Saira's Speculating Mind: Dressing To Impress?

This is something that I've seen happen quite a lot and it ended up being something that I wanted to write about. Do we dress to impress? 

I have heard so many comments when I'm passing people in school and have seen them online and they all tend to be the same sort of thing. Always giving abuse to people because they might have decided to dress up a little more nicely that usual, or do their hair differently or wear some make up. Sometimes it's yelling abuse at the same person everyday because they always make an effort. There are people out there who tend to think that these other people are dressing up and putting that effort in for someone else. But is that always the case? 

I'm not a person that tends to dress up a whole lot and I'm more than happy in my jeans with no make up but that's not to say that I dislike people who wear skirt or dresses and wear make up. At the end of the day, these are the things that people feel comfortable in and I respect that. I get the off occasion where I do decide to dress up a little more nicely that usual and do my hair nicely. That doesn't mean that I'm making an effort for anyone though. At the end of the day I, and I'm sure a lot of other people, take pride in my appearance. I'm not a vain person but I like looking presentable. I do like to put in that extra bit of effort sometimes.  So, why do people think that we're always dressing up for someone else? And why to people always have to make fun of that and abuse people? 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to feel good about yourself and you shouldn't let other people tell you otherwise. Sometimes, it's just the right pair of shoes, or a certain hairstyle that makes you feel so much more confident in a day. Make you walk with you head held that little bit higher. There are so many people who feel the need to make people feel ashamed for taking care of the way that they look when that really shouldn't be the case and it annoys me that it happens.  

Self confidence is never a bad thing and we shouldn't be made to feel that it is. Who says that everything we do is to impress someone? 

Saira's Speculating Mind: After Exam Stress?

We're in full swing of exams season and I've seen so many posts and tweets about revision sessions and how to manage your time between revision and numerous exams but I don't think I've seen many, if any, posts about how to handle everything that goes on after an exams happens. Even though these are only my first set of exams, I thought I'd share with you guys what I do and think after I've finished an exam because personally, I think that sometimes that's when the worst part is. 

Exams are a stressful business, whether you're sitting GCSE's, A-Level's or your degree. You spend weeks preparing and revising and then the day comes and you just have to go in there and do the best that you can. Getting out of that exam room can sometimes leave me either feeling pretty happy or a little bit down heartened and I have a feeling I'm not the only one that gets this feeling. 

I tend to call this the "After Exam Stess". The stress you have after an exam is done and dusted with. That feeling in the pit of your stomach where you haven't got a clue what is going to happen, where you're analysing every question you just answered, kicking yourself for not answering the question right and panicking about what your results day will hold. I've seen it in school and I've done it. Over the course of exams though, I've taught myself that I can't do all of those things. 

Once you're out of the exam room, that's it! You're out of there and your exam paper is no longer in your hands. There is absolutely no point in thinking about it. You've gone in there and done your best and as soon as you walk out of there, there's nothing that you can do. It's pointless stressing over it. If you still have exams left, it's only going to set you back. I know that it's easier said then done but you just have to try and push it to the back of your mind. Even after you've finished your exams, don't think about it. That's your time to just relax and do some of the things that you enjoy before being thrown into whatever else happens next. 

Your results day will come when it comes. I know that it does have a lot riding on it at the end of the day but you stressing about it and panicking isn't going to do anything to change what happens. Whatever happens, happens for a reason. That is one saying that I make myself remember. Things will fall into place and everything that is meant to happen will. All you can do is try your best in the exam and then carry on with your other exams and just try and relax once everything is over. 

I hope that everyone who's finished their exams or have done a few of them have gone well and you guys are happy. To everyone who is yet to start or is in the midst of their exams, good luck! You guys will rock them! 

Saira's Speculating Mind: Do Photoshopped Images Make You Us Feel Bad About Ourselves?

This is a subject that is spoken and wrote about a lot and is something I feel quite strongly towards; do seeing photoshopped images make us feel bad about the way we look? I think it’s nearly a fact now that most images that we see in magazines and on websites are often photoshopped. There obviously is that professionalism of wanting to clean up images before you show your work to the public which I understand but have people been taking it too far?

A lot of people will say it’s just for marketing. At the end of the day, there are a lot of business men and women out there who are making their living by selling things like clothes and so on. They need to make their products look as appealing as possible, it’s just marketing and the way the business world works and surely that should be something that we are used to. People shouldn’t be foolish enough to believe that models really are what they appear to be when the finished product is shown. It should be common knowledge by now.

