Since I feel like a lot of you only know my reading tastes and not really much about me, I thought I’d do a little Q&A about my life and everything else. The questions are all from Aradhna, Emon Economist, and Olivia. Thank you all! If you somehow didn’t know this, my name is Lia and I’m Dutch. I’m 21 years old. I’m obsessed with a lot of things like space, psychology, feminism, Hamilton, watching youtube, creating things, and, of course, books.
What’s a day in my life like?
My life is well… pretty boring right now. I’ve graduated from university in February andΒ my master’s will startΒ in September so I’m basically having half a year off. And that’s a lot for me, because I need to feel productive to feel good and that’s is hard with so much time. So what I’m doing right now is mostly sleeping in, doing a lot of art, reading and working occasionally. Though I’m starting my new (part-time) job tomorrow so it’s probably going to change!
How do you feel about pineapple on pizza?
I’m personally not a big pineapple fan but I’d pick pineapple over peperoni as a pizza topping any day. I don’t see why it shouldn’t be on a pizza because you can put literally anything on a pizza (I know a place they make Nutella pizzas and I think they once sold rookworst (a Dutch sausage) on pizza).
What do you think it would be like to live on Mars?
I love this question! I’ve actually been watching a lot of documentaries on space which is something I fell in love with a month ago. I think the thing about moving to Mars is that it’s pretty much final. Once you go, there’s a very small chance of you coming back. You’re leaving all the comforts of Earth behind for an unknown. So I think it’s super scary to move there, but I think life would be really cool as well. It would be such an awesome experience to rediscover everything. I think it could be so lonely though, because you’re stuck with the same people and if you can’t make that work, it’s going to be very hard.
What’s something you read and loved even though it’s not the sort of thing you would normally expect to enjoy?
For the last week(s) the only thing I’ve been interested in reading has been non-fiction. That’s so out-of-character for me because reading non-fiction has always felt like a chore. I just didn’t really enjoy it much and now I’m weirdly obsessed with it.
What’s your blogging process like?
My blogging process is pretty straight-forward. I have a schedule of posting three times a week (currently that’s Monday, Thursday, Saturday) and then I procrastinate writing a blog post for as long as I can and then I draft, edit, post, usually in one go. Sometimes I plan beforehand but as right now I just make up what I do as I go.
What do you study at uni?
I currently don’t study anything but my major was Psychology & Technology, which is about the interaction between human and technology. It was a bit all over the place but really interesting and I learned a lot about how technology can help people but also the other way around how people can help develop technology better.
In September I will start my master’s which is Economic Psychology, which is about the psychology behind decision making, marketing, buying behavior etc. I would love to end up in marketing!
How do you balance reading and studying?
Well, as said, I don’t study currently, but when I did study, I mainly read on the train. I had a really big commute and didn’t want to move so I spent a lot of hours reading on the train. And on top of that, I read at night before going to bed to relax.
How do you choose what to read next?
I’ve always just used my goodreads TBR as a guideline to what to pick up next and it’s like insanely small right now (there’s 20 books on there). I have a weird relationship with my TBR on goodreads because for the longest time I’ve been wanting to make it smaller and now it’s really small and I’m just ignoring it completely and picking up whatever I feel like reading at the moment. And right now, that’s non-fiction. So I’m a mood-reader now.
How do you come up with design ideas for your store? And how do you go about designing them?
You might know I have a redbubble store and a society6 store, which are websites that allow you to upload your art and sell it on different things like t-shirts and mugs and posters. I create a lot of things for that and lately I’ve been making a lot of art (also check out my artsy insta?) and am trying to get better at using my drawing pad. For my “YA Icons” series I get inspiration from pinterest and looking up images of people. For the rest… I don’t really know. I like using photoshop brushes and nice fonts which always inspires me.
I don’t really have a set way in which I make the designs, it really depends on what I’m working on. If it’s more traditional art, I use a lot of reference pictures. If it’s more typography or handlettering, I look up fonts and quotes. You know, this is so hard to explain, I just… do stuff and if it works it works, if it doesn’t I abandon it.
For software, I used to use photoshop, but since I stopped uni, I couldn’t use my student license anymore and since photoshop is expensive, I switched to Krita. Krita is free software and pretty good if you want to make art but if you want to work with typography it’s quite terrible, so I haven’t done much with typography lately.
I think you love Illuminae so much due to what you were studying in university, it makes a lot of sense now actually haha. Oooh Nutella pizza – I can’t decide if that would be good or not… have you ever tried it?
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Maybe? I don’t know. I don’t think it has much to do with my study haha
I haven’t tried it but I don’t really luke Nutella a lot so…
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I’ve seen Nutella/banana pizzas before but I’ve never been brave enough to try them tbh. Still have no idea how you keep your TBR to 20 books π
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Me neither! I basically stopped caring about it and just never add any more books to it π
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I love pizzas with pineapple and jalapenos. The sweet and spicy combo is really good.
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That sounds good!
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I’m not sure if a lot of people like it, but it’s a favorite with my husband and I.
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Let’s see… I’m obsessed with many things but I would venture to say most people don’t know I was a Titanic fanatic a few years ago π
Please update us on Economic Psychology – that seems so interesting!! π
All the best,
Little Lion, STSI
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I have never even watched the Titanic π
I will! Thanks!
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Oh that’s a lovely post, Lia, I love getting to know you a little better π To be honest, I have nothing against pineapple on pizzas… I feel like you can put anything on pizza as well, haha, I mean, Nutella pizzas are pretty cool π
Best of luck for your new part-time job! π
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Thank you! I’m glad you liked it! Yeah, you should be able to put anything on a pizza if you want haha
Thanks!
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This is such an interesting post! I’m at university at the moment (just finished my first year) and I’ve found it really difficult to balance reading for pleasure and studying β which should be understandable, but I’m doing an English Literature degree and really don’t have an excuse, haha.
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I understand! English Lit has a really high workload, doesn’t it? That’s what I’ve heard at least. I’m glad the only reading I had to do for uni were textbooks and articles.
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I think there are subjects that definitely have it worse than us, haha, but it is a lot of reading and essay writing β I think going into second year is definitely going to be worse workload wise.
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Good luck then!!
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It’s great getting to know you more! π
I’m studying Psychology as well, even though my second major is Sociology – my bachelor degree is a bit farther away though π Good luck with your master, I hope you end up enjoying the topics!
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Ahh good luck with your bachelor! Thank you π
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This is interesting I really liked it π
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Thanks!
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Loved this Q&A! I literally just had Nutella pizza with my family. My uncle makes it all the time and itβs so good. I donβt like Nutella that much but I will eat Nutella pizza!
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I actually never had one but I’m glad you like it! Maybe I should try one next time π
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I love Q&As, it was really interesting finding out more about you. I think that your designs are great and I’m glad you have some time to work on everything you enjoy.
Lucy // lucyturnspages.co.uk
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Thank you so much!
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Reading this after reading your “25 Bookish Facts About Me” post was perfect! I’m currently a high school student, so I do have to balance school and reading. I find that though I do read during commute, I get most of my reading done in the down time I have between classes π I also used to shun nonfiction, but now I love it too! I used to wonder why anyone would want to read about the real world when we live it in, but now I see the value in educating myself about this world and all the beautiful cultures and people in it… so yay growing up + loving nonfiction! π
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That’s great! I can’t really read on my commute anymore, but I try to listen to audiobooks while driving to work, so that’s good π
I’m glad I’m not the only one who suddenly loves nonfiction! I don’t know where it’s coming from but it’s now half the books I read and two months ago I barely touched nonfiction!
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