Sunday 21 September 2014

Friends.

Hola! Let post number 5 commence. It's currently midnight on a Sunday (or I guess technically Monday) as I write this. And once I start writing these it usually takes an hour with editing/importing photos/being indecisive. So since I would like to get some sleep tonight this post hopefully won't be very long.





~ Photos from the wedding I mentioned I was going to, feat. the dress I was rambling about. Fun times! ~


 Something I wanted to talk about in this post is friendship. Including best friends, friend groups, ameliorating/toxic friends etc. I've experienced it all, I think we all have at some point.

 Having a good, solid set of friends (or best friend) who you can talk to and laugh with is easily one of the greatest things humans can have. And I think some people who have that don't appreciate it, or miss out on the opportunity to have it by joining a friend group because 1. they're popular, 2. they're the people that you grew up with and are used to, or 3. they are a selective group, and you crave their acceptance, or, all of the above.

 I've been in friendships where I just mindlessly idolised the people I was friends with. I wished and wished I could be like them, and being their friend gave me the illusion that I was. But in doing that, in solely trying to be like them, I lost the desire to be who I am. The one thing that drives me most now. And that is such a tragedy! Because it is so important to find out what you like, to read books you by a writer everyone around you hates and to listen to music from genres that are "weird". And if you don't like it, that's as valuable an observation as realising you do like it.

 I always think about the importance of liking things. It's really one of the natural joys every human has, from birth, really, if you think about it.If I spend 90% of my life being excited about cool, interesting things, that would be a life well spent, right? I guess it's just a feeling I appreciate. There have been times in my life where I haven't had friends to talk to, and throwing myself into music and books that I loved, was all I had. It's like the things we love hold some kind of sacredness and power to change us for the better. Almost like some kind of magic.







































~ Let's not forget about the most important friendships. ANIMALS. ~



 Friendships should be helpful, encouraging, allowed to have bad days where they are neither of these, trustworthy, and fun. I've always felt unease towards incredibly clique-y friend groups that have the same opinions on everything (out of changing their views to follow the leader, of course) and are poisonously judgmental. I will never be okay with people picking apart others in a cruel way for their own entertainment. If that is how a friend group purely thrives, it is definitely not a good one.

 I'm so grateful to have a group of best friends who are all so funny, smart, cool and just really interesting, great people who are going to do such cool things with their lives and are just really good human beings. And if you don't have great friend(s) (one best friend can totally have the same effect) and trust me, I've been there, just please know that things change whether you know it or not and you will some day. 



///

'...she cites her pal Lorde, whom she calls Ella. "It's like this blazing bonfire," Swift says. "You can either be afraid of it because it's so powerful and strong, or you can go stand near it, because it's fun and it makes you brighter."'
-
Taylor Swift

\\\






























~ In honour of the subject of this post, photos from my friend Dervla's birthday this past weekend. Happy birthday Derv ♥ ~




I think my next post will be about growing up, change and careers etc. But for now it's too late so that can wait.

I have a really fun few weeks ahead, I'm going out with my friends on Friday, then on Sunday I'm seeing my sister play football in the All-Ireland Final which will be amazing, then on Sunday night/Monday morning (3am) I'm going on a school trip to Naples, Italy for Geography, for 5 days, which will be amazing! I've been before, but it was only a day excursion on a cruise. Then a few days after I get home, I see Ed Sheeran in concert. YAY. Hopefully these things will lead to good posts, I know Italy will. (Prepare for photos of volcanoes. My inner geography nerd is in heaven.)



~ 'Spinning like a girl in a brand new dress.' (Literally.) ~



~ There is something so magical about chinese lanterns. ~


 I feel like after all of this I'm going to want to sleep for like a week. But really I'll just be stressing over trying to catch up on missing a week of school, especially since I'm still recovering from missing one day two weeks ago. Help.

Favourite song of the week: I'll Do The Driving - Fountains of Wayne 

I think this week I'm going to name my favourite song of all time, which feels like cheating, because obviously it's my favourite every week, but I feel like this week I got stressed out about school more than usual (which I didn't even know was possible) and this song calms me down and makes me happy. I don't know why. I think it's something about the lyrics and my long-time love for Fountains of Wayne.

Favourite TV show of the week: Parks & Recreation

Last time I mentioned The Office, now I mention Parks & Rec. I promise I don't just watch these kind of comedy shows, even though I'm not sorry because they are brilliant. When I first started watching this show I was completely uninterested because the first season is literally just a less funny version of The Office. 

