#newin: Lepow's U-Stone Portable Charger

A few weeks ago I received Lepow's U-Stone portable charger. It couldn't have arrived at a better time - I had just lost my previous portable charger (from thecoopidea) at uni, and, as someone who is constantly having to solve stuff from her phone, I was quite annoyed at the fact that around 4pm, everyday, I'd have to find a place to sit and a wall to plug in a charger and recharge my phone. So, thank you, Lepow ♡. Now - onto the review: 

Packaging:

Biodegradable, made from recycled materials, you open the box, you get an oval box thingy that looks like a dinosaur egg, you open this thingy, you get another oval package thingy, you open it, you get the portable charger that looks like one of those stones you often see in Chinese films. It came with the user manual, the charger and a micro usb flat cable (that fits into the charger). No wall charger included.

Functionality: 

The 12,000mAh capacity puts Lepow's U-Stone ahead of smaller rivals, being able to fully charge my phone (Sony Z1) almost 3 times. Operating at a 1.8 Amp speed, it quickly charges my phone. I usually use it around 5pm, when I'm getting ready to go to uni & the phone's either already dead or dying. My class starts at 7pm and by the time I get to the classroom, the battery's already up to something around 90%.

I've used it once to charge an iPad (second generation; had to use the iPad's own cable), and Lepow's U-Stone brought the iPad from 17% left of battery to 82% in about an hour - it only didn't get to 100% because the U-Stone was not fully charged. It also fully charged my Kindle in less than an hour once. I think the speed and capacity of the U-Stone are quite impressive. ^.^~

Other than that, the U-Stone "uses a safe, high quality lithium polymer battery (...). The smart circuit in the U-Stone protects against overcharge, over discharge, and overload." Oh, and to check the battery life, you have to shake the U-Stone. Yes, shake it. 

Design:

Lepow's U-Stone won the Red Dot Design Award - which supposedly means the product is both stylish and very functional. The U-Stone is, indeed, beautiful. According to the description, "the product also features a unique texture that feels like smooth white sand and a unique curved body for easy grip." Yes, it has a smooth texture, it's like a river rock - but it also gets dirty quite easily, and it shows. I rarely use it outside a little cloth bag I have, fearing it'll get dirty. When I first started using it, I made the mistake of pulling it out of the bag right after getting off a bus, before washing my hands at uni. It got sorta brown-ish. I felt frustrated. 

This is how the flat cable is kept when you're not using it - one "in" (micro USB) port and one "out" (USB). So, as you can see, it only has one USB port. An external battery pack bigger than my Sony Z1 and a bit heavy (6.7 x 3.1 x 1 inches & 12.8 ounces, to be exact), with a 12,000mAh capacity would definitely be better if it had more than one USB port! 

Long story short:

It's beautiful, its got a great texture. 
If you're obsessed about little dirty spots like I am, you'll feel like you have to clean it all the time or wrap it in something to protect it from the cruel world getting dirty. It doesn't come with its own bag.
It's got power - lots of it. You can go on a 3-day-camping trip in the middle of nowhere that it'll be able to charge your phone and keep you connected - not if you keep streaming Netflix, though (but why would you wanna stay connected during a camping trip?). 
It's big - probably can fit into some men's pockets, but I always have to carry it in a purse/bag and I have never seen women's pants/shorts/whatever huge enough to fit an U-Stone in. 
I strongly recommend it if you're the kind of person that frequently stays a long period of time outside, working from your phone or a tablet. I can go 5, 6 days without recharging it - btw, it takes one night to fully charge (7 hours..?). 

However, if you prefer things a tad bit smaller and easier to deal with, I'd recommend for Lepow's Moonstone portable charger. It's smaller; it also has a great design, cute colors and all; a 9,000mAh capacity, which is very good considering how small it is; comes with its own little bag; and, most importantly, it has two usb ports - all this at the affordable price of $30.*

Do you have any portable charger? Is it good? Do you need one? Of course you do, who doesn't these days. Tell me, tell me!

* All opinions and suggestions in this post are my own; I was not paid to write this post.

