Photography makes my heart sing. Can hearts sing?

Hello dear bloggees,
Im sorry I ignore you so much, I was a much more reliable 18 year old than nearly 20 year old.
I have been doing a photography workshop, der photography workshop ist sehr gut. (ive also been learning german.)
Today was the last day of the workshop and now we have a week and a half to edit the photos before they get sent away to be printed in A1. A1 is huge!
Everyone should come along tothe exhibition that starts on the 20th of September. It will be a hoot and a half and there will be pretty pictures of mine kicking around. I thought I would add some photos to the blog because I have been editing and I want show some people.

I didnt take this photo but I did crop it and adjust it and I love it.

The poor fox is dead. These two photos were taken by Jessica Lambert, credit to her.

One of the themes of our workshop was album covers. I took this one.

Confetti, I have decided, is the best thing in the entire world.

If the world was covered in confetti, surely no-one would ever be sad..

Pleasant Sunday Afternoons

I am back at college now! I have been for a week and words cant express how happy I am to be back. I kept trying to write a blog post but everytime I sat down to write about all the fun things that were happening I would get whisked away to participate in another fun adventure.
I figure while I have time I will tell you about my excellent goldilocks mud filled day!
So I get back to college and go to my room which is mysteriously locked. This doesnt bother me much because my room frequently locks itself, I think its my caring friends who twist the knob on their way out of my room and lock me out. So I manage to manouver the key and open my door and I am greeted with a friend who sits up bolt right in my bed and quickly says 'I can explain!'
It made me chuckle a fair bit coming home to find an occupied bed.
After an explanation from goldilocks we head down to breakfast where I have a cry and a yell and a rant with my Richmond buddies, all who are equally as devastated with last nights result. (Why Richmond? WHY?)
at about 1pm we all head over to the Uni oval for an inter college football match against Queens. Here is the thing about football. I love it.  I love it I love it I love it!! The ground was covered in a giant mud puddle that had a poo-like aroma. It is such an amazing feeling grabbing a girl around the waist and throwing the two of you into the mud and then wrestling desperately for the ball. I played on the ball for a quarter and on the forward flank for two. The ball, it turns out, travels a really long way in the course of a quarter. I tried to keep up but either running in mud is incredibly difficult or I am so unfit I could be out run by a wombat.* I am hoping it is the former.
needless to say that by the end of the game we all had a dark brown hue and a slight odour to us. Although we lost we had an amazing game and were all comparing mud coverings and attempting to hug unsuspecting supporters. When it came time to partake in a sausage in bread, we hard working mud covered footballers discovered the issue of black gritty muddy hands and a complete lack of outside taps. What happened next I am just a tiny smidge proud of, because it is a shadow of my former, more disgusting, self. Another girl and I found a particularly deep puddle  and decided to wash our hands in it. It worked an absolute treat and, with the exception of my poor fingernails, my hands went back to my natural skin colour and I was able to enjoy a vege burger in bread and a knowledge that I will have an immune system of steel.
after the game ended I went home to have a shower. the is nothing quite like a shower after rolling around in the mud. This mud was of a much higher caliber than my regular Wang mud. It would not come off! I literally had to scrub and scrub. occasionally I would find myself scrubbing and realise that it wasn't essence of mud I was trying to get off but rather an oncoming bruise.
so now I am clean safe and sound and I have a grin that I just cant wipe off my face because if I were to be asked about my ideal sunday, this would be it :)

*That was actually a really bad comparison because wombats are deceptively quick. Over a hundred metre stretch they could (if they had the inclination) beat Hussein Bolt. It sound unbelievable but just wait until they make a sprint for your car, then you won't doubt it.

Holidays: 2 weeks of joy, 3 weeks of wishing it were over..

I guess you're wondering why I havent posted in awhile. Its holidays so surely there must be lots of excitement and adventures going down. Alas no. I have spent my holidays doing literally nothing, absolutely NOTHING! I have spent half my time lounging around at home watching that 70's show and getting grumpy at Dad for being in the house and half my time lounging around melbourne getting grumpy that my veins are too small to give blood. and YES, I did drink enough water.
The reason I didnt want to post during the holidays is because all I could bring myself to do was complain, and I have nothing legitimate to complain about and I wasnt keen about coming off as a spoilt uni student. 'Oh woe is me, I get more than a months holidays in the middle of the year with absolutely no homework or responsibility.'
So now we are drawing to a close of the break, only one week to go! Words cannot express how much I want to return to the constant company of young people, that is college.