 The two shows are truly very similar. They share a producer, the whole documentary-style camera thing, same types of characters, and basically main character (Leslie Knope = female version of Michael Scott. I love it.) But they're both so great. This show is almost filling the void the last episode of The Office created. (Although that void was partially there since Michael Scott left a few seasons before.) But it's really so hilarious and fun to watch.

Okay that is enough for this post because it's 1:04am and I have to get up for school in 6.5 hours. YAY! See you in the next post.

Wednesday 10 September 2014

comparison, who you are, and penpals!

Hello again! Post number three. Exciting times! It is currently 10:32pm on a Wednesday as I write this and I had this miraculous idea to go to bed at 9pm but even though I am horrifically tired, I can't sleep. Story of my life. (One Direction have ruined that phrase for me. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY ONE DIRECTION. I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT. Okay maybe I don't care that much. Any excuse to be melodramatic.)


  So I know I said I was going to post every Friday night/Saturday morning but maybe midweek vents posts will be a thing since I just feel like it right now.






















Selfies from this week (lol): left - me, my sister & grandad going for a walk around the park/shore and right - me and my friend Becca taking selfies to remember the first time we've spent a study period walking around the school trying to look like we were meant to be walking around. A life experience really.



 Something I wanted to talk about in this post that has been on my mind, well, I was going to say all week, but really, my whole life (long story.) Long story shortened: perfect older sister = seeming impossibility of doing anything remarkable.

 Something I'm told over, and over, AND OVER, on a daily basis is this, "Wow you have such successful siblings! How are you going to live up to them? That's SO much pressure." And I'm not trying to call out anyone who has said this to me because if I was in their position I'd probably say the same thing. I get it. It's pretty black and white. I just find it really annoying. Can't I just admire, appreciate and respect my family for their successes and pursue mine as something completely separate? Is there some kind of rule of human nature I'm violating by doing that? I insist on believing otherwise. Although I have a lot of times, bad days, where I completely agree with what probably runs through people's minds about how I haven't achieved a tiny fraction of what they had at my age, and that even if I tried, I wouldn't, so what's the point in even trying? I could win a competition after working towards it for months and then be told "Congrats but it isn't that impressive. Your sister won that 3 years ago without even trying." 

 This is a toxic mind state I was in in my life for a sadly long period of time and on bad days it lurks back. But I always remind myself, and I need to write this here so I can come back and read it next time I need to, and also for anyone in similar situations: 

 You are your own person. You do not exist to please others you live to please yourself. And to do so by doing things that make you happy, achieving things, spending time with people who make you feel better about yourself and not people who try to get you to believe your natural self-doubts. Do not compare yourself to anyone else because you are different. Maybe you wish it weren't so but you shouldn't because there has to be something greater to your life than spending it fawning over others. Appreciate others, admire them for their strengths and let them motivate you to work harder or see things differently. You are going to do great things in this world and the movie-like happy endings aren't just for the lucky ones.



///

“Life on earth is a whole, yet it expresses itself in unique time-bound bodies, microscopic or visible, plant or animal, extinct or living. So there can be no one place to be. There can be no one way to be, no one way to practice, no one way to learn, no one way to love, no one way to grow or to heal, no one way to live, no one way to feel, no one thing to know or be known. The particulars count.” 

- Jon Kabat-Zinn

\\\



I really don't want this to sound like some blind motivational speech you could find on any website or cringe-worthy youtube video, although it inevitably kind-of does, I mean all of this. 


 


















The dresses I was describing in the last post! Awkward mirror selfies - the best type. I will have better photos after actually going to the wedding though, promise!



 Another thing I wanted to discuss is something somewhat related, the idea of 'being who you are.' This has always slightly annoyed me. I mean I get it, obviously, but it is still so ridiculous to me. Firstly, how do I know who I am? How is it defined? By where I live, who I spend my time with, what I spend my time on, what I like/dislike? If so then some of those things change daily, or weekly, or monthly so how am I meant to sum everything up into a statement I can use to answer the questions that float around my head constantly like, "What kind of person am I? If I was a TV show or book character how would I be described? Would people like the character? Would I like the character?" And yet people can change their views on 'who someone is' if they simply start dressing a little differently, as if that's a definite symbol of the only things that person likes. Example: Someone meets someone who wears ripped dark jeans and a leather jacket and subconsciously (or not) presumes their music taste, the type of people (another term I have problems with) they're friends with, etc. You can see how annoying/interesting/infuriating this is for someone who wears band t-shirts and ripped jeans one day and a cream lace dress and brogues the next. 

