Holidays are Coming

As I mentioned in my last post, I am a total Ebenezer Scrooge when it comes to Christmas (parents telling me they're getting divorced on Christmas Day blah blah blaaaah), but two things have made me change my mind about the holidays today: Tolkien and Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Trucks are like the epitome of television seasonal cheer, and the drink itself is like the nectar of the Gods, so I was ridiculously happy to get to see one of the trucks in person. The queue was like seventy thousand hours long though so I didn't get to see whatever it was that was happening. Although judging by the many littered tiny cans of Coke on the floor, I guess it was that.

Coke does sit pretty highly on the list of things I love (as lame as that is), but one of the few things that I love more than this is Lord of the Rings, so when I found out that the Christmas Grotto in Hull this year was Hobbit themed I was pretty stoked.  However, I then discovered that their idea of 'Hobbit Themed' means claiming that their robotic elves are Hobbits, building something that barely looks passable as a Hobbit house and then using the normal stuff from previous years for the rest of it.  You can even see an elf stood in the background... and it's not even one of the cool kind from Rivendell.  But it's still enough to hold me over until the film comes out. And I got to see a little fast food cart that was also Tolkien themed that I lamely posed in front of like a total tourist.  And in a total Marilyn moment, albeit not as glamorous, I'm clutching my hat like my life depends on it because it is ridiculously windy out right now and I was stood next to large quantities of water.  I think if I lost that baby I think I would cry, because it is the only thing that hides my hair, the winner of the Flattest Hair in the World Award.

Because I don't want two posts in a row on this blog about Christmas, I'll slyly switch the theme back to the true love of my life, shooooppiiiiiiiiiing. After reading Rachel's blog and hearing about these weird Primark tights, I figured I'd brave the the depths of utter terror that is Primark and have a search for them. As expected, I didn't find them. Though I did get two pairs of different tights that look like part of a school uniform and then four pairs of socks that I'm planning to wear over tights with skirts and boots and look totez adorbz. I also saw this amazing rucksack that I'm definitely regretting not buying... maybe Primark isn't as bad as I've always made out? First New Look and now this, what has become of me?  To round this up I'll sum up what I was wearing... even though this wasn't supposed to be an outfit post so you'll have to imagine the bottom half of me.  The usual leopard print chelsea boots from Topshop, black tights from anywhere lulzzz, black skater skirt from Miss Selfridge, leopard print bralet from Miss Selfridge, sheer black and gray stripey jumper from New Look, oversized black cardigan from Topshop, spiked Topshop necklace, black and tan TARDIS (srsly) bag from Next, stripey fingerless Topshop gloves, the infamous Topshop black bowler hat and the greatest coat in the universe, my Miss Selfridge boyfriend coat.  BEST FASHION BLOGGER EVER, am I right?

her best days will be some of my worst

I have the weirdest feeling in the pit of my stomach right now, but it's not, like... a bad feeling?  It's sorta like when you're first in mutual like with someone and you catch yourself off guard thinking about them and you get those butterflies and feel all happy.  Or something.  But I'm not currently in this happy little pre-relationship stage, I've been in a relationship for over two years now, so I started racking my brain and trying to think about what is giving me all the little happy feelings I'm currently experiencing.  And I think it's the weather, or more to the point, the colour of the sky.  Or lack of colour.  I mean, it's like five o'clock and I'd say it's ninety percent complete darkness already and all the windows down my street have this cozy little orange glow beaming out of the windows and apparently this is making me excited or something?  I don't think it's anything to do with Christmas, I'm not particularly one to absorb seasonal joy and I'm a total Scrooge when it comes to festive cheer.  So either I'm changing my humbug ways or I'm just looking forward to mugs of green tea and onesies and spending my days doing absolutely nothing and terrible television.  And presents.