On another note, 7 months ago, the day before I went overseas, Jocelyn, Emmeline and Myself went and got some glamour photos taken. Not something we would normally do but it was a tonne of fun and we have finally got the photos from it. When we recieved them they had been photoshopped to make us all look ridiculously glamourous and smooth. Inexplicably, they left a giant pimple on my face, maybe they thought it was a monroe piercing?
So today I have spent the morning editing the photos even more, and changing colours and stuff. The originals that were given to us are up on facebook but I thought I would share one or two of my edits :)
Also, I would like to note that while lots of people just click a button that says sepia, I actually manually adjusted the colour balance to achieve that result. Im not sure why I have a high horse about that, I just do.













Gahh I freaking love ^this^ one!

5 Weeks of joy ahead.

 So I am two days into holidays and I have discovered a plethora of sad things about not being a college. Here is the thing though, its so negative focussing on what sucks, I would much rather be positive about life.
so yes, the hot water at home does run out, but at least if I have shorter showers then I am being kind to the environment. Yes, I have to take my shoes off at the door, but I dont have to walk up two flights of stairs. Yes, there is no pool table here. No upside about that- I miss the pool table! but despite the inferior plumbing and and more defined concept of inside outside and the lack of pool table, there are so many upsides to being back home.
At home I got to hop into mums bed and get a snuggle before she went to work. I am aware that I am turning twenty and that might seem a tad old to be hopping into parents bed but it is my firm belief that there are two types of people in the world; Those who hop into their parents bed; and those who want to.
yesterday I went to a work related conference with mum and got to pretend that I am a contributing member of the workforce, something that I dearly miss. Today I slept in despite the pizza oven construction noises that are going on outside my window and when I woke up had pancakes and DnMs with Dad.
good start to the holidays! I cant complain so I wont.

This is unashamed procrastination.

So I am thinking about starting a bit of a series in my blog entitled ‘Things I hate about not being at college.’ Unfortunately I am still at college until Monday so I cant start it just yet, but just for starters here are some things I hate about being at college during the tail end of exams:

1, my college bffl has left, leaving my evenings free and depressing

2, noise curfew, although slackened, is still in place. The only reason that its slackened is because there is NOBODY HERE! Or at least not in my end of the corridor.

3, I have to study.

4, My friends have to study and I feel guilty distracting them.

It’s almost over and then I get to home for a month and start missing college properly!

 

Rajon Rondo is a cutie-pie

My sister and I have a pact. I am not to ever stop playing soccer and she is not to ever buy an Iphone. You may think this seems somewhat ridiculous however it was put in place for some very important reasons. I will explain why my end of the bargain needs to be held up.

Year 12 for me was terrible. Often I would be bogged down in studying or stressing because I am not studying enough and I would think that it might be better for me to skip soccer practise. It was never a good idea. Going out into the rain/wind/bitter cold to run around for an hour and a half sounded horribly unpleasant but in the end it ALWAYS made me feel better and inspired me to continue studying. Playing soccer allowed me a chance to give my brain some fresh air; It let me focus my energy and skills on something that yielded immediate results; Kicking a ball gave me a channel for releasing pent up anger and frustration and drinking wine and eating cheese with the women afterwards let me socialise and give me space from my family (whom I love dearly.) Whenever I didn’t play soccer I became, for want of a better word, twitchy. The odd thing about this twitchiness is I didn’t even notice. I would think that I was fine and that life was just getting a bit harder but it was never until I played soccer again that I realised that I hadn’t been able to zone out of life for a moment. You know that feeling of calm, control and disconnect from stress that people get from yoga? I get that feeling when I can sprint down a soccer pitch whilst dribbling a ball.

