BEDA #12 - Talking Easter and Religion

Hi there, bloggers of BEDA.

I wanted to talk about Easter, since we are currently celebrating it, depending on your religious beliefs.

Basically, according to Christian scripture, it's the celebration of when Jesus was resurrected from the dead three days after his crucifixion. Nowadays it's all about the Easter Bunny and the Easter egg hunts.

I've never been baptized, something very common in my country. I'm actually very grateful that my dad disagreed when it came to me being baptized. My mom is Catholic, and my dad is atheist. I think it gives us a chance to choose our religious path when we're older, and not have it imposed by our parents and family and its religious background.

When I was younger I used to pray, though I'm not really sure why. Maybe it was because half of my family always does it and has such a strong belief in God and Christianity. I'm almost 17 now, and I think I've finally settled on what I believe in. I don't believe in God. I'm not catholic. Sometimes a wear a cross around my neck which my mom gave me, but it doesn't symbolize any type of religion, it's just a symbol and it happens to be related with Jesus. If I had to choose a religion - which is not quite considered a religion by some - that is the most related to my belief, it would be Buddhism, in the sense that it focusses on your inner strength rather than a God. I'm not saying that I am indeed a Buddhist, I just think that it fits more into my religious belief, which is agnostic.

I said all this because I've already lived two types of Easter "celebrations". When I'd go to my grandparents house a priest would go into every house with a statue of Jesus on the crucifix, and we'd kiss it. I'd tag along and do it too.

The "celebration" I do now is only a "Happy Easter" in the morning, and have a nice lunch with the table all neat and tidy and eat something I don't normally eat on my daily basis. If I go to my grandparents house to "celebrate" Easter, I respectfully leave the room the priest walks in and come back when he's gone.

Once a priest actually gave me an almond - here it's more of a symbol of Easter than Easter eggs or the Easter Bunny - (which I hate, by the way), and I just put it in my mouth and then just spit out afterwards. One thing that I didn't understand at the time but that now absolutely revolts me, is how my grandparents would always give money to the Church. Last year they had to put their names on the envelope which contained the money, and this year the priest didn't even go to my grandparents' village. So, basically, the priest's visit only comes to your village if the ammount of money you gave achieves the Church's satisfaction - which I can't even begin to write how it makes me feel.

I don't want to start rambling on about religious hypocrisy. Although I don't understand it, I respect everyone's religion. I didn't mean to disrespect anyone by this post, I'm sorry if you did find it inappropriate in any way.

How do you celebrate Easter? Do you celebrate it at all?

Happy Easter, everyone.

See you tomorrow xx

- Lo

BEDA #11 - The meaning of April

Hello, Dear Bloggers!

Today I want to talk about this wonderful month - April.

Now, what do I immediately think of when I think of April? First of all, I think of birthdays. I know so many people whose birthday is in April. On the top of my head... I know ten, including myself on the 29th.

I think of Spring, I think of Easter and two weeks of Spring Break. I think of rain and a famous portuguese saying which is impossible to translate, but it basically means that it rains a lot in April. I think that in less than two months I'll be through another year of school and finally enjoy the summer with no stress and go to the beach and finally dress comfortably with shorts, skirts and dresses.

I think of April Fool's Day and how I never prank anyone because I don't really see the point - or because it's Spring Break and normally there's no one to prank.

I think of Portugal's Liberty Day, that happened on the 25th April 1974.

I think about how the 5th was the 2nd anniversary of my YouTube account, which I only realized yesterday.

I now think about BEDA, and how I actually think it will happen again next year and how it'll be a tradition to all Nerdfighters and/or Maureen Johnson fans.

I think... I don't really think of anything else. What do you think of when you think of April? Any big annual events in your life?

See you tomorrow, guys xx

- Lo

BEDA #10 - Hi, I'm Lo. And I'm a Shopaholic.

Hello, dear bloggers!

Ah, ten days and still going strong. Well, I'm not so sure about the strong part. *sniffs around* Hmm, don't you love the smell of blogging?

Today I finally saw Confessions of a Shopaholic aaaand... yeah, it sucked because it didn't match the book at all (well, everything except Luke Brandon *drools*). But I closed my eyes, dug deep into the little room inside my brain where my memory is kept, and tried to forget that there was even a book. And I finally enjoyed it!

When the movie was over, I went inside a few stores and actually stood at the entrance, just looking. So many blues, yellows, greens, reds. Stripes and spots, tshirts and jackets, Small, Medium and Large. My eyes just popped open and I immediately felt like I was in some kind of clothes heaven. I imagine it as a huge store where there's every piece of clothing that I would love, and there'd be enough for everybody and in every shape and size and everything would fit and look glamorous, and everything would be free.

