When will I get my A-level results? What is the weather like here? Is there life on other planets? Read on to find out the answer to two of these three very important questions...

If only I had something more interesting to write about, than the fact that it's 4 days until I get my A2 results, and time has never gone so slowly! But I don't. Recently here the weather has improved (well, until tomorrow that is) and so I've been making the most of bing outside! I can't believe that the London 2012 Olympics is nearly over, after all of the preparation, hype, build up and then the spectacular event itself! It has proved me with a great distraction these last two weeks :p. Hayfever aside, I really love the summer, being able to wear nicer clothes (summer clothes are so much more attractive than practical winter clothes!), go out when I want, generally do what I want...it's a good life, though sometimes I do miss the routine of school.

The image above (another one of my creations on Polyvore) includes classic summer images, and a floral-themed outfit, complete with a matching clutch! I think my favourite part about it is the use of gold frames and the peachy-pink coloured blossom and flowers, it's a very romantic look, and it really shows up the summer sunlight filtering through the pictures, which is just perfect for a dreamy summer afternoon :)

2 Years Later...

My most recent Polyvore design

2 Years ago today I started this blog, beginning with images (coincidentally, images that I started using when I first opened my Polyvore account, at around the same time) from my GCSE Art and Design course. It started as a blog about art, concerning the creation of different types of artwork that I'd learnt about, but now my blog is much more about myself, somehow, and how this increasingly is shown through my art.

So basically, where as the the art did all the talking previously, now I do the talking, and the art is simply a more visual explanation for my thoughts.

I'd like to think that I've learnt a lot, since that 16 year old, bored after GCSEs (although admittedly I am very bored after leaving school, and genuinely cannot wait to get my results, go to university and start learning again, but that's just me I think) who had little direction in life other than some mediocre artwork and a random blog. Not that the art has really improved dramatically, although it has evolved somewhat (I primarily use Polyvore rather than GIMP to make images, and rather than photo manipulation I tend to use internet images and "arrange" them into bigger pieces rather than create the components themselves from scratch if you know what I mean).

This post is a pretty big milestone then, certainly, I know there are much older blogs around, but as far as Blogspot is concerned, the average lifespan of a blog seems to be under 2 years, so I think it's an achievement that I have continued to update this, if only for its consistency rather than for any extraordinary content, after all I'm not trying to change the world, I just want some way to record the things that I do and that I find interesting, I'm not fussed about having 100s of followers, although of course I like the idea that at least someone is reading what I write.

At this point I'd like to thank my actual followers (currently at around 15 I think?) for putting up with this nonsense, in the hope that they find something (if only occasionally) worth reading on here. As a side note, I have had over 3,900 views on this blog, which is far more than if I had decided to never publish it!

So here we are, I'm not world famous, I'm not a celebrated blogger or by any means a talented artist, I'm not a budding author or even an exceptional writer, but I am I believe, much closer than I was 2 years ago to finding myself, though if there's one thing I can be accused of, it's forgetting the past in favour of obsessing over the future, as opposed to say, living in the moment. (Ironic for a potential History student, right?)

For example, I tend to forget or overlook the things I've already achieved, the work I've done, however small, and instead I worry about what the future holds, where will my life go next etc. (to be fair, until I get my A2 results I don't even know where I'm going to be living in 2 months!) This however, is no way to live, there needs to be more of a balance I think, between positive reflection and active (but not anxious) anticipation of the future. That can be my target for the next year, until this blog's next milestone ;)

Maroon 5's song Payphone actually sums up the above scenario pretty well;

"You turned your back on tomorrow
Cause you forgot yesterday..."

The only way to the future is to remind ourselves of the best parts of the past -

"Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past"

- George Orwell, 1984

Who would have thought Maroon 5 and George Orwell would ever have belonged in the same sentence? Only on this blog!

A tree, a real life representation of Carl Jung's tree of self actualization....just kidding -

(A photograph I took on a shady walkway in Calpe, Alicante, if this picture is rotated it makes a really nice desktop background!)

28.04.12

  by nikigirl on polyvore.com

Well, the April showers have continued, and here we are a week later...I wish I had something more interesting to report, but aside from preparing for exams, schoolwork, and hearing people complain about the weather, this week has not been that eventful. Not that that's a bad thing, necessarily, but there you have it. I created this image ages ago, and for some reason having gotten around to publishing it before now, I think I've just had it saved somewhere and forgot about it. I hope that how my memory works, you know, during an exam when you can't remember something but then it appears really randomly, as if it's been "saved" somewhere, just waiting for the right thought to trigger it.

I think one of my favourite quotes that I have come across this week is by Mary Waldrop, she says;

"It's important that people know what you stand for. It's equally important that they know what you won't stand for."

I think for me this is a definite target, I have a horrible habit of saying yes to things, usually work, or something someone else wants, just for the sake of keeping peace. Although helping people constantly is a good thing, and let's people know that you stand for kindness and helpfulness, I think that there is definitely a time and a place to say no, otherwise you end up with nothing left for yourself!

Another quote I found (Einstein's extension of Parkinson's Law) is one that I'm writing up simply because it describes my life so well at the moment; "A work project expands to fill the space avaliable", it's the same with my revision for the next 6 weeks, it's not about getting a certain amount of revision done, it's about filling all the avaliable space I can with revision, and subsequently re-remembering and learning things constantly, rather than sitting down and saying "I have to do 5 hours a day" or something.