 I have so many more thoughts on this but I'm too sleep-deprived to put them into words. I'll come back to it. Basically: like what you want to like and dress how you want to regardless of what labels other people put on your for it because at the end of the day you're the one who has to look in the mirror and wonder if you like yourself. I guess if you're doing what you love and saying the things you want to say and achieving the things you want to achieve then whether you realise it or not you have found who you are. That kind of thing can't be labeled. 



///

“The first question she was asked was, "What do you do?" as if that were enough to define you. Nobody ever asked you who you really were, because that changed. You might be a judge or a mother or a dreamer. You might be a loner or a visionary or a pessimist. You might be the victim, and you might be the bully. You could be the parent, and also the child. You might wound one day and heal the next.” 

― Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes
\\\







Okay, on to a lighter topic: me and my good internet friend and incredible artist Kara Della Valle (please please please check out her youtube and subscribe, she is the absolute best. Her original songs are my life.) decided to be PEN PALS! I know. Truly the best idea ever.

 So a few weeks ago I prepared a small package for her, it contained (if I can remember): A letter on both sides of an A3 piece of blue card (don't ask, I like stationery), a bracelet and two red ceramic stars all hand-made in Kerry (my favourite place) and I thought these would be cool since she lives in Canada and so it's like a little piece of Ireland to send her, a poem I've never shown anyone else (although it is on one of my tumblrs that no one looks at - so that doesn't count), a page from my journal covered in my favourite lyrics of hers, as well as other cute things.

 And a few days ago she messaged me that she RECEIVED them and I WAS SO EXCITED. She instagrammed a picture of the contents which you can see here and her response was so lovely and I'm so excited to read her letter. The moral of this story is, 1. Penpals are FUN 2. Writing letters/preparing cute little gifts for someone is fun and makes you feel like a nice person 3. Kara is the best 4. I'm just really excited about all of this.

 Next topic: TAYLOR SWIFT'S NEW ROLLING STONE INTERVIEW. NEED I SAY MORE.



















Taylor's last 2 Rolling Stone covers. I think the left is my favourite but the new one is still so amazing.



 It is glorious. She is everything. I am going to resist analysing/fangirling over every line or even talking about it much because I will never stop and I am falling asleep right now. Basically: read it. She is a great human being. I have been in awe of her for so many years and that is not going to change. 

I think for the midweek posts since my music/book/tv favourites can wait until the weekend, I will just post a must-listen-to song and a must-watch youtube video or a must-read article. 

Must-listen-to song of the week: Reflections by We Are The In Crowd (totally fitting for the content of this post, too.)

Must-read article: Ahhhh so many rookie ones but you probably all read Rookie so I'll just say the Rolling Stone one. It is the definition of must-read.

Must-watch YouTube video: 


This is (of course) a Ted Talk because I've been really obsessed with watching them before I go to sleep for months. This one in particular I re-watched this week. It really cheered me up. I don't know why. Maybe it's all the physics-related TV shows my dad and I watch. 

Anyway, it is midnight so good night. Even though it could be any time when you're reading this. I'm not even going to check for spelling/grammar mistakes which is a terrible decision. Good night. 





Friday 5 September 2014

dresses, lyrics and fear

Hey! This week's post is going to mainly focus on things I've thought a lot about this week (some more so than others), including fear, starting Lower Sixth, Paramore and a fairy-like dress I got from Free People. I'd say that's a pretty good mixture of feelings.

 So I guess since it is Friday as I am writing this, I have just successfully completed my first week of Lower Sixth! Woo! I'm so old. It's truly terrifying. Lower Sixth has always seemed like an old and mature year to me and like whenever I get there I'll be pretty and organised and smart and popular and I'll have overcame all of the current problems I have...Let's just say that didn't happen. Shocker. It reminds me of a line in the song "Go" by Kara Della Valle, "Always thought that this place would just get old and it wasn't me getting older."

                   A journal page dedicated to my favourite Kara lyrics.


 Throughout my GCSEs I barely thought about A Levels as I was already worried enough about them. But I think in the back of my mind I always kind of thought that GCSEs are difficult and there are so many subjects and next year I'll only have four and I will be doing subjects I like and I will have less work and more time to study. Wrong. So wrong. So wrong in so many ways. 1. The 4 subjects I'm now studying at AS (English Literature, Geography, Biology & Chemistry, if anyone is wondering) are probably worth 30 GCSE subjects in terms of workload and difficulty. 2. Taking subjects you need, and want to have and are good at may not be ones you love. I really do like all of the subjects I'm doing but I have a very turbulent, love-hate relationship with Chemistry. And kind of Biology. But I still like them and I don't want to close all of the doors they open when, who knows, maybe at some point before college application time I'll decide I want to be a doctor. It is unlikely. But not impossible. Maybe I'm just a nerd.

