Noelle Lange, The Queen Bee

According to the books, Noelle has long, dark hair and brown eyes. She's from New York City. She;s confident, sporty, a natural born leader. She cares a lot about her status and likes to be in charge of everything. She knows everything about what goes on at Easton, so much that it actually scares Reed. She can be blunt and won't hesitate to make bitchy comments to her friends. She's also very loyal, though, and will protect her friends if they are in danger. 

So, I imagine her as Emma Watson as Nicki Moore in The Bling Ring. Here are a few pictures:    

Tell me what you guys think! 

Private

Hi guys! I know I haven't posted in FOREVER. I'm not very consistent, am I? Anyway, it's summertime, and that means it's time to whip out a book and read by the pool, under the sun. I read the Private Series by Kate Brian books a while ago, but I decided to re-read them. 

Now, I'm not saying they're a work of literary genius, but they're interesting. They're kind of like Gossip Girl, but with murders and dangerous secrets and scandal. 

It starts off with the protagonist, sophomore Reed Brennan, arriving at Easton Academy, a boarding school for over-privileged kids in Connecticut. Easton had been her dream school for years, because it was a way out of her boring, miserable town in Pennsylvania. She's accepted to the school on a scholarship, and of course, feels completely lost at first surrounded by girls and guys too wealthy for their own good. She meets senior Thomas Pearson, a hot, popular and mysterious boy. Her wildest dreams come true when the most popular girls of the school, the girls of the exclusive Billings House, actually acknowledge her existence. She's particularly fascinated by the leader of Billings House, beautiful and confident senior Noelle Lange, and her little group of friends - Ariana Osgood, quiet good girl and poet, Kiran Hayes, a gorgeous model, and Taylor Bell, the smartest girl in school. Even though they make her do demeaning things, Reed is determined to be one of them - these girls go on to be great people who make their mark on the world, and she wants that for herself, too. Essentially, she'll do almost anything to get into their group. It kind of reminds me of Mean Girls, but Noelle and her friends are much more manipulative than Regina George and her "army of skanks." 

I won't spoil anything - you'll just have to read the series for yourself! There are 14 books (a handful, I know), and while at a certain point it feels like the author is just dragging the series on for no particular purpose, just get to the end.


Actually, I've always imagined what Noelle and her friends would look like. In the next few posts, I'm going to post what I think these characters would look like. I'll start with Noelle Lange. 

Bring Poppy Back!

It's been over a month since I last posted - I can't believe it's already March! Anyway, in my last post, I talked about charm bracelets. Well, I also have another unhealthy shopping obsession: purses. I have a couple of wristlets (mostly from Coach or Vera Bradley), a super cool Converse bag shaped like a shoe (I've gotten tons of compliments about it!) and other bags, like 2 full sized Coach ones, two Coach wallets, a full size Vera Bradley bag.

You could say I'm obsessed with purses. I prowl websites like eBay, Kate Spade, Tory Burch, Coach, etc, looking for cute bags. What I really wanted to post was to lament about Coach. In the past few years they've released NO fun designs - the Poppy bags from before were sparkly and young and eye-catching. Yes, Coach is not a company that tries to target youth, but I'm sure there are a lot of older teens-mid-twenties women who buy Coach purses. I, for one, haven't bought a single Coach purse in years because nothing particularly appeals to me. The simple, one color designs are frankly boring and I would never spend $200+ on a bag I hate. 

In my opinion, Coach should still try to target older, rather wealthier women but also try to make an effort to appeal to young people by bringing back the Poppy line from a few years ago. I'm sure that if Coach offered even a few bags designed to attract younger women they'd get more sales profits. I miss those bags so much! 

Here are examples of the kinds of Coach bags I'm talking about: 


These are so much more youthful and fun than their dreary one-color leather ones! Bring them back Coach! 

Charms Galore!

Hi everyone! I'm back! I've been so busy in the last couple of months - college and scholarship applications, AP classes, extracurriculars, etc - but today I have an off day from school so I thought I'd update! 

For the past six-seven months I've been obsessed with charm bracelets. Yes, OBSESSED. I swear, I've spent a few hundred dollars on charms - it's insane. I need to share with the world my love for charm bracelets. 

Charm bracelets are unique from any other kind of jewelry. You decide what you want your charm bracelet to represent. You make your charm bracelet symbolize you and your experiences. Plus, a bonus is that they're delicate and pretty. 

