Wednesday 29 June 2016

A Bedroom Grows

After watching this really interesting documentary (CLICK HERE), I thought back to all the different phases my bedroom has been through.  A bedroom really is a reflection of personality.  The objects kept show what the inhabitant holds as special, what they're interested in; the room decoration gives the person a certain vibe.  My bedroom, is not, by any means, super tumblr or exotic or hipster.  In fact, it's quite understated and random.  I just find it interesting - all the little eurekas of room decor I carried through, or the drastic change in furniture at the beginning of this year.

So let's start in 2012.  That was the year 12 year old me put up the giant M collage on her door.  I don't have any photos of it, so let me paint a picture for you: At the very top of this door was a little paper-made wheel with four options; 'please knock', 'stay out', 'no boys allowed' and 'come in'.  It was coloured in with four different coloured pencils and each word was written in messy bubble letters.  Underneath this wheel was the huge collage consisting mainly of quotes, a couple of memes, photos of Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, and photos of cheezels and pringles and other logos of stuff that I really liked.  All these photos were printed on paper, cut out and blue-tacked onto the door in the shape of a giant M.

This was probably my favourite quote at the time:


and here's one of the memes I used to find exceptionally funny:


*****

Describing my room in 2013, it was pretty much exactly the same as it was in 2012.  My door was still exactly the same.  I was having arguments with my mum about the corner of my room she had claimed to store an old doll house, a box of barbies and a stocking full of stuffed animals.  My room had it's fair share of stuffed animals anyway though.

I had these two shelves, filled with the book series I was obsessed with at the time: Divergent, The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments, and a bottom shelf full of notebooks and diaries.  On top of these shelves were laid bandanas from the zoo holiday programs in red, blue and yellow, and on top of these bandanas sat all the stuffed animals I couldn't bring myself to throw away.  By this age I had grown out of them and was slightly ashamed, but I kept them there because I couldn't bear to have them gone.  Somewhere inside me I thought that they had hearts and souls too, and that they deserved to be cared for.  That's what watching Toy Story does to you.

I remember I started becoming more organised as well.  I have this 3x3 pigeon hole shelf thing where I would categorise each compartment.  I wrote labels in blue texta for both this and my two bookshelves, and stuck them on each bottom ledge with blue tack.

*****

2014 was when all the drawings came up.  That was the year I started to sketch things in lead pencil, rather than the cartoony looking people I had drawn prior.  Back then I didn't have a sketch book and I no longer used my folder entitled "M's Drawings", so every time I finished a drawing I would hang it on my wall.



As you can see I was still very much into books.

*****

When we got back from Malaysia in 2015, I had decided to have a major room makeover.  I was very into pineapples at the time.


I had started using the polaroid camera my friends had given me for my birthday, so I made a string of polaroids, with pineapple pegs of course.


Above these polaroids were some DIY painted quotes.


Adding to the tumblr-ness of this room, I also added fairy lights that didn't stay up for very long.



Then there was the top of my shelf, which I finally cleared of the stuffed animals, which left me more space for other things.


The drawings also came down and were replaced by the inconvenient sticky notes instead.


This sticky note wall was forever changing.  When I realised that I wasn't updating my to-dos and to-be-reads, I decided to put up hand-written quotes instead.


And then it was the massive collage, which I made straight after tearing down the M on my door, which was way overdue.


*****

At the beginning of 2016, my parents decided to take a trip to IKEA.  I was going into Year 11 so I needed a new desk to replace the old, tiny, messy one I had at the time.  While there, we also bought two new bookshelves, double the size of the two mentioned earlier.  This obviously changed up the layout of my room.

As well as this, my giant collage was torn down, replaced with paintings bought in Italy and little things from previous adventures found on the bottom of my shelf, where all my memories were kept and are still kept.  That's one thing about my room that has never changed.






As you can see, one toy didn't get the cut




 So, how has your room changed over time?

Love,
M




Tuesday 7 June 2016

I recommend you click on these

It's a Tuesday and my final and hardest test begins at 11:15am tomorrow, yet here I am blogging instead of studying.  It's spontaneous and at a majorly inconvenient time as usual.  I can't even think straight because my sister is playing the trumpet in her bedroom next door.

Anyway, here's a post full of lovely reads and obsessions and stuff worth seeing.