 Anyway, enough school stuff. Time to talk about the one thing everyone loves. Things that can change moods, people, and even the WORLD.

Dresses.

Oh, dresses. My one true love in life. I always look at the Free People website in awe as I love every. single. piece. but I never order because it is SO EXPENSIVE. But...I'm going to a wedding next Friday...I needed a dress...It would inevitably be pricier than regular dresses...I saw an opportunity.

 I ended up purchasing this cream-ish coloured lace dress which is so stunning. It was a little pricier but it is a beautiful design and fit and it is so well-made. Although I decided to wear this amazing red dress to the wedding instead, I'll post a picture in next week's post wearing them. (I can't link you to the red one because I bought it from a local shop). Basically i would 100% recommend Free People and I just really, really like 
dresses. 


                                     \\\

“Your red dress,’ she said, and laughed.

But I looked at the dress on the floor and it was as if the fire had spread across the room. It was beautiful and it reminded me of something I must do. I will remember I thought. I will remember quite soon now.” 
― Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
                                                 ///
























  These are both photos I took in Dingle, Kerry last month. Such a pretty place.


 Another thing I've been thinking a lot about this week is fear. And not just my fears, but people's reactions to fear and what my actual fears are and not just my strong dislike for spiders and flies and desire to avoid them. 

I think my biggest fear is fear itself.

(How many times can I use fear in a sentence?!)

Think about it this way: I study not only because I'm afraid of failing, but because I'm afraid of being unprepared for an exam and being afraid before an exam. I guess I hate the feeling of fear so much that I imagine the level of it I would feel in an unfortunate or dangerous situation and I get scared. And although fear may not be my biggest single fear, being someone who is very obsessed with feelings (that sounds weird, you know what I mean...I hope) it is underlying in anything else that frightens me in some way.

 This seems like the part where I tell you how to deal with fear. I wish I knew, I think I'm still figuring it out. Right now, being a teenager, I think the best way is just to try and do my best whenever I can and not think about the scary stuff, even if it is always closing in around us.


                                      ///

"Just because there's a hurricane going on around you doesn't mean you have to open the window and look at it." - Taylor Swift 

                                                \\\

After all that deep stuff, how about I end this post with music and book discussion. YAY.

Music:

 This week I have been obsessed with a lot of Paramore's unreleased songs like Escape Route, Hello Cold World, Renegade, Breathe, and especially Decoy. That song is just. So. Good. I listen to it unhealthily loud in my earphones and I forget about everything annoying or worrying me. Paramore have such an ability to make you really feel something through their music. Is there really a better quality a band can have?

 I'm also still obsessed with Tonight Alive, with my current favourite songs of theirs being Hell and Back (my absolute favourite) and Complexes. 

 I've been in love with Lights' new song Up We Go lately too. It is SO not the kind of music I normally listen to but I just turn it up so loud in my earphones and feel so happy. I also fall asleep to her acoustic album every night, it is heavenly.

TV shows:

 Okay because I've started school again I've abandoned all TV shows completely but I have been watching episodes of the US version of The Office on Netflix before I fall asleep most nights to make me laugh and forget about anything stressing me out and keeping me awake. I honestly never find comedy TV shows funny but this one is an exception. It's not the best it has a lot of average episodes but so many funny characters (Dwight is me) and lines and there's just something about it I really like. I only have about half a season left and it's making me very sad.

Books:

Again with school I haven't had any free time to read anything not-school-related but whenever I can I've been reading the classing The Great Gatsby! I've wanted to read it for years because I love F. Scott Fitzgerald's work and it's such a classic and since we're studying it in English this year I guess it would be a good idea. So far I really love it although it can be confusing, which really makes me like it more because it's more complexly written, challenging and interesting to read. 

 There are a lot of other things I wanted to talk about but my eyes are closing as I type so I guess they can wait until the next post. I like writing these. It's therapeutic. Like cleansing my mind of it's thoughts whilst also sharing my thoughts with people. 

If you got this far and didn't stop reading, please comment below and let me know if you agree/disagree or like/dislike anything. Thank you for reading & see you next week! I will leave you with an attempt-at-being-artsy rainy picture I took of a window & a picture of my dog curling up on my knee. She is the greatest thing.  




P.S. I'm not sure on what to call this blog. I was swaying between this or "clothesandcorruption" that was my initial idea and I think I might prefer it but I'm not sure. I would really appreciate if you commented any ideas you have or which one you prefer because I am perpetually indecisive.