MESS

ElephantsMakeup

FoodStories

How does one create their very own magazine from scratch? That has been the main question on my mind ever since we were given this assessment. My initial reaction was “Oh, this is going to be fun!” but the more time passed the

more I realized just how challenging it is. There are so many things one needs to think about: What will the theme be? How will I capture peoples’ interest? How will I get the information? How do you know if a text or a picture is good? Then there is the editing. How are the spreads supposed to look? How do I add my own touch to it and at the same

time keep it stylish and neat? How do I keep it from looking cluttered and just… wrong? The questions are endless. Researching other magazines helped me, of course, but there was still the problem of making this magazine mine, and not just a version of someone else’s work. There is the difficulty of copying, the struggle to be unique, and the hours of writing, placing, deleting, moving and re-writing until one is happy with the result. But even if I am happy with the

result, what the hell do I know of what makes a good magazine? The name “MESS” wasn’t what this magazine was supposed to be called. See, when I started I had no idea what to

put in it or how to structure it. The only thing I was sure of in the beginning was that it was going to be a f***ing mess, so that is what I named it as a joke almost. Then I was taken down that lane and before I knew it, I had come up with

a few things associated with the mess in life, which I could work from, and once I’d started working on it I saw no reason to change direction. Because, to me, it worked.

However, when it comes to an assignment this big, it is not only the pile of questions about the task itself that ponders a student’s mind. There is so much work and hours involved in this that I have found myself not really having time for my own life. My free time. There is the task of juggling one university task with another along with the struggle to try

and fit university plus work and at least some social life into the equation. The stress is overwhelming at times. University work is a struggle. It makes me wish I were back in college when the tasks were so much easier. I cannot believe I used to sit there in school and complain that I had so much to do. Compared to university – despite the fact that it is a lot more fun since you’re only doing things related to what you’re interested in – everything I had to do in

school and college was a piece of cake. It makes me wish that I had enjoyed my time there more instead of spending so much time complaining.

Furthermore, it is not just the assessments that are difficult about university. For me, going to a new country, moving to my own flat and handling my own bills and rent, starting new friendships and learning a new city and culture has been a big struggle. It has been exciting and a lot of fun, but it has also been scary and filled with drama and heart-

ache. Being a student is a struggle in all aspects. Everything in this magazine comes from my own heart and my own mind. The stories are based on my own experi-ences and all else are things that I am interested in. There are no lies in this magazine. It is simply a little piece of my

mind and heart.

Creator’s thoughtsJessica Persson

MESSCONTENT:

1-8 African Safari.9-12 Messy with makeup. 10-13 Messy with Halloween makeup. A tutorial.14-17 Rockmess. A short story of a messy moment at one of the world’s most beautiful festivals.18-19 Relationship Mess. A short story where the Mess tells you of one of her moments.20-21 Eton Mess. History and recipe.

AFRICAN SAFARIThe Elephant Plains Game Lodge is a four star lodge that is situated in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, which is adjacent to the Kruger Park. It offers great spotting of the Big Five, which are: African elephants, Capo buffalo, lions, rhinoceros and leop-ards, and we spotted them all. This is the second safari I have been to with my family, and it was truly amazing and without a doubt lived up to its reputation. At this game lodge you get your own cottege, swimming pools, a wide buffe of breakfast and lunch, and lovely dinner. Every day has a 5am start where everyone gathers at the main lodge to drive off in our trucks before the day gets too hot. The aminals are most active at dusk and dawn so this way you get a higher chance of spotting them. When the tour is fin-shed, but before driving back to the lodge, the guide picks a remote spot and lays out a morning snack off tea, coffee, hot chocolate and biscuits. During the day you do what you want until around 6pm when it’s time for the second tour, which is ended with the same idea as the breakfast snack, but with a choice of wine, beer, champagne and soft drinks along with crackers, mini sausages and other snacks. The day is then wrapped up with supper around a bonfire under the stars with all the other guests. This safari trip was one of the best experiences I have ever had!

Here are three stunning lioness sisters relxing on one of the roads. They made it very clear that they were there first and that they were not planning to move in order to let us through. So after a while, there was nothing to do but turn around and go another way.

A leopard spying on us. She didn’t like that

we found her hiding spot.

