choo choo

so it's been ages since i last posted despite all my good intentions and promises (which now, of course, lay broken upon the ground). i'm in uni today... haven't been here in ages. an ongoing mutating infection/virus/disease/sicky thing has been plaguing me since the beginning of october and culminated in a five day stomach bug/upset/thing last week... the week following reading week. am feeling very behind with all my uni work at present... obviously a great time to remember i have a neglected blog!

it's panicking me but i think once i get through the panic haze, which i aim to clear before going home today, i think everything will feel much better. *deep breaths*

so i was thinking about the most exciting thing that's going on this week in the world of fashion and there is little more to talk about besides jimmy choo for h&m coming to a store "near" you from november 14th. of course this is fantastically exciting. who wouldn't want a pair of choos for £40?

as well as shoes, miss mellon of choo has also collaborated with hennes to produce a range of womenswear and menswear... some fantastic suede dresses i have my eye on...

though not sure how much chance i have of actually obtaining said dresses (even for a quick disgruntled try-on) before the vultures descend. i can't cope with hoards of women fighting each other in packed out shops and it doesn't appear the collection will appear at my local southampton store, where i managed to get previous stella mccartney and karl lagerfeld pieces with no trouble whatsoever. although.... i'm sure i can find garments on ebay later at twice the price and no screaming and hair pulling required.

in other news.... i have finally lost patience with my wardrobe. or the contents of it really. i'm having a mass cull and everything (well almost everything) will be going on ebay. the remnants to the charity shop. once i get it all up and running i will post images and links on here for your pleasure. one promise i make and won't be broken... the clothes are lovely. fact. they just don't seem to fit in with me at more and i want them to go to a good home. watch this space. xx

my long weekend of twilight.

i don't have much to comment on today. which is kinda lame i know.... but i did fancy writing so i thought i'd open up a new post and see what would happen when i typed.

i could talk about my new found obsession of the twilight book series?...

i have a new found obsession for the twilight book series ♥ (yes, that's right. 3 million years after everyone else the penny finally drops for me...)

i read the first book from cover to cover in 6 hours on thursday. and i would quite possibly consider it one of the most productive days off i have had... ever. and i, like a fair number ofadolescent and 20-something girls, am in love with edward cullen (and want to be bella swan). the best fantasy male character ever created by anyone, fact. my eyes have been opened to the appeal of robert pattinson (i really didn't get AT ALL before).

so yes... my twilight quest continued the following day when i spent my day in bookshops seeking out new moon, eclipse and breaking dawn. i was successful in obtaining new moon and eclipse at borders but sadly i'm too much of a scrooge to fork out for the hardback breaking dawn (i also am hoping to hold out for paperback just so it can go with the rest of my collection. does anyone else get that? or is it just me being picky?)

THEN. on saturday i found the dvd of twilight in asda for a fiver. i wasn't allowed to watch it that night as my boyfriend, like me, wants to read the book before seeing the film. instead the evening was spent with disney... in particular wall-e and ratatouille. (p.s now very much in love with wall-e... ratatouille didn't seem to have as much depth.)

sunday evening was the magic alone time i had been craving. i got all pj-ed up and watched twilight all on my lonesome. and (everyone is going to hate me for this) came away from the experience feeling rather disappointed. despite its best attempts, the film did not capture the emotions of the book in the same raw, energetic way i had experienced whilst reading it. it felt diluted and rather lacklustre. or maybe i built it up too much? saw the film too near reading the book? i'm not really sure... but it certainly lacked something. don't get me wrong now. i felt the actors got the characters spot on throughout and nothing annoyed me about their performances whatsoever. maybe i felt the film should've been longer? i don't know. but maybe it deserves another watch when i'm further removed from the experience of the book.

at the moment i'm engrossed in new moon. i pretty much don't want to do anything else but sit with the duvet around me and read and drink tea and read and drink tea all day long. its unfortunate that my much loved MA feels like an annoying inconvenience at the moment. but i'm going home earlier than i thought today so maybe get the opportunity to immerse myself in it in a couple of hours time.

