since when was attention such a bad thing?

Now Playing: 'Violet Hill' by Coldplay

I love attention, I'll admit it. I think about so many people in so many different ways, I would love to think that someone is thinking of me. Which is why I love flirting, male company, etc. I love awards and rewards and recognition. Living and learning is an art, and the best art gets prizes. If I pretend to get all shy/awkward/embarassed/nonchalant, that's just it - I'm pretending, so that people don't say that I'm a show off or whatever. But really, I'm floating on clouds.

I am a writer. Writing is a profession in which you have to hold people's attention; make money out of someone's fascination, curiosity, etc. It doesn't matter if I'm the next JK Rowling if I keep my work under lock and key and present to the world a masquerade of utter mediocrity. It is with this same principle that I'll wear party dresses to the shops. Some things are made to be seen.

Why do we deny ourselves the joy of life? If I have done something, or if I become someone, to attract attention, why should I run away from that?

I'm not going to be a wallflower. I'm not going to blend into the background.

I'm not as clueless as you think.

Now Playing: 'Renegade' by Paramore

1. Men aren't as uncomplicated as people let on. They have problems, it's just whether or not they trust you enough to tell you.

2. Men have very different ideas of what is and isn't innocent, what is and isn't cheating, and what is and isn't okay.

3. I love how men can be so uncomfortably, heartbreakingly honest. Which is why lack of honesty and sincerity is heartbreaking in guys. You kind of get used to it when you're around girls, but I always used to count on guys telling it how it is. Sounds sexist, but it's true.

4. I don't entirely understand women who think that men should like them for no apparent reason. I mean, as much as I think that love is unconditional and, for the most part, largely irrational, I also don't see what's wrong with loving that someone is beautiful, intelligent, rich, creative, socially elite, whatever - it's part of who you are, and it shouldn't be the sole cause of affection, but what's wrong with it being a contributing factor?

5. The smart men eventually realize that Aspasia is far more desirable than a pretty face with social status and no brain. At the moment the teenage boys I know are trying to have both and will eventually end up with neither.

6. Men are, possibly, even more insecure than women.

7. They constantly swap from being condescending to deferential, depending on the topic of conversation and who's witnessing. It's a mindfuck, but you get used to it.

8. You have to be a patient friend, but they'll always abuse endless patience. You have to kick a fuss occasionally to remind them that you have feelings and opinions and are perfectly capable of walking away.

9. That being said, most guys aren't intentionally malicious, just a little tactless. You have to *tell* them what's bothering you, because they won't be able to guess even the most obvious. You can't worry about being whiney if your feelings are at stake.

10. Be very, very wary of men who seem to be perfectly practicised in the art of apology. A sincere apology is one thing, but if they know every little nuance of the most perfect 'sorry' then they have had lots of opportunity to practice.

11. It doesn't matter if you like them or not, or if you're not supposed to like them. A compliment always fills me with that warm fuzzy feeling.

12. I love hedonistic, indulgent, worry-about-the-consequences-later kind of relationships. As girly and innocent as I am I feel like I have that in common with a lot of boys I know, as opposed to the girls I know. It takes confidence (and a great deal of stupidity) to start something when you're not entirely sure if and when and how things will end.

13. The year twelve ball taught me that as flattering as it is to have a man on your arm and boys pretending that you're a great deal shorter than 5'3" in heels (if you get what I'm saying) the best part about being young isn't about boys or male attention; it's letting your hair down and living up to girls just wanna have fun.

14. Of all my friends I am probably the loudest, most flirtatious, and the most boy crazy. Which is weird because I'm also the youngest, geekiest and nerdiest. It's a weird combination, but talk nerdy to me, baby.

15. The amount of attention you get when you turn sixteen is appalling. Just saying. I have a few weird emails about that.

16. Confidence is your ultimate trump card - not just about boys, but about life, love, academia, friendships, job prospects; anything, really.

Now Playing: 'Boyfriend' by Justin Bieber

Oh, man, I'm gonna get so much crap for talking about Justin Bieber...

I used to be a Belieber, I'll admit it. Back when it wasn't creepy to have a sounds-like-a-twelve-year-old-girl boy singing in your ear. Because all the boys I knew were like that.

