Fashion, style, beauty; colds, allergies, and the like…

we learn together over time that tolerance is more appealing tn theory than in practice. ah, we wait at ease, we wait to see – we are waiting here for catastrophe

I’m getting terribly behind on travel posts (I can’t believe it’s been two months already!) but I don’t want to rush them and want to do justice to all the fun and photos we had. This… putting off of sorts has definitely been brought to attention by the boy, so it’s definitely not like I’ve forgotten about it, it’s just a matter of time…

The truth about me is that I’ve been very lacking in motivation since circa 2004, and the sort of motivation I’m talking about is something of an all-round kind of motivation. The sort of drive that isn’t limited to one area of life or activity at hand – rather, something that spans across daily life in general, and dreams at large. But I’ve completely surprised myself these past couple of weeks by my new-found resolve to, well, put bluntly, try. I feel like I’ve spent the better part of the last decade running away from expectations of me, and avoiding the deadly word that gets thrown around a lot when people talk about me: potential. (Don’t even get me started on the whole idea of “potential”… trust me, I’ll never shut up.)

Anyway, what have I been doing away from the blogosphere? I’ve stayed ahead in my course readings, I’ve actually practised the bass (I know, right? It’s my bloody major and I often neglect it more than I should) and I’m determined, bloody determined to get things the way I want them. I want to get myself to where I want to be, or at least, in the direction of where I think I want to head, because frankly I have no idea where I want to “go”, as such. Today the boy and I washed our cars in the rain, as it was our mutual day off from uni. It sounds either more romantic or more dreadful than it actually was – and downright stupid, I know. But we did it despite the rain since it was already planned, and both our cars were dirrrty so it really couldn’t be ignored any longer. The “me” a month ago would’ve probably just sat inside and kept reading whilst the boy went and washed his car, or somehow negotiated another day to do it – but I’m glad that I got off my arse and did it today.

Also, I joined a gym last week, and I made sure to join the new fancy 24-hour franchise gym, because then I’m not limited to the crappy opening hours of traditional gyms. Believe it or not, for once I was the one urging my friend (who has been a member there for sometime, but I know doesn’t go often enough) to make a gym date with me, so that we can’t let each other down and have to show up. And show up we did. Yes, yes it was well after nine that evening, but I pounded out around 3-4km on the treadmill at a decent pace, and I didn’t even need Angie to hold my hand through it. I did my core exercises and other things and then… I felt fucking great. Then today I had a complimentary one-hour session with the personal trainer that also happens to manage the gym, and I am getting a programme made up for me so that I have more of a sense of direction as to what exercises I need to do for the fitness level and strength areas I want to achieve. He said he was really surprised by how motivated I am, and how a lot of people are all groggy and laid-back about it all, but I seem really determined to achieve things. And I guess I really am. I hadn’t really thought that much about it until then – how suddenly motivated I have become. All-round. Not just in one degree, but both. Not just with uni, but with hockey, with trying to be a better and happier person all around.

Then yesterday at my hockey trials I ran my butt off and tried my very best, even though I didn’t get put in my ideal positions. They’ve restructured the grades and so there are 3, maybe 4 teams’ worth of people trialing for the one team. I think I did well enough yesterday, but I’m definitely going to step it up for the second round of trials next week. Watch this space. Hopefully this time next week I’m gleefully chirping about looking forward to the hockey season… rather than being disappointed about it.

I thought I’d share the dinner that I whipped up for my mum, cousin and myself tonight – I have a tendency to make recipes up as I go, so today I’m pretty happy with how my pasta turned out. I started off with a bunch of tomatoes… then the next thing I knew I was all, phew, sorry to say so myself, but this sauce is bloody delicious. It’s a shame the boy had football training and missed out on it. (On the topic of football, did anyone see Barcelona and Messi’s ridiculously amazing result today?!!!) So, courtesy of a very full fridge, I’d cooked: sirloin steak, fish baked in lemon juice and ground pepper, butter pan-friend zucchini, pasta in some randomly concocted sauce, and mushrooms with melted butter and bacon. Ahhh I’m hungry all over again just thinking about this!

 

 

By the way, how do I hold onto this surge of motivation? Is it even possible/probable?