L.H.O.O.Q

i'm at uni today doing the things that students do... or don't do perhaps is the case. you decide.

anywhooooo... the day started off with a nice little introduction to the concept of detournement and then was followed with a seminar on the same subject... i would divulge but frankly it's addled my brain and it will do yours unless you are always one of those fab types who know what i'm talking about already. see above duchamp piece for prime example.

besides being completely mind addling... it was all rather interesting and inspiring. this morning's experience cemented my opinion even more that all of my tutors are near god-like. how do they know so much? how are they so cool and hip? how did they get where they are? how can i get there please?

obviously it has taken them a lot of time, money and hardwork to be where they are but they seem like the sort of people that just magically wound up teaching about the great ideas of the world (well... art & design) to us minions. that kind of power is enviable.

and moving back a little bit to the subject of detournement (in fashion)... does anyone remember the dress dipped in ice by robert cary williams? i am dying to find an image of it but alas nothing... nada. think it was from 2006? i'm not sure but yes... let me know if you do have an image please. would make me very happy to see it.

in other news... its wednesday and you know what that means. 8pm = comfy clothes, chocolate, couch and chuck... of gossip girl that is. can't help but feel the same excitement and build up of ten years ago when i was a teenage dawson's creek devotee. let the anticipation of the ultimate in visual feasting begin!

you know you love me. xoxo

my new most favourite dress ever.

i have had the most loveliest birthday weekend and received the most beautiful gifts including my new most favourite dress ever from all saints. my lovely mr. parker had the genius enough to purchase this dress and knew without me even seeing it in store prior to purchase that i would fall head over heels in love with it. that man knows me well.

today is the day before final presentation day of my first MA assignment, as as per usual i seem to find so many things to occupy my time than the task at hand. *sigh* i do annoy myself at times.

so alas i should get on with my work and find some time to blog some more later. here's a little picture of myself in my new most favourite dress ever as a miniture token...

it's a shame that the rather fetching gold sash i stole off an unsuspecting friend of mine is covering up the nicest details of the dress... also loving the dress becky is wearing to the left of me. ace.

more to come when i've been a good girl and finished my work. x

barmaidery

apologies... it has been two weeks since my last blog. i have been getting over a horrendous cold as well as being quite the busy bee. as well as once again becoming a student, i have entered the world of barmaidery. can you call it barmaidery? i'm not sure. but oh well... yes i have a part time job in the indie club that i have been frequenting since i was much too young to be doing so. friday night was my first shift.

the first hour was a delicate process... making sure i poured a pint without too much foamyness, finding out the prices of every single little drinkie (still not sure about most of it to be honest) and working out how to work the tills properly. i was a little bit nervous to say the least... particularly since this was the first time i had ever ever worked in a bar and it was friday night in freshers week. you could say that i was stuck firmly in the proverbial deep end.

but it ended up being a lot better than i had initially expected. i met some lovely co-workers who were very patient and encouraging with me. not at any point did i have a breakdown and walk out. and the 6 and a half hours flew by rather quickly. all in all a rather good first shift. my next is on thursday... the eve of my birthday.

yes it is my birthday this friday. i normally love birthdays. like to make them last as long as possible. birthdays should always be happy times but i am beginning to wish that i wasn't getting older. it would be nice to live in a world where a birthday wouldn't automatically entail an increase in digits. alas. we cannot have everything. so i shall continue to love birthdays for all that they are.. and not start to worry about the increasing digits until i start to ask for oil of olay for my birthday. hopefully times will never be that desperate.

so although this is short i must go and do some uni work for now. but i promise... i shall not be one of those fairweathered bloggers. and my next blog will be ever so much more interesting too, i hope.

dawson & joey.

so i've done it. i'm back at uni once more for round three of furthering my career prospects through education. i enrolled this morning and have had to endure an agonising wait for 2pm when i will meet with my new tutors who will hopefully show me the pathway to fashion enlightenment. to fill my time i have been on facebook playing such delights as farmville, myfarm and yoville. the novelty does wear off though when you realise you actually have to wait for your virtual crops to grow before you can harvest them or you can't visit your mates (yoville) twice in one day as this will be deemed as being too "needy" by the game.

phew! it's even more complicated than real life.

coming back to rochester has only actually hit home today. there are so many fresh, excited faces running through the corridors and to the student union bar. i got exhausted just looking at them and their mere presence made me question my decision to do this. living the life of what the general public perceive to be the typical student (i.e . lazy, bed-hopping party animal) has never really appealed to me. i don't think anything would make me go back to those fresher days. i'm an old fart. there... i've said it. hope i meet more of my kind this afternoon.