I'm not sure why I came to document this here, I guess I used to post a lot about butterfly-ey-boy-ey feelings on here back in the '08 (long since deleted) and just wanted to come full circle.  So to take this away from an unnecessarily early Christmas themed post, I'll post this N-Dubz cover of The Man Who Can't Be Moved that I've been listening to nonstop recently.  Totes festive, amirite?  I've also been listening to a lot of Jason Donovan, but I'm pretty sure I've already blogged about my unnatural attraction to him before.  Maybe one day I'll make a playlist to demonstrate just how terrible my taste in music actually is.  Or maybe not as it might make your ears bleed.

be a filter, not a sponge

You know when you have those days that just get to you?  I just couldn't bring myself to leave my bed this morning, leading me to ignore every alarm and request from my boyfriend to get up. I didn't have anywhere to be until 3:20 and I needed to ease myself into this life of routine at a slow pace.  When I did finally set off, without breakfast or coffee, I almost collapsed by the time I reached campus. I guess whenever I joked about walking to uni being my only exercise, I was actually being serious?  A slightly depressing thought, but I'll manage. It was walking back that was the hard part though; I managed to get drenched by the rain, stand in multiple puddles and get a blister on each of my ankles. After recovering with a cheese panini, Vitamin Water and Torchwood in bed, I returned to my own house only to be greeted by a paper cut. Green Tea in my favourite Hanna-Barbera mug is yet to fix this day.  I think that sometimes lots of little bad things have more of an impact on your mental health than one horrific event.  And although I promised myself I would start doing something university related tonight, and not rereading my old favourite The Perks of Being a Wallflower, it's looking more likely that sweatpants and BBC iPlayer will be my calling.

I'm Still Breathing

After all those melodramatic posts leading up to my 20th birthday, I never did actually follow anything up to confirm that no one found me on the morning of my birthday hanging from my bedroom's light fixture with that skull scarf from Germany that I blogged about.  I'm still alive, in case you haven't guessed... or maybe that's a lie and I'm writing this from BEYOND THE GRAVE, either way, you haven't gotten rid of me yet.  This isn't to say that I got over my fears of being an adult, quite the contrary, every once in a while when I haven't kept busy enough I get this sinking feeling in my stomach and my pulse starts racing and I realise that I'm probably going nowhere in my life.  But this blog isn't supposed to be about me complaining, it is supposed to be about documenting my MEANINGLESS and PATHETIC little life on the Internet (balls... did it again).

So I start my final year of university next week.  Well, the welcome and introductory lectures start... and to be honest I'm already planning to skip two of them.  We're onto a great start, folks.  I am gonna try a bit harder with the literature side of my degree this year though, although judging by the reading list on my Contemporary Fiction module that might be easier said than done.  Anyway, I've probably been watching too much Awkward, seeing as I've deluded myself into thinking you people actually care about my life.  But I don't have two super-attractive-and-clearly-older-than-sixteen-year-old-boys in love with me (I'm totally Team Jake, by the way).  I do have a headache though, which is clearly just as enthralling and would make an excellent television sitcom.  Hit me up, MTV.  Bleh, I'm totally off topic... not that this post actually had one to begin with or anything.  But I guess we've come full circle now, back to my uncontrollable pessimism about my existence.  I'll leave you with a picture of what I wore to see Brave this evening, in grayscale to represent the inner torments of my soul.

(Topshop: skinny jeans, oversized denim jacket, hat; New Look: jumper; Thrifed: military rucksack)

Also, I wasn't that impressed by it, if anyone wants a film student's opinion on it... which I doubt.  I'm pretty sure that Animation History class I took last semester kinda ruined Pixar for me a bit.  That, and the accents reminded me of How To Train Your Dragon too much, which I think is greatest animated film of all time... even more so than Ice Age 3.  The naaaaaaaaaaame's Buck, short for Buckminster, long for BUUUUUUH.

Laaaaaateeeeeer.