Lord give me grace and dancing feet, And the power to impress. Tonight make me unstoppable, And I will charm, I will slice, I will dazzle, I will outshine them all

My stomach is restless. My feet are awfully blistered. I’m ridiculously tired… and the cause of all this is because last night I was at the Law ball, which was themed “Cluedo – A Murder Mystery” or something along those lines. I’m far too out of it (and lazy) to string together a coherent blog post at the moment, so I’ll let the very many photos do the talking. After all, pictures are worth a thousand words, and I know it would take me many thousand to commit last night into words, haha.

Shoe box

Shoes from Ruby Boutique

Remember the mystery Ruby bag from this post? This dress is what was inside it!

Makeup-ing photo taken by mum.

Obligatory lounge photos at the boy’s house.

And again.

And again!

JJ’s boyfriend dropped her off at the preball… what a ride to rock up in haha.

Waiting on people to bring the mixers so we can make cocktails.

Ben mixing up Harvey Wall-bangers.

Potent alcohol.

I can’t get over how awesome these glasses were.

Hippy happy, haha.

Candid photo.

Guys’ photo.

Girls’ photo.

JJ and I.

Amelia and I.

Tricia’s far better than me at doing the point-and-shoot thing.

Amelia, Tricia and I.

Shingle Peak Riesling – possibly my favourite wine.

Chocolate-coated strawberries, yummy.

*gasp*

Ben’s house was so nice.

Ben “dead”.

3rd-wheelin’ haha

Ian and Tricia.

In the wayyy.

Taxi van ride to the Pullman Hotel.

The awesome photo booth in the background that we took full advantage of.

The boy and Chris.

Cheap, crap alcohol that were not kind to our stomachs.

The boy’s salmon entree.

My quiche entree – SO DELICIOUS.

Steak

Chicken

Colin and I, like old times.

Double datin’, haha.

Lol @ Ian and Daniel.

Mis-aimed photo, oops.

Tricia and I.

Oh Colin…

The real definition of “boyfriend blazers” haha.

On the ferry going home.

I seriously want to nick off with this jacket… and all the rest of his jackets!

Haha.

Cos you know, it’s normal to wear shades indoors at something-past-2-in-the-morning.

Mister Fuckyeah.

Spot the dress.

The morning after: me reading his crim law textbook whilst he attempts studying.

Overall a great day/night except for the huge blisters I acquired on my feet and the disastrous effects of cheap alcohol on our stomachs! The only thing I forgot to take pictures of was the dancefloor, dammit!

And the hunger of those early years will never return, But I don’t mind, I don’t mind

Daylight savings is messing with my head. I know we’ve only flicked our clocks an hour forward, but somehow that hour throws me off so badly. It’s weird that I handle weird jetlag far better than this! I had my “technical jury” today, which is a technical assessment on everyone’s main instrument, in front of a panel of two teachers. It went well, I think. Not flawlessly, not amazingly, but well. And to be honest, that’s all I need right now. To be relieved. To breathe temporarily. I feel like I’m just clinging onto this university year by the fingernails (that saying sucks, bass players have really short fingernails!) so that I will be able to fall into the abyss of dreaming once again, come November. And then I will once again have to make some way-too-serious decisions about my courses next year that will potentially affect me for the rest of my life. What’s with young people and having to make big, huge decisions around the ages of 17-21? Maybe it’s for this reason that I sometimes feel I suppose the US college system where people just get a Bachelor of Arts or Science and then do post-grad if they want to do something more specific and refined. The whole specialised degree thing in New Zealand is kicking my arse right now. I don’t want to be a uni student for that much longer!

I was looking for some old travel photos earlier and stumbled across this – a photo someone took of me from 2 years and 2 months ago. I want to be that thin again. Somebody please preserve my generous bust-line and lipo my thighs away, please! That sounds awful. Urgh. Seriously though, if it weren’t for the fact that I tore those jeans in Malibu last year, I would try and take the same photo again, just to compare, for self-torture self-motivation. Why do us females do this?! So many blogs that I read have at some point or another (if not currently still) been through some kind of weight-loss scheme. I can’t handle taking tight-skimpily-clothed-photos like Amanda does, nor will I ever go “on a diet”, so I don’t see the point in rambling about this, but can my magic lose-4-kilos-nonsensically powers please come back? kthanxbai. (btw, that was the first – and last – time that I’ve ever typed that “word”)

“it would be nice to look like this again” photo. Everything’s just kinda gotten bigger – bigger boobs, bum, and hmm, hair is a close tie for size, I’d say – but they didn’t need to be! gah.