going back in time slightly.... to the weekend... i went out for katy's birthday on friday night. which was very fun and threw up some lovely surprises. bumped into a very dear old friend of mine in the pub who i hadn't seen in about three years. he is dawson to my joey but without a lot of the will they won't they drama. this made me very happy for the rest of the weekend and i still can't stop smiling now when i think about the chance meeting.

spent the rest of my weekend teaching myself how to crochet. it is now my favourite pastime. currently, i'm attempting to make a bag... not sure how successful it is at the moment but i'm sure a photo or two later on this week will help you consider your verdict.

now i must eat. it's a packed lunch consisting of a ham salad sandwich and taxi chocolate bar. yummy.

get on with it.

procrastination is an activity that i am way too familiar with. a pattern i unfortunately fall into when i have too much to do. things like facebook, making my bed, giving myself a pedicure and taking the dog for a walk start to seem very important. i begin to think in half an hour segments i.e "i will start that at half past 2" or " if i start at 5 i'll have a full an hour and a half to do so so which is ace" and, more often or not, i will find that my all important facebook browsing and bed making activities have made me miss my self-made deadline and there's no point in starting that something you keep putting off until the clock has moved on to the next half hour segment. is there?

i should be writing my project proposal for my masters that i should have sent off earlier this week but instead i am writing my blog. but it's ok because soon it will be half past 3 and that will be an ace time to start it and i can be done by 5. of course.

*sigh*

a weekend in the life of a social butterfly.

it's been a little while since i last updated but i have been a busy bee.

thursday night catch up with my ex-topshop colleagues was really fun. we played guitar hero (badly) and singstar (not as badly) before skipping on down to lennons for a spot of indie disco and cheap dirty rum (or vodka in my case).

whilst there we witnessed the not so delightful sounds of ou est le swimming pool? i was offended by the casual mixing of languages without a care for proper grammar swiftly followed by their attempts to rap in a white boy styleee. which went on for a heart wrenching 20 minute set. the one amazing thing about them was the guy with who had the most amazing moustache in the world, see below pic. at times like that i wished i was a boy. however, after it was all over, i'd hazard a guess that i wasn't the only person to stop and reflect upon the question- ou est le talent?

sorry if you like them. i did try but i just can't.

when i decided to step out for air later in the evening i soon found out that the talent was definitely not in the band's tour van. i didn't do the groupie thing honestly. well not intentionally. i spoke to their driver because he looked so desperately bored and i felt sorry for him and then the band got on the van and of course it would be rude not to talk to them and then the subject of the band playing at bestival came up and i thought it would be rude not to invite myself along. unfortunately the band declined my kind offer of good company to the festival and after a good stroke of the amazing moustache, i waved as their van drove off into the distance towards the etap hotel near mcdonalds. the glam life of rock and roll.

accompanied by special cameo roles of a couple of individuals from my past and the introduction of new friends... this night was thoroughly ace fun.

friday night was even better. i spent in the company of tori amos. well, four rows away from her. but it was pretty much my dream come true. her outfit, voice and everything was just spectacular and i think i may have fallen even more in love with her if that's at all possible...

i had a fantastic dream that night about the gig but in my dream i met her and shook her hand... silly me.

on saturday i went to essex to see my uni girlfriends, kirsty, kate and jenny, to celebrate kirsty's birthday. we went to reflex and dressed in an 80s theme (as if we were from the 80s instead of 80s neon-tastic dress up if you see what i mean). fabulous time and i took home a video of kate paying homage to dolly parton. something i shall always treasure. here's a little pic of us fully appreciating the weather girls' it's raining men (minus jenny).

lovely.

then it was sunday and i spent the whole day watching back to back michael jackson videos in chronological order whilst tucking into homemade cream tea. pure bliss.

today has mostly been an admin day. phone calls, emails and letters. blah blah blah. it's nice to get back to the blogging too. more to come later this week.

grrr to them all.

i'm not usually one for online tantrums but if you can't do it on your own blog... where can you do it? today i have been dealing with prejudice. namely the prejudice that comes with being unemployed and once again becoming a student.

jobseekers allowance people have patronised me and cocked up my claim.

