Monday 18 April 2016

My Memory Museum

I've come to realise that I'm the kind of person who very much lives in the past, who hoards memories as if they're sacred.  I keep diaries, I find everything sentimental, I take bucket loads of photos and pride in having them neatly stored in my laptop.

I saw a post like this on Rookie the other day and I thought I'd make my own.  On the bottom shelf right behind me in particular, here are some of the items I've kept over the years.  Welcome to my memory museum.


Half a Friendship Necklace


I don't remember when exactly this necklace was bought, but when I was three I met my first ever best friend, and we stayed that way until I was six and my family decided to move cities.  Being practically toddlers, our friendship was very much based on our parents, who would take us on outings, plan our first ever sleepover and buy us these expensive looking, formal friendship necklaces which even came in their own boxes!


Takeaway the Glass Whale


This whale came from my first ever successful bargain ($1 off), which I was very proud of at the time.  I was probably around eight or nine, and we were in some markets in Perth.  For once our parents had let my sister, my incredibly vivacious friend and I roam around alone, and we were having lots of fun watching a glass-blowing display.  When I bought the whale it came in one of those chinese take-away noodle boxes, hence the name.  At some point that day I also broke Takeaway's tail, which I remember being quite devastated about.


Anna the Bear and the Rubber Owl


These two are remnants from birthday parties.  Anna came from a party bag of a friend I looked up to at the time, and now that I think about it, a miniature bear is a strange thing to put in a party bag...

The rubber owl I made myself at a friend's house, and to be honest, I don't quite remember anything about either of these days.


The Blue Candle


I made this candle myself at one of the many holiday programs I went to.  I remember being scared of the hot wax because I knew that if I touched it, it would sting my hand.  I guess I've kept this item because it's one of the only remnants I have left of those holiday programs, which were both a hated and loved part of my childhood.


A Pterodactyl Plaster


This is the first thing I ever really won, thanks to my dad helping me out in our school's first ever 'science day'.  If I remember correctly, my project had something to do with mammoths.  When I received this prize, I thought it was oh so valuable and a real fossil.  Now I guess it's valuable for a different reason.


A Book of Stamps


I used to collect stamps because I used to like the idea of getting letters.  It always felt so romantic, so much more real than the emails we used to send back in the day, and the stamps could come from anywhere in the world.  I liked the idea of them having been many places, having been through an entire postal system.  Plus, I could add stickers to letters.  I had this one friend from school who also collected stamps, and we decided to be pen pals.  We even made a news report about collecting stamps for one of our class projects.


Year 6 Compliments


At the very end of primary school we did my favourite activity. Basically, everyone has to write compliments about everyone, and in this case we then stuck every compliment about ourselves onto a big piece of poster paper.


Kanye West Glasses


In my first year of high school our house music theme was Kanye West.  House music is this thing my school does where each house makes up a themed dance routine and on the day we all perform in the hall, and it's really really loud.  These glasses were part of the costume.


A Box of Polaroids


For my 15th birthday a bunch of my friends chipped in to buy me a polaroid camera.  I used it a lot in the first summer, and sporadically from then onwards.  Every single polaroid, Photo Booth strip and printed photo I've taken since then is in this box.


A Wall of Movie Tickets


At some point in the last two years I began collecting my movie tickets.  Now, looking at the movie titles, I remember each movie, how it made me feel and who I went to see it with.  There's A Royal Night Out, which I saw with my mum and sister, and while it was supposed to be a happy movie, it made me sink into this bittersweet depression.  There's The Visit, which I saw with TN and made us laugh and joke about being scared of old people.  There's Ted 2, which is the first movie I saw with a boy.  And there's Batman vs Superman, which is the most recent movie I watched 3 days ago.  It's funny how much my mood can fluctuate in 3 days.


The Somersby Visor


We were eating at these food trucks when it started pouring, and just for the heck of it we thought it'd be a good idea to run out into the rain.  It was.  We found this pile of green visors abandoned in one of those construction crates, so we stole four and put them on.  Although at first, being wet means you're cold, after a while you get used to it and suddenly you feel. so. free.


Blinky Bill Ears


This was one of those more novice days at work when I first met A.  It was one of those days where I felt sort of like I belonged there.  We decided to put on some of these free promotional ears and I remember her trying to get some of the boys to put them on too.


A Blue Corsage


Because I like the idea of keeping dead flowers from a dance already passed.


So last night I went down to the garage because I've wanted to read Little Women for a few days now - since I watched Joey reading it on Friends - and, well, let's just say it took a while to find it.  Our garage is filled with boxes of stuff we haven't used in around ten years.  My mum has six boxes of books alone, and right on top I found some old musical and concert programs.


To be honest, I think I belong to a family of hoarders.

Love,
M

Thursday 14 April 2016

Introvert Extrovert Identity?

After spending, for the first time in a long time, almost two full days at home with no company, I am driving myself a little insane.  This lethargic feeling seems to set over me every time I put on my track pants and glasses.  I slouch a little more and the days I were intending to make productive suddenly become full of lying around with what could almost be a buzzing headache.

It's unhealthy how difficult it is for me to forget the outside world.  Can I really say I have no company if I send out a wave of snapchats every hour or so, or if I obsessively check to see if a friend has texted back to confirm some plan or another?  Am I really spending time with myself if I dwell on whatever happened at work a day or a week or a month ago?  When I'm home alone, the days go by so slowly.

