S.J.Glatzhofer

  Dear Luna, Travelling has always been seen as something spectacular online. Before my Asia trip, I watched many TikToks of people's travels and envied how amazing it all looked. However, I think we are forgetting about one little thing, and that is not everything we see online is what is happening in reality. Social media has hypnotized us all into believing the people we are following are living how they do all the time. But that is not true one bit, and I, for one, can agree with that. Pictures I have posted online about my travels have people liking them and stating how much they wished they were able to do something like this. But, the truth is, my body is feeling down and wants to spend the day inside, and I will listen to it. I knew this was going to happen, it happens all the time around this time of year ever since 2018. Technically, it is PTSD as the memory of what my body went through starts to shut down during the 24th-26th, but I have never been to a therapist and the...

Dear Luna, The year of rabbit has just begun, and if you are born in 1999, just like I was, then it is your year as well. Although I might not be in China celebrating the Chinese new year, this festival is actually celebrated all over Asian countries, and in Korea, they call it Seollal. My day was filled with excitement as my cousin and I visited Lotte World, a theme park that is mainly for children, but any age will still enjoy it. But this new Lunar Year was celebrated at this theme park with shows and parades showcasing the beauty of this year to come. Back at home, this has never been something to celebrate. Normally I would simply see that google had changed their picture work to inform everyone that it is the Chinese new year. Luckily for me, this year I have the chance to experience to celebration differently. But you know what I am more excited about? It is the year of the rabbit. The last time it was that year, I was eleven, about to turn twelve; I was in my first year of seco...

Dear Luna,  A cold has attacked me, and I blame my uncle for it. During our short stay in Singapore, my uncle had a slight cold and I believe I might have obtained it as well. Luckily for me, it is not Covid, already had that once, and to be honest, don't want it again. Not that it was bad when I first had it, I was just really tired for a week, it's simply because I don't want it to stop my travels.  However, this cold has made me not stop blowing my nose, and made me uncomfortable going out and eating as I do not want to end up having a coughing fit.  This has resulted in my cousin having to go out alone, visit things, and even eat dinner out by herself, but perhaps that is perfect. We have been together, side by side, for a whole month. And yes, last year I was in the Netherlands for three months, but the difference with that is my cousin still worked, and therefore we had hours away from each other when we could breathe alone. This is why, no matter how much I hate th...

The one downside of travelling is not being able to continuously read new books in actual book form. However, thank god for technology as it means I can carry on reading even when I’m on the other side of the world. Every iPhone has a books app, that sometimes put out free books. I have heard about Ali Hazelwood on TikTok, some good, some bad. With Below Zero being a free novella that I was able to read, I thought why not get it? The novel is about Hannah and Ian, and I believe this is the final book of the three novellas. The other two are about Hannah’s two friends, whom you do see, and the two men they end up with. We begin with Hannah trapped during this project she was doing for her work with NASA. On the other side of the radio, we hear Ian, and learn that she actually doesn’t like him. Jumping back five years, we see these two meet and the terms of leaving were left mainly on the good side. We then jump four years later to Hannah joining NASA and bumping into him again, only six...

Dear Luna, Perhaps this isn't really a topic I should be writing about as I am no longer at school and I am in the creative industry, but it is very tiring to hear over and over again how subjects that fit in the academic realm have a higher platform than the subjects that fall into the creative world. As you can guess, the irritation of our Prime Minster, Rishi Sunak, stating he will be trying to change the education system for all students to do maths until they are eighteen, is boiling inside of me.  I did my maths GCSEs in 2015 and passed with a high B. For my A-levels, I choose, English Lit and Lang, Health and Social Care, Sociology, and Art, dropping the last one as I continued my second year, (before you think, ahhh you must have been dumb that's why you dropped one, no, I was the last year where you could choose four subjects and then drop one during your second year). And then studied Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire. As you can clearly see the su...

  We’ve all been there, sitting in front of our screen, thinking, ‘I’m going to write the best first draft ever.’ And every time we are finished with it, you guess it, it is not the best first draft ever. You’d most likely read through it and think, ‘this is so bad, why did I think I could write.’ I can tell you for sure, every writer has done that, me included. No matter if it’s a classmate of yours or a high-paying author, I can guarantee you that the first draft will be bad. The whole point of the first draft is to simply have the story, that has been bubbling inside your mind, written. You might have heard this before, but the first draft is there to exist.  Many writers have many works in progress which never ever see the ending for simply fearing how bad the writing will be. Trust me when I say this, there will be spelling and grammar errors, there will be scenes that just do nothing for the plot, and you might even have a character who changes name throughout the novel ...

Dear Luna,  You know at that stage of your life when you are entering adulthood, and all you can think about is how all your amazing and most exciting days are over. Sure, you have hardly lived most of your life, but at that stage, you believe that the best years of your life would be at university, as many many people say it is. But, they are all wrong. Sure, I have had a handful of great memories, but I can't go around saying that university was where I had the best years of my life... hello, Covid happened.  The idea that the best years of your life can only happen if you go to university and you go at the typical age of being a young adult is actually bonkers, it puts this new pressure on students that they need to be doing things all of the time, otherwise they are wasting it because after, it's apparently all about those long nine to five jobs after you finish studying.  No... that doesn't seem right. Instead, I like the idea, no matter what age you are, that you ha...

  First novel of 2023 is done! Jill Mansell was one of the first romance authors I read ten years ago when I was just a mere thirteen-year-old. When I saw this book was free to download on the book app that comes with an iPhone, I decided to download it. The book came out in 2008 and since then Mansell has had many other novels out. This book is about two best friends Nancy and Carmen. Nancy has just found out her husband has been cheating, and she leaves to live in London where her best friend lives. It’s not just them two living there, Nancy’s mum comes as well, and Carmen’s brother-in-law has decided to move in. Nancy begins falling for her best friend’s neighbour,  Callum. Whereas Carmen, after being windowed for three years falls for a man named Joe. Ultimately, I did like this novel, but the closer I reached the ending the more I was distancing myself. But there are areas which I enjoyed about this novel, and that is showing good women's friendships. I’ve read quite a fe...

  Dear Luna,  My first month of travelling is nearing to the end, and by the 5th of January, I will only have three more months left until I’m back in the Netherlands with my family.  It is true that I am looking forward to going back home and being back around familiar faces, but there’s a part of me that kind of wishes to move to Thailand, even if it’s for a year. It might never happen, but I would like it to be an option for my future if I wish to move to a new country. I don’t think I’d stay for the rest of my life, maybe for one year, but then again who knows, maybe I love it so much that I never want to go back. As you might be able to tell, out of the three countries I visited, Thailand is the best one, followed by Laos and then Vietnam.  There is a charm about Thailand, magic that coast around the land. The people here are all kind and welcoming to anyone who is visiting from another country. As mentioned in previous blogs, where I stayed in Vietnam, it was c...

Dear Luna, Here we are finally in 2023, and for many people whatever happens on the first day sets off how the rest of the year will look like. Last year, I had thrown up (don’t worry I held it in until I was given a bucket, I’m good at that). And with that 2022 would ultimately go down the drain, I mean… In some ways, it wasn’t the best year because I didn’t really take charge in my career I kind of expected things to happen without doing anything. But not this year. No, this year I’m going to take life by the rails and manifest and work for my dream. I am making it happen because this is my life and now it’s not the time to be afraid of failure, but I should be more afraid of not trying. Perhaps that is why so many people love to do New Year's resolutions. After all, it’s a new year, it’s the best time to try something new. A new year has endless possibilities and endless paths that one can go down. Sure, maybe I won’t achieve my big dream (no I am not self-doubting myself) but y...