the receptionist in my local branch of natwest has told the whole branch my personal financial details and judged me unfairly and rather rudely... all in the omnipresence of the work experience boy.

and i have felt enraged most of the day because of these two incidents.

but i've just had lovely yummy cottage pie for dinner and i feel much more far removed from the events of the day. i have instead chosen to reflect on the loveliness and helpfulness of the admin people at UCA. they have been wonderfully ace to me today. no prejudice felt, no grudges held. nothing of the sort.

now i'm gonna get on a snazzy disco outfit and see my lovely friends for some guitar hero, singstar, cheap clubbing antics. will try to update with outfit pic if i remember before going out.

ta-ra for now.

je t'aime.

excuse the greasy hair and the messy room but please do go ahead and marvel at the dress i'm wearing. it's my mummy's from the eighties and i forgot how fricking hot it actually is.

this my dears, is what i shall mostly be wearing saturday night... and possibly every opportunity i can for the rest of my life.

world of filth.

yesterday evening turned out to be very random and loads of fun. popped down to the common with my boy to meet up with joe and katy as it was a particularly beautiful day. we put grass down joe's pants, talked about the various qualities of akon and david guetta's new single, watched a teen romance play out before our bitter, jaded twenty-something eyes and then katy mentioned reading my blog with particular mention of the blog where i am discussed finding filthy searches on my boy's iphone. hilarity ensued as we took a trip down katy's memory lane to tub girl. tub girl is a picture of a girl that i can't, or won't, fully describe. but those of you who know of the infamy of tub girl will know exactly what i am talking about.

following a brief filthy search on my boy's iphone we mosied back to joe's house to order some pizza and just hang out. unfortunately we hadn't left the filth fully behind us. joes's fully wifi equipped laptop just happened to be lying about and provided a seedy gateway to other worlds of filth namely "two girls, one cup" and "one man, one screwdriver". i refused to watch but heard everything and it really wasn't great. those who did watch went very pale and domino's pizza did not seem so very yummy anymore.

trust me you just don't want to know.

thank god the filth eventually came to an end and was replaced with some vodka and lemonade based socialising with a dash of guitar hero... full on rock band style my friend. a welcome relief from the world of filth which i don't think any of us will ever refer to ever again. well... i hope not. only in chucklesome anecdotes such as this one.

i'm getting shivers just thinking about it.

...then they woke up and it was all a dream.

today was brilliant. possibly one of the best mondays i've had in a long time. i was invited up to my old university campus (the UCA in Rochester) to meet with the course leader of the Fashion Journalism and Theory MA. i brought my portfolio, like an eager foundation art student, to an "informal discussion" where i bared my soul, hopes and dreams to the lovely man in the adidas t-shirt and jeans.

he liked my work.

for the first time in two years someone had looked at my work through the eyes of a tutor and had liked it. that was the ultimate satisfaction for me today. if nothing else had worked out well then i would have be completely high on that for the rest of the day. but then he went and offered me a place on the MA.

i felt like i might explode with happiness at that point.

i'd only gone up to talk about it and see what i could possibly do next with my life. i had never really expected to be offered a place there and then. now i have to make some grown up decisions. and only a couple of days to do it in.

i have no money but yet must find a new home and find some way of paying for my academic dreams. if anyone has any ideas let me know.

with thoughts of money pummeling my poor brain, i decided to go researching about things that have no real use to me in the grand scheme of things but things that interest me very much so none the less in the hope of distracting myself for a good hour.

nostradamus.

i have spent the last hour analysing the finer points of his prophecies that came true and those that are still yet to come true. the part about armageddon scared the bejesus out of me and now i have these little visions going over and over in my head. i'm predicting that i will be mostly having dreams of the bad kind tonight. i hope not but i'm pretty sure of it.

sweet dreams.

photographic memory.

in my fruitless search to find additional work to add to my portfolio for a semi-important meeting tomorrow, i managed to dig up a whole load of old photos from when i first discovered digital photography back in oooooh i'd say 2003/04. mostly old artwork but there were some miscellaneous categories to say the least.

looking at the photographs i can see myself but it's definitely not the myself that i know. i seem like a figment of de ja vu. i recognise myself but i don't know where from.

the people i'm with and the places that provide the backdrop to these photos seem like something from a past life.

