Ten Thousand

Last night, (well really it was midnight so it's counted as today) I hit 10k on my Instagram page. 10 thousand. 10,000. Wow. I was so excited. I was nearly crying. In fact I couldn't stop smiling and I couldn't sit still.

I actually had 9998 followers and 12 requests but I was so afraid to accept them because it's been such a long but wonderful journey. It was 1 and a half years of hard work. And finally, I was upon my biggest milestone. My best friend, Uday, had to convince me to accept them before I would do it.

I accepted them and immediately posted my 10K thank you speech. Now even before I hit 10k, I was already having people congratulate me. So I posted my speech and immediately it blew up. People began commenting how happy they were for me and how much I deserved it and there was just so much  support and love for me and it was just unreal. My KIK was also blowing up. I had a million people talking to me all at once. All my friends were gushing about how happy they were for me. It was just so sweet and I was so incredibly touched.

Getting 10k was something I never imagined I could do. When I first started obsessedwithvamps, I had 0 followers. I was posting pictures and getting zero likes (or if I was lucky, maybe 1 or 2). Slowly however, my account grew. I started to learn the in and outs of this wonderful platform. I learnt and am still learning how to edit and what makes a good edit. I made friends and I learnt what it meant to have friends so close to you that they will rally right beside you if anyone tries to be mean to you. I learnt so many wonderful things. I learnt how to stand up for myself. I learnt about being fair.

I made so many amazing friends. From the Petrova Pact to my best friend, Uday who has helped me so much and who has become more then a friend. He has become my 'partner in crime' and my team mate. I couldn't be more grateful to have met such a wonderful and caring person like Uday. (GO TEAM #CADAY)

My Instagram journey has certainly been a very memorable one. And the best part about it is that I worked hard for every single one of my followers. I never had a co-owner or a minion to help me get followers. For me, it wasn't about seeing how fast I can get a lot of followers. For me, it was about the hard work that I put in and about building an account that I could look at and say, "I'm proud of this because I achieved this myself and people appreciate what I do on this account."

One of the best things about this account is of course my wonderful and beautiful followers. When you're on Instagram, you meet so many different types of people. You meet selfish, hateful and jealous people. But more often then not, you meet sweet, kind and loving people. I know that my followers are all amazing and dynamic people. I know this because so many of them take the time out of their day to comment something nice on my pictures. Or to randomly KIK me saying that they love my edits.

You guys make me happy and so in turn, I love making you guys happy. Not just with my edits but also with the little things. You have no idea how much it means to me when a follower comments something on my page and then goes crazy because I replied them. Or when I followed some of you and this was your reaction:

Or when you guys say that I've made your day or that you wait everyday for me to post an edit. It really makes me feel so amazing. Like some of you fangirl over my account and I'm just like. I am not freaking Zoe Sugg or Superwoman. I'm just a regular person who loves to edit. So you guys really just make my day all time and I just want to show you guys that I appreciate every like, every comment, every single follow.

Throughout my time on Instagram, I've kept a folder which contains screenshots of some of the nice things you guys have said to me. I'm posting a few of them not to show off or be proud but mostly to say that I see everything and I appreciate it so so much. Sometimes when I'm down, I go through this folder and I see all these reasons why people think I'm awesome. So even if I'm having the crappiest day, you guys always know how to brighten it up and I'm so thankful.

Anything You Want To Post About

Hello guys! Welcome to the last day of my blogging challenge. Wow. September flew by didn't it? I'm actually pretty sad about that. I wrote a longer post this afternoon about this so you can check that out.

Today was a long day. My Instagram best friend and I spent the whole day fighting off bullies and hackers. It was exhausting but I think it brought us closer. I've always been a strong believer in standing by your friends and I'm glad I did that today.

Today I wanted to talk to you guys about Fan fiction. In particular, the ones that I have written. So today I was changing my blog layout and I was adding a navigation bar to make life easier for you guys. You can check it out but it's not all ready yet. The 'contact me' page is though. So I was adding the links and I decided to include my Fan fiction profile.

