…the beautiful art of sound.

The light within you shines like a diamond mine, like an unarmed walrus. Steer on to freedom… Open all the boxes. Open all the boxes.

Pictures speak louder than words, so this post is purely dedicated to a compilation of 50 photos that my mother, sister and I have taken over the past three days.

We took a trip up north to Paihia in the Bay of Islands with some friends, and had an absolute blast, staying at a house right on the waterfront which had spectacular views. I can’t believe that I personally didn’t take any more photos (thus compiling mum and Liv’s photos too, because we all lounged around and did some things together, but some things apart), but it just goes to show how much fun in the sun and relaxing downtime I’ve been having! We swam (out to a post, twice), sunbathed, played poker, had Boston Legal marathons, sang along to songs in the car, drank beer, took bubble baths and ate far, far too much:

There was a huge cruise ship not too far offshore.

Reflected view from my bedroom window, with Liv in the corner.

View from the house.

Interior.

Lottie on our bed with the ranch slider wide open, basking in the view and breeze.

From the outside.

Super Liquor was right across the road! But we didn’t need it, haha.

Mum took this from across the road in the house, when we were heading out to the beach.

Me and my new American flag towel.

Beach!

I didn’t know my sister had taken this until I scoured through her memory card. What a pervert.

Lo and I. I know, I keep calling her a variation of things, but in my head she is a mix between Charlotte, Char, Lottie, and ultimately Lo from “Charlo” (which is what I type into “recipients” when I txt her).

My feeet.

Second floor view from the house.

Massive kitchen!

Japanese noodles.

Lottie wanting to nick off with my blanket and replacing our cat as the ginger tucked in my blanket whilst on holiday. Adorabubbly-cute, haha.

My risotto in progress.

Final product = risotto with mushroom, onions and chicken. My dinner and everyone else’s late night supper… I accidentally took a reeeaaally long nap, you see.

Meal complete with a CC & Dry, of course.

Mum and her Japanese friends all gave my risotto rave reviews, yay!

Lounge.

The house.

These sunset photos were taken by my mum – when I look at her photos, I can really see where she has inadvertently influenced me in style and composition over the years, without really ever properly “teaching” me anything specifically. She never told me how to compose my photos or how to take them in the first place because she didn’t want to restrict my view… but I guess some things just rub off over time, haha. But I’m glad it did.

In a way, I’m relieved I missed out on taking a drive out with mum and her friends to see the sunset, otherwise I would’ve had an internal struggle with my obsession to photograph everything, versus just taking life in through my eyes, not lens.

The spa that we had for a bath.

Lo blowing some bubble love my way.

Once we turned the jets on, the bubbles boiled over like crazy!

View from the house.

We stopped over at Matakana on the way home so that I could quench my cravings for the delicious ice cream and sorbet there. That, and we needed the girls’ room.

Blueberry sorbet and Chocolate ice cream. I LOVE CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM. It’s my top flavour of choice, I get it 99% of the time – but I knew the sorbet there was amazing so I couldn’t miss out… The girl at the store accidentally gave me blueberry ice cream instead of sorbet at first, so that’s what that glob of purple is, in between the two scoops.

I recommend their ice cream and sorbet, but I fucking hate their stupid queuing/ordering system and their customer service isn’t too hot either. That, and I was super glad the girl with short hair who kept touching her hair whilst scooping ice creams didn’t scoop my ice cream.

KILLER EELS?!?!!!!

The odd tree and the car parked in front of us.

Liv took these as we were crossing the harbour bridge, heading home.

There’s me driving with my left hand and red nails.

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And a young man’s gonna make mistakes, til he hits the brakes

“By the time a person has achieved years adequate for choosing a direction, the die is cast and the moment has long since passed which determined the future.” – Zelda Fitzgerald

I think it’s safe to say that I certainly do not live my life in a very safe manner. Wait, that sentence just sounded retarded. But it makes perfect literal sense in terms of what I’m saying. It’s true – I take a lot of risks, some calculated, but more often than not, I ignore such “calculations” and stick with what I want to do/think I should do/think I can get away with. The latter which sounds absolutely terrible, although thus far I have turned out quite “alright”. Point is, I wholeheartedly agree with the above quote, and I am living my life and making my “big decisions” as I see fit – not in the most “sensible” and “safe” manner at all. Instead, doing what I think will lead to where I’d like to be. I think that if I can’t dream big and try to fly towards such dreams up in the clouds at age 19, then there will be no more-appropriate time to do so.