Wish me luck.

Memories

Memories

I really like photos of people not looking at the camera, especially if they're looking into the distance, or taken from an interesting angle...I also have an obsession with putting clocks in the background of everything, and overlaying virtually every image I make with some sort of book/ photo montage?

The words "World", "adventure", and "travel" are also particularly relevant as I've just booked my summer holiday! A nice week somewhere sunny with a load of my closest friends - just what I need after finishing my final exams - and a great way to start what I hope will be a great summer :)

I also like putting mis-match frames around the different images, makes the whole thing look a lot less mainstream ;)

Speaking of summer, I've also paid for my end-of-school prom (!) which is only a few months away, which seems insane considering I can still remember my Year 11 prom so clearly...so I guess the title of this post may be "Memories" (well, it suits the image!) but really at the moment I'm focused a lot more on the future; which isn't always a bad thing.

Reflection

Reflection by nikigirl

Friday the 13th! Unlucky for some but I've been lucky enough to have a pretty good day so far; in terms of school and home so here's to hoping the weekend is good too! (Although by default it WILL be good just because I don't have to get up at 7/ do any serious schoolwork :P)

First week back at school always makes me reflect on things a lot. You'd think the last week of term would have inspired the same, but I was too busy thinking about exams to really consider anything else. Instead, as I said, this week I realisied that time is moving away from me, faster than ever - only 12 school weeks left until I go on study leave and leave school forever! That's incredible considering all the weeks that went into the 7 years I've been at secondary school, not to mention the 7 years of schooling I had previous to that!

I calculated. *If* I get into the university I want to go to I only have 262 days left until my first day there, so that's;

22,636,800 seconds
377,280 minutes
6288 hours
37 weeks (rounded down)

Approximately! The crazy thing is, only 12 of those weeks include school, the rest is all studyleave/ holiday! Presuming I move into uni the weekend before Fresher's week - that's only 260 days left living at home! :O

Anyway, back to the present, this is where I must learn to live, one day at a time rather than in the past or the future - do you like the image? I deliberately included loads of symbols representing the passing of time, the hourglass, the pocket watch, the blossoms, the birds and even the girl...and then I added a couple of bows and a vintage photograph effect just because ;)

Enjoy the weekend!

Simplicity

Sometimes the basics are the best.

Only 2 more days in school, 2 more exams, then it's Christmas!

The wait is hard, but it will be worth it, just a few more hours of revision, a few more cards to write, presents to wrap, decorations to display, and time will pass before I know it!

But I do love black & white photographs, and Paris, and pink things, and of course, the beautiful Emma Watson to set it all off :) this image is a reminder of why I should persevere - once it gets to the Christmas holidays I'll have loads more time for image editing!

Simplicity by nikigirl on polyvore.com

Tea, and other such Time

No point lying, I'm so much more into Polyvore instead of GIMP right now as far as image-editing and composing is concern which is really strange considering I actually joined Polyvore 2 years ago and only really started using it now... such is life, I suppose.

In other news, this week has been a continuation of stressful driving lessons, homework and coursework deadlines combined with the fact that I'm still waiting to hear back from universities, my mock A2s are in a month oh, and my job no longer exists so I have virtually no disposable income :(

Bad times indeed. BUT, I must remember the tone of my last post, and remain positive - things can't stay this way forever, the only thing that stays the same is that things always change! Although I titled this image "Tea time" I'd like to now draw inspiration from W.H.Auden;

But all the clocks in the city,

Began to whirr and chime:

'O let not Time deceive you,

You cannot conquer Time.


Today of course, time has a particularly special significance, not only is the date 11.11.11 but it's also Remberance Day, so let us not only remember those that fell in service of their country, but also those that were left to remember, especially during those first few Armstice Days when happiness to some, would have seemed like a different era, a lifetime away, a mere memory...

The good old American dream...

Did I mention I like vintage? That's a clue if you somehow didn't see the number of old stamps I incorporated into this image, and I think the entire flowers-in-vase on a wooden table is retro, like really like Van Gough or something... I know the flowers look nice but I hope you think that the positioning of the stamps to give a kind of depth works, that's what I was aiming for :)

I'm aware that it has been a while - but I am now free of AS exams! Now I can finally show you what has been getting me through them, and I have to say as soon as I saw the photograph with the water lily I knew I could work with it and am happy with the result! I even managed to incorporate a stamp with our lovely Queen Elzabeth II on it, adding to the vintage-type look I was trying to achieve :)

A nice, random collage, as it's the holidays, and so the resurrection of my creativity after last term's exams temporarily killed it...for the time being anyway, until I get bored, which is unlikely as I just found a stash of old "vintage stamp" images I have saved on my computer!

As why for all of the little animals....I have no idea, they just looked good and then I turned it into a kind of theme.

Sorry for my apparent recent obsession with black & white, it'll stop soon, I promise, I just love the style, and by coincidence all of the images I got the ideas for were quite "old world" looking.

This montage is based on a strange dream I had, sort of like Alice in Wonderland, but slightly darker - and so I created this based on that, and the fact that I'm just liking the slightly gothic stuff at the moment, most of my previous work (on the last page under "Older posts") was really bright, I swear!

"We're all mad here" ;D