Loneliness and a trip to the countryside

I've been feeling quite unwell lately. I had put myself on autopilot to get through the semester, it's what I always do. Law school just isn't that interesting, and between working and studying, I try to keep everything on the surface. I don't dwell, I don't do loads of thinking, I try my best to avoid any writing at dawn else the tearing is just never-ending, and, honestly, who's got time for that? 

Then the semester came to an end, I was supposed to have 2 weeks off uni until said uni went on a strike. No big deal, we just have no idea when our classes will resume. Not a problem, since I tend to fill my days with working and languages and everything that keeps my mind quite busy. 

I feel displaced, I feel lonely, I rarely fit in anywhere. I constantly wonder if I'll always feel this way, if I'll ever not be afraid of spending the rest of my days working and studying a ton because I like doing it. I'm not a huge fan of socialising, people bore me easily. Don't wanna linger on that. 

However, I am lucky. I have this huge family and this family owns properties in beautiful places; places I can escape to. So, the other day a few friends of mine and I went to my grandpa's property on the countryside. I've posted about this place before. Here. We went to a bunch of waterfalls, and I could just sit on the grass (or rock) and avoid all sorts of thinking.

Spending a two days without touching my laptop, without opening my email accounts or worrying about deadlines was just what I needed. My body didn't react so well, though - I got a cold and my blood pressure went oh-so-low. A couple of days without a bunch of caffeine and super contracted blood vessels and my body goes weird.

Anyways, the other night a guy told me "You're gonna end up alone if you keep acting like this" (after being slightly rejected by this person that now rants - me). It was like a knife had just gone through my heart. I am constantly scared, yes. I'm not a very pretty girl, I'm not an easy-going person. I'm an introvert. I don't trust people easily, I have a this issue with understanding people - I never remember to read between the lines, so if one is not completely frank with me, I'll never know what one is trying to tell me. I'm insecure. I'm still trying to find a way to stop hating my body. I answered "I'm fine on my own". And it bugs the hell out of me that people are always assuming you need companionship - theirs, especially, when you reject them. I don't need people to be happy, but I'm not a hermit. It's like Jon Krakauer wrote, "We like companionship, see, but we can't stand to be around people for very long. So we go get ourselves lost, come back for a while, then get the hell out again." And downhill the 'avoiding all sorts of thinking' went. 

That place, grandpa's house, reminds me of dad. A gazillion memories come to mind whenever I'm there - maybe that's why I hate and love that place. I think about the day he taught me to ride a bike. How that's where I learned how to swim. I remember how I never felt scared, because I was surrounded by family, because dad would always have my back. I remember how fighting with my brother never really mattered, because at night we would be playing cards together again. But my dad's gone, my brother's moved away and mom's never been the same. No one has. And sometimes, I am alone. It gets bad, when someone just slaps your face with said truth saying you should feel bad about it & when you're not a big people person and you end up feeling like omg, I need company and I should have loads of people surrounding me, even when you don't want to. It's hard to do the "come back for a while" that Krakauer mentioned, because sometimes there's just nothing to come back to. I like wandering, so I don't ever have this urge of coming back to something. I like the idea of constantly moving forward, even though I have no idea where I'm going to. For a moment there, things got quite messy and my head was bursting with a million thoughts and faces of everyone I've ever let go of. Then I talked to Ems, a friend of mine in SF, and realised how wrong it all was. Saying that sentence to me; me believing in it, dwelling on it, and forgiving that jerk. I can be scared, but not of loneliness, because I'm don't feel lonely. I like being who I am and I have to learn to stop feeling guilty or bad because of who I am.

My Favourite Food Blogs

Last year, I made a "learn how to cook properly" resolution, amongst other things. Did I achieve that goal? Not really, no. I'm still relying a lot on recipes. I wish I had mom's cooking skills, so I'd be able to come up with anything yummy even if there were only 3 ingredients in the fridge, but I can't. I still lack the imagination and the confidence to branch out from recipes. However, I've picked up a few things so far and almost everything I've learned came from the Internet. Or, to be more precise, it all basically came from the food blogs I'm about to list below (pictures are linked!). 

