Gathering of sorts

Had some friends around last night and my friend let me test out his lens. It has an amazing depth of field! However the negatives are it has a fixed zoom and is incredibly heavy to carry around.

Ooops I've been so busy recovering, watching glee and cleaning that I almost forgot to submit my communications assignment due in about twenty minutes! Oh dear!

Midnight in Paris

source; self made screencap

Nostalgia is denial - denial of the painful present. The name for this denial is golden age thinking - the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one ones living in - its a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present.

Woody Allen's new flick that I watched on the plane- liked however didn't love.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I finished my three hundred and seven page novel in one sitting yesterday, and it was truly one of the most outstanding pieces of literature I think I have ever read (no exaggeration here). It was Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which I have intended to read for quite some time now, however I always shied away from it. This was probably a result of the many reviews which highly commended Kundera's work, which, despite being flattering, made me believe that the novel was going to be a complex read. You see, I very rarely find myself in philosophical reading moods when I'm in the middle of university due to the fact that I generally always have several volumes of intense reading to do already. However I found Kundera's writing far from convoluted. Despite being highly philosophical (the book essentially challenges Nietzche's concept of eternal recurrence), his writing was poised, succint and thorough throughout the whole book. Kundera begs the reader to consider the essential dichotomy of life, which reflected in the title of the novel, is the paradox between light and weight. Furthermore, he links this with the very essence of men (light) and women (weight). They exist as separate entities, but both are a necessary element for existence and they are both forever complimenting each other.

The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?

Kundera establishes an intricate set of events through the eyes of four starkly different, however intertwined characters that both question the fundamental nature of the human condition however also a historical perspective of the Russian invasion into Kundera's home country the Czech Republic. I saw a lot of myself in both the two female leads, which represent both weight and light respectively. Tereza, who is the prime example of weight, has several insecurities that are almost identical to my own. She is idealistic, and thinks concisely in black and white. She holds an obsession with being different and not fading into the distance, if only it was a simple act of holding a book under her arm. She finds weight in her work and in being an intellectual. She holds a fear of simply just being another body, which is amplified by Tomas' continuous infidelities.

She had come to him to make her body unique, irreplaceable. But he, too, had drawn an equal sign between her and the rest of them: he kissed them all alike, stroked them all alike, made no, absolutely no distinction between Tereza’s body and the other bodies. He had sent her back into the world she tried to escape, sent her to march naked with the other naked women

On the other hand, Sabina is the prime female example of light through her obsession with rebellion and disobedience. She is light as a result of her profound satisfaction in the act of betrayal.

Betrayal. From tender youth we are told by father and teacher that betrayal is the most heinous offense imaginable. But what is betrayal? Betrayal means breaking ranks. Betrayal means breaking ranks and going off into the unknown. Sabina knew of nothing more magnificent than going off into the unknown

Tomas is clearly the hero of the quartet, despite being a womanizer. He is the archetypal example of light as he separates love and sex into two unrelated entities- something that Tereza cannot do- whilst loving Tereza, has sex with several other woman at the same time. He is by no means a romantic idealist, and doesn't really change too much within the novel. I was incredibly attracted to Tomas' lightness throughout the novel and his cynicism towards the perfect ideals of politics and romantic love.

Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).

And the last of the characters is Franz. I disliked his character the most, he was obsessed with weight and incapable of lightness. In all honesty, I found him a rather conservative and pathetic character. All the characters compliment each other on their need for their opposites. Tomas needs Tereza's weight, and conversely Tereza needs the lightness of Tomas. Sabina and Tomas are drawn together by their lightness, however their relationship is nothing more than a physical meaningless one. All in all, The Unbearable Lightness of Being was a wonderfully elegant read about irreconcilable love and difference within the nature of being.

This is probably the longest review that I've written in quite some time, and probably haven't perfected it as much as my writings back in the day (you see, I would very much like to go back into the pool right about now because it is the middle of the afternoon and the sun is heating up). I'm going home tomorrow evening and will be back in Perth early Tuesday morning. I've heard it's cold and rainy there.

