Checklist

Clubbing is not my thing.
I'm shy, I'm a homebody and I'm judgemental. I know exactly what I want and if you don't meet the criteria I'm pretty stand offish (even if you meet other equally important criterion) until you break down my walls which takes time and effort that strangers often aren't willing to impart (and understandably).

Must have a job, private school educated but not too elite to illicit snobbery, intelligent, sporty but not a football player (some exceptions do apply), animal person (doesn't have to be crazy about cats and dogs but must at least not hate either), willing to spend time with my crazy friends and willing to bring me along to spend time with his crazy friends.

Then there's the stuff that would be little bonuses, the stuff that would put him ahead of the pack. Foreign (most preferably somewhere in Western Europe, especially the UK or France), bilingual (again, European, preferably French or Italian), blue or green eyes, taller than me, living closer to the city than I do (that one's pretty easy to achieve though).

I'll probably find a guy who is the exact opposite to everything I just said I want and he'll be perfect.
Or maybe I'll live alone with 32 cats.
Either, either, or.

I am woman, hear me roar

So, apparently it took me getting a boyfriend to realise I'm a total feminist. 

(And then 3 months to actually come to terms with that, because in some circles feminist is a dirty word.)

I've always been "anything boys can do, girls can do better (and they can do it in heels)" but now my feminist streak is taking it to the extreme. Dont open doors for me, don't buy me dinner, don't let me go first, let me buy you some freaking ice cream.

We live in the 21st century not the 1850s I am a grown woman with her own money, her own muscles and her own brain, let me do it by my-goddamn-self.

I know that it's not meant to be condesending and degrading but at it's root it was and by continuing to do these things you're reinforcing the sterotype. Yes, if you are at the door first, please by all means do open it for me but don't do it because you're my boyfriend or because I'm a girl. Do it because you were there first and it's the polite thing to do, regardless of gender. If you've opened said door for me because you were there first, it only makes sense that I do indeed go first, otherwise who would be holding the door? But again, if I got there first and I opened the door, don't proceed to send me ahead of you because I'm a girl, what if there's a monster in there? That's not very gentlemanly of you now is it, sending me to a slimy and monstorous death?

As for buying me stuff, birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, sure. But do not buy me dinner unless you're comfortable with me returining the favour in the future. Sure, when we're reaching the later levels of being together and heading to words the big M word or a de facto relationship then yes, what's mine is yours, who cares who buys dinner on this particular Thursday? In the early stages though, when you're trying to impress me or whatever, buying me stuff, and not letting me pay you back in any way is not the way to go. It undermines my independence and that is so not cool. I work too. Women are no longer reliant on men for food and shelter. 

E-qual-ity, say it with me now. 

#NeverthoughtIwasacrazyfeminist

#guessIam

#guessIlovehashtagstoo

Lyrical

More Than a Dream - Harrison Craig

"I never thought, 

never could see, 

never believed.

The walls were bigger than me

but I tore them down, 

I tore them down."

I didn't watch The Voice, I caught a few of the blind auditions perhaps and saw the innumerable adds of course but I didn't sit down every week and watch it. I did, however, recorded the finale and I watched it because I adore Harrison Craig. He is a beautiful person, he has an amazing voice and I think he definitely deserved to win. He sounds like Michael Bublé, and sung a few Bublé covers while he was on The Voice (that are now living on my iPod), perhaps thats why I love him so much. Probably doesn't hurt that he's a bit of a babe too. But mainly, he looked happy. Again, I only watched the finale, and maybe it was because even before it was announced everyone knew he was going to win, but he smiled when he sung, ever YouTube video of him I've watched since, he smiles. He's happy to be up there belting it out, the others...not so much.

I've mentioned songs I love for their lyrics before and the utmost respect and admiration I have for songwriters, Delta Goodrem, Ed Sheeran, Little Mix, Of Monsters and Men, Bob Dylan too I love for his lyrics (because let's be honest, that guy is a poet not a singer, when he sings he sounds like a dying horse). Another one to add to my list is Harrison, especially if his (admittedly rushed) album turns out anything like the original song he (co-(apparently))wrote for The Voice finals.

I mean I also likes songs expressly not because of their lyrics, Flo Rida's Whistle, Hey Porsche by Nelly or anything Jason Derulo sings. But while Flo Rida and Nelly make me want to sing along and dance, the others, the ones I love for the stories they tell (and the way they tell it), make me think and feel and all that good stuff music is supposed to evoke in you. They are the songs that get stuck on repeat.

