Confessions of a Hobbit-aholic

Warning: Spoilers!

The Hobbit movie finally came out in Australia on Boxing day, and I went. It was an event I had been anticipating for months, with fangirling dying cockroach hands being made at every trailer and mention. Frankly though, I was disappointed. Don't get me wrong; it was, as films go, exceptional. The acting, the score, the special effects the scenery (apart from non-moving clouds), the costumes, the shots, the all-round cinematography was, as demonstrated in The Lord of the Rings film, quite phenomenal. However, as film adaptions go, it  figuratively made me cry. The Hobbit is one of my favourite novels of all time, with a firmly cemented place in my top-ten. Semi-similarily, my favourite film of all time is, The Lord of the Rings- I must confess, I have yet to read ALL the books- with no preference of the three. I was horrified at the announcement that The Hobbit was to be made in three parts: I had no idea how it could be done well, and it turns out I was right.The Hobbit, unlike The Lord of the Rings, is not an epic. It is simply a happy little adventure tale about a lovable protagonist, with perhaps one or two undercurrents on the theme of greed and desire.  It's been padded out, altered and tried to be 'deepified'; thus turning it into a foolish parody of a brilliant novel. 

As promised, my third-hand copy of The Hobbit, which I inherited from my Grandparents, who owned it before they had kids. The covers are taped on and half the map is missing. I wouldn't trade it for anything, unless I could save someone's life with it.

The main positives of the film were: the cinematography, as previously mentioned;  the acting, with Martin Freeman as an excellent Bilbo, even if I did sometimes expect Benedict Cumberbatch to rock up and save the day; the intro, with beautiful links to The Lord of the Rings film and the first few lines of The Hobbit novel(albeit, changed ones); the Eagles being almost the only redemption for the end of the film; and, as expected, being able to stare at the gorgeousness of Kili for a fair bit of the film.

Negatives of the film included a vast majority of things, but I'll try to restrain myself. The entire section with Radagast was perhaps more suited to a child's film, as complete and utter comedy. He has a minor mention in The Lord of the Rings books, but does not appear at all in The Hobbit; oddly enough then, he does not appear at all in any of The Lord of the Rings films, but does have an utterly ridiculous and detrimental part in the film adaption of The Hobbit. The new sub-plot of the Orcs was completely unnecessary and ended up detracting.Necromancer? I know it's a small amount of sub-plot in the Hobbit, but do we really want another sub-plot not developed in the books to manifest itself in the films? The music, with throwbacks and repeats of The Lord of the Rings was pretty good, however The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit are from a separate set of films, and so I would have liked an entirely new soundtrack instead of the repeated theme of The Lord of the Rings and  eagle's theme. The bit with Saruman and Galadriel at Rivendell? Unexplained and unnecessary.

And finally, my most important question is simply: why? Why change it at all? Why make it into a film if you're not going to do a good job? Why not leave it as a happy little adventure tale, one a totally different scale toThe Lord of the Rings?

Final rating: 3 stars and it only gets that because of the beautiful cinematography. 

xx

Confession ( who apologises for a drastic change in what she normally writes and also for the huge blocky text!)

Merry December!

I'm back! It must be some kind of record; two posts so close together!
Depending on what you believe: Cheerful Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Yippy Yule, Magnificent Malkh or noteworthy non-religious occasion!
I hope you all enjoy whatever you get up to and stay safe, with all the crazy traffic and eating that occurs as part of many celebrations around this time of year.
I didn't get Philosopher a gift, but I did find her a gif -awful pun intended- that will hopefully make her smile (or make her ovaries burst. Sorry any future Philosopher-lings):

She's probably already seen it, but you can't see a Leo gif too many times!

xxx,
Love Confession.

The Final Confession

So. Apparently the world is supposed to be ending today or something. If that's the case I'd just like to tell everyone that they're wonderful and someone loves them. If that's not the case then you all suck. Kidding! You're all wonderful. But it doesn't really matter because, I'm 100% positive the world is not going to end today, for various reasons:

1) Different time zones. Which one are we going with? 

2) Leap years weren't accounted for.

3) Scientifically, we've got a fair while to go before the world ends

4) Religiously, we're supposed to get all sorts of crazy signs of the coming of the Messiah before he actually comes. Stuff like dragons and kraken and boiling oceans. I think. Maybe.