The problem is, there's no such thing. Maybe there is, but it's not available in my credit card. Or rather, it's not anymore. On the 7th of this same month, I had more than 100€ on my banking account. It's the 10th. I have 30€.

I can't really help it, though. If you can buy it, buy it! And what I bought was so cute, especially this little spring coat:

Isn't it gorgeous?

Maybe it's because I saw the movie, but I had to buy it. When I read the book about five years ago, I actually saw myself as Becky Bloomwood, never careful with handing out her credit card. Maybe I'm this kind of Carrie Bradshaw. I actually wouldn't mind having her life: a succesful column, clothes, great friends (I have this, and more are welcome =)), and Mr. Big (although I'd prefer this detail without all the drama).

Well, what else can I say? I have shared my reckless spending when it comes to clothes (and books. And other things.).

See you tomorrow, bloggers xx

- Lo

BEDA #9 - BEDA has come to talking about ketchup

Hi, dear Bloggers. Welcome to day 9 of BEDA!

I'm noticing that by the 9th day of BEDA, there are lots of bloggers that are finding it difficult to continue to come up with subjects to blog about - me included. So, because I really don't want to quit even for a day, I decided to just Google something random. I hope other bloggers find this "method" as a way to continue blogging, because I really like reading other people's blogs just as much as other people reading mine.

So, today's topic is.... *drumroll*

KETCHUP!

"Why," you ask? Because I stumbled into this random fact:

Fun fact about ketchup:

When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle, it travels at a rate of 25 miles per year.

Now... why would anyone actually measure at how many miles ketchup "travels"? I do nothave an answer for this. But I do have more facts!

More facts:

1. The Original Ketchup, known as Catsup, did not contain tomatoes, it contained anchovies, walnuts, mushrooms and kidnet beans.

My reaction to this fact: I confess, I did not know about this. My opinion is that ketchup without tomatoes just isn't ketchup.

2. A tablespoon of ketchup has 16 calories and no fat. By eating just 4 tablespoons of ketchup you will receive the same nutritional value of an entire medium sized tomato.

My reaction to this fact: I did know that ketchup doesn't have fat. Or a lot of fat. Which is awesome! And for those of you that feel that chewing is not your favorite hobby, this is good news! You can have the same nutritional value as a tomato with only 4 tablespoons of ketchup and you don't even have to chew!

3. The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of ingredients in the sauce.

My reaction to this fact: I didn't know this, but it always made me curious. Ah, random facts <3>

No more facts, my friends. It turns out that there aren't really any more - interesting - facts about ketchup.

I actually stopped writing this blog to go eat dinner, and with all this talk about ketchup, I actually ate it with fish. Which is something pretty unthinkable here, eating fish with ketchup. That's the effect it has on me.

See you tomorrow, ketchup lovers xx

- Lo

BEDA #6 - Rickrolling is EVERYWHERE (Even on Omegle)

Hello, Dear Readers, welcome to my 5th BEDA blog post :)

Today I want to talk about Rickrolling and Omegle.

Omegle is a website that I discovered thanks to Alex Day aka Nerimon on YouTube, on his 5th VEDA vlog. It's basically a website that is a chatroom, and you talk to a complete stranger. You don't know anything about them, there's just a big box that says Talk to strangers! on top, says You: when you type and Stranger: when the other person types, and if you want to stop talking to that person you just click on the big square button that says Disconnect and another stranger will find its way to your page. It pretty much looks like this:

You normally start by saying "Hello", introducing yourself and asking where the person is from, what their age is and if they're male or female.

But one person has made it clear that things can be different. They insist on keeping something alive. Something that I never quite understood its purpose or intention. Something that I laughed out loud when I saw it. Something that I was used to see on YouTube, and now on Omegle. And it happened five times. That something, my friends, is RICKROLLING:

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.................................................. .............................'''~-,|: : : : : : ~---': : : :,'--never Gonna

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You have just been rickrolled (...)

When I first saw this, thinking I would have a decent conversation (or just another F*€# U, B!#€H like some people insist on typing because their brain level and social decency and morality are less than zero times the square root of Pi), I just stared at my laptop ten seconds straight. And then burst out laughing.

Even in Omegle? Come on, guys. Is this ever going to get old?

I think the question is, Why are you spending time on a website where you talk to strangers?

Well, I happened to have met very awesome people there, as well. Nerdfighters included (thanks to the above referrenced Alex Day). It's not that bad, Omegle. When you're bored, go there, you might just meet someone decent and worth talking to - or just some jerk, but that depends on the luck you have.