Our guide told us that young elephants sometimes run towards the trucks to show the other youngsters that they’re brave. In this picture is a young male elephant storming towards us with his ears spread wide and his trunk tuting. When he got too close, he got scared and ran back to his mother.

Giraffes are truly magnificent creatures. You don’t realise how big they are until you see thm up close. Here is a lone male walking off among the trees. He obviously couldn’t be bothered with us, hah!

Here are two brothers who have both been rejected from their pride and left to fend for themselves. One of them had a defect on his hind leg, which made him weak, but his brother stuck by him. In this picture the brothers are licking each other’s manes. This is a way of strengthening the bond be-tween them. Cuddles have the same effect between lions as they have between humans.

Here is a big parade of elephants walking towards us, led by the alpha female with her youngest calf right behind her. When they got close to us, the elephants stopped and lined up next to each other, completely blocking the way for us. This was their way of telling us to let them pass, so our guide drove off to the side and let them walk on.

How cute does this lioness look when she is napping in the shades? These lionesses were all young, so the cub spots in their fur hadn’t completely faded yet. It was tempting to step off the truck and crawl in there with her, however if I did that I would sure be sorry.

These animals are wild dogs. There are not many packs around and our guide said we were very lucky to have seen them. The way they ran around, how they cautiously sniffed the air to get our scent and how they wagged their tails was exactly like a pet dog. They eventually ran off into a field and disappeared.

A rhinoserous taking a mud bath to lower his body temperature in the heat of the savannah.

The leopard asleep in a tree keeping away from the burning sun before she looked up and noticed us.

She has noticed something in the distance: us.

This great female elephant leading her family down the road. Coming right towards us. Uh-oh.

messywith makeupI met up with two of my friends

Aimilia Leontara and Lauren Scobbie and did their makeup. I have always been interested in doing crazy make-up on myself, however I decided that maybe I should try to do it on some-one else. This was my first attempt at it and I must say I was content with the result.

I used blue

around Aimilia’s eyes to bring out the

brown colour. Then I used pink lipstick to give a bit of contrast. The makeup was

completely improvised and ended up looking

butterfly-like.

The makeup on

Lauren was inspired by tribal paint combined with a space theme. This makeup was also totally improvised, with pink shades around her

eyes to bring out the blue and blue lips to give a

contrast.

Use concealer instead of foundation on you face to rid it of all complection. Then draw on an artificial eyebrow. I started by drawing a very thin line, which I then filled in with gel eyeliner.

Then move on to making the wicked eyes. Start by drawing the outlines to make sure you get the right shape. I used a gel eyeliner.

Once you’ve drawn the outer lines of the eyem fill it in really well, leaving a pointy bit as shown in the picture.

Continue by drawing a line above the upper line of the eye, ignoring the eyebrown, to create an artificial crease. Then use a black eyeshadow and blend it up.

Now use a dark purple lipstick and blend it over the black eye shadow and up toward the artificial eyebrow.

Use a shiny light purple, light pink or white eye shadow just below the brow to highlight.

Now use the same purple lipstick un-der the bottom bit of the eye and blend it down towards the cheekbone.

Now use a liquid eyeliner to create the fake eyelashes. Get creative and just draw away.

Put some of the purple lipstick along the inner bit of the eye to bring it out a little. Put mascara on your lashes and you’re done with the eyes.

Messy with

Halloweenmakeup

I did this wicked queen look for Halloween this year. I have always loved to experiment with makeup, so when I found this done by a Martha Stewart makeup artist and saw how complicated it seemed, I saw it as a challenge and decided to go all in. The original look is done in red, but I decided that I wanted to make it a purle look to make it darker and to give it my own touch. So here is the steps of how I did my makeup.

Now use some hot pink eyeshadow in the middle of the lips to highlight them and make the the look of fading from pink to black more obvious.

Cover the lips with concealer to blend them out and then use a set or loose powder to set them.

Start by drawing wicked, pointy shapes on the top lip and then draw along the lines of the lips.

Use the same purple lipstick as on the eyes and blend it out really well.