A Girl's Guide to the Internet

Oh my lord, this was a good piece.  CLICK HERE to read about this ambiguous thing we call the internet.  Here's a little sneak peak:
No one checks your Facebook profile as much as you do.  The internet is basically a person standing alone in a huge, mirrored room looking at endless reflections of themselves.
It also says this thing about how you, in a way, don't exist if you're not on social media.  Based on the amount of time we spend looking at who's tagged in what in our feeds, or snapchatting people because we're bored - often the people who enter our minds are the ones present in our phones.  I've forgotten all those people I once knew in primary school who don't have social media, yet I remember all the ones who do, who I follow or befriend online.  But in a way it also doesn't matter, because these people I'm talking about are distant in my past and probably shouldn't be wasting my time, entering my mind.  So in a way, all this social media business is about creating a nice narcissistic little profile for yourself so that other people will remember you.


And now my sister is playing 'I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream' or whatever song those lyrics came from.  I can practically hear Aurora singing them in my head and it's driving me crazy.


To JK Rowling, from Cho Chang


Watch this video to listen to the best slam poem you will probably ever hear.  Asians in mainstream media is an idea that has been entering my mind a lot lately.  As I've grown older, I've begun to find answers as to why I spent years of my life unknowingly resentful of my cultural identity.  Looking the way I do, of course I've encountered people who assume things about me before they've even met me, based upon stereotypes of people who look like me.  In fact, with the nuances of my life being affected by these stereotypes on a daily basis, I've become very familiar with them.  I've even unknowingly gotten into the habit of seeing other people of my race with the exact same assumptions based on stereotypes, which makes me a hypocrite.  I need to fix that.  And where do you think these stereotypes came from?  The media of course.  There's never an Asian in the media, and whenever there is, they're always served in the form of a big fat stereotype.


Update: My sister has finally stopped, which means I have no excuse to not be studying, but whatever...


The Old Disney Channel


Okay, I know this isn't really a link, but I've been weirdly obsessed lately.  Check out THIS ACCOUNT on Instagram (@childhoodmemorie.s) and you'll see what I mean.  Back in the day, Hannah Montana, the Suite Life of Zac and Cody, Wizards of Waverley Place, That's So Raven, H2O Just Add Water, Sonny With a Chance and a whole bunch of other shows were such an important part of my life.  And now, five years later, I just want to watch it all again.  I want to live it all again.  They were truly good shows and I don't understand how I was able to forget them so easily for so long.  I don't think you can ever grow out of good memories.


KAWANI

Okay, so this girl who used to go to my school is a model, and she shared this link on Facebook of an article she was featured in, called 'Up and Coming Australian Models' or something like that.  One of the girls in the article was this girl Kawani (CLICK HERE for her Instagram) and she is honestly gorgeous.  It's weird because I see this girl who used to go to my school, and this girl Kawani, and they're the same age as me except they're also models who see themselves on walls when they walk into shops.  This girl Kawani has even walked for Chanel in New York or Paris or something and that's just crazy.  It's also weird seeing how the modelling world is a small world after all, with all the people being somehow related to each other if you stalk them on Instagram for long enough, and they're all also somehow related to the girls who were on Australia's Next Top Model as well.  The thing is, they also have the most awesome discovery stories.  Like apparently the girl from my school was approached while she was getting frozen yoghurt, and Kawani was discovered while swimming at a BBQ?  Wow I have too much time, and clearly my procrastination skills are great.  Too bad my study skills aren't.


Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro


The first time I encountered a version of this text, I saw it on a list for chick flicks.  Boy, was that misleading.  It's definitely not a chick flick, is what I'm saying, and going in thinking it was, of course I came out not liking the movie one bit.

Then I watched it a second time out of curiosity and a weird craving to do so, and I'm not sure what I thought about it, but I certainly didn't think I would ever encounter it again.

Now my English teacher is asking me to read the book.  I started it a few days ago and I couldn't put it down.  I'm not going to tell you what it's about, because if you read it you'll be surprised the same way I was when I watched the movie.  The blurb gives nothing away and I'm not about to.  I just recommend you to read this, and you'll feel a lot of feelings.  Trust me.  It's good.


And I think I'll leave it there.  Good night.  I'm going to study now.

Love,
M