I’m beyond grateful and appreciative towards my parents’ encouragement and support of me, even in times when they disagree with my decisions; I know there are many, many parents out there who simply do not provide such freedom and constant support towards their children. I’ve noticed (and mum’s also told me) that people are either in positive awe of how brilliant it is, or in absolute shock and horror towards my parents with regards to the fact that my sister and I pursue such “unconventional” pathways – and all with their full backing and support! Other parents that my family knows have either high-5’d us for sticking to our guns and going for it, or have taken it upon themselves to try and convince me that music is a stupid course of study that will lead to nowhere, and no career. They’d list all the reasons why I should study law or whatever instead (this is back at high school when I hadn’t decided on my university degree yet), and how I should just keep music as a hobby, etc. It’s as if the decision is so fucking obvious that only an outright idiot would choose otherwise. Even though I am always polite and try to deflect and then divert such conversations, it always maddens me, right to the very core. I just want to say who the hell do you think you are?! Don’t treat me like a fucking idiot; you say that as if I hadn’t thought of all of the above already, etc. Anyway, I don’t even know how that train of thought got here, because then I got distracted and have been reading something completely irrelevant for the past half an hour. Point is, I’m glad I still have a lot of things that I look forward to, because of the path I’ve chosen. Rather than having chosen one which I dread to face the end of.

Yesterday, with just a towel-bag of essentials, I set off for a very long drive out to a friend’s family house, south-west of mine. The weather hovered from very cloudy, sunny, and then cloudy, spitting rain, sunny, then back to the clouds and eventually decent rainfall. Photographically equipped with only a Canon point-and-shoot in the back pocket of my denim cut-offs, I didn’t take that many photos. The countryside experience is more about the intertwined smell of freshness, cow dung and grass in the air, the bugs that crawl on you, and the thorns, sand and mud on your feet. All in all it made for an interesting day – most certainly a very adventurous drive as I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to end up – with great company, great conversation, great food and great fun. In other words, a bloody great day:

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

we sway, we grab, at the strands, and the skin, couldn’t cause anymore friction than this

This day a month ago, I was spending the day at Santa Monica with my sister, gorging on frozen yoghurt and feasting on the novelty of simply being there. Just now I’ve attempted to add another day onto my California journal, which is a classic Moleskin notebook that I’ve lived in and lived out of for the duration of my trip. Currently the night of Friday 12th November is still being written out, if only in bullet points that include the details of what happened, what I saw, what I thought, etc. I want to get it all down ASAP before it all slips away from me… but the delicate tiers and layers to my sweet, bitter and bitter sweet memories are just so intricate and intertwined. It’s as if I have to write down every tangent I ever went on (somehow I remember, still, for now), because it was a part of the entire experience which I had. But in the process of peeling back the layers I’m afraid to lose something in the sensitivity and freshness of purely having lived through it and felt it, without ever thinking about it. Delicate indeed.

There is a very cute spider crawling around my ceiling at the moment. It’s the perfect spider size, aesthetically, I reckon. Small enough to be noticed and cute, and not big enough to make my sister scream and insist that I kill it. I still hope no one in my family comes into my room and finds it tomorrow though.

I’ve never really been a “fan girl” of any sort. Yeah, I’d say such and such guy from band/film/editorial/whatever is hot or sexy, but I’ve never really been one of those girls that actively drool over celebrities and such. This said, there are maybe half a handful of exceptions. One being James Franco. And the other, since the night of Friday 12th November, being Jamie Burke. At least I’ve met and exchanged a few words with the latter, you know, so I don’t sound like a complete dick when I say his voice vibrating through my eardrums was like audible sex. Would be very audible sex. Sorry. I’m often times against the supposed attractiveness of a man with a guitar in a band, because too many of these are put on some undeserved pedastool (by my standards anyway), and they aren’t even that great. But I think the combination of sexy man, ripped shirt, guitar, sexy voice, nice enough band, and orgasmic London accent is truly my weakness.

If there ever is a time where I wish I had my mythical “come hither” look tamed and available at my beck and command, it would be if I ever meet aforementioned half handful.

I can’t believe it’s Christmas Eve already. I’m not ready for Christmas feasting yet. I’ve consumed far too much food and drink this week to last me until the rest of 2010.