Enjoy your last day on earth everyone!

xx

Confession

P.S Subscribe, or comment, or like, or something, please? Make my last day happy?
P.P.S I tried to add 'The Final Countdown' as background music, but the technology was confusing so I ate gingerbread and cried in the fetal position instead.

...

I am Viggo Mortensen. I like to tickle feet.

Culinary Confessions

I know I said that I was taking a break sort of thing, but I felt like this was acceptable, albeit slightly weird :)
I'm a fairly easy going person in terms of most things, especially food, but there are some foods that I simply cannot (under)stand :

1) Waldorf Salad:
     It's weirdly creamy but bizarrely grainy. I like all the components individually but together they are really gross.


2) Cooked broccoli or asparagus:
    I love broccoli and asparagus, until they're cooked. I don't mind lightly steamed but cooking just ruins them.



3) Mayonnaise:
    'Cos everyone loves emulsified raw egg and oil.


4) Quiche:
    This is a bad one to dislike as, being vegetarian, a lot of people think to make it for me, which is a lovely action on their behalf; except I really really don't like it.


5) Peanuts:
    So this is really weird, but I actually detest peanuts! There's nothing about them that I like.

6) Cheesecake
    None of my friends can believe this, not even the one who dislikes mangoes. :o
 




The female parental unit fed me basically anything and everything that was edible, within healthy limits obviously, which is probably the reason I'm so unfussy. With the exception of meat, I will eat almost anything, even the things above if it's necessary out of politeness or extreme hunger.

Have a nice evening/morning/afternoon! Enjoy whatever you're doing, but don't do anything I wouldn't! (not that rules out a lot...)

xx Confession

P.S I sat down to make a friend a farewell card *sob* but then ten minutes later I suddenly found myself googling gifs of Honey Boo Boo child. Ahem.

P.P.S Next time, I might leave the computer illustration to Philosopher. What say you?

P.P.P.S I just suddenly got a rush of affection for any readers! So xxxxxx and lots of hugs and smiles laughing! I love you guy <3 ily times a bily! xx

It's Philosophical

I may or may not be a part of the grammar police.

I know, I know. It's a shocking revelation to you all- and you're now going to spend the next half-hour searching through all my previous posts, just to pick out a wayward comma or a misspelled word so that you can brand me a big ol' hypocrite. But still, I do my best not to be too anal. I geddit. Nobody's perfect, everybody makes mistakes, blah blah acceptance blah. But something that makes me want to strangle a flying pig is misuse of the word 'it's'. No, seriously. IT'S so easy to master this sneaky little contraction, and yet no one seems to be able to get it right...

So you know what? I'm going to show you how... right now. Step onto my magical grammar carpet, ladies and gentlemen...

I can show you the woorrlldd... ♫ ♪

PS: Huuuuuggge props to Jason Mecier. Without his wonderful honey Boo Boo trash art, my cartoon would still be lacking a face. Sadly, I lack the personal artistic skills to create a realistic-looking person, so I used Mr Mecier's artwork as a base. I hope you don't mind. Please check out his wonderful website here.

Ciao Confessions

Hey guys! It's been a little bit longer than normal since I've provided something for you guys to read- i.e. more than a week- but it's going to be a little longer still. I'm struggling to write stuff about what I want to, in a way that I'm actually semi-happy with. What I write ends up being boring, unimaginative and not what I want others to read. I'm really sorry, but until I'm happy with what I'm writing you shan't be getting anything. :( Just think of me as being more of a Philosopher at the moment- irregular (but not in need of prunes) but really confident in what she does end up posting! I still love you and hope you all have a super exciting, happy year! If you celebrate it, Merry Christmas
xx
Confession

Confessions of a Procrastination-aholic

Hello! How are you all going? Missing me? I actually did miss you guys, but I'm back now so it's all good :).

Exams finished last Monday, but I wanted to relax, then on Tuesday and Wednesday I made dinner and so obviously couldn't write anything! On Thursday I had sport, on Friday I decided Howl's Moving Castle took priority and then on Saturday I was unwell and had better things to do (like listen to Hamish and Andy while attempting to play the Mincraft demo) but you finally get something today! Now, Philosopher suggested the Story of Exams in gif form because "Everyone likes gifs" but I decided that

http://forums.allkpop.com/threads/when-a-song-isnt-your-cup-of-tea.61288/

so you get this instead:

I'm terrible when it comes to procrastination- I know that's a common illness but I thought I would share my own little anecdotes that you can read whilst procrastinating! Procrastination for me goes in one of two ways: either super (paradoxically) efficient or super inefficient.