Boyfriend is reallllllllly catchy. It's not music genius, but it's fun. Music should be fun, right?

The music video, however, is the world's biggest mindfuck.

I do not understand for the life of me how Justin Bieber can look so young. I mean, I know he isn't the most macho guy out there, but seriously, I can look more manly than that. Makeup, baby, makeup.

And why can't he wear normal clothes? Seriously. He looks like an eight year old trying to be 50 Cent. 

So the Boyfriend video starts with, essentially, porn. Made a lot creepier by Justin's baby face. But it's kind of artsy and cute.

Then they change their mind, scrap that, and decide that it's the girls who have to take their clothes off, not The Bieber.

And so he's doing doughnuts (???), and feeling up sluts; that is, essentially, the whole video. Teenage boys look like five year olds getting charged with reckless driving. And not just any sluts - politically correct sluts, because even though he's trying (and failing) to be black they've decided he has to 'blow money' on every single ethnicity in existence. Which is a little weird seeing as a) he looks like a goody goody Christian kid b) he is a goody goody Christian kid and c) that ain't what goody goody Christian kids do. 

Cue really awkward gangsta dancing, and explicit closeups of bums and Justin staring at racks (I'm sorry, but *all* you can think about is breastfeeding) and random PDAs..

I don't even know what market he's trying to buy into. It's obviously not PG enough for that kind of crazy, Twihard, psycho pre-teen, but once you hang out with guys with broken voices and subtle stubble Justin Bieber kinda loses all his appeal.

I don't know. It seems like such a waste. He is pretty good looking and his music is pretty catchy. But they're marketing it all wrong. And it's screwing with my head.  

 

Operation Get Fit: Stability and Finality.

Now Playing: Women's Revolution by Blue King Brown ft. Queen Ifrica

This will be my last post on Operation Get Fit.

The lightest I've been in Operation Get Fit is, to my memory, about 49kg. The heaviest I've ever been is 58kg. Now I'm about 52kg, but more importantly, I'm happy and healthy. After dropping a few kilos and yo yoing a bit, it's been 52 for a little while now. And I'm happy.

It's been a crazy and, sometimes, very difficult adventure. It wasn't just about the weight; it was regaining confidence, self esteem, etc.

I'm not Sundowning anymore, mostly because it was pretty unsustainable. I have a much healthier approach. I exercise often, and I eat what I like when I'm hungry.

52kg is not my goal weight, and I hope I get it down a little more. But for all intents and purposes, I'm done. I've broken a few vicious cycles, and I look good and feel even better. I can wear some of my sister's old clothes and I'm looking better in smaller sizes.

Someone like me cannot take good health for granted, and in this Operation Get Fit I've learned to love and respect my body. I've stopped obsessing about food, and about numbers, and what I look like. It's not important anymore. There is so much more to live for. 

Content.

Now Playing: Fix You (Cover) by Savannah Outen ft. Jake Coco

Skye seems to sense that I'm different. Whenever she cuddles on my lap she always puts her head on my right side so she can hear my heartbeat.

You know when your stomach has been rumbling for ages and you finally take a bite, and your jaw constricts and then relaxes, and your stomach does a couple of celebratory somersaults? Despite losing 5kg I haven't lost my love of food, or that feeling.

You know the shivers down your spine, that warm fuzzy feeling and the little giggles into your pillow? I love that so much I almost don't mind the tears.

It rained pretty much all day today. I love the fresh tang in the air. It just kind of hovers. I'm not such a huge fan of the humidity but the cool, slightly damp gusty breezes...it makes you feel more alive.

Sometimes I just open the half of my wardrobe dedicated to my enormous party dress collection and smile. I have a thousand memories of those dresses.

Bella loves to bury her head in a mountain of pillows when she snuggles on the sofa. I used to do that when I was little. Girl after my own heart.

It's amazing how age is relative, and has nothing to do with your date of manufacture. I wonder how old I actually am?

That horrible feeling when you know you're really, really, really late for something but you'll be in even deeper shit if you don't show at all. It's a real fearless moment when you have to walk in. Although, it was pretty embarassing to only make the last five minutes of a meeting.

