Missing Boy

Update: Heartbreakingly Adam was found passed away on Monday.  No foul play is suspected.  My deepest sympathies go to the family and thank you to anyone who read this and had a look at the Facebook page.

I haven’t written anything for awhile, I have been on Christmas holidays and so ironically ended it up with no time.  I’ve already sorted out my first post of the Bloggers 2014 Challenge but that’s up on a certain date so I’ve had to reframe from putting it up early.

I’m not going to be writing in the silly style I normally do to getting down my thoughts with.  I really want to be serious as I’m writing today.  I really don’t know how I’m feeling right now.  A boy I knew when I was little, and who was very good friends with my brother in primary school has gone missing.  He’s been missing now for nearly 48 hours.  The police are very worried.  His parents are quoted as being ‘distraught’.  When I was about 7, on my birthday, my brother was allowed to bring one person to the party and he chose Adam.  The boy who has gone missing.

I guess it hits close to home that it was a person I had once known (though very long ago) and he went missing in an area that I live.  Just the thought of his parents not knowing where he is, makes it completely awful.  They are currently, right this second out searching for him.  Scouring the streets for their missing son.  What is making me feel so torn at the moment is that, even though it is so early in the search, is how I’m already comparing it to all the other people who have never been found.  And the nagging question at the back of my mind is this.  When do they go home?  When do his parent leave the search and return to their house to sleep, eat, rest?  How could they ever get to sleep knowing that worst case scenario they might never see their son again.  How many days do they spend waiting and wondering if they’ll hear any news?

If he isn’t found, and I’m hoping to God that he’s found safe as soon as possible, and the case is put on the back burner for the police, when do his parents stop thinking about it?  I guess the obvious and most simple answer is that they don’t.  And that must be the case with so many parents of missing children.  Madeline Mcann is the example which will always spring to mind whenever a missing person is brought up.  Six years and it has never ended for them.  Looking at the news even now they are still trying to find that missing little girl.  If they had found her dead, it would have given the parents closure.  It would have been beyond the worst thing that could have happened to them at the time but they wouldn’t have spent the next six years searching.  Looking into every face, the police reconstructing and reconstructing evidence that has not changed since they first examined that hotel room.  It’s heartbreaking.  If Madeline is dead, then it’s tragic but she is gone, she doesn’t feel anymore.   Her parents do though.  I wonder if they still hope for her safe return?  If they still believe that she will return.  Miracles do happen I guess.  No one deserves to go through that though, the constant hope for a miracle.

And what about Adam, the 17 year old boy who went missing?  The response all over my Facebook is overwhelming, people sharing the news articles and giving updates, a Facebook page has been made.  In the first 3 hours it got over 2,000 likes.  Right now it has nearly 6,000, by the time this goes up on my blog it will have even more.  People who have never even met him are commenting and wishing his safe return.  Every share and like is a chance that it might expose the situation to someone who knows something.  The news said the last people to see him was a couple at 3.20am on Oxford Street after a night out in Manchester.  If those people could just see it and remember anything it could help.

I’m asking anyone who sees this to check out the page, even just looking at it could help.  Any information could lead to him being found and stop so much pain for the family.

I hope so much that he just ended up somewhere ridiculous since he’d have likely had a lot of alcohol, and is now just unable to get home. It could be nothing or it could be something awful has happened to him but either way I hope for good news for the sake of the family and friends.  I hope they don’t have to search and worry too long and that he returns to them safe and sound.  The thought of the distress his family must be going through is unbearable.

Please have a look at the Facebook page and share it if you can.  Adam can’t just be forgotten as one more missing boy the police couldn’t find, no family should lose their children.

The Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Find-Adam-Pickup/330107930460730?fref=ts

The latest news: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-25544774

Body Shop Shimmer Cubes Lily Cole v Shade 23 Purple

For me?! How thoughtful...

Yo ho ho and a bottle of RUM!

So today I received a lovely cheeky little package from the Body Shop containing some naughty purchases I ordered over the weekend.  I am a complete and utter sucker when it comes to the Body Shop and the only thing that normally deters me from picking up a bounty of their lovely moisturisers and makeup is my heart wrenchingly empty bank account.  Cue tears and wailing.

HOWEVER, my lovely boyfriend happens to have O2 priorities installed on his phone and luckily for me, this weekend when he came over, there happened to be a 50% off discount for the Body Shop.  50% OFF!  That’s means I can buy twice as much!  Hmmm… Not really, but I was able to choose some things that I’ve been craving for a while to treat myself to for Christmas.

