all those wasted miles, all those aimless drives through green aisles, our careless lifestyle, it was not so unwise, no



It’s been a long time since the days where I was shooting concerts every week and sometimes I really miss it. But I’ve also been enjoying going along to gigs and being able to jump around and get messed up without having to worry about my gear or whether I’ve taken enough photos before I party. It’s mid-semester break at the moment but I’m still going non-stop. Either sleeping non-stop or trying to catch up on semester one, let alone semester two work, and I still haven’t fully committed to a set list for my graduation recital, which I must do, ASAP. The boy is getting admitted to the Bar in a few weeks’ time and later that evening we are going to see Disclosure. That’s going to be the only partying that will happen in September besides my mother’s milestone birthday, haha.

Oh yeah, my hockey team one the Women’s Div 1 Grade! It was only a week ago but seems like much more time has passed. I need to instill some kind of exercise routine if I want to maintain any hope of retaining some fitness. It’s such a shame that the season’s ended just as I was starting to feel completely game-fit, and could keep running and running without feeling the need to get subbed. I also started swimming again a couple of weeks ago, but my body’s really not used to those set of muscles, after replacing swimming with hockey back in 2007. My willpower also sucks and I know I always give up mentally before my body actually feels that tired or sore. It’s just really hard to be motivated and keep going when there isn’t a fast ball flying past me that I need to chase down, or a desire to win and to keep fighting for the sake of a team. But I want to keep fit so I don’t have to start the whole process of fitness from scratch again, come next season. We’ll have a title to defend by then!

Oh so while you’re growing old under the gun, gun, gun, and I believed them all — well I’m just one poor baby ’cause well I believed them all

I really wanted to post a photo of my happy self, since it was my 22nd birthday yesterday — but I’m only on my laptop (quickie before uni) so I don’t have access to most files and had to whip this low-fi off the dreaded facebook. In true Amanda fashion, I overslept through two classes yesterday morning, and only woke to my friends calling me asking “WHERE ARE YOU?!” so we could go for my birthday lunch. They thought I had intentionally wagged class on my birthday, oops.

Melbourne Big Day Out Friday 26th January 2013, on disposable camera. (The thing on my forehead is a Y from the YYYs)

The other night, I had an application for something that was due a minute before my birthday, at 11.59pm. Due to a torts test and uni all day, I had about two hours left after my hockey training, to finish my cover letter. I don’t think writing such things under time pressure is the best idea, but in writing it, and compiling my CV, I unexpectedly learnt a lot about myself.

At first glance, my CV isn’t exactly cut out for the corporate world whatsoever. I scarily realised that I’d been playing in various music ensembles for the past fifteen years and that it’s been eight years since I started playing hockey and fatefully broke my nose on my birthday. Some days, I feel like what have I got to show for myself?! now that I’m no longer a teenager. Other days I feel like I’ve managed to do quite well in what (relatively) short time I’ve had on this earth. But the thing I realised when I was writing my cover letter was that, I’m quite proud I never really did anything just “because it would look good on a CV”. The pages and lists of things I’d put on there, were truly things that I wanted to do, even if in the cold of winter I didn’t want to train, or didn’t like early morning rehearsals. I wasn’t in those sports teams purely for my ego nor did I spend twelve-hour days at high school because I thought that it would “pay off” one day. And maybe it never will. But it doesn’t matter.

Even if nothing came of this application I submitted, I’m happy that the process of writing it made me feel really content with myself on my birthday. People that know me quite well would know that I struggle to be content with myself — there’s always more I can do, more to be done — so this is a good start. I’m really passionate about the the photos I’ve taken, the experiences I’ve sought out for myself, and bass callouses born from pain.

Whilst I know that law school will always make me anxious that I’m not doing the “right” co-curricular things, I insist on not pretending I’m someone that I’m clearly not. I’m making a conscious decision to continue to only do things that I want to do, rather than because “it would look good”. (Disclaimer: I do realise there will be things that I must do that I don’t necessarily “want” to do or feel passionate about. But I feel there’s a difference between things you’ve got to do in general, versus things above and beyond, merely because it looks nice on a piece of paper)

Also, it’s amazing how many indirectly-relevant and awesome skills I’ve managed to get out of all the “wrong” (read: unconventional) mixture of things that I’ve been doing. Anyone can sit at a desk and grind books into their brains all day, but how many will leave their comfort zones and chase down lofty dreams?

free yourself that leash is long, long, long

I feel like it’s a miracle I managed to survive the past week. I had a contracts test, a technical jury for double bass and a torts moot, back-to-back in the space of 72 hours. That I did not feel prepared for virtually anything, is a momentous understatement. My daily brain-function quotas were maxed out and I probably used the next three weeks’ worth, explaining why I have not so much as pretended to open a book all weekend. To top it all off, I’ve had a flu for which I’ve been drugged out on codeine, making it all the harder to stay awake. Somehow, in the space of the past seven days, I managed to do all this, photograph Esther’s wedding, pick up another commissioned assignment, and did a graduation photoshoot for a friend.