Why is it whenever I'm sick and shouldn't have dairy, all I want is a milkshake. Like seriously body? What even. 

Religion and Cats

It's sort of getting to me now, that I'm the only single one. That I don't even have a quasi-unofficially-official someone to make me smile and be cute with or about. I'm certainly not going to cry about it though.

It's the "growing up" stuff that everyone's doing with their significant other that's bugging me. Holidays and houses and domestic things. You're my best friend, I want to do those things with you, we always have before. I'm jealous I'm no longer up there in your priorities. I'm jealous I don't have someone I care about enough to supplant you.

I tried though. I tried at something I should've known would've been a disaster then I had the back and forthing that I've finally realised never would've worked, not even on our superficial level, then I pinned all my hopes on something that turned out to be a flop so now I'm left feeling a little flat I guess.

I know, some day (my prince will come) I'll find someone that will capture my attention and drag me away from my books and writing and whatever else it is I spend my time doing to spend time with him but so far, no one has really taken my fancy, not enough anyway. And I don't believe in forcing things, if it's meant to be it will be, so I'm not going to make myself do anything to force anything I'm just going to live my life and let the pieces fall where they may.

I've held this belief for as long as I can remember, sort of like my own religion, but I think it's getting harder as I get older. I wonder how old I'll have to get before the cynicism kicks in and I adopt 34 cats. 

After Hours

Late last night, and by late I mean late i.e. half past midnight, I had two visitors. 

After they called me and woke me up even though my phone was on silent, like actual not-even-vibrating silent. 

They rocked up, we squished and snuggled onto the couch and it was awesome. 

Friends are great at all times and I like them. These ones in particular. They're fun. 

In need of a third language brain partition, thanks.

I love French and I love Italian (as I'm sure you know) and I love speaking French or Italian more than I do English but I need the language section of my brain to split into a third section, as opposed to English/Not-English.

I need an English/French/Italian divide because I just spent a solid 15 minutes trying to work out whether the 'to be' verb I was looking at was the French one or the Italian one. Keep in mind that 'to be' is the first verb you ever learn so I've either known the French conjugation by heart for over 8 years or the Italian conjugation for over 2 years, either way a fairly significant chunk of time in which I should be able to recognise and identify a basic verb table.

It probably doesn't help that the infinitives are quite similar être vs. essere. Never mind the fact that the Italian doesn't even use the personal pronoun whereas the French does (the personal pronouns I could've glanced at and would've told me which language it was by the way).

I just...I love speaking more than one language more than anything but God it messes with my brain. I'm just reaching the point where my LOTE switch flicks to Italian by default rather than French but considering I still struggle on occasion to identify a phrase on paper as French or Italian I think I've got a long way to go.

Next time I'm picking something with a freaking completely different alphabet. Like Russian. Or Swedish (Ah, Alexander Skarsgård).

Role Model

As much as I have a role model I think Rory Gilmore is it.
Fictional though she may be (portrayed by the wonderful Alexis Bledel for 7 years on Gilmore Girls), man I want to be her.
She's intelligent, she's funny, she's well-read, she's witty, she's kind, she's compassionate, family-orientated, driven. She's also pretty damn stunning too.
She's the reason why I am so desperate to go to Yale even though the rational part of my brain knows that:
a) I can't afford it.
and b) I wouldn't go anyway because studying Law in America is useless for someone who never wants to live anywhere but Australia.

Yes, okay, so she's not real per se, but the idea of her is real.
She worked hard in school, got into the course/university of her dreams.
She worked hard at uni, got a job as a political journalist on Obama's campaign trail (i.e. job of her dreams).
And, despite the ending, she proved you don't have to go out every weekend and dress to the nines to find the perfect guy.

RORY GILMORE LET ME HAVE YOUR LIFE!!!

P-platers unite!

I love the kind of solidarity p-platers share. How every time you see a car with Ps you try and check out the driver, because you know they're roundabouts your age. 

When you see one walking to their car you give this imaginary nod that conveys "OMG we can drive now! How cool is that?" Because for me, the whole driving thing is still a novelty even 2 years on. 

Promise = kept

Hey, guess what? I kept a blog promise this time! Yay! (We shall not speak of the failed 30 Days Challenge debacle).