Mirror mirror on the wall,who’s the fairest of them all?

messRock

What the hell is going on? Everywhere I look disaster is unfolding. Loch Ness is such a beautiful place and Rockness is such an amazing festival. Great acts and twenty degrees and sunny, but instead of being the best weekend of our lives like it should be, the whole situa-tion is just spiralling out of control with me powerless to stop it. It’s bad enough I’m left without a phone be-cause some bastards stole it, but now everyone is losing their minds. And me? I’m standing at the very edge of the camp-ing down by the water looking out over the majestic

view that is surrounding us. During the day I could see all the mountains following the edges of the loch, looking one shade lighter the further away they were and the sun shining on the water making it sparkle like someone had chucked tiny diamonds on it. Now, as the sun is setting, it looks even more beauti-ful; the sunset casts a yellow light on everything and the blue sky has been replaced with an orange and pink sky with clouds that look like strawberry flavour cotton candy. It all looks so magical. It’s breathtaking. I have my back facing everyone and everything

involving the festival and I’m trying to gather my thoughts over what the hell is going on. I don’t know what to do. “Dana!” I hear Sam’s voice call from behind me. I don’t turn around, but I hear him approach me. “Oi! Dana!” he calls out again only seconds before he reaches me. He stands next to me. “You ok?” Am I ok? My best friend Miranda has deceived me, my phone has been stolen, my flatmate Andrew is losing it, and I have no idea how I feel about the guy standing next to me. I love him to bits but I don’t know if I can be what he wants me to be. I don’t tell him all this. I cheat and say: “I don’t know.” Sam sighs and puts his arm around my shoulder. “I have no idea what’s happening here. Everything’s so crazy.” “Where are the others?” I ask. “Miranda has gone to watch Fatboy Slim with Rich-ard and Chris and them. Don’t really know where the rest are.” “What about Andrew?” He’s the one I’m worried about. “Yeah, I have no idea. He just staggered off and dis-appeared in the crowd. He’s definitely had too much.” “I agree with that.” I sigh and feel tears threatening behind my eyes. Sam pulls me closer to him. I consider pulling away at first – it’s not fair to lead him on – but I need com-fort right now, so I don’t. I look up at him. I didn’t know him too well before this weekend; he was more of the friend-of-a-friend guy, but he has turned out to be one of the nicest guys I have ever known and he has been my rock this weekend. Like last night when Andrew told me about our stuff being stolen from the car and I was the one who lost it. Wow, that must have been one of the worst moments of my life. I’d had some stuff so my reaction was extreme: I started screaming and pushing Andrew and Sam. It freaked Andrew out and in my fog of rage I could hear him ask Sam: “What’s she taken?” I didn’t hear a response from Sam, but after a few seconds (I think) Andrew said: “I can’t handle this.” And then he shot off, leaving

Sam and me alone. Then I started hyperventilating, my anxiety attacks growing stronger by the minute. During all of this Sam stuck by me and made sure I didn’t drink too much, ran off and did something stupid and well, made sure I stayed alive. Not sure how it would’ve ended had he not been there.So now being in his embrace makes me feel better and I put my arms around his waist. We stand there for a few seconds before I pull away. “I want to find Andrew. He’s one of my best friends… I want to make sure he’s ok.” “Yeah, me too.” Sam says as I turn around and look over the festival. There are so many tents in all kinds of colours and since the sun has almost set, millions and millions of carnival lights now light up the area. In the distance I hear Fatboy Slim performing Eat Sleep Rave Repeat and the crowd cheering and singing along. I sure would have liked to trade with one of the people down there who don’t have a care in the world. No stupid flatmate who decides to almost overdose and completely lose it, leaving overly caring people like me to make sure he’s ok when everyone else is too busy thinking about Number 1. It makes me angry. Damn it! Everything is so beautiful – a festival in itself at night looks amazing with all the lights and col-ours and music and people, and Rockness even more so since it is located in one of the most beautiful spots in the world. And I can’t enjoy it. As I walk to my tent I get a massive wave of chills, and I realise that what I am wearing now – a black top, green cardigan, denim skirt and vans – is not going to be enough for the low temperature of Scottish summer nights. “I need to put on more clothes first.” I say to Sam before I crawl into my little green two-man tent. I rummage around my things and pull out a pair of black tights, wool socks, my black Hunter wellington boots and my purple Superdry parka. I make sure I have my brick of a phone – I’d bought a temporary phone for £10 and left my iPhone in the car (clever, I know) – my money, cigarettes and my water bottle. Then I crawl out of the tent and find Sam waiting for me. He’d put on a jacket as well. Then we set off down towards the arena area, walking in zig-zag through the