End of Teenage Years Panic Attack

In case you haven't been paying attention to what I've been complaining about for the past few months, I turn twenty in five days and I'm having a little bit of a breakdown as I inherited a horrible case of Peter Pan Syndrome from my dad.  Since I came to terms with the fact I won't be able to travel back in time or delay my inevitable ageing, I'm trying to focus on everything else I hate about myself.  I've pretty much gone on a HEALTH KICK WOOOOO in which I've cut out my daily Coca-Cola and stopped eating bread and dairy and in its place I'm drinking lots of water and trying new fruit and things :3 It's pretty fun.  I'm also attempting to walk ~*~just for the fun of it~*~ and I may even invest in a treadmill if I decide I like it... but that's pretty much just so I can watch Netflix at the same time and also because my mother thinks I'll get raped outside.

Not to worry though, I'll be in London for Summer in the City in August and the YouTube gathering diet is the most effective weight loss tool you can ask for.  One meal a day and lots of walking for three days?  Sure, why not?

July Wish List: 20th Birthday Edition

I turn twenty at the end of this month, so to stop myself from crying about being a ~*~proper grownup~*~ every night/morning at five am, I resorted to stalking the Topshop website to remind myself about the only good thing birthdays bring: presents!  I always have bad luck on my birthdays, so I cling to the hope of presents to make it all feel better.  In addition to all of this, there was a gorgeous army jacket that seems to have sold out within a day... much like the gorgeous vintage Disney backpack I wanted before my stupid iPad didn't send me the notification to say it was ending on eBay.  Waaaah.  Anyway, I leave you with this very, uh, khaki inspired wish list which makes me wish that I didn't throw out the gorgeous camouflage print skinny jeans I got from Zara Kids when I was thirteen.  At least it's a change from the pastel obsession I've being suffering from since January.  Birthday presents appreciated and all that jazz.

I know this is bound to go down as the big one.

I've been dressing quite brightly at the moment, as in wearing clothes that aren't entirely black, which is a big deal for me. I'm not sure if it's because we had a brief spell of summer or if I was subconsciously acting like a Eurovision contestant (side note: how did Russia or Ireland not win, I mean what the fuck, Sweden?). Nonetheless, I figured I'd share some of my outfits over the past two weeks or so with you... there would be more but I haven't exactly left the house much recently.

Topshop: VECTRA shoes, Jamie jeans, denim shirt, skull necklace and biker jacket.  Miss Selfridge: Leopard bralet and studded belt.  Beasley's Hull: canvas satchel.

Topshop: oversized sleeveless shirt, the scarf was from Germany and the glasses were my mother's.

Topshop: oversized ombre peace tank top, skull crop top.  Vintage Levi's: high waisted shorts

Topshop: crop top, pastel skull necklace, tan belt.

Topshop: oversized skull tank top, canvas bag, jewellery.

What we have learn from this, other than knowing I wear a lot of Topshop is that I seem to have a skull fetish because there is one in every single outfit.

I wooooon't give up the fight for yoooou.

I'm not sure where this strange love of Jason Donovan came from but I'm not complaining. I have an essay which I haven't started in on the 28th and an exam I haven't finished revising for on the 29th, so life is going greaaaaaat. It's kinda hard to motivate myself into writing an essay when I know I only need a 55 to come out with a 2:1 in that module, and my other assignments in that class have been 63 and 68. Bleeeeeh, the Restoration is super interesting and everything but I don't really like writing about it all that much. Also, I'm ill, as usual. But this is the first time in a while actually. I don't know what I expected, as soon as it looks like summer my body breaks down and runs away and, as my Facebook feed has informed me, it definitely feels like summer right now. But nope, when I want to be revising in a park with an icepop I'm stuck shivering in bed with copious amounts of nose gunk, ringing ears and a bipolar temperature. Oh, and season two of Gossip Girl which I'm still rewatching. Jenny was badass.