This year I started college. The first 4 months of it I felt as though someone had dragged me backwards through a swimming pool by my ankle and I was just trying to get regular gulps of air. That’s not to say it wasn’t fun. I decided though, spurred on by the $400 registration fee and timetabling clashes, that I would give soccer a miss for the time being. My justification was that there were plenty of things going on that could keep me exerting energy, I could play pool whenever I wanted and if I started getting twitchy I could go for jogs.

Oh Cel. Rookie error.

Tonight I played basketball. Emma came and begged me to play because there were not enough girls to play and they couldn’t find anyone and some unnamed sources had pointed her in my direction. I told her how terrible I was as evidenced by the interfloor mixed basketball and I told her I would play because I’d hate to see people let down and, lets be realistic, I cant say no to sport. I was so worried because I last time I played basketball I felt so clumsy and out of place, which was an unfamiliar and disconcerting feeling given that playing sport is my nirvana. When we started playing I realised that two things were very different.

1, my attitude. I went into it willing to give it my all and I somehow managed to talk myself into giving me a break about my skills because it was only the second time I had ever played it and nobody is perfect (hear that mean Cel NOBODY is perfect!).

2, This was all girls. Now I’m not saying all girls are easy to play on or not aggressive because its just not true. But when playing all girls and people you don’t know its hells easier to be aggressive and assertive.

By the end of the game I had learnt a few things about myself. I am fit enough to play a zoning game of basketball, which is a nice feeling that my lungs/ legs didn’t let me down. (this of course may have been due to the fact that I wasn’t trying to everything all at once and give it my 120%). I know very little about the rules and strategies of the game, which I plan to rectify with a few sauce bottles and the expertise of Colin on my floor. The last and most important thing I learnt is that it really doesn’t matter which sport I am playing, I can hustle and get that ball even if I cant do anything with it once its in my possession. Once it’s a challenge the opposition girl will be damned if she thinks she is going to win a game of ‘who wants it more?’

So when I finished playing (and winning I might add) I realised something. I was no longer twitchy. I felt SO GOOD. So I think I am going to start playing basketball regularly because even though I am not the best this is a perfect opportunity to learn and remain twitchless for the rest of the year.

I just ate a box of tiny teddies. I feel sick but I refuse to feel guilty.

I have a photo that I really want to show people. it’s a naked, albeit modestish, photo of me. I really love it because although I haven’t changed a single thing about how my body looks. While I was taking it I wasn’t thinking about how to sit so as to look the skinniest or to try and look at all sexually appealing. It turned out exactly how I wanted it to. Sometimes I think that I would like to show people because I really love it but then I remind myself that my avenue for showing people photos is via the internet and I’m not entirely comfortable with there being a naked picture of me on the internet. Accompanying this photo is a paragraph I wrote in a moment of anger and frustration with how everyone around me seemed to think that they had a right to comment on my body. The following comments were nearly all made in about the space of a month if I remember correctly..

I get told that my boobs are huge, that my boobs are small.

That I am ‘clearly larger’ than friends and that I am a ‘tiny little thing.’

I have been called a bitch for being skinny, I have been called a fat bitch for eating doughnuts.

I have had my eating choices questioned so frequently that I have developed an automatic response.

I wear clothes comfortably in sizes 8,10,12,14, S,M, L.

I get praised for losing weight and asked with kind concern if I have gained any.

I get told to ‘flaunt it if you’ve got it’ and told off for inadvertently showing too much boob.

I feel guilty for not being self deprecating and vain for thinking that I am beautiful.

I am what society would call the ‘right’ size, and I struggle to cope with the pressure that is placed on me with regards to my body. How then does everyone cope, who doesn’t fit society’s mould of what a woman should look like?

Since coming to college I noticed that pressure on young women doesn’t necessarily come only from other people, it comes from them. How have we trained women to think that they don’t deserve food? Food is what we need to live and yet for women, they are doing a bad thing eating it.

“oh, I want *insert food here* but I shouldn’t..”

“This tastes too delicious to be healthy.”

Screw that! I want to be able to have dessert two nights in a row without feeling the need to justify myself. I want to sit in the comm and polish off a block of chocolate with a group of friends without anyone mentioning weight. I want to be allowed to think that I beautiful without it being a personal affront to everyone else.

I feel powerless to do anything but something HAS to change!