So I bought these two things – The Lip and Cheek Stain 01 in Rose Pink and the Shimmer Cube Palette 23 (The Purple one!).  And now for the reviews…

The first thing I want to mention is that I was completely torn between which shimmer cube to get.  I absolutely ADORE the whole concept so knew that I was going to end up indulging in something my mum would definitely say I didn’t need, but I wasn’t sure which colours to get.

I LOVED the chocolate warm ones but since I already own the Naked 2 Palette by Urban Decay I figured I had most of the shades already covered.  I really can’t imagine reaching for anything other than my Naked 2 for the everyday neutrals look so that takes the Warm one (currently, never say never!) out of the picture.  I was left between a choice of the purple palette and 21 Pink (though I think it also has a grey in it).  In the end I went with the Purple 23 since I wanted one with a little more pigment and I already owned the Blue and Green cubes.

I was a little worried that the purples would be the same as the Lily Cole cubes that I also have and searched high and low on the web for a post that contrasts them.  Alas, I couldn’t find one and took the leap to just buy it anyway.  Since I had so much trouble and wanted a comparison post I’ve decided to include a mini one here for anyone suffering the same dilemma.

In terms of pigmentation, the colours are extremely vivid and it comes with a lovely variety of shades so you can basically use the whole palette on one look if you wanted to.  The white is great for the inner corner and highlighting although its worth noting that it IS the same pearly white that comes in other shimmer cubes so you might end up getting a repeat colour if you purchase more than one.

 

Left to Right: Orchard Purple, Candy Pink, Pearly White, Velvet Plum

With and without the flash.  It was quite hard to get the two darker colours to come up true, however this is fairly close though the little finger one is slightly less ‘brownish’.  The pink is gorgeous and the two darker colours, although at first glance look similar, have completely different undertones that really show up when applied to the eye.

Top to Bottom: Velvet Plum, Pearly White, Candy Pink, Orchard Purple

Above is how they show up on the skin, gorgeously shimmery and not bad colour for a single swipe!  They look even more pigmented when applied wet.

SO NEXT I SHALL COMPARE!

The Lily Cole collection looks like this:

And swatches like this:

As you can see, the colours are a lot less intense with the light pink on the end barely showing up there, only providing a hint of a shimmer.  I have definitely grown emotionally attached to this one and it’s gorgeous for a subtle look, however, it terms of intensity, my new Purple Shimmer Cube wins outright.

A last couple of shots of the two side by side for comparison – Lily Cole on the top and Shade Number 23 (Regular purple one) on the bottom:

 

So I hope this has helped anyone who is hesitant or unsure which to buy.  The colours are DEFINITELY different with the Lily Cole one great for a natural look and Shade Number 23 (Purple) awesome if you want a little more intensity.  There IS a fair amount of fallout on both if you rush and get too much on your brush however nothing that can’t be fixed if you take your time.  Really great colours for building up and I can’t wait to experiment a bit more with my new one!

If you’re interested, I bought the Lily Cole Shimmer Cube from Ebay for £6.00 (it’s a limited edition so out of stock on the website but there’s still plenty floating around to grab!) and Shade 23 (Purple) from the Body Shop website for £8.00.

This post is already far too long so will do another with thoughts on the lip and cheek tint in red, comparing it to the bronze one I already own.

See you later blog! 

Argghhhhhhhh!

(I’m a pirate – see even Body Shop acknowledges it…)

Far too easily amused...

And then I became a Smurf...

So what an awesomely crazy stupid evening I’ve had.  My flat basically had a last minute Christmas meal tonight and no expense was spared.  Stolen toilet paper from the common room as makeshift tinsel.  Stolen poster paper from the elevator to make snowflakes.  £1 Iceland chips.  Kitchen role paper hats.  Yep we certainly went all out for this one, SCREW THE BUDGET!

Nobody can tell us we didn't try.

We’d originally planned (although ‘planned’ is used loosely, you know how I feel about organising anything!) to have the meal on Thursday when we’d have time to nip down to Aldi and grab a cheap (but nonetheless jolly) turkey.  Sadly, my wariness of anything organisation based was reinforced when I discovered that two of our flatmates were going back to China for the holidays on Wednesday.  Yeah.  Thanks for letting us know guys.  Needless to say the whole thing was a mad dash rush but at the end of the day, death toll by fire was minimal and most of the injuries sustained shouldn’t be too long term... So I’d call that a success.

