SMOOCHFULL ISSUE

love

It is interwoven

Strong

Tough

Flammable

Unbreakable

It keeps you warm

on the inside

on the outside

or both

day n nite

It can be as simple as a piece of cloth,

yet it’s love.

Love for food, fashion, music, film,

people and places.

Love for life.

you will find all of this and much more inside SMOOOCHLOVE

CONTENTS5 IT IS OKAY TO...find out what’s acceptable in life

7 LOVE AND TRAVELexplore the elements that make you like a place

8 PASSION AND LOVEfind out what you said your passion was

9 SMOOCHINGa good guide to being the best SMOOCH reader and seasoned greeter there is

10-11 SPREADspreading love around one picture at a time

16 LOVE IN HIGH HEELSsneakers vs heels and what men really want

13 EVERYBODY LOVES COUNTINGthis is not about Maths

19 THE MAGICAL UNICORN ZONE self-explanatory, really

SMOOCH February 4

love may be blind, but our writing is not

SMOOCH February 5

be a little self-centered sometimes; caring about yourself will help you better care for others

secretly be addicted to a mainstream song because it is just too darn catchy

be absolutely obsessed with EYP as long as it does not interfere with your everyday life...too much

sometimes, in the wise words of Eminem, just lose it, go crazy, oh baby, go crazy

over think; once in a while you have to exhaust your old ideas and kick’ em out for the better ones to have more room in your brain

be attracted to your best friend, great chemistry equals a friend for life

like yourself and not be considered arrogant

read this issue from cover to cover and discover it again in 3 years’ time and read it again

eat the last cookie and hope that life will give you more cookies, not lemons, so you can make a cookie cake

not go out on Friday night and sleep; you’ll friends will still be there on Saturday, hopefully

forget what time it was and check again three times or just ask someone and pray that they won’t answer you with the likes of “time to get a watch”, “hammer time”, “time toooooo say gooooodbyyyyeeee”

not know stuff, but be keen to know

buy two buckets of popcorn just for yourself; hey, you might have missed lunch, okay

not be okay sometimes and take time off

be grumpy in the mornings, but still offer at least half a smile for the person greeting you

laugh like a hyena, love like a nutter and enjoy yourself

it is okay to...

SMOOCH February 6

With gay marriage bills being put through the parliaments of both France and England this week, I ask what really is so wrong about it? What really is the problem with two legitimate people having a cor-onation to celebrate their coming together like any other ‘normal’ couple?

The opposition argue that if these bills are passed, then this is the cul-mination in an escalation of sec-ularism that has ‘plagued society’ for many decades now. They say that unless European countries are given strong moral guidance that everyone will witness the further destruction of morality. However, to be a human you must have free will to become this moral guide. It is utterly hypocritical to say that some humans may have free will in some areas and not in others.

Let’s be realistic here, just because there are over 500 refe rences of sup-

port for marriage between a man and a woman in the bible does not mean that this is the path which a largely secular society should take. It will not lead to an abomination of immorality as many a person would like you to think; in fact gay marriage is clearly a step towards an ultimately more moral society.

Marriage is not the very first that God gave to mankind; that was free will. This is the same free will that those opposing this bill seem to have removed from their con-sciences. One just hopes that the democratically elected politicians of both France and England can have some common sense and in-stil this basic human right to free will in its truest form. Man should be at his own liberty to make his own decisions about his own life without a lobby behind him heck-ling.

god created humansAlex Coates

SMOOCH February 7

People who base their opinion on geography seem to consider places that are quite different from their own geographical locations as beauti-ful. This is the case with people from highly developed areas who consider natural areas that have not been con-taminated by sophisticated high rise structures and polluted by industries, more magnificent than anything else.

Psychology also has an important role in how people determine places of exceptional beauty, as some peo-ple perceive areas that they haven’t been to as beautiful. This happens because they have created fancy il-lusions and imagined elements that they hope would exist somewhere. Others might have been to the place and have a strong emotional connec-tion, e.g. happy memories relating to places where people proposed to their spouses or where they climbed their first mountain, and even where they had their first kiss.Moreover, elements of the world

love and travelOviemuno Utamakili

“All my life I lived in the city side, so I never knew how it felt to ex-perience the calm water, green pastures and the fresh unpolluted air, that was until I visited the country side.”