Ally recommended me this blog (actually, I think she recommended all of the blogs I'm listing today). It was love at first sight. I like to see the recipes' step-by-step, but in pictures. I feel it's more organised. Annie's eats is amazing when it comes to keepin' it straight & short. The posts are all very well written and the pictures are fabulous - so fabulous I have yet to make something look exactly like it looks in Annie's pictures. Aside from that, the blog separates everything into categories - and it has all sorts of recipes. I first went there looking for desserts, but then I tried the salads and some beef dishes and ended up loving everything. The blog has a special holiday category which might come in handy for people who, well, are like me. Oh, I love the blog's beverages category too. And, yes, Annie also shares some vegetarian recipes. (^.^)

I love, love, love this blog! It's so Sofia-friendly. As in "beginner"/"people who have no idea of how to cook" friendly. It has it's recipe index, which is very organised - you can pick the recipe by course, occasion, diet or even by ingredient!!! How cool is that? I just love people who categorize, heh. Anyways, when my mom was away for about 6 months last year, a lot of the recipes I made came from this blog, because it has many delicious and lighter dishes. It was very hot back then, and when it's hot I a) don't get very hungry and b) get super lazy (which affects the cooking). So I just made the easy recipes, which were all very healthy, by the way. Aside from being a kickass food blog, Gimme Some Oven has two other very amazing sections: DIY and Life, both packed with interesting reads and tips on, well, basically everything. Here's my favourite Gimme Some Oven post.

"Hi, I'm Angela and this is my recipe blog where I celebrate my love for vegan food. In addition to being meat and dairy-free, most of my recipes are free of gluten, soy, and processed foods."  Need I say more? Well, I'm just going to add that oh she glows is also very organised and Sofia-friendly. I think I'm just going to add "organised" to the "Sofia-friendly" label, given that I'm a bit of a neat freak. Anyways, my favourite post is this one, because, well, given laziness and living-alone-ness, I used to make way more than I could possibly eat, so freezer-friendly snacks are always a plus.

I know there are different weight/quantity measuring ways throughout the world, and that is a pain in the ass when it comes to cooking and following recipes. So, in order to help with whatever conversion issues you may stumble across, I suggest that you download the free/printable Baking Conversion Chart from Java Cupcake. Aside from being really cute, it's also very helpful! Get it [here]. On a side note, Java Cupcake is another food blog I like a lot, but since the majority of the recipes found there are dessert ones, I rarely visit it.

Fun in Taiwan: Fort San Domingo

Emily, moi & Nicola. I miss these girls... ):

Fort San Domingo is located in Tamsui, a sea side district in New Taipei City. The fort represents the foreign involvement in Taiwan. Built in 1629 by the Spanish, in wood, it's main objective was to aid the imposition of Spanish rule over the local Chinese and other populations from that area. However, the fort was taken by the Dutch in 1642, who then replaced the original wooden monument with a fort made of stone. 

The weather was very pleasant when my friends and I went there. It was yet another trip from the study program I went to in Taipei. Inside the buildings, there were some pictures/items exhibitions related to the Dutch occupation. Not that interesting, if you're a western kid who's spent an entire lifetime studying Western History and watches a lot of western made films. 

I loved this place because its gardens and the architecture are extremely beautiful. It'd be an amazing place for a photoshoot - I regret not annoying more random people and asking them to take pictures for me. (Notice that I only appear in very few pictures, so sad soooo sad.)  It's also a nice place to go to because it's near a very fun (and crowded!) street market with lots of traditional snacks for you to get (like all touristy places in Taiwan, heh), it is right beside a Starbucks and you can get there by using the Taipei MRT. (The MRT can probably get you anywhere, I think.)

Have you ever been there? Would you ever go there? Lemme know! :)

-Sofia.

Ps.: more about Taiwan: Pingxi District & Sky Lanterns | Melange Café

Quitting & Figuring Life Out (without feeling guilty)

It's 4am and I've been mentally trying to replay what went down these past few days.

Since I had arrived home after spending 3 months abroad, I'd been having a feeling of unease, a weird little feeling that I hadn't quite gotten myself to 2015 yet. I hadn't stopped to catch a breath ever since August/14, when I started freelancing; then I joined a Law firm in September; got a permanent translator job in November (add all that to being a Law student) and found myself in Taiwan for a mandarin study program on my summer break. After the program ended, I came back home, hoping for a few weeks off, but...

