(5) Days Of Summer

You'll have to forgive me for two things:

(1) For not updating in ages blah blah and also I guess for always typing these kind of messages. Bipolar blogger when it comes to how often I post. I've been busy.

(2) For perhaps the most nauseatingly adorable post. My life is going to seem like it's a twee indie film starring Zooey Deschanel and Michael Cera. It has really been lovely lately. England's been busting out the sun and campus is flooded with florals and flip flops. Grass is all green and we've been making daisy chains and singing Home and playing Regina Spektor and taking photos. I'm really happy. It seems to be infectious; it's such an England thing that the minute there's nice weather, everyone's out of doors. We've been lying on blankets on the grass all day for the last three days and Ben & Jerry's is on sale and we've been watching adorable indie films and man, i'm just high on happiness.

So of course, there must be a downside: this coincides with revision time for the big E-X-A-M-S which are occuring from next week onwards. (Not for me; I still have Amy's hen night next weekend THEN it's my exam week.) This means our outdoors lying on blankets on the grass has been spent 'revising' (saying 'I should do some work now,' whilst just not.) I have been getting some work done - mostly done by waking up early before everyone else. And now I'm still awake after most (some) people, blogging about my cute days. Typical.

Everything has really sort of fallen into whirlwind few days - last week especially - so the rest of this is chronologically dating back from like - what - two weeks ago? Without proper lectures and stuff, everything has kind of just fallen into a weird endless cycle of days without names that seem to keep floating by at an alarming speed. Week six already, what the fuck?!

So we've been watching loads of adorable movies. As the year's gone on, I've found more and more people who sleep at ridiculous times. This means I get to socialise later which is a yay for me and a nay for my already appalling sleep cycle. This is also a yay for 3am pancake making.

 

Oh yeah, my flu's finally gone. I managed to impressively drink it away after going out with Megan and Lucas two Fridays ago or something to Kasbah. Whilst I'd been having migraines all week, I woke up not only without migraine, but also without hangover. I actually adore my liver.

   

Photobooth camwhoring pics with Lucas on our girly sleepover night. Summer heights high and cupcakes and fort. This was adorable.

   

It really is getting hard to separate everything. There's always the usual and the unusual going on around here. I bought potato waffles and new shampoo but also got completely drenched in water in a water fight and took portfolio shots with Lucas. I had curry with the filmies and went to the cinema and watched Dark Shadows and ordered more photos and moved my room around.

  

 After Lucinda kidnapped Mat's phone at Emily's birthday drinks. Oh yeah, the tongue piercing has healed up quite nicely. (Don't know if I ever mentioned getting that? If not, oh yeah, I did,)

   

The perfectly adorable days started yesterday. Met up with the filmies for a film reviewing session. Watched a few depressing films then sat in the sunshine and discussed them and shared notes. Then met up with halls people and got ice cream and chilled on the grass and Lucinda taught me how to make a daisy chain :') 

Upon returning back, all hopes of revision fell to shit and we brought out the guitar and cartwheels and killed half the daisies making bracelets and crowns for our hair and sang and laughed and had ice cream and just had a really nice time.

 Yay, hair looks so much better in sun. You can actually sort of see the colour!

 

Aw I really like this picture hahah even got the sun flare going. We found a lovely spot and called it our holiday spot because it just didn't seem like we were in England. 

Today was pretty much the same, except we got some work done, and that we finished off with a barbeque. Tesco dash and some rushing later and we were all sitting outside drinking cider whilst the guys played frisbee which then turned into football which then turned into a waterfight which then turned into Joe just squirting an entire bottle of water at me in the corridor which then turned into my white t-shirt going see through and then I had to go and get a towel.

 

There's really so much more I could say but I can't remember - my own stupid fault, really, for taking so damn long in between entries. Either way, it's 3am and I've caught loads of sun and I'm planning to be up tomorrow to do the same thing, permitting the weather allows it.