mess of tents and folding chairs that were cluttering the grass. We walk past a group of guys sitting in folding chairs by theirs tents a bit from the path. On of them stretches out his hand and puts it on my ass as I walked past. I slap it off and the guy grins. He grabs onto me and pulls me towards him. I try to pull away but he won’t let me go. “Hey, jerk!” Sam growls and steps up to him, releas-ing me. The guy stands up and glances in my direction. “You getting with her? Fit bird. Bit of a slag though, aren’t you?” He tries to grab me again, but I move away. “Hey!” I spit He puckers his lips at me and I turn around and walk off. Sam flips the guy the bird and walks off after me. “Fucking dicks.” He says as he catches up to me. “I get that a lot. One of the joys of being a girl.” I sigh. We walk in silence and I look around to see if I can spot any of my friends. Hopefully Andrew will have started to feel better and we’ll find him with he others. Hopefully. When we reach the entrance to the arena area, I get a small knot in my stomach. There are guards check-ing people for alcohol at the entrance and while I don’t have any booze with me I’m worried they’ll see the state of my eyes of Sam’s, but they don’t even give us a second look and we both stroll past, behaving as sober as we can. The area is mobbed. People are dancing and run-ning about and the music is so loud and thrilling that I wish I didn’t have to be responsible for once. But I walk through the crowd almost breaking my neck from stretching to see above everyone. Sam holds onto my hand so we don’t lose each other as we push through people hoping to see a familiar face. We reach the other side of the stage without finding anyone of our friends and I turn to Sam. “Maybe they’re in the Sub Club tent?” I shout to Sam over the music. Sam nods and pulls me along up the hill towards the big, blue circus tent that is the Sub Club – a night-club basically. When we reach the tent I see Miranda and Richard. They’re holding hands and it makes my stomach twist with anger and jealousy. Miranda turns

towards Sam and me and as soon as se spots us she lets go of Richard’s hand. As if I wouldn’t have seen it. They walk up to us and I decide to ignore my feel-ings and focus on the task at hand: finding Andrew and make sure he’s ok. “There you are!” Miranda exclaims. “We’ve been looking for you. Like hell you have. “We went to the tents so Dana could get more clothes.” Sam was kind enough not to mention that I had run off in tears and he’d run after me. “Have you seen Andrew?” I direct my question to Richard. He shakes his head. “Have you?” “No. We’re trying to find him.” Then Miranda’s phone rings. She talks for a lit-tle while and I can tell that the news is not good. She hangs up and tugs on my arm. “Oh my god, we have to go back to the tents now!” “Why? What’s happened?” Richard asks. “Chris bumped into Andrew. He’s had way too much so they brought him back to our tents. It’s bad.” I feel sick as we all struggle to keep calm whilst in the arena. I want to sprint over to see if my friend is ok but I would be stupid to drag attention to ourselves. We walk through the crowd and as soon as we’re out of the arena and on the camping I start running, pulling Sam along with me as he’s still holding onto my hand. Rich-ard and Miranda have also started running. Now I can feel that I’m nowhere near sober. Every-thing around me is moving very quickly and slowly at the same time and all my nerves are on end, making me hypersensitive to whatever I feel. But I don’t care. I have to get to Andrew and see that he’s ok. It is now completely dark outside and without the carnival lights to light up the camping off the path I find myself struggling to see where I’m stepping. I stop and search through my pockets. Nope. Obviously I left my mini torch in my tent. Typical. So I sigh and soldier on with nothing but my star-ing eyes to guide me. I struggle and trip a few times but soon I am just below the big ten-man tent that our friends sleep in. Sam is still holding my hand – he didn’t say anything when I stopped to find my torch but just stood and patiently waited for me – and I let go