That basically led me down memory lane. I started reading the Twilight/Titanic crossover I did in 2012. Now usually when I look back at my writing, I will cringe in horror. But for this particular story, I found myself loving it and actually tearing up as I read it. I wrote it over the course of 11 months in 2012 and it was I think one of my best pieces of fiction writing to date. And coming from me, that's saying something considering that I am my biggest critic.

You guys can check it out here: The RMS Titanic: The Ship Of Dreams

I hope you like it. If you do, you can check out the two other stories I wrote by following the link to my profile. One is Vampire Diaries and the other a pure Twilight.

I know the stereotype is that fan fiction is full of sex (or lemons as we call it in the fan fic world). But that's not true. I never wrote sex into my stories. I wrote love in. I wrote cute romance. But never sex. A lot of people think that fan fiction is not real writing but I beg to disagree. It is hard work and it is just as much effort if not more to write a blog post or novel.

Now I'm going to go because I am basically 5 followers away from hitting the big 10k!

Just A Little Something

Hello readers! So today is the last day of my 30 day blogging challenge. After I post tonight, it will mark 30 consecutive days of being disciplined enough to blog everyday. I am honestly sad. I enjoyed this so very much and I just can't believe how fast 30 days flew by.

Blogging everyday has taught me many things. Firstly, I understand discipline when it comes to writing. Secondly, I learnt a lot about what a blog should be if I want it to be professional.

When I started this blog, I wanted it to be professional. I wanted people to read what I put out and I wanted to be able to call myself a blogger. As I wrote, I learnt that it takes a lot of work. Work which, by the way, I was more then willing to do. I also learnt that a blog simply dedicated to my life wasn't going to make me a big-time blogger. Unless I'm some famous person who is out there doing fantastic things everyday, why would anyone really care about my day and if I can or cannot take a nap?

So I began toying with the idea of turning my blog into a lifestyle blog. I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from Zoella and Sprinkleofglitter of course. I want to be able to be a blogger like them.

As I'm writing this, I'm also experimenting with different things. I've mentioned before that I'm not a girly kind of person. I'm not into make-up or beauty products or dressing up beyond what is comfortable and presentable. However, I want to be that kind of person. I want to obsess over something as frivolous as a hair mask (I learnt what a hair mask is today). So I then thought, what if my blog helped people who were hopeless at things like this? I would be learning with them that way. I might even try doing that.

The point is that I want to try making my blog into something that people would love to read. And a lifestyle blog seems to be the way to go. I know what you must be thinking. "How dare she have the audacity to think that she has what it takes?". I don't. I don't know what I'm doing and I think that's the point. Learning all this stuff so that I can write about it is going to be very scary for me. But then I think of my Instagram page, @obsessedwithvamps.

When I started obsessedwithvamps, I used to post pictures and get zero likes. I got zero likes because I had zero followers. Yet I continued to post. Little by little, one human at a time, people started following me. Next thing I knew, I had 9.9k and I'm about to hit 10,000 followers. 10 thousand people. That's crazy! But it shows me that nothing is impossible. I can start this and I can make it big if I keep at it. I just have to want it bad enough.

That's mostly why I adore Youtubers. They are regular people who were brave enough to start something and they made themselves who they are. They too started from zero which I find so inspiring. That is also why Zoe is my role model. She overcame so much to become who she is today and I really admire her so much.

So here's to the start of being a lifestyle blogger. Let's hope I don't mess this up.

A Picture Of Yourself

Hello readers! Today's post will be short because I am exhausted and the topic is pretty short anyway. It's not even a real topic. To top it off, one of my instagram best friends is in quite a bit of trouble and I'm trying to help him. He's also asleep right now and all this drama is going down and I want to cry because I don't want to believe that he is a bad person. So it's going to be a long night.

So today I was up at 4.30am. I put on my jumper and leggings and my mom and I went to the airport. It was so awesome to have my dad back home. I missed him so much. He bought us lots of cool stuff from South Africa which was awesome.