Both are equally well travelled!

http://elderhsworwood.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/fork-in-road.html

Pathway One: Instead of actually completing anything productive I organise myself. And then organise a little more. And then reorganise. Repeat process three times. I mean I couldn't possibly ever write ay blogs without an extensive list of topics, with cross-referenced topics, nor could I ever do any study if I didn't have three highly detailed study plans that took an hour to make. And just imagine doing any work without first spending an hour researching and reviewing productivity apps! 

I only own two of these. Better get researching!
http://thelearningexplosion.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/28-productivity-apps-and-tools.html

Pathway Two: Instead of actually doing anything productive I do pointless things. Why would you study or complete homework when you could roughly sketch new designs for the UN website, or make pompoms, or woollen dolls, or gift tags? And looking at hundreds of craft blogs is so much better than commerce could ever be, even if it does make me feel like a 40 year old full-time mother. 

Mine didn't look quite this good :).
http://bleubirdvintage.typepad.com/blog/2009/11/diy-pom-pom-wreath.html

In conclusion, I often end up doing the second half on assignments the night before and writing daily drama reflections on the bus in the morning. I probably should work on these habits, but because I still get good marks and don't get (too) stressed- I only have crying breakdowns about once a term- I've never felt particularly motivated to change; however I know I need to before it's too late and I fail the HSC and Uni. Oh! One more little anecdote: Instead of writing Chapter 4 of GP(our book, for any newcomers), I put together a soundtrack for it, consisting of our characters favourite music O_O. Oops.

Anyway, moving along.... 

Word of the Week is Idiographic:

Relating to, or involving the study, of a specific case or event

Goodbye! Love and hugs to you all! Go and listen to some of your favourite music, while dancing around wherever you are -yes, even in public. Now, let me go do my commerce homework.

xx

Confession

P.S Subscribe!

The Philosophical Vacancy

[Okay, evidently I conveniently FORGOT to tell you that, like Confession, I had to take a hiatus. Oops. I was going to write a post consisting of a giant, size 99pt "DITTO" but then Confession posted again... so that wouldn't have made any sense... and now we're here two months later. I applaud you for sticking around this long. Anyhoo. Onwards!]

As most of you lovely internet ladies and gents will know, the glorious J.K Rowling has released a brand new book. It's called "The Casual Vacancy", and it's effectively Harry Potter without wizards, magic, Hogwarts, evil armies of Death Eaters, and with a big ol' booster shot of REAL LIFE.

Basically, nothing like Harry Potter at all. "The Casual Vacancy" is a book for adults, and J.K. has said that right from the start. She said herself that she wouldn't let anyone 8 or under read it. Does it sound like the wonderful wizarding world of Sir Potter? Not to me. 

I've dived into "The Casual Vacancy" with a healthy pinch of salt. I'm not trying to compare it to Harry Potter; because, personally, I think that's unfair to Miss Rowling. And personally, I like it. It's well written, and even if she wasn't such an amazing part of my childhood, I'd still have bought the book.

 Use hefty pinches of this when reading 'The Casual Vacancy'

And it seems that a lot of critics have also taken my detached attitude to reading- but others, frankly, should not be writing reviews. Feast your eyes upon a selection of the critics, choicely chosen from Wikipedia.

Lev Grossman, for Time: "It's a big, ambitious, brilliant, profane, funny, deeply upsetting and magnificently elegant novel of contemporary England, rich with literary intelligence, and entirely bereft of bulls**t." [say NO to naughty words. Say YES to happy asterisks!]

David Robinson of the Scotsman said: 

"It is far grittier, bleaker (and, occasionally, funnier) than I had expected, and- the acid test- I suspect it would do well, even if the author's was not J.K. Rowling"

The Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the Daily Mirror, The Economist- all of them had various degrees of positive reviews.

But it seems some reviewers approached The Casual Vacancy without the oh-so-important pinch o' salt. Some reviewers pulled out the forbidden words; HARRY POTTER

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES wrote: "it fails to conjure Harry Potter's magic" while Jan Moir for the Daily Mail said it was "500 pages of relentless socialist manifesto masquerading as literature"

"magic" "magic" "magic"

WHERE IS THE MAGIC? All of these deluded critics cry! 