Just as the world consists of different people, so does the concept of most beautiful places in the world. These conceptual differences are due to var-ious reasons, such as the geographi-cal location of people, which plays a huge role in determining the most beautiful places.

affect people’s perception. People who like water often admire the view of the ocean and seas because it helps them relax, think and have cool, calm and collected feelings, while those who like fire enjoy sitting in the Ve-suvius.

Originally speaking, however, histo-ry is the bedrock of Love and Travel. It defines who we are. Therefore, the best places to visit are the ones that link you to your roots and tell the sto-ry of your ancestors.As humans we are made to travel to find the area we can connect to with our inner self and find the riches of the world. Everyone has an element that affects the places he refers to as Eldorado, a wonderland, a mystic is-land, a Utopia. Name it however you want, but I call it love.

SMOOCH February 8

passion & loveAs it is widely recognized, Love is an indisputably personal state. People come face to face with feelings that could be described as ‘love’ no matter how big or small things are concerned. I present to you a colorful compila-tion of the things you, the session par-ticipants love, are passionate about.

Tinatin, Kate, Valeriya, EMPL – We’re passionate about singing. It gives us energy, it’s a chance to express ourselves, as well as a source of inspi-ration and motivation.

Hannah, journalist – My passion is creating creative material from scratch. Nothing is more satisfying than the chance to fill blank pages.

Angelina, INTA - Sleeping is one of my biggest passions, when I get a good sleep I’m in a good mood and am generally friendlier to people.

Anastasiia, president – I’m passionate about ensuring justice. It helps me to understand that for each action there is a different consequence.

Alex, ITRE – My greatest passion is Hello Kitty, it helps me to overcome all the obstacles in my life.

Reinis, journalist – My love is choc-olate, whenever I eat a tasty bite of chocolate I feel twice as strong as ever.

Pavel, CULT – My passion is soccer, it helps me to relax and communicate with people.

Nazar, organiser – I’m passionate about sweets. They help me to destroy my teeth.

Daria, organiser – I really love to par-ty, it helps me to unwind and vent all of my negative energy.

Irina, CULT – I’m a fan of studying foreign languages, by learning them the world opens up to me and brings me more opportunities. Artem, organiser - One of my many passions is palmistry; it helps me to discover more about myself, and helps me to help others in this matter.

Atuka, ITRE – My passion is wres-tling, I’m a national champion in Georgia. I see it as great for my health and endurance.

Alex, journalist – I’m very, very crazy about myself, it helps me to under-stand myself better as a person.

Olyena, CRIM – I’m in love with cin-ematography, films give me a new per-spective on life.

Edgars Spudiņš

SMOOCH February 9

Kissing is a lovely way to spend your time. It is also a lovely way to greet people. Greeting people by kiss-ing them usually involves a cheek or cheeks, but the way of kissing can dif-fer from country to country.

For example, in Brasilia, people kiss twice on the cheek and it is usually be-tween women or women and men. If you go more south of Brazil, the kiss is on one cheek. It is similar in Great Britain, as too.

Italians and Mexicans usually kiss twice in a greeting, but in Belgium one kiss is enough. In Russia, Slove-nia, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, the Nether-lands and in Egypt, it is customary to kiss three times.

The French have different customs depending on the region. Two kiss-

es are most common in most parts of France, but in Provence they give three kisses. In Nantes, you can even kiss someone four times on the cheek. It is also important to remember who to kiss. In Romania, people rarely kiss their family and close friends as opposed to the Philippines, where they only kiss their friends and fam-ily. Also, a kiss called beso-beso is ex-changed between women in some circles in the Philippines. Beso-beso is placing one´s cheek to the other or air kissing.

Nevertheless, cheeks are not the only lucky parts that get to be kissed. In Oman, it is not unusual for men to kiss one another on the nose after a handshake. The nose is used by the eskimos as well; the „Eskimo kiss“ im-plies rubbing noses against each oth-er. This is based on a traditional Inuit greeting called kunik.