Prepare for imminent panicky pre-exam post, coming soon to a blog near you!

Melancholy Sky.

HEY GUYS. Guess who's back? I'm back. I never left, but I got lazy. So I guess you could answer the question with my motivation to write in here is back. That could work, I guess.

I'm going to start this by saying: I HAVE THE FLU. This is because I'm the type who needs to tell everyone when I feel awful and I really do. I feel like my face is caving in on itself and I want to tear it off. My sockets hurt! Not cool.  I'm using this as a justification for being really bitchy and snappy - because I DO get aggressive when I feel achey and unwell - and also for how shittily written this probably will be. I'm finding it hard to concentrate on too much. LAURA LOST FOCUS AND HURT ITSELF. (/pokemon reference if you didn't get it fuck off you can't be my friend.)

Portia came to visit on Saturday. (I have no sense of what day it is because I don't have lectures and stuff anymore and therefore IT'S NOT REALLY IMPORTANT. Exam leave holiday.) She came for skool dayz so after me and Erika successfully completed birthday present mission around cov - and I bought the first volume of Y: The Last Man from forbidden planet YES - she arrived and we sat around my room and updated each other on our lives.

Megan came over too so we got dressed and photobooth'd like a bunch of drunk camwhores which technically we were.

 

This term, they only want one photographer for the non-main events so that's cut down the rota and thus the amount of work shifts I get so I'm happy I managed to snag this one at least, because it's really about time I add 'ridiculously good at spending money' to my CV. 

  

Loads of people I didn't expect to be at Skool Dayz were, including Sophie and some of the film lot which was fun, because I miss seeing them often. Always a nice catch up reunion and crazy drunk times. My phone ran out of battery though, so I missed the - no surprises here -  influx of tweets from us, which are always fun.

 

 

Next day was Portia's hangover day so I was good and suggested we eat junk food and watch films, so we did. Was pretty chill and then she left and I sat in Jordan's room for hours and complained about how my head hurt and whined and yelled at people. I'm such a delight to be around.

Week before that, Sav's been here! She stayed with Megan but I saw her most days which was lovely. We went to see Cabin In The Woods - FINALLY, was really good, was planning to write a review of it when I got in but got distracted due to the poor and uncreative vandalism on my door and thus didn't but I will someday - and also attended a drunken creative writing slam which was hilarious and I'll talk more about that in a sec.

  

So yeah, after some camera stuff fell apart, (in my words: EVERYTHING BROKE! in reality: the batteries ran out,) I ended up coming home from Pop! early and thus was unnecessarily and awkwardly drunk by myself whilst everyone just wasn't. Thursday was even better because I went to go and dye Sav's hair. It ended up with me sitting in a dark room listening to the creative writers read their work out drinking wine and eating donuts until about 1am. I'd say wine makes me aggressive but it seems like everything does lately.

Upcoming is revision and a photoshoot - or photoshoots, rather - with Lucas which I'm really happy about because I was too shy and awkward to ask him to model for me but Megan informed me he'd wanted me to shoot him anyway. We've done some planning and as per usual, I'm so excited. Will be seeing the creative writing lot later probably, so hopefully he'll be there and we can talk about more stuff there and get even more excited.

Just waiting for 10 minutes to pass so I can wash the rest of this dye off - stupid dye-resistant thick hair GOD SO ANNOYING - and then get my laundry and then finally sort out my closet. My neat hangers and folded clothes system has disintergrated into a big pile in the closet where everything kind of lived, which got really depressing, because it made my room feel messy. I may have the flu, but I still cannot stand my room messy.

I bought chocolate milk though, so everything's okay, really.

In recent time,

My life has gotten relatively strange(r) and more and more like a bad teen drama. I haven't updated. There's a lot to say and it's too much effort to say it.

I have the flu.