Here are the charm bracelet/companies that I've shopped with (since I can't afford Tiffany & Co or Cartier charm bracelets): 

- PANDORA - Pandora is my top charm bracelet company. I have at least 15 charms from there and I can't stop myself from buying more! They're pretty, colorful (Murano beads are the colorful ones) and symbolize everything from family to hobbies to special occasions. Some of my favorite collections are the travel collection and the fairy tale collection. Enchanted! I got my first bracelet for my birthday last summer and I visit my local Pandora retailer at least once a month - I've been spending all my accumulated birthday/Christmas money from my family! I have a problem and I've been forcing myself to stay away from the mall whenever possible. 

- Swarovski - Sparkles and shine = my favorite! Swarovski specializes in all that glitters. I have four charms from there: the pink seahorse charm (my favorite), a Hello Kitty charm, a lucky elephant charm and a heart and key charm. I have a star necklace and a L-O-V-E Serenade hot pink charm bracelet too. However, my only problem with Swarovski is that they don't really change their charm collection that often. Like once a year, maybe. They don't offer seasonal collections. So I'm kind of limited in what I buy because I usually only like a few charms per collection and there's only one a year so I don't buy from them often. Their charms get old because they're available year-round. 

- Fossil - My friend got me into the Fossil charm collection a few months ago. I only have two charms (I prefer Pandora, although Fossil is a close second) - the pencils one for my writing passion and the new colorful heart (it's like a wheel of love). The charms are never above $40, which is great, and they range from super-sparkly to regular sterling silver. They are mostly colorful and offer both rose-gold, gold and silver charms. Last fall, Fossil offered these colorful rubber bracelets that you could put one charm at a time on. They were so fun! I have a dark blue one and if they were still selling them I would've bought either a pink or a green one. 

- James Avery - Very unknown brand outside of a few states in the U.S. (including my own) - their pieces are rather blah in my opinion. They're alright, but nothing spectacular or eye-catching. What's worse is that you have to have them soldered onto the charm bracelet, which is something I don't like. I like to be able to take my charms on and off of my bracelet and exchange them with other charms for a bit of variety. I have the Texas heart charm as that's where I'm from but I wear it on a necklace. I know it sounds bad, but nobody knows who James Avery is really. Pandora, however, is worldwide, with millions of customers. I have friends in Spain who adore Pandora and really want a charm bracelet from there, but they're a bit too expensive what with the financial crisis and all.

In my opinion, brand is important, no matter what anyone says. People like to sport around big-name designers even if the pieces are hideous. I am going to try to hold off until March to buy the exclusive Pandora club charm (waiting for my voucher, Pandora, wink, wink) but we'll see how that works out. 

Can you believe that at this time last year I couldn't stand wearing jewelry? Now my wrists feel empty if I'm not wearing at least one bracelet on each one. My neck feels exposed without a pendant on. 

Post comments about your jewelry and what you love about it! I want to hear your feedback on brands and styles! 

Pulling My Hair Out!

Hello, my fellow bloggers - I'm alive! Yes, it's been over 2 months since I last posted something on here but life has been super hectic. I'm a high school senior, so my life revolves around those college applications. The dreaded, endless college application season has arrived. I'm practically finished except for the essays but so far, so good. I've just got to perfect and verify that all my information in those applications is correct. 

My dream school is NYU. I've had my heart set on going there as soon as I went to a college information session of theirs at my school. The student diversity, the campus life, the extraordinary opportunities to study abroad - and of course, NYU is in the heart of New York City, where something is always happening at any given moment. I've been to New York, and I loved it. I live in the south, so its a pretty big distance, and I'm not sure I'm independent enough to go so far on my own, but I feel like it's the only way I'll truly let go of dependence on others - to go so far away that there's no one there to solve my problems for me. It's a daunting idea, but I feel confident that I can do it. People tell me that I should go to a school closer to home and see how it goes and then transfer into NYU, but I am scared that 1) I wouldn't get accepted as a transfer and 2) I'll be just too comfortable at whatever school I go to that I won't feel like going anywhere else. And frankly, I'm just tired of the state I live in. I need a change. 

