It's not procrastination; it's a higher form of planning.

So, the last week has been pretty standard, in fact, nothing much has happened except that I visited my old first school, for their final assembly (the school is closing at the end of this term to be re-opened with my old middle school as a combined school) to give out an award to a little boy who has made some amazing academic progress! Bless, his mum looked so happy when he won his award, as did all of the children, who didn't really realise the significance of the assembly, but did very much like the look of the prizes!

Time moves much too quickly, just 10 years ago that would have been me, sitting cross-legged on the floor, eager-eyed and staring up at the teachers at the front of the hall! It feels as much like yesterday as it does a whole lifetime ago. The building was still so familiar, although much of the decoration itself has been changed, improved, updated, and I even got to speak again to some staff who had known me when I was 4!

To disorientate myself further, with my work I was showing some foreign students around the city where my Firm university choice is. It was a good day out (I love the city, obviously, otherwise I would not have made the university there my firm choice!) but also, by association, it was a little angsty, I just want my results now so that I know whether I'll ever get to live there or not! Strange, knowing that I might well live there for 3 years, but I might well not visit again for another 10 years, if I don't get in, because I can't bear to see it again if I'm rejected, it'll be too raw.

There you have it. I feel completely in limbo :/ within 48 hours I revisited memories of my first school days, and then walked around the city that, by October, may well be my new university home. However, at the moment I am unfortunately stuck somewhere between archaic memories and distant hopes for the future, which can only be solidified by my results on the 16th of August. Until then, I fear, I am completely lost at sea.

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!)

Happy New Year 2011!

Happy New Year

(albeit a day late...) New Year is always a little daunting what with all those resolutions and promises, but New Year is also a completely new leaf, a second chance, a fresh start, I love the fact that you can just forget the bad parts (but remember the good times!) of last year and look to the future!

This piece is about the start of a story, a fairytale, so perhaps could 2011 be the start of a fairytale new year for all of us, regardless of 2010.

50th Post!

Still obsessed with Fairytales, downloaded a great fairytale-like font, found this image from Enchanted and just had to make this picture! The line at the bottom is taken from another Disney film - Snow White.


*In less than 4 more weekly posts it'll be Christmas, >.< !

Fairytales, definitely the theme for today, and winter always reminds me of fairytales?

Ironically I started off this image using a picture of sleeping beauty, but then cinderella somehow worked out much better? Either way I'm quite happy with it, and the little roses and stuff I added in just for fun!


"Today was a fairytale you were the prince, I used to be a damsel in distress,

You took me by the hand and you picked me up at six, today was a fairytale..."

* Today was a fairytale, lyrics from Taylor Swift