My boyfriend is playing some zombie game on Skype right now so I'm using that as an excuse not to study whilst I write this blog. My original intentions for which were not to complain about my university life but to write about a list of things I'm looking forward to when I finally finish next week. I move back home sometime in July, so I'm planning on making the most of living in a place 'bursting with character and individuality' (but then again, this is Hull so that probably means people with mental health issues and screaming Polish people). Last summer I saw an ice cream cart with the Grim Reaper painted on the front, so I really want to get something from there. I also want to buy a fishing net and go the park and show the little children how it's done. There's also my plan of getting a Cosmopolitan from every cocktail bar I see and scoring them all because, well, I like them. So really I don't have that much planned to last me a month and a half, but whatever, I need something to hold on to before I implode.

Now, in the immortal words of my queen:

You know you love me
xoxo
Gossip Girl

(which reminds me, I'm running away to York to have a day with the gay best friend, the one that's not a lesbian, at some point-- he is the real Gossip Girl)

Topshop Wishlist

Since I started my second year of uni, I've gone a bit over the top when it comes to shopping. I don't know if it's something to do with me having my own house (or more importantly, a whole new wardrobe to fill) but something in me just snapped this year and I want to cry a little bit when I think about how much I've spent. Nonetheless, I've been resisting these horrible urges recently and saving my money to do something more worthwhile this summer than dressing nicely. But just because I'm not buying clothes, doesn't mean I can't still indulge myself in the Topshop website, and seen as I won't be wearing these clothes (who am I kidding? I'll probably buy at least three of them) I want to showcase them somewhere in my life. Forgive my horrible attempt at making one of these, it's my first time.

(L-R: Slit Back Chiffon Shirt £36, Blue Acid Wash Backpack £34, VECTRA4 Canvas Studded Slippers £28, Peace Buckle Skinny Belt £12, Petite Lurex Skater Dress £38, Petite Curve Hem Tank £10)

Also these babies which I forgot to put in even though they were what inspired me to make the list in the first place. I told you I'm bad at this.

AMELIE Studded Zip Side Boots £80

Who needs food, right?

My one true love, television.

As a university student, I am fond of television for two reasons. The first reason is because I'm a film student and I've tricked myself into thinking it classes as studying, but the main reason is because I have absolutely no self discipline and think that revising for ten minutes equals forty minutes of TV. And as much as I love this glorious medium, every year at this time the gods of television laugh at me from above whilst they choose to have the season finales of everything I love within one week of each other. It's as if they are conspiring against me, actually wanting me to revise for my exams or something. Pffft. So, in bitter retaliation and an attempt to procrastinate even further, I give you an account of my week dealing with tearing apart of my heart away after every episode I watch.

Desperate Housewives: I'll begin with this not only because it was the first show I watched this week, but because it wasn't just a season finale but a series finale. These never treat me well and I still don't think I'll ever get over what Lost did to me. But nonetheless, I persevered for two hours knowing that I'd either be very happy or very angry (either way, I knew I'd be a blubbering mess). As this is a spoiler free zone, I won't say why or when I cried, but I did. A lot. I will say though, that in usual series finale fashion, the ending was the tackiest thing I have possibly ever witnessed on television. Good lord.

Tear-o-meter: 7/10

Once Upon A Time: Because this was the first season and I only really got into watching it at all a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't expecting to be very emotionally affected by this one, and I wasn't. It was painstakingly cliché and so, so rushed. They either needed it to be longer than forty minutes or shouldn't have resolved as much. Seriously, with a series long build up I expected to actually witness the solution the first time around without having to rewind it thinking "... wait, did I just miss what I thought I did?" They made it perfectly obvious there will be a second season though, although the cliffhanger wasn't particularly good enough to make me scream at the screen that it couldn't do that to me, which happens more often than not. Still, I got involved with a lot of the characters in this and was really happy how things turned out for them.

What-did-I-just-watch-o-meter: 5/10

Gossip Girl: Now that is what I call a season finale. Don't judge me on watching this okay, I'm obsessed. As much as I hate the word 'ship', my love of Chuck and Blair is the closest thing that could ever be classified as such a thing. It's only been three days and I miss it so much that I've started watching the first season again when I was only planning to watch the pilot. I'm very interested to see how the next season plays out, since I've heard it's only going to be a small one and they left so many loose ends. Well, to my taste, anyway. My only problem is that they are insistent with this Ivy/Lola storyline, so I hope the last season doesn't focus on them too much, I only really care about how things turn out for the original few and I'd love for them to bring Jenny back.