The intrinsic, childish, whimsical joy of peanut butter.

Now Playing: 'Talk' by Coldplay

I like working alone. When I was little I always preferred to play alone. I like doing things by myself. When there's group work I always ask if I can do it on my own.

I need my space. If the door's shut, I'm in my own world. if I'm working, I don't like being disturbed. If I'm listening to my iPod, I would have thought that having both earphones in would be a universal signal of 'I've zoned out, I love you, but please leave me alone.' I talk to myself, sometimes, and I write constantly. Sometimes I space out, or think very intently on things that you can't always see or touch.

That's not to say that I don't have friends, that I don't want friends and that I can't stand a second of human company. I love talking, and I love people. I've said before that people who enjoy solitude are often more, not less, needy - we need both space and support. Of course I get lonely. Sometimes my heart breaks with loneliness.

But I've learned not to trust other people. Other people are unreliable; they don't always mean what they say or say what they mean, they're not always there when they say they will, they're don't always do what they say they do. And I don't pretend to have much control over many people or their actions. I like the accountability of working on your own. You can take credit for everything. I like being in control, especially of something will negatively impact on my life if it goes wrong.

I think, sometimes, I feel too much - or other people don't feel enough. I love passionately, I hate passionately. Sincerity and integrity is natural for anything that I take seriously. I don't understand indifference; it cripples me. I need an emotional response out people. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, right? I don't understand people who brush things aside easily, who are ashamed of their emotions.

Which is why I don't mind things that would make other people run for the hills. I don't mind passion, anger, lust, emotional outbursts and fits of rage. I can handle it. There's nothing more frightening, to me, than apathy. People who don't care, they frighten me the most. People with no ideas and no opinions are infinitely worse than people with bad ideas and bad opinions.

I feel like we live in a world where we have to hide so much of ourselves. Life is too long, and too complicated. We think we have so much time, we are so scared of what people will think. We've got our priorities mixed up. Is it not more important to fall in love and be loved by a single person who you could trust with your life than to be loved by a fickle and uncaring society that will stab you in the back given half a chance?

I have learned, in my own time, that it takes great courage to be yourself. It is not always easy to go against the flow. But I have also learned that being myself is the only chance I have to be loved for who I am. Actors have to live life out of character occasionally, you know. I have learned that love is unconditional and often irrational, and that it is absurd to worry about the superficial details that will only lead to a superficial kind of love.

You have to love yourself enough to not settle for second best. You have to trust yourself enough to let go, rather than to lose. The only people who are remembered are the good, the bad and the ugly. Nobody remembers the masses, as admirable as conformity and insincerity and paranoia is.

I'm not a walking dictionary.

Now Playing: 'Take On Me' by a-ha

You have no idea how freaking annoying it is when people only approach you to talk about some test/essay/study thing.

Don't get me wrong, I talk about school all the time. I'm always asking people what they did in that essay, that assignment, what they got for that test, whatever. But it's just one of the many possible topics of conversation; an ice breaker, something that leads to a more sociable conversation. If I don't really like or know someone, I don't talk to them much, and I especially don't approach them for the sole purpose of picking their brain, and walk away once I've procured my little nugget of information in a vain attempt to cure my congenital ignorance. And I don't mind giving help or advice to people, but I hate being treated like a walking dictionary. I mean, some of these people completely ignore my existance and refuse to make eye contact with me, and then suddenly we're best buddies when assessment week swings around. If there's anything to dislike about anyone it's insincerity.

It's amazing how changeable people are, how much context can change relationships. It's amazing how people have learned how to balance people so perfectly, so that I never seem to have a valid reason to be angry at anyone. People these days are masters of apology. I'm not that complicated. I love, or I hate. I never do things halfway. 

I'm not made of stone. It hurts to think that people only value me for the number I get on my test papers. I'm not one of those nerds who spends their whole life buried in books; actually, I don't study much at all, and I might be good at English but I'm by no means an authority on anything. I am just like any other normal girl. I love boys and makeup and girl talk. I don't want to spend my entire life talking about the judicial system or a freudian analysis of Ibsen; actually, these people don't even do that, they just want a fast solution to a good grade. The lack of integrity kills me. Knowledge is beautiful, and my work is an art. What little I know is complicated and intricate and fascinating and osbcure and intensely personal. I'm not a fucking search engine.

