Today I made the decision to stop my blog. It wasn't an easy decision to make, but the truth is that I just can't commit to it anymore. I currently have some things going on in my life I need to take care of and I haven't even been able to think about blogging. My blogging days are not completely over, however- I started a new one today on tumblr. I plan to keep it anonymous, though, so I won't be posting the link on here. If you really want to know, you can email me. I will just say that most people won't be interested because it has nothing to do with fashion. That's another reason I'm stopping my blog- I feel like this format doesn't work best for what I want to talk about because I have other interests besides fashion that are more prominent right now and it would be easier to share things in small snippets.
I would also just like to say thank you to everyone who read my blog. It really brightened my day to see I had a new follower or comment and it was nice to know people were reading what I had to say. I'll probably be leaving Significantly Styled up for a while for anyone to read old posts who would like to. It's possible I'd want to start this kind of blog up again but it most likely won't be anytime in the near future.
Once again, thank you to all my readers, and farewell.
I recently saw Les Mis (twice, actually) and I thought it would be the perfect movie to review.
Here's the shorter trailer that came out a while ago, which is in my opinion way more moving than the more recent one and like the best trailer ever.
However, the newer one gives you a better sense of the story for those of you who don't know it.
First, let me give a bit of background information. If you are planning on seeing it, READ THIS! Les Miserables is a musical based off a book written by Victor Hugo in 1862. The story takes place in France during the French Revolution. The movie starts off in 1815, where Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is released on parole by prison guard Javert (Russell Crowe) after a 19 year sentence for stealing a loaf of bread. After stealing silver from a priest who tried to him and let him keep the silver, he breaks his parole and tries to turn his life around. But since he broke his parole, Javert is on the hunt for him the rest of the movie. The second part takes place in 1823, where Fantine (Anne Hathaway) tries to earn money in any way that she can to send to pay an innkeeper and his wife (Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter) for watching her child, Cosette. She doesn't know that conditions are actually very bad and their own daughter Eponine gets all the attention. After she dies of tubercluosis, Jean Valjean goes to save Cosette. The third part takes place in 1832, where Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) and Eponine (Samantha Barks) are grown up. Eponine has been in love with Marius (Eddie Redmayne) for years but he falls in love with Cosette after catching a glance of her. The third part is where the battle takes place.
Overall I really loved the movie! I have never seen it in an actual live musical form and although I knew the story I didn't know what to expect. Now I can't imagine that to all be done on just a stage. I thought the movie could capture so many more details like facial expressions and emotions that you just can't capture in a theater. Although they sang basically the entire 157 minutes of the movie, the setting and everything just made it so much more realistic. Although I didn't sob like my mom said she did, I still thought it was a beautiful storyline that is still relevant today. I thought the cast was great, and since people are really opinionated about it I would do a review of each person.
Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean: I thought his delivery/acting was great and he played the part really well. The only thing I didn't like was his voice....you could tell he wasn't the strongest singer ever and he sometimes just sounded weird on the high notes.
Russell Crowe as Javert: This was the only person I didn't really like much in the movie. He didn't show any dynamic change at all throughout the story and pretty much had the same facial expression the entire time. His voice was ok, but he didn't do Javert's songs justice.
Anne Hathaway as Fantine: One of my favorite people in this. In my opinion she did the best job playing her character than anybody else. She can sing quite well, too. I am expecting her to get an Oscar or Academy Award for this!
Isabelle Allen as young Cosette: For her age I think she did a great job. She was adorable, had a cute voice and actually kind of looked like Amanda Seyfried.
Sacha Baron Cohen/Helena Bonham Carter as Thenardier and Madame Thenardier: I think everybody in the audience really loved them and they provided some great comic relief. Both were funny and really complemented each other.
Amanda Seyfried as Cosette: Amanda was definitely good and fit this role quite well. She wasn't especially moving or anything, but that's not really her fault. Although the whole story revolves around Cosette she doesn't do too much.