Magazines and websites should have the right to portray models the way that they want to. It’s their artistic licence and isn’t their fault If people feel hurt or offended. It was never intentional. Surely, a person should have a good enough self-esteem to not feel bad about a photo that they have just seen. Editors are only trying to cover as many bases as possible, in terms of different types of people, and the only way they are able to do that is by using photoshop.

But as many cases as there are for using photoshop there will always be cases against it. Marketing shouldn’t come to the expense of changing the way someone looks completely. If you look at before and after pictures of models when they’ve been photoshopped, you can see that sometimes they’re bone structure in their face has been altered completely. If you want models to look a certain way, then shouldn’t you be hiring them instead of photoshopping others? And if those models don’t exist, isn’t that telling us something. That maybe we are pushing this idea of what consumers ‘want’ a little too much?

Even though for some people it might be common knowledge that photoshop is used on a lot of models, some people may not know. I find that even though I know that quite a lot of images are extremely edited, I find it quite hard to notice which parts actually are. It could be anything for their height, to their weight, to their skin tone, to their hair length. You can do almost anything to an image in photoshop and that’s the problem.

You can’t blame a person for having a bad self-esteem, especially when it’s always edited photos that are being shoved in front of you face. How can you accept the fact that that isn’t what is normal when that’s what the media is trying to make you believe? There’s going to be a knock to your confidence.

Even though the above infographic makes it seem as though there aren't many people in the UK that have an eating disorder, there are in fact an estimated 1.6 million people who have a eating disorder. For me, I find that number way too high. Body image dominates social media sites and the media and it has to partially be a contributor to the high rates of eating disorders. 

Personally, I’m not a huge fan of photoshop. My generation is already extremely self-conscious about the way we look and constantly worked up about what we’re consuming on a day to day basis. I don’t think it’s helping that every magazine we pick up, every celebrity we look up to is just an edited form of what they are. For me, unedited photos and images are so much more beautiful.

So, are photoshopped images making you feel bad about what you look like? 

*Source of figures of Eating Disorders 

Saira's Speculating Mind: Love Triangles

Love triangles! We see them in movies, books and real life but I’m going to be talking about the ones in literature. The ones that we see splattered across our pages as we read a newly bought book. I’m not just on about the love triangles where there’s that one person who trying to date two other people and is trying to keep it all a secret. I’m on about all kind of different love triangles. 

I think we can pretty much find love triangles in most books both old and new. Whether they be the main point in the plot of just a side plot to make the story that little bit more interesting. But are they overrated or are we still finding that we are clinging on to every single word being written? 

There tends to be a typical love triangle of the girl’s best friend being in love with her but she’s going out with someone else and that guy hurts her and she ends up falling into the arms of her hero… who is none other than her best friend. Are we tending to find these plot line boring though? There are a countless amount of books that I have read where this is somewhere in the plot and it tends to just be too predictable now. You know what happens. You know the author will make you fall in love with the “other guy” but still make you want to root for the best friend, knowing that he’s going to be the one who ends up with the girl. 

That’s what’s different with The Hunger Games though. Instead of Katniss ending up with Gale, the boy that she’s known for years and is in love with her – she ends up with the “other guy”. The one who’s been watching her from a far and has never spoken to her but still knows so much about her (that does sound slightly stalkerish though…). Her hero isn’t Gale, it’s Peeta. He’s the one that fixes her and they are the ones who help each other out after the aftermath of everything. 

For some people though, love triangles are the one thing that leave us clinging to the book for hours to make sure that our pairing does end up together. Is that the problem though? Do we spend too much time focusing on the love aspect of the book instead of the plot? Or is that what the author wanted us to do in the first place? 

Personally, I feel like sometimes a really well thought out plot can be overshadowed by a love triangle. It takes away from what’s going on and I’m often left in conversations with people who are just taking about the love triangle. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind talking about love triangles but there’s so much more going on in the plot as well. 

A love triangle can often add to the plot though, it help it develop and can help the character develop. But it seems as though love triangles in books are starting to lose my affection. I don’t mind them being there and I’m don’t mind reading about them. What I am finding though is that I want to read more about the plot, I want to be able to delve into the thick nitty gritty parts of the plot, without someone having to being battling with the feelings about which person they like. 

As much as I like love triangles, I do think that they can be slightly overrated and I could survive a book that didn’t have one in. However, when they are executed well and are not the main point in a story that isn't of the romance I don't mind them being there.

What about you? Are you still in love with love triangles? Or ready to break up with them? 

*Image of Katniss, Peeta and Gale taken from Google