Phuket

Phuket is amazing and I haven't changed out of my bathers for the past three days straight (possible exaggeration for effect here)! I've done nothing but go for epic runs (yesterday I managed 12km in just under an hour, which I'm pretty sure is my personal best) and subsequently spent the rest of the afternoon swimming off the sweat and lying by the poolside reading with watermelon juice by my side. I've been bathing in 50s and 60s music through and through, from The Beatles to Otis Redding to The Coasters with a little bit of Viv-inspired k-pop chucked in for lolz. I've eaten just as much yummy Thai food as I've been excersising so hopefully it has all evened out!

I've been working with predominately film photography this trip, I find that it is much more suitable to landscape photography whatnot, and on the other hand digital is more productive for social gatherings and whatnot. So I won't have many images til I return back to Perth but here's some digital ones for the time being!

Isabelle Faith

source: isabelle-faith on deviantART

I spent the six hour plane ride (why does Perth have to be so far away from everything!?) catching up on Australia's Next Top Model. I've been a pretty avid follower of the series since the beginnings (has seven seasons really passed?) and always had my favourites (some more memorable ones being Chloe, Simone, Alice B, Caris, Alama, Cassie and Kelsey). This season my favourite is, quite surprisingly, by far Izzy. She's a crazy little goth girl, a persona that I've always wanted to pursue but never had the guts, and she is so lovely and down to earth. She has really striking features and can do high fashion along with kitsch quite well too. Other favourites from this season so far include Jess, Montana and Elizabeth

Now I think my yummy lunch has settled I'm going to go for an epic run along the beach following by a dip in the pool and then maybe a massage or something. Who knows!

Phuket

Petit Bateau striped shirt, A.P.C. denim shorts, Ray Ban Wayferers, Longchamp pliage in Braise, Converse high tops, A.P.C. sandals, Ralph Lauren mens shirt, Invisible Inc Suncream, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundra and Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

I can't sleep so I decided to put this together. I'm going to Phuket in a couple of hours (as you probably have realised if you've read the past few posts haha). I'll pretty much be living in all of this. I'm loving the whole simple striped shirt or oversized mens blue shirt look with either a pair of simple sandals or converse and denim cuffed shorts, classic wayfarers and Longchamp pliage. It's so effortless but chic. The two novels on the side are the ones that I've picked out to enjoy, and I'll be lathing up the suncream because I hate being tanned.

Norwegian Wood

I saw the trailer for the screen adaptation of Murakami's novel Norwegian Wood the other day when I went to see Beginners for the second time (which I loved even more the second time around) and can't wait for the release now. I read one of Murakami's other novels Dance Dance Dance in the holidays and quite enjoyed the tone of the book. The writing style was ever so simple, however it held a scent of elegance within it that I really appreciated. I've never been too much of a fan of the embellished works such as Dickens and his companions. I'm leaving for Phuket in a couple of hours and will hopefully pick up a copy of Norwegian Wood to read while I'm over there. The film looks heartbreaking albeit very very promising, and anything with The Beatles in the score is bound to be at least decent.

Jordana Evans

source: self made Submarine screencaps

I've heard from several people that she looks like me, besides from the dark hair, fringe and perhaps slightly asian eyes I don't really see it.

I'm going to Phuket tonight for a four day trip of nothing but lazying around on the beach, having salt water hair, reading, massages, running, eating yummy Thai food, listening to jazz, market shopping, photography and all in all just a break from university and to spend time with my mother. I'm in the process of packing and I have, like usual, way too much stuff. It's just, I need gym clothes, beach clothes, nice going out daytime clothes, nice going out nighttime clothes, trashy going out nighttime clothes, pyjama's, bathers, leisure books, studying books, toiletries, shoes, film single lens reflex, digital single lens reflex, laptop. Arghh, I work in a luggage shop and this is my fifth holiday this year, I really should know how to pack by now but I still find that there's way too many possible situations and way too much to pack.

Pretty much the two greatest people in my life.

Viv, Sarah and myself on the streets of Melbourne.