life has a very strange and weaving path and five years down that road you're in a completely different place to where you started. yes i know i sound like some really cheesy byker grove episode but that little cd of photos really made me stop and think.

it's so exciting how things have changed so much in a relatively short space of time without me really noticing. i can't wait for what comes next.

eels + pigs.

so friday night i went to meet my boyfriend at his brothers' place. as he was faffing around with getting pizza ready for our consumption i picked up his iphone just to nosey on the internet... as you do... and up popped the google home page with a long list of searches too indescribably filthy to describe. lets just one of the searches was "girl craps eels".

this is the point that any normal girl, particularly if she hadn't been going out with her boyfriend very long, would have taken to the hills and run as fast as her grey ballet pumps could have carried her. but i'm a curious sort. and blunt with it.

upon questioning... my boyfriend crumbled extraordinarily quickly, no attempt to even make up a story (which is quite reassuring when you think about it.... anyway i digress), and informed me that some lad at work, who will remain nameless but i know who you are you filthy git, told him about a really horrible video he had seen online which matches the description as outlined two paragraphs ago. him and his brothers were searching said video on google without any success.

what boys like to do with their time really puzzles me.

currently boyfriend is sat next to me surfing his geek forum... sorry football forum... where apparently they talk about everything from relationships to which hilarious photo of a cat that looks like hitler (aka KITLER) cheers them up and a discussion of "how much bacon do you think you may have consumed in your lifetime?" ensues. apparently every topic is good as long as no-one mentions Jack Tweed, you'll be banned if you do. when i inquire into the goings on of these forums now that he knows i'm writing about it, i get met with a defensive "NOTHING!".

i'm sure that in real life it's all very boring but his defensiveness just causes me to be more and more fascinated.

time for breakfast now. bacon is on the menu.

back off boogaloo.

this just made me smile...

BACK OFF BOOGALOO
Music and lyrics by Ringo Starr
-------------------------------------------
Go! Back off boogaloo, I said, back off boogaloo, I said, back off
boogaloo.

Back of boogaloo, what ya think I'm gonna do? I got a flash right
from the start.
Wake up, meat head, don't pretend that you are dead, get yourself up
off the cart.

Get yourself together now and give me something tasty.
Everything you try to do, you know it sure sounds wasted.

Back off boogaloo, I said, back off boogaloo.
You think you're a groove, standing there in your wallpaper shoes
and your socks that match your eyes.

Back off boogaloo, I said, back off boogaloo, come on, back off
boogaloo.

Get yourself together now and give me something tasty.
Everything you try to do, you know it sure sounds wasted.

Back off boogaloo, what ya think I'm gonna do? I got a flash right
from the start.
Back off boogaloo, I said, back off boogaloo, come on, back off
boogaloo.
Back off boogaloo, I said, back off boogaloo, come on, back off
boogaloo.
Back, ba-ba-ba-back!
Back off boogaloo, I said, back off boogaloo, come on, back off
boogaloo, boo.
Back off boogaloo, I said, back off boogaloo, come on, back off
boogaloo, boo…

the gospel according to tavi.

bit obsessed with this girl's blog. she is so right on the money with almost everything. and she's only 13. i wish i had been that concise and knowledgeable at that age... or at least be as articulate as her to express how concise and knowledgeable i was at that age. more teenagers should be like her.

go. see. and love. Tavi, the style rookie.

in other news. i have had quite the productive morning. the day started with CNN and their coverage of the MJ funeral, this was accompanied by tea and toast. this was followed by checking my emails and finding a great big lovely job alert for something very nice for me. completed the horrendously long application form and this has now been sent off.

it's now quarter past two and i can smell dinner. (i'm swapping lunch and dinner around today)

it's all about sausage casserole.

following lunch (or dinner... possibly linner or dunch) i will be mostly attempting to sort out my very overcrowded wardrobe and set up some funds for some lovely new purchases. these boots are currently my object of desire.

ebay here i come.

board games + indie disco.

spent my evening in a pub with three of my close friends and my boyfriend playing southampton monopoly. it's the joys of monopoly in the context of southampton... you can actually buy the marlands.

at first it felt a little lame but we were bored and had nothing to gossip about to preoccupy us so we caved in one by one and conceded that southampton monopoly would not be an all bad activity to partake in.