Idealism

I really am the most ridiculous idealist. I am, in almost every way, the silly teenage girl with the big dreams and the bigger, constantly active imagination. Throw in a pinch of obsessive psychoanalysing and a dash of arguable lunacy and we have a recipe for ridiculous expectations and a one way journey to letdown.

Or at least, I would be, had I not quickly (and efficient, might I brag - not that it's really anything to brag about,) learned to distinguish between planning to do things and actually, you know, doing them.

Somethings things don't work out the way you plan/envision/manically dream up as you stare out the bus window when a deep song comes on as you pretend you're in a music video.

And the reason I'm saying all this is, well, I've gone ahead and dreamt up a silly list of plans again and if they fall through or don't work out as envisioned - which is most likely to happen, as I don't so much make 'plans,' as 'very rough outlines' - then that's fine because hopefully I'll have had a little adventure out of it. Speaking of which, I sure do plan a lot of things and adventures for someone who really doesn't have the funds for it.

The main gist of it, is this is the rough outline of my next term:
(Yes, for someone who is as scatty as me, I sure do love putting on a facade of being somewhat organised and a thinking-ahead type person.)

(1) Study study study. Exam time, which tends to throw me into a state of mania unparalleled to anything ever seen before. I'm kidding, it's not that bad. I sleep less and talk more and huddle over posters and mind maps and pages of notes and - in this case, - watch films and walk around with a wide-eyed, slightly insane gaze as I ponder the purpose behind paracinema or the true definition of excess. I also tend to paint a lot of creepy things. We all have our ways to deal with stress okay whatever.

(2) Test low-budget horror film. Low-budget as in no budget because I'm fulfilling the quota of being a broke college student and actually am this term. Test because I'm not planning to revolutionise anything or even make a legit terrifying film. I just want to play with techniques and experiment with what I can do. It's been too long since I've had a proper "project," and when it goes too long, it drives me absolutely mad. I need a baby to focus on! (Not literally. Reddit's 'what's the worst pain you've ever felt,' thread may have left me shaking and terrified of childbirth and frequent flying has made me pretty much just not like babies.)

(3) Explore, take cute photos, become an adventurer! (God damn it, I'm like the awful lovechild of all those cute wildlife flickr/tumblr hipster photos but bear with me,) Planning to bulk order disposable cameras and capture the last term, mixing them up so it's a fun surprise when they're developed. Go to new places and create lists of things and goals and objectives - like feed ducks, and take a photo of x, y, z and so on, - and just take it easy with a picnic and sitting by the grass. How cute. And maybe needed, concerning (1)

So now we've got the future (lol) out the way, what's been going on with my past? You see, I've gotten into the bad habit of getting very good at blogging about entirely nothing. Whilst my thoughts and stuff are interesting to me and I like writing them down because the inside of my head is generally a coherence train wreck, I know it's probably not that interesting to my "regular readers" - I was surprised to find I had some too. Love you guys!


No one is really ready for this picture and I'm pretty sure i'm 0.001 seconds into a blink or something but it's so unprepared and it's cute. Had a girly lunch and catch up with the girls, and then we headed out after that night.

When I say 'the girls,' it's always lovely because no matter how long we go without properly speaking, it's never awkward when we finally get together and share stories. Fun updates and gossip (and bitching lol we're girls okay,) are pretty much guaranteed. Also saw Ollie and Brendan and Chris that night, as well as the lamma gang at $10 vodka (Shot every time I've mentioned that phrase on my blog...)

Everyone somehow ended up ridiculous drunk and hungover and sick the next day (except me god BLESS still not getting hangovers?!) and the next day I also had sushi with Ali and Izzy WHICH IS ALWAYS GOOD BECAUSE FUCKING HELL I MISS SUSHI SO MUCH IN ENGLAND.


Hong Kong skyline from TST. How pretty. Not that it's been pretty recently at all with the dumb humidity and heat and bam, today there was a freak amber rainstorm and the tree next to my window kept banging on it.



