it’s so hazy while you’re breathing

Over the past, seven to ten days, I’ve somehow managed to clock 639 (and counting) plays of Beach Fossils’ new album Clash the Truth on my Last.fm. This isn’t even counting the plays I’ve had on my ipod! Just a classic example of how I obsessively repeat albums, especially when I begin working along to it, I often feel like I need the same persistent playlist to keep going. Last week I was writing my contract law opinion. I’ve got a public law one due next week… but it may be best to obsess over whatever solo I pick as my transcription, as that is due on the same day. Urgh. I’m having a ridiculously hectic time trying to stay on top of having one if not two assessment/test/law opinion/moot-things every single week of August. On the bright side, the boy and I have bought tickets to Beach Fossils and we’ve been having some pretty good Friday nights lately.

Also my hockey team has made it to the Top 4 playoffs for Division 1 and I’m stoked. I finally scored two goals on the weekend, after a long spell of hitting the post or just having shots fly off-target. The other update I have is that this will be the third time my photographs are being shown in an exhibition in Taiwan. This time it will be across three cities instead of just in Taipei. Once I get everything confirmed and sorted, I’ll post a link to my photos!

 

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%?!

shaking the habitual

In a conversation with a friend the other night, we were discussing our childhood and adolescence, being bullied by girls and general bodily awareness, etc. She pointed out something that I had never considered before — that, before a certain point in time, your body was just one whole part. You were you, that’s what you looked like, and that’s just the way it was. Until one day, someone makes a comment about your body, and suddenly your awareness heightens, and you start to question your body and the form that it takes.

After thinking about this, I realised that I can remember a very distinct shift from merely acknowledging that my body looked a certain way, to realising that my actions can cause my body to look different. It’s sad that, once you cross that line, there is no going back. Life used to be, oh, swimming training, ballet classes, run the 800m heats, blah blah, and all was well. Then one day, I realised, it’s all this swimming and ballet that has given me a really lean physique with strong abdominal muscles. That switching these two for hockey then gave me a thicker build, along with hockey thighs. That my gluttony over a few meals will amount to jeans being tighter or beers equating to a gut. And as a woman, these are consequences that are too hard to ignore sometimes.

Even though I don’t really “watch what I eat” and barely try to be moderate about it all, admittedly, one big reason I love hockey season so much is that I can then consume without as much thought as when it’s off-season — because it’s almost guaranteed to burn off. Case in point: in December I bought a beautiful pair of Rag & Bone jeans in New York, and this was right after a season of winter and summer hockey, and I’d walked and walked and walked on my trip. Then I get home, Christmas and New Years happens, with no hockey… and now I can’t fit them anymore. Hopefully if my coach continues her current plan of playing me on the left wing for the first sixty minutes (of a 70 minute game, ouch!) I will definitely be reaping in rewards in the form of muscle gain and fat loss. (Disclosure: I’m weird in that I gain and lose muscle easily so my weight fluctuates not 1-2kg like most females, but more like 4-7kg) But if I were ten again, I would just think, oh yay, I feel a bit fitter and lighter. Not, I lost muscle and put on fat, boo hoo, must reverse this. This body awareness thing was much easier when I only ate what my mum put on the dinner table, and did the amount of sports prescribed.

Also, I’d forgotten about these photos until I stumbled across these scans just before. They were taking during a jazz combo rehearsal at uni last year. Funny how I can forget about these completely, yet now that I’ve found them, I can remember what it felt like at the time, framing these shots in fairly quick succession, then putting the camera away to not be a distraction.

All taken on Kodak Colour Reversal film; Nikon F3.