I know this entry is so scatterbrained. It’s literally everything I’m thinking of right now, in chronological order. Pretty typical-Amanda of me, I must say. Just for this post I’ve decided to start a new category on my WordPress: Males. Very appropriate way to begin the life of *cough* adult blogging? I was going to make it say “Men” but hey, I’ll keep it slightly broader, eh? Also, I’ve got two places I’d really like to take photos at. Namely, Lottie’s amazing bedroom and this other room with large windows. I fucking love large, photogenic windows. Why couldn’t this house have any like that?!

Current quote featured on my new whiteboard in front of me at the moment: WELL BEHAVED WOMEN RARELY MAKE HISTORY. That’s it, perfect. Motto for the end of 2010 and beyond, I say.

Like a shotgun needs an outcome, like a shotgun, I can’t be outdone

Another two days as whizzed past me too fast, yet again. Although my days have seemed productive enough, I dare not think of how little I have managed to achieve in comparison to my huge list of things to do. I did end up finishing the painting I started a few days ago, but haven’t taken any photos of it yet, so I will post that later, along with some shitty self-analysis of it, haha.

Sometime in the midst of all this cloudiness, rain and then lack of rain, and utter, torturous humidity, I’ve watched a couple of decent films, sent gifts overseas, and attained a very bright Rimmel lipstick in the shade of “shocking pink”. It’s not quite as pink as I would have liked, but it will do for now. I’m not too sure what’s come over me, in this search of a very, very bright pink lipstick – anyone that knows me even just a little bit would be expecting me to wear nothing at all or a hot fiery red instead. But all that aside, I’m just looking forward to my dinner date at some mysterious, unknown location (it’s probably not a big deal, but I love – and hate – not knowing where it is, haha), followed by some scandalous dancing with Lottie. Truth be told, it will probably be nowhere near as scandalous as our dancing the night we befriended each other, but how good the DJ set is will determine how low low low we’ll get.

Some shots from Zowie’s gig at Galatos on Saturday night – the rest can be found here:

Oh Johnny boy… I don’t know what’s happening with Cut Off Your Hands, but last year Johnny was their replacement guitarist, and now he’s paying for Zowie. Either way, always a pleasure to have an excuse to stare at him, be it through the lens or not. Although, boy he moved a lot and was hard to photographer. Especially under that harsh light his angle was at.

I’ve been completely head over heels in love and lust with the band Warpaint and their new album. This is one song I just can’t get out of my head, to the point where it’s almost irritating because I was trying to write a song, and I just kept finding myself humming this thing to myself! Lyrics from “Undertow” were also the source of my last blog entry’s title. Can’t wait to see them at the end of January, although now I’m kicking myself over not having seen them in their hometown of LA.

The other song that is currently on repeat repeat as I type this is Lykke Li’s “Get Some”. I swear the lyrics of this song are akin to those that I have written before, but am too scared to actually publicise, haha. The video is pretty awesome too, so check it out.

And last but not least, the trailer of Somewhere, which was directed by Sofia Coppola. I went and saw this at Rialto with Lottie and her sister yesterday and we all absolutely loved it. I know a lot of people have given it bad reviews, saying it’s about absolutely nothing, but they’re missing the point! It’s all in the beauty of the mundane-ness of this movie star character’s life, and how he ultimately feels like nothing. Beautiful. Here’s the trailer – which has a lovely soundtrack, just like the movie does – I highly recommend this movie.

Make me want you, make me miss you, make me wonder where you are

Whilst browsing various blogs today I stumbled across this – Filmography 2010. It’s an amazing video mash-up of movies from 2010, put to a very decent soundtrack that results in thumbs up from me:

Full list of films can be found here.

My day today in lists and pictures:

1. My grandma sent us a huge box of goodies from Taiwan.

2. I embarked on doing some form of painting. This is what it started out as. Blue, red and some white = purple.

3. Swirled some paint in a coke bottle as the beginning of a series of bottle painting.

4. Mmm, potato and leek soup for brunch.

5. Ambiguous words and symbols. Dry painted some. I still have no idea what I’m going to do over the top of it all, just pretty mindless, subconscious stuff.

6. I made a pair of matching necklaces in anticipation of my sister’s arrival home from Malibu tomorrow morning. Couldn’t find a better place to photograph them so hung them off the hook on the back of my bedroom door.

7. Had a decent play/listen/write/jam session with a man and his guitar this evening.

8. I finally moved my large painting which I did at age 13 from my old bedroom into my current on. Might post photos of it later on.

9. Currently can’t stop listening to Outkast with their smooth words and sexy basslines…

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