Aw, the view from my window. I keep forgetting about my seaview because Coventry is in the middle of England and nowhere near the sea. I mean, I don't like being in the sea much but I love the concept and it's pretty to look at. (God damn it, I'm simultaneously so deep and so shallow.)


Night view walking home. This was such a nice walk. The wind was blowing everywhere and it was cool and I was staring at the view thinking about life and stuff as you do. I'm in such a questioning/existential mood as of late.

In other, small news, I have begun the game of 'How many dvds can you hide in your suitcase before your parents get annoyed,' also known as packing to the ordinary person. Esme's coming over tonight (yes, it's 12.42 already but whatever,) and unfortunately, our Disneyland plans may fall through based on shitty weather. (See: freak amber rainstorm.) Other than that, I leave early Wednesday morning! So excited to be back in cool weather and no humidity and not a lot of people. I really miss England where I'm gone. It's funny how I cling to new homes really quickly and form new links. I'm like a country chameleon.

30 Things I've Learned In The Last Few Months Or So

1. For some reason, not everyone finds videos of exotic shorthairs doing cute things as adorable as I do and they consider it weird that I can literally spend hours doing nothing but watching these.

2. England has not really been exposed to the wonder that is frozen yogurt.

3. But milkshakes, everywhere.

4. There's such a thing as toblerone cake and it is actually a foodstuff sent down from the heavens to bless us mortals.

5. That I would passionately and desperately miss green tea lattes in England.

6. Oprah's name on her birth certificate is actually 'Orpah'

7. Your best friends will always hate your ex under any circumstance.

8. The emergency exit aisle seats on Qantas don't have liftable arm rests.

9. Legit sharpies are actually rather expensive. (In comparison to New Zealand dollar store knockoffs.)

10. It's pretty easy (and cheap) to buy cut-outs of fictional characters.

11.
This scene was not actually filmed with a camera on a rig and instead by using the most badass cameraman ever.

12. Pancake day is taken seriously in the UK and it is damn fabulous.

13. It's possible to trip over a fire hydrant.

14. Disneyland's restaurants do not serve free water.

15. Avocado seriously works in any meal of the day.

16. Wii games are region protected.

17. Amaretto and cranberry tastes like christmas.

18. It's actually really easy to fall asleep in an uncomfortable screening room.

19. Australians occasionally think 'Loughborough' is pronounced 'Loogabarooga' #bless

20. There is always an 'Unexpected item in bagging area' whether there actually is or not.

21. Buying coffee every morning builds up to a ridiculous amount of money.

22. They don't really say 'Mail' in England.

23. Tesco's idea of '24 hours' is actually '24 hours except for when we close Midnight on Saturday and 4pm Sunday'

24. Ed Wood is both the best and worst director ever. And possibly my favourite.

25. There are just as many fanboys for Ryan Gosling than there are fangirls.

26. Just because my friends are "kind of close" to me in England doesn't mean I'm ever going to visit them because transport is expensive as fuck.

27. It's horrifyingly easy to have your wallet stolen right out of your bag.

28. Doing way too much research means your essay will be way too long.

29. University dorm walls are really fucking thin.

30. I get visibly distressed when I have more 'drafts' than published posts in the post section on blogger.

Thunderstorms.

Rainy days has me seeking recluse in my house (as ever) and most specifically, in my room (as ever ... apart from the several times a day I have to go outside to use the wifi on my phone to catch up on my draw somethings,) so I've been basking in the familiar of the escapists... films and books and hot chocolate and oh, I'm instagramming like a bitch now as well because it's been released for android and thus I can join the ranks of hipsters uploading square, filtered photos with a border.


Like this ;)

New poster (FUCK ME, I KNOW I DON'T HAVE ANYMORE GOD DAMN ROOM ON MY UNI WALLS BUT NOOO I CANNOT RESIST THE ALLURE OF SHINY NEW PAPER. Poster magpie WHAT'S UP.) courtesy of the new HMV that's just opened really close to my bus stop which is very convenient but on the whole, disastrous for my wallet and life.