I respect their opinions, and think it's important to give a balanced view on the novel. But what people HAVE to remember is that "the Casual Vacancy" is not magical. It's not a book about good overcoming evil. It's not a fairytale, or a bedtime story. It's a book about real life, and real life is not magical. It's gritty, and bitter and sad sometimes. There are a lot of things that we don't do right. 

But you know what? It's books like these that inspire change. It's books that SHOW us all the things we're doing wrong- all our mistakes and errors and the lack of magic in our lives. "The Casual Vacancy" isn't there to sugarcoat real life. It's there to present it in the most stripped-back way possible- and to inspire us all to start doing things RIGHT.

So, if you dare, pop down to the local bookstore and buy a copy. Read it, study it, make a judgement on it. Put it on a bookshelf if you like it. Put it in a golden display case if you REALLY like it. Rip it up and use it as toilet paper if you're not so keen.

Wonderful literature? Or super soft, flexible, 2-ply bog roll? You decide!

Well, this post has taken a suitably solemn and, er, vaguely depressing turn. I'll sign off before I start sobbing all over the monitor. 

with lots of casually vacant love,

Philosopher

General Confessions Episode 3

Howdy Strangers! This is just a hiatus from hiatusing (why is this not a word?) and you'll soon never hear from me again for three/four more weeks. Also, due to a official hiatus period, this is simply a write dump consisting of nothing to exciting. I did write a full-blown proper (and I mean proper) confession, but I don't feel quite ready to share it with the world wide web yet. So you'll just have to enjoy the following:

EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!!!!!!!

I get frustrated about very little things. Little things like overuse of exclamation marks. They make a story sound like a fangirl gush, halt flow and are aesthetically unpleasing. Take for example: 

"Then I ran into the kitchen and saw my friend Mandy! She was just standing there, doing I'm not sure what, but looking very attractive! Perhaps Luke will ask her out soon!" compared to:

"Then I ran into the kitchen and saw my girlfriend Mandy. She was just standing there, doing I'm not sure what, but looking very attractive. Perhaps Luke will ask her out soon!" 

They both say the exact same thing, however the second one feels easier to read, sounds more mature, won't be read in a silly teenage girl's voice and actually conveys more meaning and emotion as it creates a depth and range of feeling, whilst sentence one simply gushes and sounds fake. Another thing about exclamation marks that annoy me is when people use multiple ones at a time, e.g !! or !!!!!!!!!!!!!!. It is simply unnecessary and distracting to the eye! It makes thing difficult to read and absorb! In fact, I even have an opportunity to use a Terry Pratchett quote here (yay!); "'Multiple exclamation marks,' he went on, shaking his head, 'are a sure sign of a diseased mind'"~Eric. 

CINNAMON CHALLENGE IS FOR SISSIES

So I presume you've all heard of the latest craze in weird things that internet people do: The Cinnamon Challenge. If you haven't basically it involves placing a heaped tablespoon of ground cinnamon into one's mouth. Youtubers do it, bloggers do it, silly people at parties do it. I decided to join the throng and I did it. But I didn't actually decide to join the throng, I simply wanted to try a feat (or treat in the novel) mentioned in the fantastic novel 'What Katy Did'. The feat? To ingest a stick of cinnamon with pleasure. A stick of cinnamon. Ack. I had completely forgotten about this anecdote but remembered it whilst placing the oats away and the cinnamon container caught my eye. I was fairly hesitant as, evidenced by the Cinnamon Challenge, vast amounts of cinnamon is not generally considered a delicacy. I thought about it for a while and finally decided...well, YOLO.  So I began, I grabbed a (small) stick out of the spice box, and bit into it with relish. My thought process as I ate it  is recorded here: 'Wow... this is crunchy... It's just like eating treebark... I'm not getting any flavours yet.... How the hell am I going to swallow this crunched up mess?...Oh... that's actually quite nice, very nutty, fairly flavoursome.... Why do people consider the cinnamon challenge so hard?... Hmmmm, getting a bit spicy now, but nothing I can't handle, in fact it rather adds to the experience.... Oh Yum! Those flavours are really nice... I understand why the Carrs had cinnamon as a treat now... Crunch, crunch, crunch. OH DEAR GOD! IT BURNS, IT BURNS! GET IT OUT NOW!... ew.

That is really gross, my hand is covered in what looks like my baby sisters semi-digested tree-bark... IT'S STILL BURNING DANG IT! Water....oh sweet water.... Now I just need to clean the sink of chewed up tree-bark... fun... well. I won't be doing that again."And thus ended my version of the cinnamon challenge.