My grades are pretty good - I am in top 10 of my extremely small class of 109 students, I'm not in ten different clubs at my school but I am in a few and I've dedicated my efforts and my time to those specific clubs. I just didn't want to get so stressed out with so many clubs and then not be able to say I contributed much to any single club because there were just too many. I'm in the process of writing a kick-ass essay for Common App, and I've got my recommendations from two teachers and the counselor. SAT scores aren't too hot - 1790 - I took the exam again, but I doubt I did any better, partly because the monitor didn't give the dictated time for each section. So, I'm hoping that with everything else, the SAT score won't matter as much to the admissions people. 

Of course, there are other schools I'm applying to - half of them public and half of them private, all of them in my state - but I can only imagine myself at NYU, not at any other particular school I'm applying to. Of course, NYU is a reach school, but I think I may have a decent chance at getting accepted. 

I'm submitting my application to NYU first, so wish me luck on getting that acceptance letter!

The End is Near

So, summer is winding down and rapidly coming to a close, but that's not what I'm worried about. It's school - that horror dungeon designed for learning but is actually a place of hatred and stereotypes and utter loneliness, at least for me. Plus, I doubt I will ever need to know the significance of a specific history event or understand Shakespeare's works in my future. But then again, who knows? 

Summer is the greatest thing that has happened to me this year. I got to volunteer at my pediatrician's clinic in June, where I got a taste of what my possible future profession would be like, and I got to intern at my uncle's magazine, 002 Houston. It was truly an experience for me, and I'm glad I got to be productive this summer. I also got my driver's permit - the sweet reward of almost a month, 2 hours per day Monday-Thursday of constant dull videos. 

In July, I went to Spain to visit my family. My brothers and Dad had already been here for a month, and I was just catching up with them. I got to spend a week in Madrid with my grandparents, and then went up north to my dad's hometown. Life here is almost totally different from my life in the states. The small town life is tranquil and liberating. I can go wherever I want, whenever I want. I can party until the early hours of the morning without worrying about my parents getting mad. And best of all, I have my friends, who are older than U am, and therefore I can rrelate to them more easily than I can to people my own age. There were at least 20 people at my birthday dinner -the most people I've ever had come to an event of mine. It was truly amazing. 

Now that I am about to leave from Spain, I wonder what else I could have done with my time. I really should've done more college stuff. But I doubt many people really focused on college this summer. Especially those who are out of the country. I'm not excited to go back to Texas because as much as I love the big city, it has its disadvantages. The busy hustle and bustle life is something I don't mind so much, but it's nice to not have anything to do for a while. I miss being able to go to the mall and the movies and the museums whenever I want. Some things I won't miss, however: 

- The fact that we have to turn the router off and shut off the electricity every time there's a thunderstorm. 
- How the power will go out at least once every time I take a shower.
- The smell of shit throughout the town. 
- The startling amount of dust in my grandmother's old house. 
- The 50 km drive to the city (and to a mall, a hospital, and a movie theater, among countless other amenities that are a 5 minute drive away in a Texas big city).

Things I will miss: 

- My family and friends. 
- My uncle's dogs, Pol and Lua, and Jacko, the German Shepard and my 2 beautiful cats, Luna and Mimosa. 
- The peacefulness and the mountains and the cool weather in the daytime and the chilliness of the night. 
- The snacks - Cheetos Pelotazos, blackberry and raspberry gummies, Ham-flavored Ruffles. 
- The Corte Ingles.
- The Pizzeria La Competencia - by far the most delicious pizza I have ever had. 

It's a bittersweet feeling to leave - I want to go and I want to stay. The fact that I have to leave so soon means that summer is coming to an end and my senior year will start. The only bright side to school starting is that it's my last year of high school. I want nothing more than to be far, far away from the idiots and stupid-heads in my high school.

Hope everyone's summer has been amazing, and for all of those in school, best of luck in this upcoming school year!

Shopping Crisis!

Now, I know I haven't been on here in months, but I apologize. I've just been so busy this semester! 

I came on here to rant about shopping. I really really want this Kate Spade idiom bracelet "Look on the Bright Side" but I can't find it anywhere! I saw it on the website a few months ago and was going to buy it but ended up not buying it. I regret it. My aunt has one, and I love it! It's such a shame they don't have it anymore - they should sell them again! I'd buy one!

There's also a wristlet by Tory Burch that I really wanted but then it sold out!!! 

I just really needed to rant to people about this.