How My Reading Habits Have Changed Since I Started Blogging

Hey guys! So recently, I started thinking about how blogging about books in particular and joining Goodreads has changed the way I read and the way I feel about books. Because honestly, there has been a major change ever since I started blogging about what I was reading. I have gone from loving books, to obsessing over books.

I have gone from being a casual reader to someone who is in a fast paced and snappy community (that I adore). I've gone from being a lonely reader to bouncing thoughts with my book club mates. And I thought you guys might like to hear about this because a lot of you may be new to the community or just may be curious about it.

So let's start with some background. I first blogged about a book last year in June when I posted my review of The Fault In Our Stars. After that all I did was lifestyle. And then in October, I decided that I wanted to do more book reviews so I did one on Gone Girl. It was also about that time when I joined Goodreads. And from that point, everything changed.

1) I Read More

It's not a big surprise to anyone that ever since I joined Goodreads and started blogging, I've read so much more. In fact, I read a total of 36 books last year but this year, I've already read 49 books and it's only June.

 So that's a huge jump. I guess it has to do a lot with the pressure I face externally. I used to just read whatever and whenever but now I have friends in the book community and new books are coming in every day and there is so much discussion going on that you feel left out if you haven't read the latest Sarah J Maas book or heard about the publishing date of the final book in a series. There's a lot of pressure to keep up but it's the good kind of pressure. The kind that pushes you to keep wanting to do better and to read more. I personally love it. It just drives me and makes me feel amazing.

2) I Know What and Who I'm Reading

In the past, I used to walk into a book store and not know a thing. I wouldn't know any author except one or two that I found particularly notable. I wouldn't know a thing about any of the books on the shelves until I read the blurbs. But now, when I walk into a book store, immediately everything is familiar. I know what I like and what I don't. I roughly know when books were published. I know about the author and if I've read books by them in the past. I can confidently say that I recognise about 70% of what is in a bookstore now. I'm still learning but it's quite a leap from knowing absolutely nothing.

3) I Feel Less Alone

I never really had friends who were super crazy about reading. I had a couple of friends who liked reading but usually never as much as I did. Reading to me was a lonely hobby. That is, until Goodreads and book blogs and booktubers popped up. Now, I no longer feel like I'm in this bubble of sorts. I feel like I'm part of a group of people. I can freely talk to people about what I'm reading and it's not like I'm talking to a wall anymore. I feel like I can finally share my passion for something with other people and form friendships through that. It's just a lot of fun.

Well I think that about sums it all up. It was just a short little post but I wanted to let you guys know how blessed I am to be part of this wonderful community of people. Honestly I don't know what I would do without some of the friends I've made here. I just feel like I have a place here which is something that I have never felt in most aspects of my life.

Okay I have no idea how to end this without it being awkward so...bye haha.

Do You Believe Teenagers Can Fall In Love?

Hello readers! Today has been quite a tiring day. Today I started my healthy lifestyle plan. So basically I plan to largely cut out junk food from my diet and I plan to go for daily brisk walks. Tiny things that will hopefully lead to some weight loss. 

I got a cute new bedside lamp today. It's pink and adorable. I also walked slightly more then 2km today which I'm pleased about. I've been having a horrible headache all day. I think it's because I didn't sleep much last night. Why didn't I sleep much? Well because I had 4 cups of green tea and didn't realise that it would have caffeine in it. If this was Twitter, I would put a major '#storyofmylife' tag here. I am all over the place today aren't I?

Today's topic sucks. But my alternative was to post a picture of someone I fancy. I don't fancy anyone and even if I did, It would be so mortifying if said person saw it one day. So no. I have to do this one. I would just like to point out that I've just been watching too much of Zoe and Alfie so my inner voice is now British. Hence the use of the word 'fancy' instead of 'like'.

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Yes I do believe that teenagers can fall in love. I'm not going to write a full argumentative essay proving my point but of course teenagers can fall in love. It happens all the time and it's sometimes even better. To be like friends and then go on to dating. 