I'm in the process of designing and producing an online portfolio for my communications unit. It's a rather simple task, in terms of design, and I pretty much have my blueprint down pact. However several problems are arising with Dreamweaver and the logistics of it all. I've never used it before and it's so different to just basic design work on Photoshop. It's so difficult to literally just place text on a particular part of the page, or to have a header or whatnot. I'm considering copying a template html (like what I have with blogspot), or even just writing my entire html code myself. The first option seems like a little bit of a cop out and the second one sounds way more tedious and time consuming. Argh, my website design is pretty much exactly like the layout of this blog but it's a million times harder to achieve on Dreamweaver. Looks like I'll be mucking around with this thing all night.

Acne

And, finally. On the Saturday Viv and I popped into Wasteland to check out their winter sale stock. I stumbled across an Acne jacket that was half price, loved it but had to pop back into work because I was taking way too long on my break. However, I was thinking about it alllll weekend, so I popped back in after swing dancing, tried it on and pretty much couldn't resist despite having a million jackets. It is amazingly comfy, warm and convenient and even has an insert puffer jacket for the cold cold months in Europe!

I've become super skater boyish recently, and now with the addition of this jacket I really really want a proper longboard. I went to see some friends this evening in Subiaco and pretty much went ultra tom-boy on them, I don't think anyone has ever seen me in a beanie and/or jeans with converse haha.

Saturday

I didn't have my camera on my so these phone pictures of the scrumptious food at my favourite café, Venn, will have to do. So yeah, Saturday, again worked my usual shift and had another date however this time with Viv. We discussed more future plans of ours, including the idea that she might move to Korea for a year after she graduates to learn and eventually teach Korean. If she does, I'll probably go over as well for 2-3 months during my break and explore the country. Saturday night, babysat and then went around to a friends house for midnight making of florentines and watching Archer-- which is my new favourite television show btws.

This morning I planned on working again, however received a call from a friend of mine two hours into my shift concerning swing dancing lessons. Swing dancing is something I've wanted to do for about the past three years now, so it was too good of an opportunity to pass out. I skipped out of work, and had a lovely afternoon learning the basic swing dancing steps. The music was wonderful aswell, and i've now spent the past hour assembling a whole pile of classic jazz, swing and soul pieces from the twenties right through to the sixties. So much goodness!

Fridays, Ballet & Il Bisonte

This weekend was incredibly exhausting and filled despite sticking to my non-drinking rule, which hasn't, in the slightest, been a difficult task. I frantically handed in my History paper on Friday, 200 words over the limit and severely lacking in adequate research. Had my weekly lunch date with Sarah at Venn in the city, which was lovely to chat about university and whatnot. Friday afternoon I worked my usual shift at Hunt Leather, in where I finally decided to indulge in some luxury leather goodness from my favourite designer in the store, Il Bisonte. I purchased a watch, which has been on my mind since it came in, and secondly a leather pouch which I'll probably end up using as a clutch for nighttime or just general papers and whatnot. Il Bisonte products are all hand-made in Florence, Italy from natural Spanish leather that is designed to patina over a period of time. Pretty much this means the colour of the leather in the picture will, in about 5 months, turn to a very lovely honey colour as it reacts with the environment around it.

Friday evening my mother treated an old friend of mine, Ronan, and myself to tickets to the West Australian Ballets performance of Taming of the Shrew at His Majesty's Theatre. Despite being a highly anti-feminist play, I enjoyed it quite a bit. The costuming was fantastic, as well as the two leads maintaining very hilarious roles incredibly well.

Procrastaskate

George Viv and Hannah at the Rooftop Cider Bar in Melbs.

 I'm learning how to skate! It's incredibly relaxing and uber cool and I can't wait til I can actually skate around uni and not stack it every two seconds. Also people are being particularly irritating today. It's probably because I'm stressed and I have this stupid History assignment due, but seriously some people need to grow up and get a life. It's getting rather ridiculous.

Imma go procrastaskate some more !

Submarine

Most people think of themselves as individuals, as if theres no one else like them on the planet. This motivates them to get out of bed, eat food and walk around like nothings wrong.