Okay so yeah, I'll confess now that despite not having gotten my money yet, (government money come to me shh love me now,) I've already done a tiny bit of DVD shopping and have realised with the wonderful convenience of region freaking protections and my lack of ps3 here, I cannot watch asian DVDS on my macbook pro (English,) or my PC (WHICH IS STILL DEAD WITH ALL LOST FILES INCLUDING ALL MY FINAL FANTASY 7 ONES I WILL WRITE ANOTHER FURIOUS POST ABOUT THIS LATER BECAUSE I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ON THIS SUBJECT,) so I had to dig up my macbook and now my desk setup makes me look like an apple whore (I swear I'm not.)



I love instagram already go away hipster at heart I guess :L

So I finally watched Source Code (recommended to me as "best sci-fi film I've seen in ages," etc. by various members of my peer circle,) and let's sum up my watching of the film in a numbered list, (because I love them more than life itself as ya'll can probably guess.)

(1) I already adored it 30 seconds in because of how damn pretty it was. The colour grading and camera work ahhh. CALL ME SHALLOW THEN GO AHEAD MAYBE I AM I DON'T CARE.
(2) Overall, a really clever concept which I liked... I was slightly concerned that it'd get repetitive but I liked how they managed to alter the location each time and bring new elements whilst somehow developing a relationship (although it wasn't really too in-depth,) between protag and 'love interest,'
(3) Wasn't overly long as well... managed to keep my interest despite point (2), and I liked the script, which was both relatively well written and funny enough as well.
(4) SPOILER during the freeze-frame, I thought it was the end of the film and burst into tears. Turns out there was another 7 minutes or so, so turns out I wasted my tears over nothing.
(5) The ending really intrigued me... I spent a fair bit of time reading about the different theories and plotholes and alternate suggestions on the internet and formulated some of my own, which I won't discuss too much as spoiling things makes me sad. Did make me think a lot though, which is good, because I really enjoy films that make you think long after about lingering plot points and alternate suggestions and ideas and messages suggested by the film.

Speaking of which, I've partaken in a perhaps rather stupid activity for tonight: film of the night is Fincher's american remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I love Fincher. I've read the books and watched the swedish film. Let's just say that even after just reading the books, (SPOILER AGAIN,) me and Esme discussed how absolutely petrified we were of Martin Vanger and I vaguely remember lying in my bed in our hotel in New Zealand staring at that massive window in the ceiling almost frozen in fear that I'd suddenly see his face pop out there.

Similar feelings are arising at the moment.

I pick the weirdest films to watch during stormy weather. Which I love, by the way. I don't know why people complain... okay, it's annoying my plans were cancelled because I was looking forward to a cute girly catch up with Ali & Alex, but I'd rather curl up at home with ice cream and a film than deal with being outside in the rain. All I need is someone to come over curl up with me attn attn apply here I'll feed you cookies :*

Luckily I have other distractions like the other zillion films I've downloaded/bought recently to watch, so I'll find something lighthearted to stop me having another damn nightmare tonight (long story short about last night's: evil christian church camp abducting and sacrificing kids and I tried to save them and the leader attacked me with a knife :-;) so uh, that's good I guess? And now I'm alone in the house and the film is finishing and jesus christ martin vanger is the scariest concept in the world I don't even want to leave my house I CAN'T BELIEVE HE KILLED THE CAT I FORGOT ABOUT THAT AND I JUMPED SO MUCH WHEN THAT HAPPENED.

Okay I'm going to stop blogging about nothing now and just go and eat one of the honey cupcakes my momma made. Yeah.

Interventions

Alright, I'm just about ready to go back to England now.