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How Do You Feel About Making A Friend Online

Today's topic was obvious the second I saw it. My alternative was to screenshot my desktop. I guess I could have talked about how I'm a neat freak when it comes to anything but my room. But there wasn't really much depth in that and it would have turned out very short. So I decided to do the topic of how I feel about making a friend online because it's so relatable to me and I suppose I can talk a lot about it if I want to.

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 So, if you've been following my blog, you would know that I have an Instagram fan page called obsessedwithvamps. I've talked  about hate I've gotten and I have an ongoing series called 'How To Create A Successful Instagram Fanpage', in which I use my own experiences on obsessedwithvamps to give advice to beginners. If you've read my latest post in that series, you would know that relationships are very important when it comes to an Instgram fan page. If you haven't seen that one, you can catch up here. I'll wait. Don't worry.

Okay? Are you all caught up? 

So basically on Instgram, I am constantly making new friends. Constantly meeting people from all corners of the world. Constantly interacting with different people. It's often very fun and exciting especially when we get into conversations about where they're from and what life is like where they live. I love learning about the different cultures, education systems and practices from around the world. It's a pretty awesome thing.

When you make a friend online, there's always a line that you draw. How much information are you comfortable sharing with this person? How do you know that they really are just a teenaged person who wants to talk? For me, because 99% of the people that KIK me are straight from Instagram, I can usually trust who they say they are. You pretty much never encounter a 60 year old perv with a Vampire Diaries fan page account on Instagram so in that way I feel pretty safe conversing with the people I come across on the Internet. I would say that my online friendships are pretty safe. 

Once you can trust an online friend, it becomes very fun. Often, you meet online friends while pursuing your own interests. So that means that you can find similar interests and it makes for the best conversations. This is often better then real life friends. With real life friends, you have so many different interests and you have to learn them and often they aren't specific. But with online friends, its very specific. 

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I think this has been a pretty long post. I still need to write yesterday's post. Yes, I didn't do it because I was really tired and I just wanted to read. I started reading Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother at 10.30pm last night and I only looked up when I finished the entire book 4 hours later at 2.30am. I love binge reading. So I've got to write yesterday's post and I also have to finish up my movie review for my CCA. Then I have to use up my Redbubble birthday vouchers from last year. They will be expiring in December so I've got to sort that out. See you yesterday ;)

How To: Create An Instagram Fan Page {Part 4}

Welcome back to part 4 of my on-going series, How To: Create An Instagram Fan Page. My last 3 posts in the series talked about popular Instagram acronyms as well as how to go about starting your fan page. If you haven't seen them, what on earth are you waiting for??

Anyway, here we go with part 4. This post will mostly tackle building relationships and how to go about making friends and building your name.

1)  Relationships

One of the most important things when it comes to owning a successful Instagram fan page is to make good friends. Friends are there to make Instagram more fun, to look out for you and to help you gain followers.

I met one of my IG besties, Amo, a long time ago. At that time, I had about 1K and she had 6K. I idolised her because I thought she was so cool (she still is pretty cool). Later on, when I had about 3K, she applied to join a promo group that I was starting with my two other friends, Kyla and Maegan. The promo group is called The Petrova Pact and its still active till today. Anyway, she was accepted in and we went from just mutual friends to really good friends. We helped each other out a lot and we talk quite a bit. We even oovoo-ed once with some of the other Petrova Pact members.

There's also Uday and Jess who are so sweet and who add me to everything and talk to me all the time and who know when I'm on.

The point is that friends are a vital part of your Instagram journey. I have been so blessed to have met so many wonderful people from all over the world through obsessedwithvamps. I honestly really don't know where I would be without them.

(Shoutout to my friends: Amo, Nikki, Jess, Uday and so many more)

Friends really help you and the only way you can make friends is by not being bitchy and nasty. Don't burn bridges. Make them.

2) Professional Relationships

This is a continuation of my first point of not burning bridges. Now, in your time on Instagram, you will be a participant of a mega/GS/sfs at one point or the other. This is where you build your contacts. As your account grows, you will meet people with bigger accounts and sometimes you rarely talk but you guys do a lot of promoting for each other.