I was home and going back to work right away, and I was very uncomfortable with the fact that I had zero plans for 2015. "Travel a lot" and "give proper attention to my health" were on  my mind, but those are not specific plans - they're things that are always in the back of my mind, whether it's a new year or not. I knew I wanted to find a more permanent "go abroad" situation - as in living, not travelling, but I hadn't figured that out yet.

A couple of days later, summer break was over. I would have to face all that work/school/freelancing/extracurricular activities juggling all over again and I had had practically zero rest. Oh, and I also had to figure out that permanently living abroad situation. So, I started planning my weeks. Writing down everything I'd be doing on every second of every day, so time would not be wasted.

Wake up super early, read a bunch of stuff for school, exercise, translate, study French, study Mandarin, study German, try to fit in some leisure reading, go to work, go to the classes, go back home, go to bed super late because, well, school stuff. I was on the verge of a breakdown. Then, I started cutting stuff from the list. First thing gone was the leisure reading. Then the French, then the German - which you're never supposed to do if you're learning a language nobody speaks around you, because you'll just forget a lot of things and time will have been completely wasted. Exercising? Ha. Proper sleep? What was that?

Before I could go any further with all that craziness building up in my tiny self, I decided that I'd have to quit my day job (which was the Law firm one). I couldn't cut study out of the list, neither the rest of my sleep, for that matter. I could organise my schedule all over again and fit in all the study I needed to get done. But, ugh, I didn't want to go and tell my boss I had to quit because I told her I would go back to work!! That drove me insane for a whole weekend, but, on Monday, I told her everything and it was like a billion pounds were taken off my shoulder. I was angry at myself due to the fact that I was not living up to my word because of a routine I couldn't handle. So egocentric of me, I know.

I thought my boss would be mad. I thought she'd hate me forever. Well, now that I think of it - maybe she does. Not sure, there is no way to know. The point is: I was feeling bad for having to quit even though quitting was something I really needed. I knew that I'd done the right thing, but I couldn't shake that bad feeling off.

I hate feeling like this. I'm working on not feeling as guilty or responsible for other people, and focusing more on my own little self, but it's just so hard to shut every single voice up. Why can't I just go for what I want, without giving a damn about everything and everyone? 

I've already sat down and organised all the things I want to get done this year. I know we're at the end of March already, but I'm going to catch up.

Is anyone in here remotely like me when it comes to these situations? Thoughts?

Music: Paper Aeroplanes (& the wonders of Noise Trade)

I, like so many people, am completely, utterly, obsessed with music. However, given the weird mood swings I've been having, it's been hard to sit down and listen to music without skipping a song every 15 seconds. Lately, I think I've been kind of obsessing about lighter tunes and maybe that's why I've been skipping almost every song that my iTunes starts playing. I love rock music and whatnots, but it's just not something I've been feeling like listening to, because a lot of noise is making me a lot more tired than I used to feel back when I was 14. After working during the whole day and spending 4 hours at the university at night, when I come home I just want to crash on the couch and listen to relaxing music for a little while. 

In the spirit of getting to know more artists, I started using Noise Trade. I think it's great, because they feature a lot of independent musicians and offer free downloads. So, every week and weekend I get an email about their "new & notable" musicians, with a little "sounds like" part. On every Saturday, then, I go clicking on their recommended artists' profiles and sampling their music. Every now and then I download something. Yays for free and legal music downloads! :) So, acoustic, alternative folk, indie, irish, welsh and other similar genres have constantly been on my playlist (now that I have these genres on it, haha).

Anyways, this week I got to know Paper Aeroplanes. They're an alternative-folk (and pop-ish) band from West Wales, formed by Sarah Howells and Richard Llwellyn. It was love at first play, and it was a song called Red Rover (here).

Picture: Paper Aeroplanes Official Website (link). 

Sarah has a beautiful, haunting, delicate voice & the melodies are very sweet, light, and beautifully written. Perfect for a "I just want to relax" night. So far, they've released three full-length albums, The Day We Ran Into the Sea, We Are Ghosts and Little Letters. I haven't downloaded all of them yet, because ~money~, but you can get them here.  

