so utterly lonely in those lectures, yet I am surrounded by hundreds of people.

The opposite goes for my breaks where I get to sit by myself and simply enjoy the life that passes around me. At those points in the day I am, technically "alone" but I am on the opposite side of the scale to feeling "lonely". I tend to enjoy my own company and not once do I get bored. I am, after all left with the thousands of thoughts floating around in my head to keep me entertained.


I guess at the end of the day, I'm right in the middle of a quest to discover the true meanings of "Lonely" and "Alone." Can one exist without the other? And do the dictionary definitions of them truly make sense when put into practice?

I don't know where I thought this blog post was going but it seems I have rambled on with something which most of you will probably think I'm crazy for.

One day I'm going to work out the answers to my questions.

Over and out,
Erin.

My Poem for Society.

Please let me know what you think :)

Over and out,
Erin