Holy-fuck-yes-yes-this-is-so-good-o-meter: 8/10

How I Met Your Mother: My love for this show came out of nowhere, especially when I usually hate the sitcom format. My beliefs of the sitcom have been kinda reconfirmed with this past season though and I think I've only enjoyed like two episodes. Even with the last episode being longer than usual, I still don't think they did the earlier seasons any justice. I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHO THE MOTHER IS OKAY? That bit with Ted was just horrible, because we know she's not the mother. Also, I'm all for a bit of foreshadowing but that revealing the bride bit was ridiculous, the conversation with Barney not even two minutes before made it obvious who the bride was going to be even before the camera pan. Pretty much a waste of a season, if you ask me.

I-could-write-better-shit-than-this-o-meter: 7/10

Welp, I guess I have a couple more weeks of excruciating emptiness until True Blood and Pretty Little Liars return to me. Unless I oblige by the annual tradition of re-watching Digimon. No television, no Netflix and no social life... it's hard to be me.

Subcultures that captured my heart ~*~AND MY SOUUUUL~*~

Inspired by a blogpost on Sibby's blog, I travelled to the depths of my old Photobucket account to see what subcultures I'd been apart of throughout my teenage years. Incase you can't tell, I am not looking forward to turning twenty in July. But then again, when I see these pictures, sometimes I think it might be a good thing.

Shortly after my thirteenth birthday I was overcome with the desire to dye my hair red. My mother was happy to oblige because it wasn't that girl from Paramore or some other teenage idol that inspired me... it was Bree from Desperate Housewives. Whilst I am sure there are probably some pictures of me with this hair colour in the depths of the Internet somewhere, I can not find any. Anyway, the only reason I mention this is because my head of year in year nine hated me more than was probably legal, like she made it perfectly obvious she detested me. And this was all because she was a PE teacher and I struggled to run for thirty seconds before claiming a heart attack. Long story short, after countless weeks of arguing ("I did dye it, it just didn't work") I was forced into dying my hair black to save myself from expulsion. There was a girl in my school who did liquid gold and 'ruined' a chair in the maths department, so my school attacking me over a hair colour clearly shows where its priorities where. Nonetheless, my reaction to this forced hair colour was to give myself over to the dark side, literally, and trade my previous ~*~super kawaii~*~ style (think granny cardigans, lensless glasses and neon hair bows) for the attire of a funeral attendee. Thus, thirteen year old emo Rosy (and her unruly block fringe) was born. Note: click the picture, I seem to have been cropped out of my own blog, thanks Blogger.

What I like about this picture is the two other girls in it identified as goths, but we still looked exactly the same. Teenage originality at its finest.

When I was about fourteen the black dye had finally started to fade and at the same time, thanks to the wonders of Myspace, I had the discovered the art of the scene kid. Now I never actually managed to perfect this and to this day I blame my mother. Peroxide hair was a must for this subculture uniform ("if you wanna rebel, look like me"), but my mother was very much against letting me ruin my hair at such a young age, so the compromise was that I was allowed to bleach chunks of my hair blonde as long as I stayed away from having to dye my roots every month. I thought I would be sneaky and dye more and more of it until I was fully blonde, which kinda worked, but it took a year.