I know. Like, I mean I know.

I know all those things I said I wanted to and I'm glad I do know them or else I'd still be wondering but I'm done now. It was nice, sure but there wasn't that (oh God, kill me now) spark, connection, whatever you call it, that thing that connects you to another person. Whatever it was it wasn't there so...yep, done. 

It honestly has nothing to do with the drunken kissing, which is always pretty awful I've discovered, it's just...there's nothing there. 

And you know, that's cool, seriously. I think it'll be good for me actually. Clean slate, I can find someone "outside" the group as Ducky keeps imploring us all to do.

But yeah, promise kept, failed experiment, moving on.

Seamus Heaney

I'm not really a poetry person, I suck at writing it and despite the fact that it was so easy to analyse I still struggled with it. Turns out literature just wasn't for me. I'm not the analysing type (a bit ironic coming from the Art's student, I know). I do like reading poetry though, some of it anyway.

One poem I do love and that I thank Mr James for sharing with us is Digging by Seamus Heaney. We didn't study this poem, we did study Heaney though and I think I developed a certain of grudging fondness for his work over the two years of studying him in VCE Literature under Jamesy's tutelage.
Here I give you Digging by Seamus Heaney from Death of a Naturalist (1966).

Between my finger and my thumb   
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   
Bends low, comes up twenty years away   
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft   
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.   
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.

The last stanza (+ last line of the second last stanza) is my favourite, it's a source of inspiration for a maybe-book I'll most likely never finish. It just struck me when we read it, Mr James finished and there was that heavy silence afterwards before he prompted us for discussion.
"It's about family." He wrote it down on his tablet/laptop in his near indecipherable scrawl and we copied the same into our books.
"It's about branching out from family tradition."
"It's about acceptance."
"Acceptance of yourself and acceptance from your family."
"It's about being different and the uncertainty that comes with that."
"It's about dirt." - There's always got to be a smart ass.

Seamus Heaney wrote about so many things and I really did enjoy studying him but this poem is my favourite.

Same same but different.

I have a friend, we're not super close, once upon a time she was one of my best friends and while I'd still call her that now it's not really true. 

Something we have in common though is alarmingly similar tastes when it comes to books/TV shows - in fact I once recommended a book to her that I thought she'd like only to discover she was already reading it.

However, our similarity in taste by no means extends to men. She likes the ones I can't stand and I love the ones she thinks are rude or assholey. 

It just makes me laugh that we watch the same TV shows, read the same books, yet fall in love with completely different characters and get far too invested into the fictional lives of completely different couples.

I just think it's interesting how different people are no matter how alike they seem. 

Decisions decisions decisions

Since when am I that person?

Why am I "advice girl"? Maybe I'm being presumptuous, maybe everyone asks all their friends for advice and I just have a lot of friends therefore I have a lot of advice asked of me. 

However I have little to no experience in the way of the boy so...probably not the best option for boy related advice. 

That's not to say I don't like/appreciate being asked advice. It gives me the warm and fuzzies because it means this person trusts me and values my opinion enough to talk to me about something that's important to them.

In all honesty though, I think you already know what you're going to do when you ask for advice, you're just after validation and if you don't get the response you want you keep asking people until you do.

Ultimately, no one makes your decisions but you. Sure, others may contribute but only so much as you allow their opinions to influence you.

People often ask my opinion and while I do give it I either preface or end it with "but it's your choice." It is. I make my decisions by myself, sure I ask my friends for their advice and they give it but deep down you always know what you're going to do, or at least what you should do. 

Besides, there are no wrong choices in life just mistakes to be fixed.

#noregrets.

Someday

Someday everyone will be tolerated.
Someday we wont prejudice.
Someday we will all be able to travel without fear of our safety.
Someday we will all look in the mirror and be proud of what we are.
Someday we will be able to celebrate our differences without pretending they don't exist out of fear that we are offending one another.
Someday we will look back on this moment and be ashamed.
Someday this won't be and issue.
I wish I didn't have to say someday.

I hate people.

I hate how they're inconsiderate. 

I hate how they're intolerant. 

I hate how they're stingy. 

I hate how they're thoughtless. 

I hate how they're rude. 

I hate how they're stupid. 

I hate how they're immature. 

I could list all the things I love about people too but I'm so not in the mood.