Oh yeah, and the boy graduated in the middle of the week, during my tech jury, so I didn’t witness the ceremony itself. But afterwards, we had too many celebratory drinks and I irresponsibly got too tipsy to write my moot which was at 9am the next day. I don’t know how I hauled myself out from under the pillow to write it at 5am. I also don’t know how much I like being me right now. It may sound like I’m complaining, but I’m not, really. I signed up to do all this. I signed up for far more than what qualifies as a “full-time study workload” — I chose to do all this, so I’m not really complaining. Just… trying to vent to get through it. And get through it well. Because, let’s be honest here, a certain lecturer may try to tell us all she likes that getting a C-grade for contract law reflects that our work is “satisfactory”, but no one ever got an internship or job off that grade.

I’m just feeling really envious of all my friends who have been capped and awarded with their all-expensive “piece of paper(s)” that’s been earned through hard work, blood and sweat. Although I do have an odd choice to make next year — do I attend a graduation ceremony for my music degree alone? Or wait to wear white an light blue simultaneously?

A handful of photos from Wednesday night:

P.S. I love the song that I nicked the title of this post from, but I think I must’ve subconsciously chosen it because it’s what I feel I need to do: free myself from the leash that is university and my ever-violent battles with time constraints. I’m working hard, by my standards, but hell, definitely nowhere near 100%. What is my 100%? How will I know? How does anyone know if they’re putting in 100%?!

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?

want to hate you but then I kiss you, want to kill you but then I’d miss you – you drive me crazy but I love you

Edit: PAGE OF THINGS FOR SALE HERE!

I feel absolutely dreadful today. I think I contracted a cold overnight, and that, mixed in with my allergies today, means I just feel physically miserable. So I dug up a photo of a nice view from a very happy day, and just thought, oh take me back there!

Taken in San Francisco back in last November – I can’t believe it’s been ten months since I was there – I really, really want to go back there again. I’ve got to! One day, when we can afford it, I’m going to twist the boy’s arm and make him come with me. Not that I think any arm-twisting is actually necessary… that is, once the “when we can afford it” part is sussed. Speaking of going away though, we have another trip (this time overseas!) brewing in the works, for Christmas/New Years – just have to book the flights and suss it out. It’s going to be absolutely amazing.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I love traveling. And I’m currently using happy thoughts and memories of it as a means to feel less miserable. I REALLY cannot afford to be sick right now, what with uni resuming again on Monday (I have a test that very day!), and the Rugby World Cup starting on Friday night – which means a big night out, I’m certain. The good news of the day is that the job interview I had yesterday was successful, and now I have part-time/casual work that will pay fairly well. No doubt the funds collected from that job will go towards traveling elsewhere again. I swear, I’m more than happy to empty my entire bank account into two things: travel and fashion – and to be honest… it seems that’s all I’ve been doing since last year.

Which brings me to the next bit – I think I’m going to start trying to sell some of my old stuff on here for cheap. Because Trademe/Ebay and the like are honestly far too much effort, so selling directly here only seems to make sense. My life has changed so much in the past year, that I guess it’s only fair enough that my wardrobe should too. Since it’s been a constant “in with the new” in both life and attire, I guess it’s about time I get on with the “out with the old” part as well. My friends and the boy only know too well how much difficulty I have with letting the past and old things go, so… well this might be a small step towards that. I swear, I often “test” myself by thinking about the worst things possible from the past, just to see how much I can bear it. Like, what the hell is wrong with me?!

Sooo, playlist time:

1. Take Off Your Cool – Outkast with Norah Jones
I love how this song opens with acoustic guitar that sounds nothing like Outkast, and then the crooning comes in… and you know it. Norah Jones is sexy as always though. I remember being a 12-year-old and singing along to her album that mum would play in her car.

2. Crazy For You – Best Coast
Uhh, pretty much how I feel about the boy. Ref to title. That’s all. Oh yeah, except for the bit where I really am, for sure, definitely crazy.

3. Heart in Your Heartbreak – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
I remember hearing this album for the first time and thinking, oh my god, I swear I’ve heard this before! It’s just a really familiar-sounding album for me, and I mean that in an endearing way. This song is retardedly sweet and painful and all those silly things that I adore.

4. Blindside Kiss – Neon Indian
A couple of hours ago the boy txted me saying that I should listen to Neon Indian’s new album, because he thought that I’d like it. And I do. No more, will I get them confused with Ariel Pink. This album is much more shoe-gazey-and-hazy, and this song is a prime example. I need a lot more listens. The link doesn’t go to Youtube, but goes to some place where the album is streamed, by the way.

5. Strangers – White Lies
Is it fair on White Lies to say that this song is the epitome of what I think of them as? A running bass line, recurring melodic idea on synth, same old deep vocals… I’m making this sound awful, but I swear it’s not. It’s nice. That’s why it’s on here. I’m rambling now. Because I just had to blow my nose three times in a row and now my ears are under pressure, my head hurts, my throat hurts, and the point is, I lost my place as to what I was going to say about this song, dammit!

6. Clinging On For Life – The Hoosiers
This song seriously makes me want to cry.

7. Rome – Phoenix
Because Phoenix are fucking awesome! And listening to them makes me think of the film Somewhere (that they largely hogged the soundtrack of, obviously…), and it’s funny because I had watched that film right after I got back from California, and it was so surreal going “woah I drove down that street too”, or whatever. Who’s the boy you like the most?

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