and reach for the zip to the tent. I burst inside and find Chris, Michael, Greg and Fiona standing around Andrew who is sitting on a chair with his head buried in his hands. He looks up and stares at me, wide-eyed and ashen, as though he’d just seen a ghost. His pupils are dilated to the point where you can see nothing of the green in his eyes. He looks like a deer in the headlight of a car that is about to be hit. I swallow. This is very bad. As I walk up to him, Andrew startles and holds up his hand. “Get away from me.” He gasps. I stop. “What? Andrew are you ok?” “Just get away from me!” he shouts and I jump, tears filling my eyes. Chris walks over and puts his hand on my shoulder as Andrew starts hyperventilating. The others try to calm him down while Chris leads me out of the tent. “What is going on?” I croak through my tears. “I dunno. He’s had way too much and he’s halluci-nating and shit. We found him by himself jumping at shadows. Says he’s been seeing people with horns and spiders crawling up his legs. He’s out of order, ken.” Chris explains. “Should we get someone to help?” Sam walks up behind me. “They might just get the police.” Miranda and Rich-ard appear next to him. Automatically, I take one step closer to Chris and away from Miranda. I want to punch her in the face, but now is not the time for that. I’ll del with her and her betrayal later. A shriek from the tent makes us all jump and we know it’s coming from Andrew. Chris runs inside and the rest of us follow and stand by the opening. Andrew is lying on the ground flailing and squirming with sweat pouring down his face. Or is it tears? The others are trying to hold him down while Chris tries to talk to him to calm him down. Andrew looks up and when he sees me, Sam, Miranda and Richard – or it might just be me – he roars. “Go away!” This is now too much for me and I run away from the tent, out to the edge of the camping and follow the

fence as far away as I can get. There I stand with my back to the festival and pick up a cigarette. With trem-bling hands and tears pouring from my eyes I struggle to light my fag, groaning until I finally manage to light it. I take a long drag, trying to steady myself. “Hey!” I jump at the sound of Sam’s voice. “Leave me alone.” I sob and start walking away, but he grabs my arm. “Dana, come on. You shouldn’t be by yourself.” “Well, maybe I should!” I squeal. “You saw how he looked at me, like I’m a monster.” “He’s just pilled. It’s not you.” I stare into the distance, have another drag of my cigarette and wipe at the tears soaking my cheeks. I fin-ish my fag and chuck it on the ground. “He’s not going to make it.” I whisper. “Hey.” Sam pulls me into a warm embrace and that is my undoing. I sob uncontrollably into his jacket and he holds me tighter, steadying me. With every second my sobs turn into cries of despair at how everything has turned out. This was supposed to be the best weekend ever and in-stead it turned into… this. I am at a point where I feel completely helpless. Inconsolable. And I wonder where this is all going to end.

The four flat mates went down to the beach for a barbeque and talked about each other’s summers. Looking at Simon and Laura it didn’t seem like anything had happened between them either. Or at least, that was what Carrie hoped. But oh, how wrong she was. Over the following week Carrie couldn’t help but notice some suspicious behavior in her friends Laura and Simon. They seemed to spend a lot more time together than before and sometimes Laura would wander into the living room wearing Si-mon’s hoody or his sweatpants, or both. They al-ways cooked dinner for each other and… Well, you know, stuff like that. However, it was when she walked in the kitchen and caught Simon standing behind Laura, hug-ging her and he moved away as soon as she opened the door that she understood that something was indeed going on between the two of them. “Laura? Can I ask you something?” Carrie and Laura were alone in the living room watching Friends the morning after. “Yeah, sure.” Laura seemed nervous. “See, when I came into the kitchen yesterday you and Simon were very cuddly, but the you stopped as soon as I came in… What was that about?” “Oh god, I was hoping you wouldn’t ask because I wanted to be the one to tell you.” Laura buried her face in her hands. Melina could feel a knot forming in her stomach and she took a breath. “So something is going on between the two of you then.” “Yeah…” Laura said shyly. “What exactly are you then? Like boyfriend and girlfriend or have you just started out or?” Carrie stared at her and Laura sighed. “Boyfriend and girlfriend.” Carrie felt as though her entire universe was collapsing onto her. She didn’t know how to react. Should she cry? Laugh? Yell at Laura? Throw up? Every single feeling she had was tumbling around