Harry Potter and the Magic of Puberty

I know what you're thinking: Oh great! Yet another thing about how all the HP characters ended up being really attractive. But I guess it is kinda cool, cause if I'm attracted to males I get to drool over pictures of Matt Lewis or if I'm attracted to females I get to drool over Emma Watson. 

But no. There will be schmexy pictures cos I want an excuse to dribble over people but I will be focusing on a character renowned for being the...well... opposite of sexy. Firstly, there is of course Tom Felton but he's old news. Today I want to focus on Dudley (gasp!). 

You're probably thinking 'so what? He's still pretty ugly.' WRONG! You see, I have another image to show you....

He's in Merlin which means Fantaboush!

asdfghjkl! How and when did Ickle Dudleykins become so attractive? 

On a side, Harry Potter-related-thing, does this disturb you?

Baby Voldemort doll. Why? 

 Cos it scares me half to death! Some person makes HP themed dolls! 

Supposedly baby Luna doll

So... I'm being lazy and will come back and edit, format, correct, etc some other time than 10:30 on Friday night (woot! I have a life). I'm also going to be too lazy to give you a Word of the Fortnight (I have to learn lists of useless things for exams. I'm not adding to it) but I will give you a few fun updates on life as Confession:

a) Sickness: I am perpetually sick. Week 3 just ended and I've already had 5 days off. Ridiculous. I'm not pulling sickies or even just mildly sick; I am honest to goodness unable to attend school sick. I'm still recovering from Conjunctivitis. I had it in one eye, then that was almost better when I got it in the other eye. What is this? Anyway, to treat my perpetual illness I now have a bright red iron supplement once a day, a bright orange multivit once a day, eye-drops four times a day and oily, wheaty pro-biotic water twice a day. What sheer joy.

b) Our book: We've actually started writing! We've written 2.5 chapters and Confession is probably currently writing the next bit. We're getting through it surprisingly fast- probably as a result of study procrastination and not paying attention in geography- and I'm so glad we spent that 4 months writing back story.

c) New room: I told you this a while ago but I thought I'd tell you a bit more about it now. Basically, it's at the other end of the house to my parents and (soon to be 2) baby sibling(s), it has it's own ensuite (yay!), it is deliciously large and I feel ridiculously spoilt! I still haven't finished decorating, got one more 'Quoting Shakespeare' (gosh I'm a nerd) poster to frame and hang above my bed, but I do have a Discworld poster, a Card wall, some medieval figurines, insufficient book cases, dodgy cardboard boxes full of writing inspirations and a fairy statuette collection. I am just so darn cool.

Now that you've made it through fairly boring write-dump and some even more boring updates of my life you have my full permission to go and read a book, watch a film, dance a hornpipe, learn to whistle and then appliquéing a quilt. Enjoy life, living it to a high potential.
xx
Confession

P.S Comments + other proof that someone, anyone, is actually reading these things are appreciated- even negative feedback is good feedback :)

Housekeeping (Holidays, Hiatuses and more...) WARNING: GIFS.

Yo! Wassup? This is basically just a write dump containing stuff I actually have to tell you, in order not to lose my official status as the responsible half of P & C. (hehehe )

Le me being arrogant. 'Cause yes,
I'm actually a forty-something man

Hiatus. Don't you just love that word? I love the way it sounds like some awful army manoeuvre or special type of mass-execution. I dislike the way it actually means a pause in a series of events. That's such a dodgy meaning! Anyway, I'm not here to discuss the 

meaning of the word hiatus or the feelings it invokes (evokes? invokes? which one is it? I just looked it up and they mean the same thing. WTH?). I'm here to discuss the fact that there will, at least from Confession, be one for this bloggy blog of blogginess. You see, there's this little thing called 'exams' which are coming up. It's our first real exam period (One of the many slightly dubious joys of the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program, or IB MYP for short, is that you don't get proper exams until well into highschool. You get fifty-thousand assignments instead) and so we're all freaking out. Yes it's in six weeks so it's a fair way off but no, I don't have any complete study notes except for geography. In order to rectify this situation there will be no scheduled confessions. There may occasionally be a write dump if I'm procrastinating but hopefully not. I apologise. 

Holidays of Stuff. For those of you who have no freaking idea what I'm talking about, I'll re include the highly-scientific analysis:

 Let's discuss it post events;

Sherlock: I read one of the many books but yeah... didn't actually watch any. 