To cut a long story short, I started the evening looking like this:

And ended it looking a bit more like this:

With a large amount of this thrown in for good measure:

Ahh yes, what an attractive sexual beast I am.

So I was going to say that for those still reading and haven’t been scared off by my beautiful face but just realised that I am the only one here and since I haven’t been scared off, everything is good to go.

Anyway the evening started with the whole flat in a mad dash to prepare food.  We’d decided since no one had actually planned any Christmassy food, we would all just contribute one or two things in the hope that it would somewhat resemble a buffet.  Needless to say that unless buffets use frying pans as Doritos holders we fell rather short.

Unsurprisingly since my flat is made up of mostly Chinese international students (it’s a long story), all us English people were outshone, out done and just generally out of the kitchen (boy do those people invade!).  I guess a £1 bag of chips from Iceland doesn’t really compare to a prawn dish, a chicken curry and honey marinated chicken wings, but although my contribution may not have been fancy, the plate was licked clean! 

For some reason I decided that Christmas = Faces painted and whipped out my Maybelline 24 hour colour tattoo eye shadows and a MUA lipstick in order to bully my flatmates into submission.  To prove a point I painted myself the most ridiculous so no one could argue that there was any favoritism of patterns involved.  JThough not an art student myself, no one can say I didn’t try.  I’m sure you’ll agree, my talents are wasted as a Law student.  I'm just a bid ol' smurf with a pot of eye shadow!

From there we ate our mains, had some desert (chocolate log and ice cream), neglected to clean up (tomorrow will not be fun), then decided to play… musical chairs.  Now.  Musical chairs you may ask.  Why musical chairs you may think?  The real question is, why would you NOT finish off a Christmas meal with musical chairs!?

After a few (rather violent) rounds next to the lift to which our resident Indian had prewarned us rather menacingly that he had ‘never lost a game of musical chairs in his life’.  We headed back into the kitchen for some crazy photo taking session before people started to filter back to their rooms.  One of our guys had an essay to finish to be handed in for the morning that counted towards his overall mark to finish.  I would pay money to read what he wrote, tipsy and covered in glitter after he left!

All in all, although I may not have the most party crazy, mad drinking flat, and although I am unexpectedly in an ethnic minority, I really do love these kids <3

I shall leave this post here (since it’s rather long already) with a bunch of photos taken throughout the evening by our resident photographer.  Some of my camera phone ones will be filtered in as well although no prizes for guessing whose are whose!

I believe my victi... volunteer at this point asked whether or not she should trust me to decorate her face which I obviously replied she shouldn't.  She laughed at the time but she isn't laughing now ;)

 

CONSISTENCY! Our expressions haven't changed, just the colour of our faces!

Me and our lovely photographer!

(Most of the) Girlies from the flat! Me on the end.

And finally leaving with one of the many ridiculous faces I pulled whenever someone faced a camera towards me.  It's my new tactic to stop being photographed that will hopefully scare off anyone crazy enough to want to point a camera at me in future!

Days Out, Christmas Jumper and Food

BlogSpot? You there bro?!

Good.

So further contemplation has led me to believe for the first month (at least) this blog will be a wishy washy shambles with my posts going here there and everywhere and round the block again!  Heavens knows that, at this point, I am most certainly talking to myself but hey ho, nothing new there.

I am assuming that for me this experience might be a bit like keeping a diary?  A diary where I sometimes write about makeup products and clothes with little tutorials on how to use certain products?  Yeah so maybe it isn’t really a diary but I shall go ahead and name this my journal.  Naming things is good.  It’s the first step to becoming organised (the next step is actually putting things away and not just leaving them where they fall on the floor but let’s not talk about that…)

Anyway, since I have nowhere near planned for what my first few posts will be about, I think I’ll just write down what I did with my last few days or so.

Here’s the itinerary at a glance (prewarning that I’m nowhere near as busy as this normally!):

• Thursday afternoon: My boyfriend arrived to come and visit me. Ordered chicken kebab takeout
• Friday: Went into town in the evening after lectures had ended and saw Catching Fire (LIFE=OVER).  Pizza hut followed
• Saturday: Went into town for the St. Nicholas market.  KFC then cheeky Chinese noodles.
• Sunday: Lazy day in bed eating Doritos then off to the train station to send the boy packing.  Chinese buffet interim.