After that my day was pretty chill. My dad left for work and my brother was studying so it was very quiet and chill. I basically watched lots of Suits and the new Revenge episode.

I managed to kind of have a nap this afternoon. If you know anything about me (well maybe you need more then a surface knowledge), you would know that it is extremely hard for me to have a nap. Even when I was younger, I hated naps because I never could get to sleep. 

Now, on the off chance that I do fall asleep, I have extremely vivid dreams and I wake up sometimes after only 5 minutes. Even if I have all the time in the world for my nap. So today I fell asleep and woke up and fell asleep and woke up. After that I felt like the definition of death basically. My head was pounding and my throat felt like it was full of dirt for some reason. Basically my nap left me feeling like I'd died. Oh well.

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So this is a picture of me from Bali. I don't think I've shared the underwater photo shoot pictures from Bali on this blog yet. Well, this is my favourite. I'm actually wearing a dress and this was taken in our private pool. I had to do this a number of times to get the shot right and I nearly drowned in the process I think because it is not easy to make sure every part of your body is in the proper position while in a deep pool wearing a dress. (I'm not kidding. The pool was deep and I know how to swim. I know how to swim and not how to model underwater apparently)

 That said, it was also one of the most fun and interesting things I've done and I'm glad that the shots came out well. I loved editing them especially because they were so different from what I normally do. I've included two more shots just so you guys can enjoy them. Hopefully you like them as much as I do.

September Music Favorites

Hello music lovers! Today I'm going to be giving you guys a list of my top favourite songs from this month. I feel like I should do this every half a month because my favourite songs are constantly changing. Perhaps I'll do that next month. If you want to check out August's Music Favourites, click here. If you want to see this month's item favourites, click here. Just a head's up. Spotify is going to be mentioned a number of times in this post and I highly recommend that you get it because it's just wonderful (I know I'm quite late to jump on this particular bandwagon. Okay I'm usually always late for the bandwagon...).

 I wish I could give you guys a link to my Spotify so that you can follow me but I can't seem to change my username from a bunch of numbers which Spotify gave me. I don't know. You can try looking up Camillia Dass.

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1) Double Rainbow - Katy Perry

I found this song on Spotify (see what I mean). I actually have never heard Katy Perry's full Prism album. So this song was a pleasant find. It's a song that could very well be added to my sad song list I think because it's got a very mellow kind of feel about it. Just in case you're wondering, I now have a sad song playlist on my Spotify Account.

2) I Hope You Dance - Lee Ann Womack

I came across this song on Spotify one day though of course I already knew it. I mean it's one of those famous songs that you have to know even if you weren't born when it came out. It's really good and for some reason I can't stop singing it.

3) Young Blood - Bea Miller

Bea Miller is my new favourite artist! I discovered her on a Boyce Avenue video. I think her voice is wonderful though I don't like her attitude very much. I've watched some of her Youtube videos and I've seen her X Factor performances. She's an excellent singer in my opinion.

4) Marilyn Monroe - Nicki Minaj

I stumbled upon this song on (where else?) Spotify. I actually have never really cared much for Nicki Minaj's songs. Except for Super Bass, I usually don't listen to Nicki. So I heard this song and when I checked back to see who had sung it, I was surprised. If you don't like Nicki, try listening to this. It's good. Certainly this is no Anaconda (my anaconda don't want none unless you got buns hun!)

5) My Heart Is Open - Maroon 5

I pretty much can just copy paste what I wrote for the songs above on this one. I stumbled across it on Spotify, blah, blah, blah, I love it. It's awesome. Go check it out.

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As you guys can see, my music taste is so random. I go through these phases where sometimes I fall in love with music that is 40 years old and sometimes I am in love with a song that was released an hour ago. I'm actually just starting to get addicted to Disney songs and Phil Collins but I didn't think that was what you guys would have wanted to see so I didn't include it. For reference though, 'You'll Be In My Heart', 'Kiss The Girl', 'A Whole New World' and 'Colours Of The Wind' are my favourite disney classics.

