How I survived the hot summer

Living with insomnia my whole life (I think most people remember me by walking around the place like a lifeless zombie), I dreaded summer the most, as it meant that I would not sleep at all. Recently, it has gotten worse, as the summer temperatures have reached record highs. Throughout the years, I have discovered many ways to deal with the heat and the pesky mosquitos. In case I forget, I will list them in this article. 

In the past, the Chinese paper fans that we used to have, costed a lot of my energy to use, and they break easily too. Nowadays, fans are a lot lighter and electric ones do not make that much noise anymore (really important for me, as I am sensitive to sounds). During a recent clean-up, I found the plastic fans that I bought 10 years ago during my internship in Hong Kong. The one with the unhappy panda bear is mine and I bought the other ones to gift to other people (it was 1+1 and only for HK$10), but I forgot about it. I really liked it, as the panda bear was cute and I thought it was rare that cartoon figures had the message that being unhappy is fine too and that you don't have to live with a fake smile. 

I have taken the plastic fan along, when I go on a trip, during walks, and in amusements parks. It is very light, it doesn't require a lot of strength to use it, and the metal chain can be attached to a belt hoop on your pants or to a bag. Indoors, I use the pink electric fan from Flying Tiger that I have shown you on my blog before. 

Against mosquitos, I personally found that certain strong scents seems to work. To get it on myself (mosquitos love my scent apparently), I had showered with the Lush snowman shower jelly with fruity bergamot and Sicilian lemon oils (please bring this back one day!), put Lush Sleepy body lotion on (the lavender scent helps me fall asleep and makes me smell less attractive to mosquitos), and the body shop virgin mojito body splash (I used up the last bits this summer) worked amazing for outdoors too. 

I wondered why we had less mosquitoes the last couple of years, but I discovered that the small lemon tree that I once planted out of some dried seeds from a very nice smelling lemon, seems to protect us from them, even though there were no lemons and just leaves. What also surprised me is that the lavender jelly air freshener kept the mosquitoes away from my room too. 

Besides having a pixie cut once, when I was a kid and I thought that donating my long hair to the hospital for cancer patients, would be a good enough deed to make me less of a target for bad luck and bad people, I have always had medium to long hair. I really dislike having hair in my face and having it stick to my back, when I am sweating, so I always tie it up. I heard that it isn't that good for my hair, as the places where it is tied, becomes more vulnerable for breakage. So, I try to wear my hair loose more often (that's why I mostly have medium length hair in the warmer months and long hair only during the winter) and I try to buy hair ties that doesn't do as much damage to my hair. 

These three hairstyles below are my favorite hairstyles during the summer. This is my second drawing on my Samsung galaxy tab, after my sketch of Nathan Chen, and I am starting to get the hang of it. I always used the excuse of not having the time for it, but maybe, it is a way to protect myself from criticism and to not get out of my comfort zone in order to avoid failure and disappointment. 

Ever since I watched historic Asian dramas as a child, I loved the hairpins with beautiful details that the female characters wore. I could not find them easily in my country, but I managed to buy a few during trips to Japan and to Hong Kong. Recently, I rediscovered these four hairpins, as I found them while cleaning up. The clover hairpin that I bought for good luck, was from a shop in a Japanese subway station. I think it is the most expensive one in my collection. The purple hairpin with crystals in purple gradation was from a street stall in Wan Chai, Hong Kong and it only costed HK$10. The pink one came with the yukata that I bought in Japan. The silver flower hairpin is from a shop in Wan Chai, Hong Kong, with employees who comforted me, when I was chased out of the dessert shop next door, because of my strange eyes that supposedly made other customers uncomfortable. I felt I needed to support them back, as the store was empty, and show my gratitude by buying something.