i was the little westie dog (as always), katy was the thimble, joe was the "indie boot" (not quite sure what was so cool and indie about it but that's joe for you), aidan was the top hat whilst my dear richey was the iron.

in the space of two hours this small yet powerful game evoked some very strong emotions... as well as lot of gratuitous swearing at one another. katy went to jail about ten times and because of this it took her the first hour to pass go by which point there wasn't very many sites that she could buy up. but half an hour later she had landed on free parking winning over £2000 (monopoly money that is) of our taxes and house repair money. richey and aidan busted out the old "team ginger" mentality and managed to buy up the purple and green sites and built a fleet of hotels in anticipation of the rest of us poor saps landing on their sites. annoyingly enough, we always managed to skip through the danger area. joe and i had little tantrums over the brown and blue sites. i like the blue ones, i have no idea why but collecting them all in a game is the ultimate satisfaction for me, and joe tried to crush my blue dream. so i tried to crush his brown dream. we ended up trading of course.

all this time we were shouting at each other, bargaining as if our lives depended on it and calling each other the most horrid names under the sun. but we were all having a really lovely time.

the game finished when time was called. katy won. needless to say she had the last laugh.

the night was all geared up to end there but then we decided that yes we should go to the indie disco... just for one hour anyways.

i think i was stuck in my monopoly frame of mind. everything wasn't as warm and fuzzy as it had been in the pub (btw, i wasn't drinking tonight as i'm skint and driving). everything seemed very stark and cold. the cliques of indie girls and boys began to turn up in their droves. and i began to feel like an old age pensioner in comparison. this is quite a common feeling i experience nowadays, particularly at this certain indie disco. i worked out this evening that it will be nearly 9 years that i would have been going to the same place and seeing the same people. one would think that perhaps i should get out of my rut and move on, but then i'd miss out on the dancing.

one hour later, i left by myself and i left them to their disco dancing. i felt bad but all i really wanted was my bed. i know it doesn't make me trendy but i'm certainly warm and fuzzy.

what shall i do on my day off?

once upon a time when i was employed or at university (sometimes both) this would have been a question on which i would ponder over and over in my mind quite frequently. when you're at work you wish you weren't... the question of "what shall i do on my day off?" although deceptively simple is filled with enormous implications.

going back in time to when i used to work as a doormat at a certain-massive-fashion-retail-store-which-will-remain-anonymous the question appeared in my head more or less every four to six seconds of every day. as more and more of the management and customers alike walked over me and trampled my dreams of life beyond the white noise of a day at work, my plans for my day off began to have more and more implications.

if i felt drained or tired that week then the best option on my day off could potentially be to stay in bed or cosy up on the sofa with a dvd boxset (gossip girl, satc, partridge... i could take my pick). but then the implications of that would be that i would have wasted my day off so obviously the next option would be to get up off my lazy bum and do something.

doing something could entail shopping, seeing friends, perhaps visiting an art gallery or going for a picnic. what i would then choose to do would be dependent on what kind of day i have off. weekday? weekend? holiday? and then the implications continue...

but then of course i would often realise that, on my day off, i would have lots and lots of admin-esque things that i would need to catch up. which if i left them would build up and if i did then would take up half of my precious day off. so what's the point?

the implications and decisive paths i could take were enormous but usually i would end up procrastinating and feel even more pessimistic when i went back to work.

the hilarity of it is now that i'm unemployed and not at uni or really have much responsibility in my life... i have loads of time in which to do things. but now i find that i rarely do that much, or if i do i don't really tend to notice it so much. and that question no longer fills my head as it used to.

instead i'm more likely to think: "i can't wait to get back to work."

but at least i've got the time to make ample amounts of tea and fish finger sandwiches.

popping my blogging cherry.

hello to one and all.

this is my very first blog. ever. blogging has always fascinated me and was something i always wanted to do myself but never really seemed to have the time... i'd think about starting it on a weekend or perhaps on a particularly boring tuesday evening. but i never got around to it.

now as the recession weaves its very tragic path throughout the country i have become one of its victims and for one reason or another i am now one of the large group of 18-24 year olds who are not employed, in education or in training (aka NEET which would suggest that it's cool to be in this gang but it's really not.)

so i figure i have the time to start this blog. not just start this blog but make it really something that i'll enjoy and i hope others will have a nosey through.

now i'm gonna go and make it look a little prettier. watch this space. xx