THOUGHTS
I have THOUGHTS. Not to be confused with thoughts or Thoughts. THOUGHTS are when an idea burrows into your brain with a fervor that compels you to share whatever it is immediately or you might just implode. THOUGHTS mean the whole world needs to know and needs to know now exactly why the greatest show that’s ever existed is the latest leftovers-themed trash TV on Netflix or about why gaming reached its peak with a Disney/Final Fantasy mashup released in 2005. It means a fascination and overanalysis of everything from thinly-veiled coping mechanisms disguised as useful information to explorations of the most low-brow internet, pop-culture, travel, reading, and fashion phenomena.
So welcome, welcome to a collection of THOUGHTS.
Recent THOUGHTS
An Honest Tenancy Application To A Potential Landlord
Application letters are nerve-wracking, especially for tenancy applications. Writing a half-page introduction that’s meant to persuade a person you’ve never met that you are equal parts capable and likable, is a nightmare to get right. Because, up until recently, I was in the unfortunate situation of searching for an apartment in Amsterdam, I’ve had to…
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Apartment-Hunting in Amsterdam: A Day In The Life Of A Disillusioned Renter
With the lease to my current apartment expiring too soon for comfort, what started as casually looking for a new apartment to rent has turned into an intense sprint. To give you a taste of what this looks like, here’s some insight into the bleak state of the Amsterdam rental market.
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I Read 100 Books In 2021: Here Were My Top 20
In 2021, I read 100 books. It might have meant spending the two weeks leading up to New Year’s speedreading eight books, but what matters is that in the end, I made it. Of the 100, I’m highlighting 20 of my favorite reads last year, in no particular order.
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Realistic New Year’s Resolutions I’ll Be Making This Year
Having achieved none of my 2021 resolutions, I’ve decided to take a more realistic approach for 2022. This year, I’ve reworked all my failed resolutions of yore into something more achievable.
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Why Growing Up In A Small Town Isn’t Boring
If you’ve ever grown up in a small town where nothing ever happens, you know what it’s like to have to get creative with your free time. We did our best to fill our free time with creative and chaotic activities that I’ve only realized in retellings during adulthood were maybe a little strange. Here are the highlights.
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Signs You’re In A Toxic Friendship (From Someone Who’s Been There)
Ever experienced a bad friendship breakup? I’m talking about the sort of toxic friendship breakup that’s uncomfortably close to the one you had with the shitty ex that you had to block on every social media platform. We’re covering the signs of a toxic friendship today.
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Holiday Gift Guides Suck: A Case Study
If you’ve turned to gift guides this holiday season, you may have
realized a lot of them suck. Let’s look at one of the most baffling gift guides I’ve come across, perfect for antagonizing the teenage girl in your life.
How I Beat Impostor Syndrome: Lessons Learned From Running Events Across Europe
My first job It turned out to be a crash course in how to go from chronically anxious people-pleaser with impostor syndrome to confident professional with relatively healthy boundaries. Here’s what worked for me.
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Why’s Something So Bad It’s Good? Going Beyond Irony
Ever have those niche topics that you’re so passionate about, that whenever you get started on it, you sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist? For me, it’s my love of everything that’s so bad it’s amazing.
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An Open Apology to the Non-Fiction, Self-Help Genre
Hi, my name’s Nicole, and I’m a reformed non-fiction, self-help book hater.
Previous blogs may make it seem like I hate non-fiction, especially of the self-help variety. It’s not that I hate it, it’s that it’s not what gets me fired up when choosing books. At least it wasn’t until last year.
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How To Read 100 Books In A Year (From Someone Not Organized Or Good At Finishing Things)
There’s a lot of advice out there online, but most of it seems to be for the more organized, hustle-culture, productivity-booster type of individual. I do not count myself among those. I’m more of a loosey-goosey, absent-minded, eccentric-art-teacher, later-in-life-diagnosed-ADHD kind of type. And here’s what worked for me.
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Accepting My ADHD Diagnosis: The Good, The Bad, And The Truth
After binging ADHD TikTok after ADHD TikTok, I made an appointment with my doctor to not only discuss my anxiety issues, but to reassess my previous diagnosis and check if it was ADHD. Spoiler: it was ADHD. Here’s the good, the bad, and the truth, of accepting my ADHD diagnosis.
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I Was Misdiagnosed For Almost A Decade: A Mental Health Journey
After spending 8 years misdiagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, when I started therapy and medication for ADHD expecting it not to work. It did work. Almost too well. Because now I’m stuck with an endless conga line of “what-if’s” dancing through my brain.
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Biggest Misconceptions About ADHD (That I Had Before I Found Out I Had ADHD)
To accept my ADHD diagnosis, I had to accept that my idea of someone with ADHD wasn’t congruent with the reality of the disorder. I’ve put together a list of my biggest misconceptions about ADHD – that I had before I found out I had ADHD.
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Not Quirky, Just Undiagnosed ADHD: Now-Obvious Signs I Had ADHD
If you’ve been diagnosed with any sort of neurodiversity/mental illness, you might have encountered the same issue I’ve grappled with: it turns out, a lot of the things that I thought were just little quirks, were symptoms of untreated ADHD. Here are the (not-so-)little quirks I now know had more to them.
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Reasons LinkedIn Influencers are The Worst
LinkedInfluencer: a social media influencer whose primary platform is LinkedIn. Those whose every other post is a humblebrag, rooted in hustle culture, who subscribe to that “if I can do it, so can you” mentality – disregarding that their upbringing came with all the privilege in the world.
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Rekindling the Love of Reading: What Didn’t Work & What Did
If your goal is just to read more and instill that habit into your life, especially if you’re not the most organized, type-A human being, then you’re in the right place. Here are the tips I avoided like the plague and what worked instead.
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Europe Has Bad Food Too: Rating Sad Meals I’ve Had Across Europe (And What You Should Eat Instead)
I had many sad meals during my work travels. These were the worst. A Sad meal: a meal that made me sad to eat. A meal I wish I could go back in time and un-eat because the meal brought me nothing but emotional tragedy.
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A Reading Retrospective: The Metamorphosis of a Bookworm
Trying to go 3 for 3 for a yearly reading challenge (my target is 100 this year) and with the resources to read whatever I feel like, I make lists of what I want to read based on what I enjoyed in the past. Here’s what I’ve gathered from this reading retrospective.
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5 Lessons I’ve Learned From 26 Years Of Bad Hair Makeovers
I was not blessed with hair that naturally cascades and shines like that of a heroine in a cheap fantasy smut novel. But it’s gotten better. To avoid the same mistakes I’ve done, here’s a list of the things I’ve learned over the past 26(ish) years of bad haircuts. Avoid these if you can.
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I’ve Never Been Good at Sticking with Things: The Lifecycle of an Abandoned Hobby
I have more abandoned hobbies than I can even list. While I can’t remember each reason for picking them up or why I abandoned them, at this point, all I am sure of is that they all go through the same cycle. Here’s what it looks like.
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Nicole Livelong 