Tokyo, 2010 – taken by my friend Joel

Whilst I’m on the topic of useless requests, I’d really like to be transported back to Tokyo like about now. As seen above with some sunnies, Canon, asymmetrical-zip trench coat and thigh-high boots. I guess when I’m that covered up, I still look exactly the same… In all seriousness though, the good news of this post is that the boy and I are going to Taiwan and Hong Kong. We finally paid for our flights today, and I will leave for Taipei in mid-December, whilst he finishes up work and joins me on Boxing Day. We’ll mostly be doing awesome things everyday, as I tend to do whilst traveling – galleries, museums, shopping, eating, drinking, dancing, gigging, and photographing our way around town. It’s going to be a blast, and it will be the first time that I’ll see the infamous New Years Eve fireworks at Taipei’s 101. We’ve only got two nights in Hong Kong though, so trying to cram all the things to do there will be interesting…

I’ve also been going on and on about wanting to go to London and New York (I don’t care which first, at this point!), but as neither of us can afford it right now – obviously not after this trip! – it’s been put on the back-burner of things-Amanda-constantly-remembers-to-wish-aloud-for, haha. I need to take up more shifts promoting chocolate and crackers at the supermarket. Uni is getting in the way, but hopefully I can earn some moolah in Nov/Dec to save up ahead of time.

Taipei, 2010 – taken by my friend Joel

And summer hockey starts this week, yay. I’m playing in two teams on both Wednesday and Thursday, so it’s going to bring a lot of exercise for me that has lapsed since winter hockey finished this month. Maybe this getting-my-old-figure-back thing might actually happen after all, haha. In the meantime though, I just might tape up my knees so that they don’t get skinned and see blood, as the law ball is on this Saturday. You’ve been warned: the boy has bought the most amazing suit ever, and to be honest, I don’t think he ought to go out in it as it’d just be a waste of hundreds of dollars since I’ll just want to rip the thing right off him. Plus, it means I have to fight for the limelight, which was meant to be relatively easy in a gold dress, but not so, next to a fucking gorgeous blue suit worn by such a handsome lad. I really miss him tonight, can you tell?

you were made for life, you’re lost to the world, very transparent, very selfish, beautiful powerful careless women – watch it

There are currently two great mysteries which I would like to solve right this minute. Well, actually there are three, but one is far too blush-inflicting to ever mention publicly. Although I should stop right now and warn you that to be honest they aren’t “great mysteries” by any stretch of the imagination, but are just things that have been pinching at my nerves with great pressure…

If you have scrolled through this blog at all or even glanced at the sidebar, you can see that I’m very much into photography. Having said that, it seems that I tend to fail rather miserably in front of the camera (except when it is I who has taken the photo) and most especially when I’m the only person in a photo. This leads me to Life’s-Great-Mystery-Right-This-Very-Instant #1 – why is it that I look horrible even in photos taken by my own mother, who is a professional photographer that specialised in portraiture and children’s photography, no less? I’m not going to post any examples, because it’s too cringe worthy and I can’t bear to splash unflattering photos of myself on the internet when enough people have done so already… but the question remains, why?! My mum has said herself, that even she can’t figure out why, and that I make her feel incompetent! For some reason unbeknownst to us, I tend to just seize up and hate being in front of the camera, especially when she’s behind it. I really don’t know why. She thinks its ironic that she used to make a killing living by making ugly people look pretty, but cannot seem to make me look… anywhere near normal or how I usually look, let alone look good. I just look astoundingly dreadful in her photos. To contrast this, here’s a random picture I took of myself in a public bathroom. That sounds like an idiotic thing to do, yes, I don’t deny that, but let me rephrase – it was the bathroom at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, and I was waiting for someone else to finish up, you see. Anyway, the point is, I look absolutely normal there, as I would usually look, if you were to run into me on any given day (except when I’m in a bad mood). So therein lies the great mystery – why do I look nice in thoughtless photos taken in bathrooms of famous places, and instead look awful in pictures taken by other people, even a professional with whom I live and am very close to?