I'll talk to anyone about anything. But don't treat me as a walking dictionary.

A Thousand Thousand Fearless Things #17

Now Playing: Time to Say Goodbye by Andrea Bocelli & Sarah Brightman

#121: You have to be wary of people who seem to be very well practiced in apologizing

#122: Your chocolate yogo was more endearing than your Coldplay mug ;P

#123: My brother's tree would touch the lit classroom's ceiling

#124: Stumpy. Jesus. 

#125: I found my copy of The Turning! 

#126: I have a Cedric Diggory card thingy. I am not in love with Robert Pattinson. But I do like Cedric. 

#127: When in doubt, declare your love for Mathew Baynton. 

...More to come.   

Hypothetically.

Now Playing: 'Death and All His Friends/The Escapist' by Coldplay

I would love to create a school, one day. An academically selective school, but one based on Ken Robinsons views on a need to 'change the paradigm' and encourage 'educational revolution'. I would accept children as young as two or three years old, if they had the ability, but some might not start schooling until eight or ten. For 'primary school' the students will be exposed to all areas of learning - sport, science, arts, humanities and so on - equally, without bias or the notion that one is more important than the other. Children would be grouped purely by ability and aptitude for a particular subject. When a student reached a level we would associate with the start of high school, a few areas of interest and ability will be selected and pursued at a higher level, whilst other subjects are taught purely for application; maths, for example, would be taught with the relevance and application to daily life in mind, as opposed to abstract and complexity that would confuse a child without the inclination. Then when the student reaches the final two years of schooling those subjects will be dropped entirely and only a few subjects will be pursued into a level far beyond what we would associate with high school. There would be no set age for graduating - some might graduate in early teens, others at twenty or later.

It's whimsical and idealistic, I know. But I would have loved school to be like that.

embarassing.

Now Playing: 'Never Fade Away' by Blue King Brown

I've found that the best way to deal with hang ups is to talk about it. It's how I got over depression and my weight problem. I'm not depressed, anymore, by the way, and my weight is steady at 52kg, which is a very reasonable weight for my age and height and ethnicity.

But I could not, for a long time, talk about my most recent problem. Because it's so ridiculously embarassing.

My most important motivation for abandoning shampoo was that I was moulting like a fucking chicken. I have a few theories - hormones, for one (as if I needed YET ANOTHER REASON to hate hormones), and stress; things have been a little tough lately, academically and socially and all of that. I also quit coffee cold turkey, and hair loss is supposed to be a side effect of caffeine withdrawal. 

When you're a straight-hair girl like me you don't entirely understand the huge fuss about frizz control and curl taming. I swear, 90% of the market is aimed at slathering as much (mineral, refined, hydrogenated, bad for you) oil onto your hair. And products for normal/oily hair are typically targeted at men - sexist, much? - and are about as mild and gentle as hydrochloric acid. They say that long hair clogs drains, but it was getting ridiculous.

Since stopping using shampoo, removing lots of elements of stress in my life (there's not much I can do about the hormones) the hair fall has reduced to a tenth of what it used to be. But there is a part at the back of my head where my hairline is a little more pronounced. It's not the most obvious thing in the world, but, ya know, I'm fairly self conscious about it. I've been playing with my hair a bit more, and strategically trying to cover it.

And I hate it. I feel like a thirteen year old again, fixing my fringe to sweep over big patches of red, angry acne.

Everyone thinks I'm mad for washing my hair with what's good for you - fresh botanicals, and mild, gentle, natural cleansers. Sure, not everyone washes their hair with apple sauce and oatmeal, and everyone claims that 'shampoo never killed nobody' (debateable), but just because everyone does it doesn't mean that something is okay or safe. Everyone used to smoke. It still kills you whether five or five million people smoke.

I don't want the nasty chemicals and harsh detergents, fragrances, dyes and preservatives anywhere near my body, much less my brain. I don't want to deal with yet another body hang up for ignoring the fact that I don't understand half of the shampoo bottle lable and don't want to understand the other half. I don't have to do what everyone else does, especially when I know it's harming me.