I've heard this before and I heard it again last night while reading some feel-good teen flick book: Extroverts get their energy from being around other people, and introverts get their energy from spending time alone.  So what does that make me?

I love people.  I really do.  I wouldn't call them energy-filling though.  You see, talking to people is also so exhausting - how do I make them like me!??  Or as the post my friend tagged me in the other day said,

What do we want?
"External validation!"
When do we want it?
"Constantly!"

And that is exactly what makes communicating with others so exhausting, this feeling of caring way way too much about what they think.  And then when I get home I think about what I've said that day over and over again, and I read into how well I connected with particular people as if it's my fault if we didn't make that connection.

At the same time though, people seem to be what it takes for me to be flying high on happiness.  Give me one good conversation and suddenly I'm motivated to do anything.  I will go home and do my maths homework, or practice my piano, or be super nice to my parents for a change.  Being alone could never do that for me.  So is this an extrovert thing or does this happen to everybody?

So about 15 minutes ago, I was rubbing my forehead while looking at a seemingly simple maths problem I could not be bothered to correct, and then I slid the textbook off to the side and basically gave up, which is something I would never do if I weren't so drained right now.  And now here I am writing a random post on a whim and it's supposed to be about identity because that's what I was thinking about in the shower last night and I really wanted to write a post on it but now I can't remember what I was thinking about.

It linked back to the whole introvert, extrovert thing - I swear it did.

Oh yeah, it had to do with how I watched a TED talk the other day where this actress talked about losing her sense of self to be happy - and she described what 'self' actually was - which is complicated.  I don't think any of us really knows our 'self'.  How do you even define it?  Is it by your culture, or by what you like doing, or what you're good at, or the big one... What other people think of you.

That was how it linked back to the whole extrovert thing.  How can you be an extrovert if you have social anxiety?  If you're an extrovert, would it be better to forget your sense of self to be happy?  Because if your sense of self is based on what other people think of you, and how close you are with them - because people are your life - and this is the cause of so much worry and dwelling, then maybe forgetting what they think of you would make you happier?

And then would you become an introvert?  Because suddenly you're home alone and you've forgotten about the outside world and you can watch movies and do your maths homework in peace, and rather than your phone being beside you on your desk, it's now downstairs where you can't hear it buzz.

But I reckon, if you're an extrovert you're an extrovert.  Either way, being alone will make you slouch and lie around in bed all day, whether you're thinking about other people or not.  Sometimes good company is all we want, and that's okay.  Being happier may be about being carefree and hence less socially strained and awkward, but that doesn't necessarily mean introverts don't care either.  Introverts aren't necessarily happier than extroverts.

I think I just need some company already.

Love,
M

Saturday 9 April 2016

Recent Discoveries

Movies, writing, music, anything with any sort of content; I use all this to give me some kind of purpose, some kind of opinion since apparently I'm too indecisive to create my own, to procrastinate all the stuff I probably should be doing.  And now that the holidays are here, I have even more time to discover.

Here's a little list of material that has recently come to light.


CHVRCHES


I stumbled across THIS VIDEO when I was reading a list of 'the best music videos this year so far or something', containing songs such as Formation and Youth, and I immediately decided that I needed to download this song.  It was just the perfect level of upbeat, and the girl is really really pretty in an unconventional or possibly too conventional way, and her voice is so appealing for some reason.  And then I realised that I liked the song not for it's lyrics or anything specific, but simply because I liked the sound of it, which is why I decided to search up more songs by the same band, and have now decided that I really like their music.


Frankie


Apparently THIS MAGAZINE is well-known by a lot of people in my demographic and age group, but somehow I didn't know about it.  The first time I heard about it was in a passing conversation last Monday night, and the second time was yesterday when the girl on the plane next to me pulled an issue out and started reading.  I spotted an article much like one I would read on Rookie over her shoulder, and after she let me spend the flight reading the issue, I knew that I had found a magazine perfectly targeted to people like me, which is exactly what I need.


Some Kind of Wonderful


This is what happens when you become so hooked on chick flicks that you've watched them all and have resulted in obsessively waiting for new ones to come out and watching ones from the 80's (seeing as you've also seen all the 90's ones as well).  I've always loved the idea of being a tom boy, one of the guys - even though I know that I am almost the exact opposite - so when I watched the trailer for this movie, and heard it being mentioned in movies such as He's Just Not That Into You, I knew I would end up watching it one day.  It was over-the-top stereotypical, as most 80's teen movies are, which makes it incredibly unrealistic.  But all the same, it made me feel really really happy at the end.


from The Perks of Being a Wallflower


I knew this book existed before, and I even watched the movie, but back then I didn't like anything that wasn't clean cut and 'normal'.  Now that I'm older and wiser, I decided to try giving the book a chance.  The book has so many references to songs off playlists, and books that Bill gives Charlie to read.  Considering that every part of the book seems to have some kind of meaning, I assume the material used must have some kind of meaning too.  I haven't actually discovered these myself yet, but here's a list from the book that you may want to discover for yourself:


The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (which I actually have discovered and can say is very good)

It's a Wonderful Life - a very well-known movie I haven't seen
Dead Poets Society (which is a movie I remember as being good but don't remember very much of.  I think some guy commits suicide for some stupid reason)


Love,
M