I had a great long weekend with him and what I have gathered from looking back at these few days is that I really need to have that boy over more often.  I eat incredibly indulgently when he’s around!  Probably because he’s a generous and pays for all my food … Student life really doesn’t allow me to eat like this on a regular basis (sadly)!

So on Thursday evening he made the hour and a half trip from Manchester to York to come and see me, he arrived at my campus and we spent a lazy evening in catching up and watching the Hobbit.   I fell asleep four times during the film waking up to find I’d missed the best bits!

The next day, on Friday, I headed to lectures in the morning then we hopped off to the city centre to FINALLY see Catching Fire.  OH MY GOD.  I was… It was… I am so speechless at how perfect the adaptation to the books was.  And there are no words for how amazing Jennifer Lawrence was in it.  NO.  WORDS.

First Christmas JUMPER!

Before we went into the cinema I was a bit chilly so headed to one of the cheap-scary-someone-might-murder-me-if-I-go-in-here-shops-but-hell-its-cheap-so-screw-it where I got a cute ass jumper for a fiver.  If we are being technical my FIRST EVER Christmas jumper!

My lovely new (cheap) gloves!

Saturday we went back into the city centre since we’d seen a bunch of hut like market things Friday night and boy was it packed!  Not a huge fan of Christmas markets when you can barely move/see anything but I picked up some simple stretch black gloves at 50p each.  I got three pairs.  Why do I possibly need 3 pairs of plain black gloves? God dam the unrivalled allure of cheap things.  Just can’t say no!

Snowflake and some shifty looking reindeer all the way!

That night was the last night before one of my flat mates moved out so we ordered in some take out from a Chinese and Indian.  When the delivery man came we sent one of the boys down to collect it but got a phone call 5 mins later saying that the delivery person couldn’t see who he was giving the food to, to which my mate replied ‘The short Chinese boy who looks like a sheep’s been chewing on his head’.  The sad thing is that she wasn’t like this when we first met.  What a bad influence we are ;)

Sunday was a lazy day lolling around and saying goodbye to our flat mate.  Afterwards me and my boyfriend went to the station after a lovely Chinese meal.  On the way there we were talking about his sister’s blog and joking about how we should make one to keep people up to date.  Not sure about that but I did think I’d give it a go!

Au Revoir at the train station.  Someone looks happy to leave!

Wondering if I did a makeup post anyone would read it? Probably not but hey, why not? Ain’t nothing wrong with giving it a go!

In the Beginning...

Andddd in the first picture uploaded I manage to leave the wardrobe door open in the background... So smooth...

Hey there BlogSpot!

So I’m firstly going to state straight off the bat that I am super duper nervous about posting this.

I've written my ‘first’ blog post numerous times over the years but never actually gathered up the courage (or grown the balls) to shove it out there into the vast domain claimed by those they call bloggers.  In each of my ‘first posts’ I tried to adopt a different tone.  I was funny and cool, interesting and silly, a badass and a total nerd but never with these personas overlapping.  Today I am just sitting down and writing a post about me, by me.  No badassery included.

So.  Down to business, here's the basics.  I am;

•  Called Gina
•  At university studying law (first year)
•  Addicted to creatively procrastinating doing said law work
•  Completely and totally useless at staying focused!

Therefore;

• I’ll be posting about a wide range of things branching out from my daily life
• Posting things including, but not limited to (see, I really am a law student!): Thoughts and ideas, makeup and beauty, daily going ons and anecdotes and just generally me being me.

Also;

• Bullet points are fun and will be used extensively and for no real reason throughout!

Hopefully I’ll get to use this blog as an outlet for my ramblings and maybe even pick up some advice from cooler kids I might meet along the way.  Not holding out much hope for that though.  If the men in the white coats couldn't fix me, I’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who can!

I guess blogging will be whatever I make of it and a good way to keep track of where my mind is at right now so hopefully, in a few years time, future Gina will be scrolling back and able to reminisce about this very first post. Future Gina is probably procrastinating too. GET BACK TO WORK WOMAN!

Well since I suspect I am talking to myself I will do myself the courtesy of wishing myself good luck on this epic quest they call BLOGGING (dramatic, huh?!) .

Good luck stupid face,  I’ll see you on the other side!

Annnd CUT!