What I'm getting at is to be professional. Don't fool around on a group chat because people are there to gain followers. Not to fool around. Unless everyone is having fun, maintain a bit of professionalism. Too many times I've been in something and there is one person fooling around and annoying everyone. It's okay to have fun. Instagram is supposed to be fun. But learn when to turn it down a notch.

I personally have so many professional relationships. I have so many people with which I do SFS all the time but who I hardly know. These people are important to build your account.

(You also have a responsibility to make sure that other people do not get into your kik and harass your contacts. I wrote this point mainly because recently, a contact let her cousin on her phone. This cousin wrecked havoc and was so nasty to me and another girl that I had to block her. And I never got an apology from the original owner. I don't consider that professionalism)


3) Have A Good Reputation

Once you have established your account, you will find that you tend to be doing megas, GSs and SFS with about the same people. Which is why you need to build a good reputation from the start.

There are two girls that I know on Instagram who are complete bitches. Everyone knows that when they are around, a fight will break out because one of the girl's likes to swear and cause trouble and her friend will back her up. They are vicious and everyone knows that. But the thing is, she only has 1K+. And huge accounts with 20K+ actually know her and know that she is a bitch. So that only makes it hard for her to gain because as she climbs up the ladder, people are just going to know that they don't want to do anything with her because she is a world-class asshole.

Same goes for scamming people (when you get someone to post your sfs picture but then you don't post theirs). People will remember that. So watch yourself and create a good reputation.

That's all for part 4. I just wanted to say thank you. I started this series because I got 6K. Today I got 8.1K so I just want to say thank you for following me. If you want to find me on Instagram, my links are in the sidebar to your right.

How Poly Saved Me

Ever since last Friday, I've been constantly thinking about how amazing my Poly life has been and how much it has changed me.

For the last 11 years, I was always the weird kid that sat by herself and had basically next to no friends. I had one or two but usually they were not very nice to me and they often walked all over me. In fact, for two years, I skipped recess everyday because I couldn't face the canteen by myself. I would sit in my empty classroom , starving, and I would read or write in my diary.

I was bullied for a very long time as well. It started all the way in kindergarten in fact. I don't know which years were the worst in my life actually. Was in in primary 1 when I was threatened to give money to a girl who claimed to be my friend but would still bully me mercilessly? Was it in primary 2 when the same girl and another who was in primary 1 opened the school bus windows and screamed out that I was a camel all while I sat right there in tears? Might I add that as this girl was screaming that I was a camel out the window, she was also whispering in my ear that she was still my friend? Or maybe it was the time when they teamed up to put glue in my hair.

Or maybe it was the time when for no reason except jealousy, I was tormented by a bunch of Indian girls. They said they wanted me dead. They hated me. They would call me names and talk bad about me in Tamil all while I sat there right in front of them, not comprehending anything. All while my 'best friend' (who understood Tamil) would tell me that they were saying nice things to me without standing up for me in the slightest. And why were they jealous? I learned later that it was solely because I excelled in English and Literature and I was constantly being praised for my work.

All that changed when I finally was done with school and I came to Poly. I was blessed with a class of amazing, inclusive people as well as 5 wonderful, amazing, awesome friends who for the first time in my life, understood me.

I thought I was the  only one who read nerdy books and fangirled a whole lot. Turns out that wasn't true. I met two friends who I can talk books with. Just yesterday I sat next to one of my friends and we both had e books open on our laptops and for a few hours, we just sat there in companionable silence, both of us utterly absorbed in our books.

I never thought that I would meet people who cared so much about getting things done well before the deadline and who were punctual and who always brought 100% to our group meetings until I came to Poly. (That behaviour was simply deemed annoying when I was in secondary school). My 5 friends, who are also my group mates, are so on fire and we are always ahead because each of us understands how the other works and we work super well together.

So yes. Basically I've run out of words for now. There was a lot on my mind today and I needed to get it all out. You know that feeling when you say everything and then even if what you've written is incomplete, it's all the words you have and nothing you do can make more words appear? Yeah.

 I'm exhausted from all my projects and I'm stressed about my radio assignments. I don't have anymore words tonight.