Where is My Mind

It's hard to believe it's been over a year since I first penned these journal entries (remember that I wrote my 2014 journal entries in a 2013 diary?) and a lot has changed since then. These feelings of uncertainty towards my partner have since been resolved, or rather I was able to express them and feel so much better for it. We're back together now but that feeling of freedom and being in touch with my own body and soul was so grounding. Anyway given that I spent a lot of time composing these thoughts and creating little doodles to accompany them I thought they needed to exist online as well as tangibly. Or that maybe someone would find these photos at just the right time and deem it some sort of miracle and take comfort in these words frozen on the page. The human experience is always an embarrassing debacle but there are rare moments of exceptional beauty. Not the stuff of art films but memories which crystallize in our minds and we will hold on to for decades to come. I take comfort knowing that people have extended such kindness and warmth to me in the past, and those moment are just as powerful as being told that I am loved. In those moments words are not needed, I feel it all around me and there can be nothing more perfect or powerful.

Landscape

I had every intention of making more journal pages in a series of badass alien babes in front of breathtaking landscapes but I haven't been interested in the creative process lately. These thoughts have also been solidified by my acceptance that sometimes less really is more, and that I don't have enough hours in the day to dedicate to everything I want. That's OK, as long as I focus on what's important.

debutante

A secret narcissistic desire of mine was to have my picture taken at an event wearing a totally cute outfit and hanging out with a bunch of babes, basically since I was about sixteen. About a month ago now my wish came true but at terrible, terrible costs:
I'm not going to sugar coat it, it's a terrible photo of me wearing the derpiest cheesy smile ever? This photo was taken for The Thousands which is a cool Melbourne based website and they called me cute anyway (thanks guys!). I wish I had bitch-faced and done something different with my arms but Amy (centre) and Kelly (right) look totally amazing and I'm glad I got to take photos of their outfits. But yeah, I wish this wasn't the only photo of all three of us. *Reminder* you can be twenty one years old and still look about twelve when you have unkept messy baby hairs cradling your forehead compared to goddess women.

where do I belong?

Basically after completing my "I'm a Scientist Too" post and feeling on top of the world, I was asked to stop using the lab space as an office and it opened up so many old scars about not fitting in and my general existence being a detriment to other people. I like working where I do because I get to talk to other people about their research, and felt like I was part of the scientific community. Now being pushed aside and toppled off my perch I just feel at a total loss for words and lack any motivation to complete my work. I never cried at uni until that afternoon when I had to quick as I could run to a bathroom stall because I could not for the life of me hold it in anymore. Contrary to popular belief, women don't cry in order to get attention or get their own way and I can never dispel the feeling of complete and utter shame when salty tears involuntarily roll down my cheeks. I'm sorry, I don't like to add to the noise of the Internet and generally avoid self-serving posts but I just feel like in order to create distance between myself and this sense of displacement they needed to exist in a place outside of my own head.

I didn't like the way in which I was asked, how I was spoken to but what hurt was the feeling that I didn't belong because I finally thought I had everything figured out. I would go on to do a PhD, continue doing work which I loved and felt passionate about which would be difficult but rewarding in the end. It never occurred to me that the work environment would suddenly become hostile or that my legitimacy would be questioned. Nor did I consider that in that situation I would be unable to do anything to help my situation or that it would totally change how I function and where I complete my work. There's not a lot I can do other than stay out of their way and at home, since I need the assistance of this person in my research and I'm going to have to complete field work with them. I'm just super bummed out about the whole situation and feel like in the workplace we are still subject to the same childish games we had to endure in high school and frankly it's a real let down. Maybe things never really get better, they just get different. 

1- Heavenly Creatures (1994), 2- The Virgin Suicides (1999), 3- Photography by Gregory Crewdson, 4, 5- days of sleep by somnials and staticpool modelling, 6, 8- Hilary Faye Sloane, 9- still from an Alfred Hitchcock film, 10- Style Rookie, 12 & 13- via Style Abuse. 7 & 11- source.

pretty hurts

I was meaning to create more collages before posting these but when it became apparent that that was never going to happen I decided it was time. They're not like my other collages in that there's a stronger emphasis on fashion, as well as less manipulation or altering of the original photos. Normally I feel really insecure unless I have removed all traces of the original context of a certain element or model but that didn't bother me. I know that seems super lazy but for now I am content to curate these images as they are. There's an obvious lack of representation in these images as well which is an artifact of the original fashion magazine content. Where possible I try to combat this in the lookbooks and runway shows I write about, as well as the moodboards I make using my computer. I wanted to draw attention to this with the title "pretty hurts" reinforcing the notion that these beauty ideals may actually be doing us more harm than good. Underneath all those photo shopped images and saccharine sweet tones there is an underlying malice to the detriment of the fashion industry.