From the songs I've listened to, Red Rover is definitely my favourite. But I'm also very much in love with these other two:

band's website | twitter | facebook | itunes | youtube

I can't believe I have just gotten to know this band. Yays for Noise Trade and their weekly newsletters! Did you like them? Do you know similar musicians? Do any of you use Noise Trade?

Fun in Taiwan: Sky Lanterns at Pingxi District

With all these reports on the success that this year's Sky Lantern Festival was, attracting record visitors numbers (link) and whatnots, I can't help but a) Miss Taiwan terribly much and b) Go through the pictures I took when I went there. 

That being said, I've decided to share with you a rather fun experience I had in Taiwan: during my study program, we learned how to make sky lanterns (yays for taiwanese culture classes!) and we even went to Pingxi District, that is where the Sky Lantern Festival happens. Now, I did not go there during the Festival. I went there with my classmates from my study program. It was still daylight when we lit our lanterns, and there were only 5 lanterns - so it's not nearly as pretty as the footages and images you can find online from the Festival. Anyways - Pingxi District is a very lovely place. When I first got off the bus, having arrived there, I felt like I was at The Shire or something. Green, streams, lovely houses, train tracks...

Thanks, Ems, for taking these! I think these are the only pictures I have of myself during my stay in Taiwan...

Bamboo "wish sticks". People write their dreams and wishes on these & hang them up at that specific alley. 

Our sky lanterns :)

Have you ever lit a sky lantern? Do you want to? Tell me what you think!

LINKS: February's top 10

I shouldn't be saying "this month's" because I got back home on Feb 12th, after being in Taiwan and San Francisco & spending most of my time being offline. However, since I still had a couple of weeks of uni break & was only going to work one of my part time jobs, I spent a huge amount of time going through blogs and other web pages- which totally compensated my time spent offline. So, going through my latest pins and pocket adds, I found that the most interesting February links were the following ones (they were not sorted by any particular way):

1. Blake Little Covers People in Honey for "Preservation" - Photography

Photo by Blake Little

2. Cheat Sheets for the Photographer - Photography

If you're not quite used to DSLRs or if you're still learning about photography, these sheets will be very useful to you.

3. Why Personal Style Blogs Aren't What They Used to Be - Blogging

Food for thought.

4. 300+ Awesome Free Things: A Massive List of Free Resources You Should Know - Blogging / Design / Entrepreneurship / etc

I've been a fan of everything Ali Mese posts for a while now, but this list is just exceptionally spectacular.

5. 60 Simple Rules of Personal Finance - Finance

Good tips on personal finance. Good publishing timing, too, considering the year's just started.

6. 7 Ways to Practice Emotional First Aid - Personal / Self-help 

Those things that everyone already knows, but never really cared about. They're important. 

7. 10 Dark and Disturbing Animated Films That Are Worth Your Time - Films

As a contributor to Taste of Cinema, I'm going to pick one list each month & share it with you. I picked this one because aside from being a fan of animated films (I'm really picky about them, though), it features Grave of the Fireflies, a heartbreaking, soul-wrenching all-time favourite of mine. 

Grave of the Fireflies scene. Property of Shihchosa, Tokuma Shoten and other copyright holders.

8. Women's Ideal Body Types Throughout History - Beauty

Although this was published in January, I only came across it a couple of weeks ago. BuzzFeed made a very interesting video. Food for thought. 

9. 40 Books Every Woman Should Read - Books

I don't like it when people make lists and specify a gender. I really don't like it. Makes no sense to me. Anyways, whilst going through this list, I noticed that I'd read most of the books and they were really good. So I'm going out on a limb here & add that men should read some of these books too, because they are awesome. Here are 5 books of the list that I really recommend: 

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z.Z. Packer
• Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender
• Broken Harbor by Tana French
• A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

10. Stay Weird, Stay Different - The Importance of Graham Moore's Acceptance Speech - Lifestyle/Oscars

It was difficult for me to choose an article from the many ones that were written about Graham Moore's acceptance speech. It was more difficult to choose an acceptance speech to pick an article about, since this year's Oscars were flooded with equality/minorities speeches - something I adored, btw. Nonetheless, here's one of the reasons I picked this article for my favourite February links list:

There are days that I can’t see the progress I’ve made. Sometimes, I still feel like that weird, strange, different girl. Sometimes, I still feel silenced, scared, and alone. That’s why I loved what Graham said in his speech. He reminded me that it’s okay to be different, it’s great to be weird, and that I do have a place where I belong. I belong with my family, with my boyfriend, and the handful of friends I’ve found who accept me for who I am. And I belong in this world as much as anyone else does.