A kunik is done by pressing the nose and the upper lip against the skin of the other pesron and breathing in. It is a form of expressing affection, usually between family members and loved ones.

Although these customs may seem fun, there are countries where greet-ing by kissing is perceived as ”not cool“, e.g. in English-speaking Can-ada , Asia, Northern Europe and the United States. However, there are some exceptions in North America in some ethnic neighbourhoods, such as Italian, French or Hispanic regions and places like Quebec, Louisiana and Miami.

An EYPer will travel a lot and meet a lot of different people, which means that keeping those smooching cus-toms in mind will come in handy.

SMOOCHingAnnika Ader

SMOOCH February 10

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SMOOCH February 13

No topic has been written, sung and talked about as much as the topic of Love. Yet our civilization has yet to agree on what love is exactly, let alone how it should be. Maybe the answer is that there are many differ-ent types of love, and more ways to love one another. While the mainstream version of love in our so-ciety seems to be the straight monogamous cou-ple, alternative styles of relationships are emerg-ing. If you think this is yet another article about gay rights, think again. I am talking about a new-fangled term that is invading our dictionar-ies and, slowly but surely, invading our societ-ies and our personal lives. The term is polyamory. Rather than a label for a sexual orientation like ho-mosexual, straight, bi, etc, polyamory is a kind of “re-lationship-orientation”. People who identify as poly like to practise what they call consensual-nonmonog-amy. Let’s break that term down. Consensual means that there is consent, this implies that the involved partners are aware of what the other is doing and are okay with it. Nonmonogamy is, well everything but monogamy. For those of you who don’t know what that is; monogamy is between two people who are together exclusively, meaning they do not see anyone else. Monogamy is when Prince Charming finally finds his Cinderella, polyamory is everything else.

There are many different ways of living the polyam-orous lifestyle. This ranges from open relationships, threeway relationships, people who keep primary and secondary partners and and free-love communes.

While most people still think that any relationship other than the classical monogamous one is im-possible, polyamory is indeed a rising trend. The basic idea behind the style is that love does not work based on a starvation economy. This means that love is not a limited good like money or food. Love is endless. Just because you love one person does not mean that you cannot love another per-son equally as much. If you are confident and trusting enough, you will never be starved for love.

This idea is not an original one. Based on the free love ideals of the 1968 sexual revolution, the brave pioneers of love and sexuality Dossie Easton and Jan-et Hardy have become authors to the most influen-tial book of the poly community, “The Ethical Slut”. For further reference on how to explore the endless possibilities of living freely in love, read up on this. As this is a rising trend, maybe, in the future of EYP, when gay marriages have become widely ac-cepted and are no longer an issue of debate, we will have committee topics on the legalisation of the legal recognition of poly-relationships. I look for-ward to this day and the resolutions that may result.

EV

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COUNTINGHannah Grace Carter

SMOOCH February 14

love is noise

These lines come from an old but powerful song ‘’Love hurts’’ by Nazareth. Considering that this song is rather pessimistic about true love and focuses on the depression it can bring, it hides the key to this ‘’illness’’. Studies sug-gest that music can help alleviate depression by up to 25% and relieve any emotional pain by about 40%. The noises, melodies we hear, sing, create or just accidentally flash into our minds have a significant influence on us. Perception of the surroundings and the emotions can be turned upside down just by listening to a tune we are fond of.

What is love? Baby don’t hur... NO. That’s an-other story. Love is an emotion of strong affec-tion and personal attachment. The most spec-tacular, deeply euphoric feeling for someone. However, falling in love is a major risk, either you live happily ever after or get sad and de-pressed when tackling an argument or break-up. Over 90% of people torture themselves with depressing music when they are already

in a bad mood. If you’re not one of them, con-gratulations, you’re the lucky one. Some sug-gestions for evolving your love pain: The Lumi-neers – Stubborn love; Stateless – Bloodstream; U2 – With or without you.

After having listened to some devastating and heart-crushing songs, some people decide to drown their sorrows, go for a walk, leave the town or even worse.

The key of joy in this article is music and sing-ing is probably one of the best ways of boosting your mood and refreshing your soul. No won-der people attending choires look constantly happy. Singing relieves the brain and washes away your negative and painful emotions. You will feel the results immediately, no doubt.