Have you ever been on Omegle? Have you ever been on Omegle and been Rickrolled? Answer in the comments :)

See you tomorrow, bloggers xx

- Lo

BEDA #5 - Jazzy Diana Krall, Adventureland and Confessions of a Shopaholic

Hello, Dear Readers, welcome to the 5th day of BEDA (and my 4th blog post).

Quiet Nights

Here I am, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon (My sense of time during Spring Break baffles me), writing on my blog and listening to jazzy Diana Krall. Her new album, Quiet Nights, is absolutely amazing. It's very Bossa Nova-ish, which is the typical music genre of Brazil. Being from Portugal, I'm quite familiar with Brazilian culture. Bossa Nova (which in Portuguese means "new trend") is a feel-good kind of genre, and it relaxes me everytime I listen to it.

One of her songs, The Boy From Ipanema, makes me shiver all over. The original song, Garota de Ipanema, by Antônio Carlos Jobim, won a Grammy for Record Of The Year in 1965, and listening to it in English is different, but definitely a good kind of different. I recommend Diana Krall's new album to all jazz lovers, it's a beautiful and relaxing record.

Adventureland and Confessions of a Shopaholic

I'm dying to watch these two movies. When I heard that Confessions of a Shopaholic was going to be turned into a movie, I almost fell of the chair. I've been reading the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella since the first book came out. All of them made me laugh out loud so many times and shake my head at Rebecca Bloomwood's unwise shopping expenses. I saw the trailer though, and was immediately disappointed. A basic detail of the books went automatically down the pit: Rebecca Bloomwood is English, not American. Why change that? Is there something wrong with being English? Maybe this little detail only irritates me, but come on. When you read the books you're always thinking of this chic and energetic young english woman with the typical english accent. Why change that?

Moving on.

I'm also dying to see Adventureland with Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart. I saw this trailer and loved it, AND I WANT TO SEE IT SO BAD! I think I'm going to laugh so much at it.

But, of course, I have to wait a couple of months to watch both movies. I'm curious as to what takes a movie to come from the US to Europe. Why does it take so long? We're movie lovers too. We're dying to see movies too. Grr.

That's my BEDA for today, guys. See you tomorrow!

- Lo

Sekrit P.S. - I kind of also want to see Hannah Montana: The Movie. DON'T. JUDGE. ME. Pwease? :)

BEDA #2 - I'm a bit late

Hi!

It's 01.33 AM and it's April 3rd. I heard about this BEDA/VEDA thing through Alex Day's vlog, and didn't give it much thought, because being a complete stranger on YouTube doesn't give it much meaning, due to the views I know my vlogs would get. I did think it through now, and I thought that blogging would be much better. I am a bit late, I'm afraid. I'll post this entry today pretending it's April 2nd (and it is in lots of countries, so I'm not quite cheating if I do say so myself). I could pretend it's April 1st but that would really be cheating, right? Yeah. Well, April 1st is April Fool's Day, so in honour of that day, I will pretend it's April 1st and I'm starting my BEDA challenge. So there.

I'll start by introducing myself. My name is Ana Lorena, and I'm known by the majority of my friends and other people as Lo. I'm from Lisbon, Portugal, though I'm also half-dutch. I love to write (thus wanting to actually accomplish this challenge), to read and to vlog, although this last thing hasn't actually "spread out". I first heard of Maureen Johnson through John and Hank Green's vlogs, and I have some of her books, which I think are amazing. That and her blog, which is hilarious.

I just came back from a five day trip from Paris with a bunch of my friends. That was nice. I'm editing the footage I filmed there, and am making a scrapbook with photos I took. I wish I had stayed there a bit longer.

I can say that I'm working on a novel. An attempt at a novel, I might add. I hope I'm not one of those people that loves to read and write but when it comes to the moment of truth people hate everything that comes out of my pen. Or tapping on the keyboard. At least some of the feedback that I already got was positive, so that's nice.

Well, not much to say. This is a bit hard. Going back to drinking my tea. I'll blog some more tomorrow (later today, I should say, but no one needs to know that). Hope I get some views on this and I'll be sure to read some of your blogs :)

- Lo

BEDA #1 - I'm cheating

So, I've known for a few days that I can post a blog waaaay back until 1970. So why don't I do it with this blog post and post it on April 1st? That way I can have the correct number on the title, so this is BEDA #1 :D

It is April Fool's Day, today.

Muahahaha, I have fooled you all.

Now go read my recent blog posts.