heavy night it was a heavy night, feels like we’ve come back from the dead

Given recent events, university starting again, and just basically everything in general, that shiny, clean-slate sheen of the new year has more than worn out for me. I have no idea what anything means any more. I’m trying to avoid the snowball-effect where one lecture’s worth of readings and notes turns into three, into thirteen, into thirty, and the next thing I know is — well I don’t know anything. There isn’t a name to describe the state I’m in, but it’s a constant state of perpetual sadness. The death of hopes, of far-fetching plans — of a part of me. Every day that I’m at uni, I fluctuate between rushing to jazz school for instructed combo rehearsal in my only hour off from law lectures, or meeting a friend for California burritos. And amidst this flurry… where the hell am I, and who am I about to be? I’ve been chilling the fuck out, but I’m still serious about the things I do. I just don’t feel like I quite fit in anywhere. I want to do well, I want to come out near the top when my law marks have been scale-graded against my peers (that’s how they’re marked, on a rough bell curve, rather than raw scores) and I want to pull off a good graduation recital later this year. I want all these things and I want more. But the rest of the jazz cats or the law kids want things that are at least going in somewhat the same direction, and the things I’m after are pulling me every which way. To top it off, I’ve been debating with myself for ages over whether or not I can realistically still play hockey this season, but I’ve decided I will go to Division 1 trials after all. My father kindly pointed out that I would regret it if I don’t, and if it all really gets too much, the worst that could happen is that I’d have to drop out for the remainder of the season. So I’m going to do it.

On Thursday night the boy and I went to see Bloc Party. I’d seen them in December in LA with my sister and they were amazing, but the crowd there was awful, and — not to be racist, merely factual — a black chick tried to get in a fight with me. By that, I mean she actually did hit me several times. Just, what the hell, it’s a concert, when you’re in the fourth or fifth row and there’s a big gap in front of you, someone is going to go and stand there! So yeah, that was an experience and a half. But the Auckland crowd was predictably much mellower, and I certainly enjoyed second-row views of Gordon Moakes. I was sad they didn’t play Sunday (see blog title), but Signs was definitely a pleasant surprise. I just have no idea why Moakes looked so sad during the whole set, like something was wrong and he didn’t want to be there, who knows?

After the show I’d managed to get my hands on a set list, but a nasty girl knocked it out of my hands and into the photo pit. Then she went bailing over the barrier head-first to retrieve it. I really wasn’t in the mood to lose any dignity over it, so gave up. Luckily for me, an old friend was in the opening act, and although they didn’t get to meet Bloc Party, he’d seen the whole fiasco from upstairs and promptly went to retrieve a set list from backstage for me. Yay. And from the bass tech, no less, so I’m going to fawn over potentially having Moakes’ handwriting sitting on my desk. I honestly don’t care that it’s from the 5th in Brisbane rather than the 7th in Auckland. Nor do I know where this bass-player-fangirl-dom has come from, because as I’ve always said, bass players don’t typically tick any boxes for me… because I am one. I shall keep collecting “what stories are made of” experiences.

Here are two photos I took at the Met in New York. Both taken on Ilford HP5 Plus 400 B/W film; Nikon F3:

all my loves are within a wild night

Something silly and awful has happened with my webhost and of course I hadn’t backed up anything – so I’ve lost my last blog post. Just as well I didn’t post more often, I would’ve lost more, right? I can’t remember what I said in it besides the main points, but I will post those photos again once I’m back in New Zealand.

I’m currently sitting at Sydney airport, waiting for the boy to arrive. There was only one seat left for the sale price I got my ticket at, so I have to wait a couple of hours for him to join me. We’ve got a super exciting couple of weeks ahead of us, and I can’t wait to see Amanda again in a couple of nights! I first mentioned the trip mooonths ago, and now the day is finally upon us. In two sleeps’ time I will see my favourite band who I have loved and wanted to see for literally half my life! The icing on the cake with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is that my sister has kindly pre-ordered their new LP (due out in April), for my birthday in May. I believe that she managed to order it in time for me to get one of the 1000 signed lithographs that comes in the bundle. Wheeee! I’m such a fangirl lunatic right now.

We’re only in Sydney until Friday and then we’ll be in Melbourne until the 4th of February – going along to Big Day Out (yes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs again!) and Laneway Festival – so time is precious. Please feel free to email me any recommendations/tips for anything in these two cities. Whilst I will easily be crossing off the big “main things” and definitely be doing the art galleries and museums, I will be eternally grateful for anyone who recommends amazing restaurants/bars or events that are happening which only locals are aware of.

Main things from the last post that disappeared into cyberspace’s black hole:

  1. New York was amazing. The bands I saw and the things I did and ate and photographed and, and, and – I will post about it all once I’m back in NZ!
  2. I got into law school. So I, umm, made my life harder as usual, by enrolling in something that’s equivalent to about 150-170% of a “full time workload”. Jazz and law. Law and jazz. They just don’t really want to like each other. It’s going to be hell, but I want it.
  3. PHOTOS, PHOTOS AND MORE PHOTOS to come.
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