What Would You Like To Change About Yourself?

Hello readers! Today's topic is pretty heavy. I just wrote an entire paragraph and deleted it if you care to know. I'm not all about publishing a perfectly altered post that shows you just how wonderful my life is only. I'll tell you guys if things aren't so right.

So today I felt really terrible. My day was pretty crappy. So at about 12pm, I decided to get iOS 8.2 installed into my phone. Worst decision ever. Long story short, my phone spazzed out and I had to restore the phone to factory settings. By 4pm, I could use my phone again but all my apps had been wiped out and my data as of now has slowly been trickling back in so I'm grateful for that.

I'm most likely going to pick my dad up from the airport tomorrow. He's on a plane from South Africa to Singapore right now and I'm so excited for him to be back. He's been gone 10 days. He's also landing in like 8 hours which means I'm getting up at 4.30am most likely. Jeez. 

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So what would I like to change about myself? Perhaps I would like to care more about how I look. I mean I care that I look presentable and sometimes girly but usually I'm just a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl. I think I would like to care more about make up, dressing up and all the other frivolous things that every single other girl seems to care about except me.

I would also like to change one aspect of my personality. I'm pretty introverted and I prefer to chill at home then with my friends. I would like to change that. I would like to be more out-going and to like to go out more often. That's not saying that I don't like being an introvert though. Sometimes when I watch vlogs and things like that, I crave friendship. But majority of the time I'm also happy being by myself and not having to worry what everyone else thinks of me. I guess that's the problem. I fear being judged so much that I question everything I do and say and I stop having fun.

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Anyway, short post tonight because I have to be up in less then 6 hours. Hmm...See you on the other side! 

Features You Get Complimented On A Lot

Hi readers. I'm so tired. Wow.

This morning, I used the nice natural light to take the photos for my September Item favourites and I attempted to to figure out Photoshop CS6 to edit them. I ended up making the pictures look worse I think so I just used iPhoto and left it at that.

So I just finished putting in the pictures and tidying up the post. Finally, I published it. You can read it here. Or don't. It's your life.

Tomorrow I will start with my music favourites post so keep an eye out for that.

Today I did a lot of housework. I know. I know. Bring on the rain. Cam does not do housework. But I did today and now I'm so exhausted I could fall asleep at the keyboard I think.

I got this cool owl globe today. I've named the owls. They are Fred, George, Emma and Ella. 

Fun fact: When I was younger, I dropped a snow globe in a shop and my mom was so furious with me. In fact the word furious does not do the situation justice. I remember that incident so clearly. The globe had very blue water in it with things that floated in it. It was a tourist item I think. I remember that I was so terrified of of my mom at that time and I remember she yelled at me in the shop and was about to leave me in the shopping mall. I remember thinking that perhaps I should just stay where I was and not follow her out because if she didn't care if I was behind her or not, why should I?

I'm pretty sure I was below the age of 5 at that time so I think it was not a very fair reaction. Things happen. Glass breaks. There's no need to mentally scar a child for an obvious accident. Just move on is what I say. My childhood was full of pretty scarring memories. That's sad...

So I actually really hate snow globes more then anything because of that experience. In fact, till today, I will never pick up a snow globe in a shop ever. But this one seems to be made out of plastic and not glass so as long as I don't play around with it too much, everything should be fine. I really like it but to be perfectly honest, I'm terrified of it.

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Okay enough of that unexpected and unpleasant throwback. Features I get complimented on a lot. 

Hmm.. I don't get compliments very often to be honest. Wow that's sad. Okay. But I guess I get complimented on my hair mostly online. People who follow me on my Instagram say that I have 'Elena' hair. Personally I too think that my hair is my best feature. I mentioned yesterday that my hair used to be an absolute mess when I was a kid. I guess I've now grown into my hair. I currently love my curly hair. I guess people do too.