Study: I wrote ALL my geography ones. No comment on the others.

Yes. I realise it is the wrong meme. Shoot me. 

Socialising: I saw friends 5 times. I think it's a record.

Room Sorting: I did it! I did it! Whoo whoop YEAH!

YouTube: I did it for one vlogger. Only about ten more to go.

Photography: Yeah...nah.

I'm obviously a person who sticks to plans and accomplishes things efficiently.

These holidays, Philosopher and I were going to hole ourselves up somewhere (i.e a library) and write GP (that is what our story is affectionately known as ~ can you guess what it means?). We didn't, although Philosopher did write a pretty good half a first chapter. I did pretty much nothing. I thought about it a lot and I know what I'm doing, I just don't know when. After Exams. It's almost become a new sort of time period to me. Everything I plan that does not include studying is AE (after exams) and can't happen until then. 

Le me sitting at desk after finishing final exam

AE celebratory dance

I wish I did more creative writing. In a probably futile, if the holidays of stuff demonstrates anything, attempt to push myself to do more I created three years worth of write prompts. They have images, quotes, sentence starters, songs, a whole big mish-mash of things. 

Basically I allow myself one week to write something, anything, about the prompt, whether it be a poem, a essay, a short story, a paragraph, a chapter of a book or whatever the hell I feel like. Unfortunately I'm not allowing myself to start until after exams. THE SUSPENSE!

I really want to upload it and share it with you but I don't think I legally am allowed to. You see, I used images from the amazing website DeviantArt. I figure so long as it's personal use that's ok, but sharing it with others would probably get me into all sorts of trouble. I'm not quite sure why, as people put their art there for others to see (but no use I guess). I'm awfully sorry because I know you all would have absolutely loved to see it. 

WOW! (I.e Word of the Week)
Palimpsest:
A manuscript or writing surface from which writing has been partially or wholly erased to make room for another text. Thanks Sherlock (where I got the word)!

If you are a school student in Australia, I hope you enjoyed your first day back at school (yay!) but if not I hoped you enjoyed your unique/boring/exciting/routine/adventurous/slothful day! Now go outside, look at the sky and breathe deeply, enjoying the polluted 'fresh' air.
xx Confession xx
P.S I'm sorry about all the gifs. Once we had a whole class debate about how to pronounce it. Thanks to google translate my side one.
P.P.S Sorry this post was kinda boring. Next one will be a write-dump that makes you laugh. I promise. xxx

A Woman's Philosophy

*Disclaimer* yes, I know I’m naughty, I know, I should post. Geddoverit and read.

Since I am of the female persuasion, when I reached a certain birthday milestone, people decided that I would, from that moment forth, be ‘womanly’. 

I was slightly tomboyish as a primary school student (I worshipped the colour blue, thought  pink was for ‘sissies’ and was convinced that flipping someone off meant absolutely diddly squat, because, as I constantly told people ‘It’s just a finger’), but I soon warmed up to the glories of being a girl. 

Being ‘womanly’ was not, of course, something I was expected to become overnight. You see, as a child, I had plenty of free time to muck around, play, draw on the walls, eat my mother’s lipsticks, the usual. But as I ventured into the DANGER ZONE (aka adolescence) I found that strange new entities- ‘homework’ and ‘study’ (?) - were sucking up my time like hungry vacuum cleaners. On top of this, the DANGER ZONE was also the zone of ‘womanliness’. So whilst dealing with the strange schoolwork monsters, I was also expected to find the time to study and learn the ways of the woman. Observe.

So, I embarked on my journey to womanliness, fighting off the evil forces of schoolwork as I went. But frankly, ladies and gents (but ladies in particular), it makes me wonder; WHY do we do this to ourselves? The desire to be beautiful is tempting, I admit, but a lot of these ‘womanly ways’ seem absurd. So while I have embraced many of them with open arms (wafting a delicious vanilla scent as I did so), I’ve turned a cold shoulder to many more.

Because honestly, ladies, we’re beautiful. And don’t any of you ever forget it :)

Confessions of a Tea-aholic

Experts say that to survive physically a person needs only three things: food, water and shelter. This is true. However, I believe that one can not simply survive on food, water and shelter alone. One needs social interaction (just take Chuck and Wilson for example) and nourishment of a kind other than the physical type. 