Samantha Barks as Eponine: I actually really loved her. I thought she had a great voice and was just amazing in general. I wish she got more recognition for this but she didn't since she's a Broadway star and not Hollywood. Taylor Swift almost got this role, but I'm glad she didn't since I really did love Samantha. I watched an interview of her and she seems super nice and funny.
Eddie Redmayne as Marius: I had never heard of this guy until this movie so I don't have anything to compare his performance to, but I thought he was pretty good and probably had the best male voice in the whole thing. This sounds weird but I liked his facial expressions.
Well that was kind of long but I had a lot to say. By the way, my favorite songs were On My Own and One Day More. I recommend this to everyone- you HAVE to see it because it's a musical masterpiece.
Have you seen Les Mis? What did you think of the cast, movie, and what were your favorite songs?
I am back to blogging, finally! After not blogging for almost a month, my friend said she missed my posts so I decided to start again. I was completely overwhelmed with school and everything for the past month and besides not having the time, I just didn't really feel like blogging. But I felt like it today, so I decided to update you on my winter break life through instagram.
First of all, a cute Christmas throwback! As you can see, I was happy with santa and my sister was not...
This was from December 21, when I thought the sunset from my window kind of looked like a fireball headed from my house. I didn't think the world was going end and I thought it was funny reading about the reactions of the people who quit their jobs because they thought it was going to. I know that a lot of strictly religious Christians thought it was "God's time" or whatever, but the reason I was so confused is that it says in the First Testament of the Bible after the flood dries up and Noah and his animals get off his ark that God said that he'd never destroy mankind again. Soooo...were they missing something??...
Here are some presents under the tree! I mostly got clothes and stuff, besides a blanket with Taylor Swift's album cover on it. :)
Our Christmas card for 2012.
We didn't really go anywhere for Christmas this year...we just had dinner at my aunt's house on Sunday and then celebrated as a family on the 24 and 25. Zoe and I made these cute cookies while at her house!
It's a family tradition to have Chinese on Christmas Eve. Then we usually go to church. (I'm Lutheran so there's no midnight mass or any of that stuff.) *Funny story*: So while we were eating dinner I spilled like all the sweet and sour sauce on the tablecloth. Then my mom started yelling at me. However, my dad picks up a piece of chicken and dips it in the puddle of sauce. Our Christmas day was pretty low key. Our family opened presents in the morning and then I went to go see a movie.
This was the cute coat that I got from Anthropologie!
My sister, my mom, and I went out to lunch on Thursday. We literally tried taking a cute picture of us for like 15 minutes but my sister wouldn't cooperate....
First of all, I am so sorry I haven't posted in a long time! I have wanted to but have actually been extremely busy because I was in a play and we had our last week of rehearsals and then our performances.
Anyway, I'm not even sure what I was supposed to post about on Mondays....oh well. Today I'm going to talk about hair.
This is my hair. :)
I've pretty much had the same hair all my life. This is my natural color- I think I'm classified as blonde but sometimes I'm not exactly sure. I used to be blonde for sure when I was younger but it got a bit darker since then. The summer before 7th grade I got one of those scary cylinder brushes stuck in my hair and my mom had to cut it out. I was pretty devastated but it grew back. The summer going into 8th grade I got my first haircut at an actual salon (sad, I know...my mom always cut it before then) and the person gave me a few layers so my hair wasn't so choppy from the brush incident. I am happy to say my hair is back to normal now! I haven't cut it in a while because I'm trying to grow it out- I want it to be super long.
I have pretty good and healthy hair. It's pretty thick, as in I have a lot of it, but the individual strands are very fine so if you put your hand around it then it wouldn't really have the biggest diameter. Since my hair is wavy, it straightens and curls really well, which is quite nice! I usually wash it every other or every two days. Here is the shampoo and conditioner I am currently using:
They both work really well. I think I've only blow dried my hair like twice in my life because I usually have better results when I air dry/towel dry it. It usually gets really curly right after I wash it.
I only ever had bangs when I was really little. I like them on some people cause only some people can pull them off.
I may want to dye my hair when I'm older, but I'm not sure what I'd do with it. I would probably want to go lighter or get ombre. I do like my natural color, though.