Excitement of first week back has worn off and I've been reduced, yet again, to sitting - this time on my bed, as my damn pc has chosen not to work - on my bed on my blog whilst occasionally staring at the ceiling and wondering what I am doing with my life.

I constantly feel like I'm living two lives in two different continents littered with different people and there are the different interactions and the way I think I act different (although I don't really because I seem to be incapable of modifying my behaviour at all,) but damn, sometimes I have no idea how I spent 17 years of my life living here...

Point A: went out for lunch on Friday (fine. Very nice, actually,) which was Lizzy's last lunch here but jesus christ, the journey just to pick up something for my mom and go home almost sent me into one hell of an anxiety attack and left me slamming my bedroom door when I finally arrived home and proclaiming "NEVER LEAVING THIS HOUSE AGAIN GODDAMMITIHATEPEOPLEWHYARETHEYEVERYWHEREWHYAREBUSESDUMB and so on."

And now I've reached the point where my parents, exhausted of all my uni stories, (which went "it's fine." "I love it." "yeah." "mmhm,") have gone back to treating me exactly as they did before which is fine because special treatment is stupid but when every conversation seems to go like this:

M: Laura what are you doing later?
L: nothing.
M: Why?
L: I have no money. And I don't want to.
M: You always spend so much money! I gave you money yesterday! You always go out and spend our money etc etc etc
L: okay.
M: Why do you always spend your time at home though??? You should go out and socialise with your friends more!!!
L: ...

And so on. I mean okay - I do spend a ridiculous amount of money for someone who barely does anything - investigate: where does it go??? - but it just so happens I'm here for another 18 days and there's plenty of time and people who aren't even back yet so I'll have time for that. Just because I spent this weekend moping about the fact my PC's died on me, thus disallowing me to continue my Final Fantasy 7 streak and forcing me back from a blissful unreality into real life, they think i'm being anti-social. Whatever mom and dad, Cloud totally gets me.

Readers all simultaneously groan as they prepare for a full-frontal fangirling blog entry. IT'S COMING GUYS! I have lots to say and it needs to be organised and typed up properly. Have no fear!

So what, asides from moping over the fact I cannot temporarily interact and engage with a fictional storyline that I am far too emotionally invested in, HAVE I been doing lately? Um I could say that I've traveled the world and invented a lightsaber and sponsored 5 children and discovered the recipe for Mrs. Field's cookies but all of those would blatantly be a lie and no one would believe me and this whole sentence is really just a waste of internet space isn't it. I've played a lot of draw something and read. Gone through:

(1) Will Grayson, Will Grayson - John Green & David Levithan.
(2) Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist - David Levithan & Rachel Cohn (This is beginning to look like writers word association oops.)
(3) Speak - Laurie Halse Anderson
(4) A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
STARTING (5) Prom - Laurie Halse Anderson.

Guys... I really love books wow. My parents, whilst I was growing up, always said to me that they'd always be fine with buying me books. I think they've always regretted it because if given the opportunity, I will just have stacks and stacks and be ridiculously happy. Nothing like having a pile of books to just sit and read through.

I'm such a hermit, geez.

I'm so lost with where I was even going with this blog entry. I guess it's less about events and just random thinking because I've gotten used to just clicking on here and writing new post even when nothing happens in my life. Which is often because I don't do a lot of significant stuff but that's cool. This was really heading in the direction of being a complaining blog but today when I went for a long walk - felt like being all deep and poetic and listening to music and flouncing around the peak - I've decided complaining is dumb because it's all I do and I never do anything about it, and thus, I got home and actually oiled my stupid door hinge and now it opens properly without hitting me in the face and check this: that's already one daily complaint I've knocked off the list. Score!

Other people are back this week which means i'll probably have to do something. Game of Thrones season 2 is out tomorrow which means I'm not doing anything tomorrow at least. I'm still not sure why I'm writing this and would delete it but I think I'll just keep it for further reference. Maybe if i'm bored I'll come back and edit book reviews it. Bye.