Oh yes, so the film. I fell in love with it! Two weeks in a row now, date night has had amazing films. The cinematography was gorgeous, the soundtrack (created by the lead singer of the Artic Monkeys, Alex Turner) was superb and the script was hilarious. I enjoyed the film much much more than the book, besides the change in ending (I won't spoil it for those of you who are yet to read and/or watch it). Directed by British comedian Richard Ayoade (most of you would probably recognise him as Moss from The IT Crowd), Submarine follows the story of fifteen year old Oliver Tate, who is concerned with two things- firstly his new-found relationship with Jordana Bevan, who is "moderately unpopular, therefore making romance between the two of them likely." and secondly the relationship of his parents, which he monitors through the dimness of his parents light switch. The film, from the trailer and publicity alone, seems like the trite coming-of-age story that we've all seen before blah blah blah. However Ayoade's soft cinematography, and playful script leaves pretentiousness out of the picture and in the thoughts of Oliver. The film pretty much reminded me of my nerdy pretentious albeit self loathing 15 year old person, and how he imagined his world to be like it is in the films and whatnot. Anyways, it's definitely going to be placed in my top 5 films of this year methinks.

Jus Burgers & Churros

I had a film night date with Viv tonight. Jus Burgers for dinner, watched Submarine then went for Churros afterwards. Yummy.

Submarine Trailer

I just received a phone call from a really old friend of mine who I haven't seen in months who just told me to go watch Submarine immediately because apparently the girl in the film is identical to me haha. After reading the book and all the hype surrounding this film, I shall be seeing it after my stupid assignments are done on Tuesday. Wooooot!

Melbourne Snaps & More Travelling?

More snaps from Melbourne. Viv and I have been planning all our future trips interstate and overseas, so far its:

January 2012: Sydney 

July 2012: Canada/USA or Korea/Japan 

January 2013: South-East Asia Tour-- Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and possibly Taiwan 

July 2013: Europe? Probably... 

January 2014: Somewhere uber cool and exciting!

Also, I want to go on exchange back to France again for a year this time, so I'll have to pop that in somewhere and I'm pretty keen on a South America trip although Viv wouldn't be able to handle it and I probably couldn't go anywhere without her (whipped, I know).

In other news, I went to the Arts Ball last night which was lovely. All the girls looked so pretty and all the boys were all very attractive in their suits. I'm not drinking for quite some time after having a few bad recent evenings, but I sipped on a glass of red wine all night and danced to the really cool jazz 60s music that they were playing. I didn't get any snaps of what I was wearing because I'm on the organising committee and thus was running around after work trying to organise everything and had to get changed really quickly, but hopefully some from the night will surface around. But now it's time to settle down, write this politics essay and organise a french oral that I have this week. Oh but it's such a lovely day outside!

PS. this new blogspot arrangement is annoying me a little bit, the html code is now all fancy and harder to write with!

Spring threads & Wicked!

I bought this shirt for $15 yesterday on a whim at my universities weekly shop sale thingo (I actually have no idea what it is, it's just a random assortment of things being sold on campus every Tuesday) and have actually fallen in love with it. It has this cute little gold top button, white collar and it's made from this really comfy silk pattern. It's just one of those shirts in where the cut is really flattering. The weather is so lovely at the moment, I could spend all day long lying in the sun doing my universities readings and embracing the sunshine. I finally can start wearing a little bit of variety at uni now aswell, instead of my thick jacket that I always have to wear in the wintertime. I have quite a few assignments due next week, and three shifts at work not to mention a university ball on Saturday night so I've been stressing out just a tad but other than that life is fairly swell. Just a week of stress than I'm of to Phuket! Wooot! In other news, my mum scored some free tickets for the musical Wicked tonight, so we're dressing up, looking pretty and going to a really nice restaurant at Burswood before seeing the show. I'm pretty excited. Also, I'm eating Nutella in the bottom picture. 'Tis very satisfying.

Fatty Fridays

Tonight we made wontons and spring rolls and it was amazingly fatty and I will not be able to eat anything else for over a week. I also planned my proposal to Viv, we will marry when gay marriage is legalised, and planned out the life of our kid that I'm going to have through IVF. It was amazing.

I always went back to my old high school today to check out it's arts day (thats like, for those of you who don't know, a day dedicated to both the creative and performing arts and showcases things like dance, music, photography, art, cooking, chorale etc) and pretty much became ultra nostalgic for the days in plaid skirts and navy blazers. Even though high school sucked, I still missed those days chilling in the media room and being a nerd. It also reminded me of those days where I uploaded to this blog 4 or 5 times a day...