inside her, chilling her to the bone and making her feel nauseous. I case you’re wondering; this is where I entered her life. I watched her squirm in this moment, fighting the urge to punch her friend in the face and battling her curiosity as to how all this unfold-ed. She decided to act cool and try to get as much information out of Laura as possible. “So when did it start?” “Um… like three weeks after you’d gone home. I guess it started before that, but that was when we realized that something was definitely happening. He came down to London to see me when I was home and… Yeah.” “Why didn’t you just tell me right away?” Carrie was trying to sound calm. “Because I didn’t want to tell you over the phone or text.” Laura stared out the window as she contin-ued. “And I didn’t want it to be the first thing you heard when you got back either. Didn’t want it to be like ‘Hi I’ve missed you so much! By the way, I’m going out with the guy you fancy.’” “The guy I love actually.” Carrie mumbled and Laura squirmed. “I love him, too.” Carrie stared at her. “You do?” Laura smiled and nodded. Now Carrie got angry, and she was struggling to resist letting me into the situation. But trying to keep it together got almost impossible when she realized that Laura didn’t seem to feel bad for what she’d done. At the beginning of the summer she had looked Carrie – her so-called best friend – in the eye and sworn that she’d never do anything with Simon because of how Carrie felt for him. Then Carrie went home to Edinburgh for two months and when she came back they were boyfriend and girlfriend. And Laura didn’t seem to feel the least bit guilty for stabbing her in the back. That night Carrie lay in bed staring at the ceiling and thinking about this sticky spot she was now in. How was she going to handle this? Her best friend had started dating the guy she was in love with

behind her back, which was screwed up enough, but both of them were her flat mates. This meant that she would be forced to see them every single day instead of disowning Laura and staying away from Simon like she would have had they not been living together. But now she was stuck with them. The whole situation was so screwed up that it was laughable. I had taken over the situation. And who am I? I’m the mess. That moment or time in people’s lives when everything is turned upside-down and nothing makes sense. When everyone is confused and unsure of how to get out of a situation or how to handle it. And I was going to stay in Carrie’s life for an indefinite amount of time. How long and how much I was going to take over her life only time would tell. You see, this story is still ongoing and not even I know how it is going to end.

I occur in every person’s life. I sweep in and take their control and stay indefinitely. The stronger the person is the quicker I go away. How often I show up depends on many factors: if the person thinks before acting, how they live and their ways, what people they chose to surround themselves with. But I always happen. That is inevitable. People might think I’m cruel, but I’m not. I only take part in people’s life in order to make them stronger and to make them learn from bad choices and become better. One particular time I went into a person’s world – a girl – and into a certain part of life that I specify in: love. A love-triangle drama brought me in and let me take over these young people’s – and mostly this one particular girl’s – life. She had been expecting that I would come along for quite a while. Ever since the beginning of sum-mer she had suspected that something was going to change. That her life was going to get a bit messy. That was why she was dreading to come back to town and face hat might have happened during the two months that she’d been back home. When she got back everyone was happy to see her, much to her relief – she hadn’t heard from her friends a lot during the summer so she was not just worried about what she had to face with the two of them, but also that neither of them might have missed her – and the first day back was great.

messRelationship

This is a traditional English dessert, which was originally served at the Eton College’s annual cricket game against the pupils at Harrow School. Eton mess was served in the 1930s in the school’s “sock shop” (tuck shop), and was originally made with either strawberries or bananas mixed with ice-cream or cream, according to Recipes from the Diary by Robin Weir. The meringues were a later addition. This delicious dessert can be made with other types of summer fruits as well, such as raspber-ries, rhubarbs or bananas, but strawberries is seen as more traditional. Some mint can also be added to the mix if one prefers. The word “mess” may come from the ap-pearence of the dish or to the the sense of differ-ent foods or ingredients eaten together. Eton mess is delicious, classic and easy to make.

ETONMESS

Recipe

- 300ml double cream- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar- 400g fresh strawberries- Strawberry jam

1. Mix the sugar and cream into a large mixing bowl and whip until it’s light and fluffy. 2. Break the meringes into bite-size bits and mix into the cream.3. Put the strawberries into another large mixing bowl. Crush the berries with the back of a fork to release some of the juices and stir gently into the cream mix.4. Place the cream, meringue and strawber-ry mixture into glass bowls or wine glasses. Let them chill in the refridgerator for 30 minutes and sprinkle with meringue crum-bles. Top with a teaspoon for strawberry jam.

My version

M

ChristmasWhat will be your wish?