Wilson-obvious scientific proof that company is essential

No, I'm not going to rant about religion as I know that would create controversy (the horror of anyone ever talking about religion!). Instead I'm going to tell you what I believe people need to survive both physically and emotionally (A/N I didn't say spiritually): food, water, shelter, social interaction, a form of escapism and something to sooth the soul. For me the last two manifest themselves in the form of books and tea.

Woot! Woot! C.S. Lewis! Woot!

I've already (briefly) mentioned my love affair with books so I shan't bore you all to death with that. I will tell you instead about my passionate affair with tea: 

 You hear about people being 'foodies' and while I do love my food, I am more of a 'teaie'. Don't get me wrong, I love my coffee but tea holds the key to my heart.

Tea holds the key to your heart/ and all of tea plays a part... dum dum die dum die
Those are the lyrics aren't they?

If I'm with friends I'll get an iced tea or one of those weird (but strangely delicious) bubble teas.If I'm eating out with family I'll get a sophisticated herbal tea to accompany my desert. If I'm chilling at home I'll make myself some sophisticated herbal tea to accompany my book/homework/tv show/procrastination/game etc. If I'm shopping with my mum I'll get a ... well I'll get a coffee then but that's irrelevant. Basically I drink a lot of tea. 

Bubble Tea
Delicious but I don't want to know
what's in in.

I have a rapidly expanding tea collection and one of my favourite shopping experiences, second only to secondhand bookstore browsing, is wandering around a tea shoppe, smelling everything, trying free samples and agonising over which exorbitantly expensive tea I should purchase. I'm perfectly happy with a mug of cheap, milky, generic brand black tea but I'm perfectly blissful when I have my special tea mug (I drink tea out of a mug. Shoot me.) filled with just brewed, exotic blend herbal tea or tea made from freshly picked herbs from our veggie patch. I take it with two hands, smell it deeply, give a sigh of contented happiness and then take my first hesitant sip. Mmmmmmm...... 

For me, tea is the number one cure all. Whether I'm upset, excited, stressed, crying, laughing, relaxed, in love, hatin' on someone, no matter what, tea always soothes me and makes me feel better. It warms my insides, sends little shivers down my spine, gives me a contented feel in my stomach and results in a whole body relax and de-tensify. Without tea I think I would be a lot more tense, stressed and all-round emotional than I already am. So basically tea is good, no tea is bad and we should all go drink some. Right, sounds good! I'm gonna go grab a cuppa...

bye!

Oh...wait. I guess I can't really leave until I give you a word of the week, an update on my holiday plans AND a cutesy farewell. *Sigh.*

Firstly, word of the week is (dun dun dun): 

Hecatomb: 

noun. A great public sacrifice, originally of a hundred oxen. 

figuratively. A large loss of life for some cause

Useful isn't it? At least it's better than Oolite (which was the other word I was considering)

Secondly, I have officially moved rooms! I spent my first night there last night  :) but otherwise... I've written all my geography ones but that's it and I've watched maybe two Youtube videos. :( I'm doing really well aren't I?

Thirdly happy trails to you all, until we meet again :)

xx love Confession

Holiday Confessions

So... I kinda forgot I had to post today :/. As such this post is not one I'm particularly happy with both in terms of writing quality or content. I apologise. 

Have you ever had grand plans for a certain time-period? Given the period an 'official' title? 'Cos I do. I do it a lot. For example, these holidays (woot woot) are 'officially' the holidays of (in no particular order): Sherlock, Study, Socialising, Room sorting, Socialising, Youtube and Photography. I'm fairly sure I'll get all of these things less than half done and then give up (except the room. My mum will force that into completion).  In order to more correctly illustrate this point I have created a table:

So, as you can see, most of my organisational skills are centred around planning and not so much around acting. I probably should work on remedying this, but I manage to fumble my way through life as it is. However, these holidays have actually claimed a new title. That of "Holidays of actually doing the things I said I would." Yeah right. I will try, however, to achieve at least two or three of the six things I was desirous of completing. I will report on my (un)success at the end of the holidays. Be excited for ultimate failure! Yay!

Yay for failure! In reality I just had to use these guys; they're so darn cute!

Word of the Week= Ruminant:

I always thought this merely meant a contemplative person. While it does, the actual first meaning is an even-toed hoofed mammal that re-chews already partially digested cud. lovely. Examples include goats, cattle, sheep and antelopes. Now there's a useful snippet of information

Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again. (Well, actually I know. Next Monday)

Love Confession

x