  
  

Just some more photos from Grauman’s Chinese Theater (I thought I’d spell it the way it’s spelt over there…) which I never got around to posting.

As for Life’s-Great-Mystery-Right-This-Very-Instant #2, I am very curious to know whether I am the only person who thinks like this or does this: does anyone else ever think of painful things that are touchy subjects or just things in general that bring you great pain from the past, even though you’re “over it”… and rather, does anyone else do this in almost like a scab-picking way wherein you test the waters a bit, and the first time the thin new skin peels off and it hurts like hell again, but the next time it heals back slightly better and it hurts less, and you repeat this cycle until it’s almost like you’ve desensitised yourself to these great painful memories from the past? I keep doing it, I can’t fucking help it. I have been feeling increasingly better and calmer about things in the past that just a month or two ago would have outright upset me to the point of tears instantly, but I just still don’t feel completely healed. It’s even worse when I feel like there are things that I would have had control over, if only I had known I could reach certain people at all. I guess that’s why I just keep playing the blame game in my head, even though I know it’s pointless, and this is the happiest I have been for a long, loooong time.

On (the fear of) old diaries and notebooks:

Try me, now
Is it safe yet?
Those wounds you shared
Is it safe yet?

Open it, now
Has it been long enough?
Those fires you snuffed
Has it been long enough?

Right/write it, now
Is what you said still true?
Those deepest scars of you
Is what you said still true?

And good lord, please, the All Blacks must destroy Japan in their match tomorrow, or the country will be outraged, especially with the “not risking top players with minor injuries” going on at the moment…

You don’t own the green pines, The blue sky, or the smoke. You don’t own the dust in your Big brown eyes when you keep them closed

I’m just itching to make another playlist right now, but I really should go and cook dinner. I’ve been indulging in lounging around far too much and pretending to myself that these two weeks are an actual holiday when they aren’t… I really need to get started on the two tests I have next week, as well as memorising the 40 songs I will need to know in 7 weeks’ time. Damn. In the meantime, it seems the whole country is either in a buzz (or downbuzz) over the fact that the Rugby World Cup starts in just FOUR DAYS, and we are hosting it. I used to follow the rugby avidly, but after so so sooo many disappointments (mostly at previous World Cups), I’ve sort of given up hope. I don’t want to over anticipate it this year only to be disappointed again – so I’m hoping my keeping a low profile in my head when it comes to rugby will make us winning it this year that much sweeter. Here’s to hoping…

The boy accompanied me on a large excursion around town the other day. I had an appointment on the North Shore, which prompted us to pay The Department Store a visit, where the boy ended up buying this Vanishing Elephant coat for a very good sale price – and it’s so super nice that I rather want to steal it. Speaking of stealing his jackets though, I’ve discerned that I can pull off wearing pretty much all of his jackets. Now the tricky thing is to con him into actually letting me wearing them outside of his bedroom, hmm.

The weather was amazing. I’m not usually a sunny-day person, but who can complain about this?

I thought this photo was funny because usually it’s me wearing a silly grin whilst he has a weird almost-smile thing going on – but it’s reversed here, haha.

Anyway, the exciting thing about our wander around several central spots in town was that I’ve finally picked out something amazing that I’m going to wear in just under a month’s time. It cost me an arm and a leg, but I think it was well worth it considering what a timeless piece it will be, and that I might even contemplate wearing it to my 21st birthday party next year – that’s how amazing I think it is. It even came in pretty packaging too:

Mystery item, haha.

And lastly, I started this painting about three months ago, but hadn’t touched it until yesterday. It was a whole lot of textured black and white until now… It’s still far from finished, and I know the owl isn’t 100% realistic or anything (I was not about to attempt that), but I have a whole heap of work left to do on it that will hopefully make the whole thing a lot more abstract and layered – which is pretty much my kind of thing to do. Also, the poor cat has been in a buster collar for the first time in his life because his leg is still infected from a cat bite that happened a while back. It had only healed on the outside last time and started bleeding again, so the vet had to give him an anti biotic shot, and I’ve had to clean the wound twice a day, as well as stop the scab from healing up too quickly. A rather cringey and painful task for both him and I. Physically painful for him, and heartily painful for me.

1 2 3 4