This hair is amazing but I'm not sure if I could pull it off or if it would go well with my coloring.
Once again, I love this color but would most likely never do something like this because it would obviously be a very drastic change.
Since the holidays are quickly approaching, I thought I could give you all some handy tips on how to take fab pictures!
{Find the perfect light}
Try to get the sun to shine on you. Or, try having the sun behind you for an interesting effect.
{Zoom in on one object}
Try to zoom in on one particular object, and then the background will look blurry. This causes the main object to appear more "special".
{Get an interesting angle}
A good angle can make or break a shot. An interesting one will really catch your eye!
{Take a video for motion shots}
If you want a clear, action shot, take a video and then go back and use those clips for pictures. I constantly do this on my iPhone and it works really well!
{Have a good photo editor}
I have a bunch of great apps on my phone to edit pictures (for Instagram especially!). My favorite is definitely Picfx because you can add little light dots and hearts! I also recommend having some kind of grid app to make a little picture collage.
I hope you all enjoyed this post, and be sure to check out my blog, Citrus and Style!
I hope you all are having a great holiday with your family!
Generally I can say I am pretty happy with my life at the moment. Although I am stressed with school, I have a lot of things to be thankful for!
1. High school
I am honestly so thankful that I am in high school and that my middle school days are over. Sometimes when the homework gets bad, I find myself wishing I was back in middle school with super easy homework....and then I remember the details of what it REALLY felt like to be in middle school. And I'm so happy that's over. High school is going great so far- I'm currently in a play that happens next weekend and I'm so excited.
2. My friends
Starting high school meant new friends, and I'm so grateful for the ones I have made in the past few months! My social life has been drama-free and it's nice to have those people you can laugh at inside jokes with. :)
3. My family
I know that some people don't have as nice of a family as I do and I sometimes take that for granted- I often get annoyed with my parents for irrelevant things but I'm very glad to have them! And I can't imagine what it would be like to be an only child- I'm so thankful for my younger sister.
4. The fact I have privileges
I take for granted the fact that I can go to the mall and can (in theory ) buy whatever I want, I can call my parents to pick me up from school whenever I want, I can go buy food whenever I want, and that I go to a good school. Because I know people who don't have all these things and I hate that. I dislike the fact that I think certain issues in my life have been absolutely awful when I've recently talked to people who have had it much worse in their childhoods or lives in high school. That's why I think everyone has to be thankful for the things they DO have- happiness is a choice!
So as you can see, I broke the cycle of my blogging schedule....
I was actually super busy which was why I haven't been able to blog, but I'm picking it up now! So here is my What I'm Loving Wednesday...
#1 "It's Thanksgiving" by Nicole Westbrook
Oh. my. god. This is HILARIOUS. (And also the reason why there is no such thing as Thanksgiving music.) In case you didn't already notice, it's written by the same people who wrote the song "Friday" but a different girl singing it. But I can actually say this is worse than "Friday." Also, it's just plain creepy when the mysterious guy from the Friday video pops up in the middle of it and starts rapping and then joins the kids' Thanksgiving party...and don't get me started on the part where she rips the turkey leg off and uses it as a microphone...
#2 BrittneyPanda on Instagram.
So I've discovered my new favorite instagrammer! If you haven't heard of BrittneyPanda then you should go follow her cause her pictures are flawless.
#3 Ho Hey by the Lumineers...
So I've got to admit, when I first heard of this song I used to make fun of it simply cause it was titled "Ho Hey." I thought it was gonna be some K-Pop thing but then I listened to it and I was like ohhh....long story short I am now obsessed.
#4 The Perks Of Being A Wallflower the book
I loved this movie and the book is definitely just as good! I am about 80% done with it and happy I have just a little more to read. Some people might think it might move slowly, which is partly true because it's not an action-oriented book. What I like about it is that it pretty much revolves around the main character's inner thoughts and feelings, which I find really relatable. I'd definitely recommend it.
#5 Wearing a peter pan collar under whatever shirt you want so you can basically give any of your shirts a bonus peter pan collar. :)