I was quite content with hair bows, skinny jeans (I was the first of my friends to get skinny jeans at age thirteen, still proud of that) and Nike Dunks for about two years. Being a wannabe scene kid was probably the subculture that held my attention for the longest, even though I seem to have reverted into my twelve/thirteen year old self recently with my love of black and studding everything I own. I attempted to have a brief experience with indie culture, but that literally lasted about two months before I got really bored of cardigans and the colour teal. Before I became a total slave to Topshop at sixteen (still ongoing by the way, I need help), I finally achieved the peroxide bleach hair I'd craved for so long. I don't know what made my mother finally give in, I just asked when I was fifteen and she agreed. I mean, I had to be ginger for a couple of weeks and when I finally got my white hair I knew I looked like Patrick Starr (I was pink), but I refused to get rid of it. I had worked hard for that hair. I don't remember when it stopped being ice blonde, it seems to have happened gradually until I realised my hair was the horrible ash colour I seem permanently stuck with now. But this was when my four year obsession with Myspace seemed to die and before I decided to grow my hair out for the first time since I was twelve.

It seemed like my teenage fashion sense was more fickle than this when I planned to write this post. I also couldn't find a picture from when I had a pink and blue fringe at age, what I think was, fifteen. All I've come to realise from this post is that 1) I'll do anything instead of revision and 2) I like to think I'm super fashionable and above all of this now but the Star Wars shirt I'm wearing would have been ripped off me by fourteen year old Rosy if she was given the chance (mmmm, time travel incest, niiiice).

Well... that went well.

So that last post was a lie... ooops. Nonetheless, it's exam/essay season and I will do anything to procrastinate so here I am, crawling back. I figured that this is the place I used to come to be whiney so I might as well do that again for a little bit because right now I feel like I'm wasting my life, y'know, the usual stuff. I really regret not doing a more vocational degree, one where you actually learn skills rather than just learning for the sake of learning. I'm not sure how much of this literary and cinema criticism will help me later in life, it just seems like learning for the sake of learning. This time next year, I'll be just about finishing off my final essays and wanting to cry and deteriorating into nothingness and I get scared just thinking about it. Princeton from Avenue Q said it best: 'what do you do with a BA in English? Also film... I guess even the puppet had better life prospects than me. I've always said I wanted to write (although I hate actually declaring that on the Internet because I don't want to be included in that group of fourteen year olds who use the xD emoticon and talk using .gifs) and even though the medium of what I want to write has changed over the years, I still really like the idea of doing that. Although I can't tell if that's just because it's the only thing I'm actually good at or if I genuinely enjoy it enough to devote my entire life to it. Part of me wants to run away and work in a Coyote Ugly-esque bar, part of me wants to work my way up a magazine starting from intern to fashion editor and part of me just wants to marry rich and surround myself with an army of pugs and cats. Whichever of those I decide to do, I should probably start this essay on South Park first.

You drive us wild, we'll drive you craaaazy.

Oh, fuck. Look, I'm gonna be totally honest with you. I forgot about this blog. Last night, at 4am when I was just drifting off to sleep, I suddenly remembered about it. I then spent the next half an hour obsessively googling until I remembered the URL and then another half hour reading the nearly two years worth of posts I had on it. I came to the conclusions that 1) I was ridiculously whiney and annoying and just sdadjkdjskd and 2) my Internet life was significantly more social back in the day. I posted a lot about wanting a cat so I guess I should clarify that I got one of those and he's the best. I also seemed to be waging a war with myself on whether I should do an English degree or not and two years later I can safely say that I made the wrong choice. The plan is to hopefully come back to this blog, I'd like to say I've managed to stick with one of the many social networks I started in 2008 since my illicit affair with YouTube was clearly not meant to be. Nonetheless, I think we have a good thing going here, Blogger. I mean, if you can put up with self indulgent fashion posts that is. Other than rekindling our long lost love, this year I would very much like to achieve:

1) A 2:1 in my second year of uni.
2) Stop being blonde because four years is really enough but I'm just too scared
3) Give metaphorical CPR to my wreck of a social life.
aaaaand
4) Stab Topshop and its evil brain controlling ways in its evil brain controlling head.

I hope this was a decent enough comeback post and that I don't forget about you again within the next two weeks. I start university again on Monday so hopefully my WOO OH YEAH I'M GONNA BE SO GOOD THIS SEMESTER WOOOOO attitude will continue over to le old blog if I convince myself that it is 'networking'. Yeah. Let's see how this goes, shall we?