Moving forward, not every person is given a talent of creating music. Starting from classical, country and indie to rock, dubstep and killer metal. Besides that there are love songs, the

pieces of art that express deeply emotional sto-ries. I’d call these poets and composers geniuses as words don’t come easy to me and apparently to many others. Making somebody else feel an emotional experience through a creative piece is a wonderful ability.Furthermore, if the work has enough influence to possess the minds globally, that is an out-standing level of self-expression. As complete ‘’madmen’’ in this field are considered Damien Rice, Bryan Adams, Jason Mraz, Marvin Gaye and many others.

Obviously, music subtly controls our emotions and feelings, including love. Love is in the air everywhere I look around when switching on Bryan Adams or Marvin Gaye. If you don’t feel the same, no worries, either you’re in love with somebody so that love songs don’t have any influence on you any more or you’ve just switched on your ‘’yolo’’ mode and rebut your inner lover.

Reinis Tutans

‘’Love hurts, love scarsLove wounds, and marks’’

SMOOCH February 15

love picture showsAnnika Ader

Our purpose in life is to reproduce in order for our species to continue being awesome on this planet. This need is coded in our biologi-cal system and love is the by-product of it. Love makes it pleasureable. Humans need love. In the Maslow pyramid, love is on the third level.

The feelings that come with love are common in everyday life, like eating or sleeping. Because of this, love is taken for granted. The need and search for it is so self-evident because we practise it everday. Whether it is the search for the love of your life or interacting with your mother or best-friend.

This all gets extensive coverage in the media, mostly movies and music. Reality TV is so pop-ular because of relationships between people and other people enjoying observing them.One could think that if love and the human re-lations are so self–evident, why would the people enjoy watching it on TV to this extent?

Almost all movies have a love story. Even action or horror movies have some characters who have or will have feelings for each other. Wouldn´t it become boring?

One way is to look at love as if it were a mystery. As curious people, we need to find an answer to that mystery. The search for love and finding the meaning behind it is very common in most movies. It is easy to make things clear for your-self by visualising them.

Seeing love in a movie gives the opportunity to have a third person experience. It is like seeing yourself from the outside. Our life is the most interesting thing we know and also a thing we know most about. Seeing one of the most im-portant part of our lives on a screen, played by beautiful people, is the reason why love has a part in most movies and will continue to have one for years to come.

SMOOCH February 16

Men are always men when it comes to ‘love’, especially when it comes to love in high heels. When you ask a random guy, if he prefers girls wearing high heels or trainers, he’ll tell you without pausing to think, ‘Of course high heels because they define the hips better’. But when it comes to real life and the woman starts annoying the man, as she can barely walk, love magically disappears, ‘Hey, it’s not my fault you forgot your trainers.’ Men, make up your mind at last.

Man is like a nutshell, he’s hard on the outside, but his fill-ing is soft and tasty. Ladies, let me finally introduce you the truth about God-given creatures, men.

Men are afraid of refusal. Even though they find you very attractive, they won’t come up to you. However, if they find the risk worthy they may go for it. Usually it’s the woman’s smile or eye contact that helps them determine how risky making a move is.

On the other hand, men are admirable because they face a lot of rejection. Some men probably get turned down five times a day, and yet they keep going to find a girlfriend. Some women are so rude to men because they don’t know how much nerve it takes for the man to ask for her number or even be so bold as to ask her out right on the spot. Some

love in high heelsUlyana Furiv

SMOOCH February 17

men finally build up the nerve to approach the girl, and then she ignores them.

Ladies, let’s play fair! If you’re not interested, treat him like you would like to be treated, if you were the one to approach an attractive man that you liked who was not interested in you. Every human deserves respect.

Men are visual beings, so they want an attractive girlfriend. They can appreciate a beautiful woman or a woman who puts effort into her looks. They will, of course, pick the pretty girl who’s in shape over the homely girl who is not in shape over oth-er things (personality, character, intelligence). So while every woman is not going to be a Halle Ber-ry with enough money to have the best clothes and beauticians, most women can try their best and men will notice and appreciate that.