What were the most interesting pages/articles you stumbled across during February?

#RIPLeonardNimoy 

Yummy in Taiwan: Melange Café (Taipei)

While in Taipei, my aunt took me to a "very yummy waffle place" (her words). It was already 3pm when we got there, and we still had to put our names on the waiting list.  

I kept wondering "Why would anybody wait such a long time just to get some waffles?", because I was very hungry - and I get impatient when I'm hungry. I just wanted to walk across the street and grab something at a random 7-11. Little did I know...

About half an hour later, we walked in and we sat down. The whole atmosphere was different. Classy, finesse, elegant were some of the words that came to mind when I was offered a menu by a very nice waitress. Their menu had English and Japanese translations on each option. 

Melange Café's bar has a very beautiful, smooth and white marble top counter, and the whole place has a pleasant European cafe feeling. I also enjoyed the fact that, despite being full, it wasn't very noisy - maybe it's a general taiwanese thing, people don't speak very loud..

Since we'd gone there for lunch and I hadn't had proper breakfast on that particular day, we ordered their chicken sandwiches and their traditional strawberry waffles. 

The sandwiches were very good - not too salty, not too heavy. Same for the strawberry waffles - they weren't very sweet, which is something I love (not a big fan of very sweet things), and there was plenty ice cream/strawberry syrup for you to mix with the waffles, so they wouldnt be very dry. 

I think 70% of their menu were beverages options - something the staff takes pride on. Nobody ever walks in there without ordering something to drink. I had their passion fruit/iced green tea thingy. It was ok - not that great, not bad either, around 4USD. But it looked good, just like everything else they bring to your table.

The place was packed with people in their early twenties ordering a bunch of food and eating only 30% of what they had ordered. Why do they do that?

It was quite pleasant - and not that pricey. I'd recommend this place for tourists because it's a very famous spot in Taipei, just right off the Zhongshan MRT Station (exit #2) and they have menus in English. However, be prepared to wait around 30 minutes to get a seat if you're going during lunch/dinner time on weekends and holidays. They don't take reservations.

Definitely going back there when I'm in Taipei again.

Do you guys know any yummy waffle places in your city? Maybe I'll go on a waffle-eating world tour someday..!

Beginning (or restarting..?)

I always get super excited!!!!!! when I finish editing a blog's layout and publish said blog for the whole wide world to see it. I make a list of things I want to write about, I promise myself "I shall not abandon this blog, blahblahblah". 

A Creepy Mess, Lost in Yin Yang, Sensible Derangement, Cynic and Critic. These are a few names of blogs I had the past 2 and a half years. My online life was a reflection of my real life: roller coaster crazy. Finishing high school; trying to sort out majors; dating someone mostly because I was so damn scared to be alone when entering adulthood; hating my body; trying to find peace in a messy routine of work + study. Etc. All in a 2,5-year period. 

Then wisdom came to me. I decided to quit bloggin' until I had something figured out. I lived abroad for a couple of months and it was so fantastic. I learned so much - about places, people, but, most importantly, about myself. I'd dare say that I have figured 40% of myself out - which is saying a lot.

Looking back at last year's resolutions (obviously published in one of those blogs), it seemed like 2014 had been a very fulfilling year. I'd achieved everything I had planned - well, except going back to the gym. But, seriously, it was crazy, because I only started to focus on my 2014 resolutions in September. Which means, yep, I did everything in 3 months. Maybe not the best way to put your new year's resolutions into actions. 

So, I'll take things slow this year. My resolution for 2015 is one and only: to take proper care of myself. Stop putting my health at the sideshow just because it's hard to fit it in my work/study routine. Sounds quite egocentric, but it's something I have to do after spending the past years dedicating myself to people who could've been better to me. 

words at dawn will be a space in which I'll share little bits of the randomness and journey of self-acceptance/care/love mentioned above.

Edit: I shall import some of my old and most read posts from my old blogs to this one :)

Hope you'll enjoy it :)