When men see a girl with her body exposed, they don’t see us as women. They see us as ob-jects unless they know you from before dressed in more clothes. There was a study done where little electrodes were taped onto men’s heads. The study showed that the part of men’s brains that was activated when seeing a girl in a bikini was the same part they used when handling tools. That part of the brain is also activated when men think

of homeless people and drug addicts. Test sub-jects saw scantily-clad women, homeless people, and drug addicts as objects with no feelings. But when it came to women who were covered up, the men’s brains saw the women as people with feelings. SHOCKING!

Men know up front whether they are attracted to you or not. Women are sometimes the other way; we may not be attracted initially, but later on, we might think, ‘I know he’s just a friend, but he could have the potential to be more...” Men know in the first three seconds or less whether they would ever be romantically or physically attracted to you. There’s no use in trying to manipulate or change that by buying gifts, being flirty, etc. be-cause it’ll never happen for you and him. There’s a built-in chemical effect that goes on between a man and a woman.

Love in high heels is not easy, but if it’s just love, with or without the high heels, it’s even better. Love and be loved, guys! Hope this helps, ladies!

SMOOCH February 18

We’ve gathered here in this wonder-ful place.Ivano-Frankivsk, it’s a city with grace. The national session has kindly as-sembled us.It is the time of our lives, through dawn and dusk

The session was insaneWe partied and went wild at nightDuring the day we kept it tightIt was certainly not mundane

This session starts with a good im-pression, in teambuilding there’s no time for depressionwe’re getting to know a bit more about each otherIt seems so familiar, we’re like sisters and brothers.

Sessions like these have a unique wayof bonding people together in just a couple of days. It happens so fast as if we were in a dream we’re singing loads of songs and join-ing EYP screams.

But the problems at hand were easily solvedBy the delegates who got involvedThe result was a resolutionSo in the end, every problem had a solution

Every day in this session is rapidly passing us bySometimes it’s hard to notice, it’s like a blink of an eyeSo the moment arrives, we’re at the last CW phase.There are just a couple of sentences that are needed to be phrased

Then we took part in a debateConvinced that our resolutions were greatWhatever happens in the final voteWe’ll be proud of what we wrote

The orgas brought us breakfast in bedAnd at lunch, made sure that we got fedThe guided us from venue to venue, never getting lostAnd took care of us, whatever the cost

The chairs would keep us up with a funny gameProductivity and fun being their main aimThey helped us out and entertained usThe fact that some were cute was just a plus

Moving on so fast as it was almost not awaited. The session ending is so soon, oh don’t you simply hate itNo worries, we’ll leave the last day of the session with a smileBecause we know that we’ll meet one another a while

Nothing would have come of all of thisIf it weren’t for the officialsAnd so we thank them with kissAnd a love note signed with our ini-tials

HC & ES

Ivano-Frankivsk in poem

Hannah Grace Carter Edgars Spudiņš

SMOOCH February 19

the magical unicorn zone

The magical unicorn zone is a place where one can enjoy the delights of a romantic relationship with a person of the other gender, a troll or an elf.

The zone is a land of opportunity filled with uni-corns, unibrows and universal music studios. You may get to this place by taking the magic carpet from a man with a jolly jig. The jolly jig he is jig-ging is so jolly that just one glance at his giant green giblets will render you speechless.

He will take you on a magic journey to this land and you will be free to enjoy and express your emotions should they be sad, smiley or sexual. To condemn yourself to this land is to decide that you wish to become one of them.

By them, I mean the master race who will pursue you in your quest to achieve the ultimate goal – to escape. However, if you have a romantic partner, you will never escape this zone, because you and your girlfriend will simply be charmed, fixated and hypnotised by leprechauns, wizards and gargoyles among many others.

No matter of your pointless attempts to break this spell, the magical unicorn zone will always have a grip on you. It will clasp you until the last piece of your life is dripping out of your soul. Your only escape can be through passion and love. Should you show the best and most sincere passion about things you love most in your life, then the zone will spare your trembling, tearful, yet triumphant existence.

The moral of this story is whenever you’re feeling down, alone or depressed, be cheerful and glad that there is a world possible for you to reach which has epic infinite love, unicorns and lasers.This, however, is not where the story ends…

Alex Coates