Unruly

I’ve been busy! With the obvious things, such as eternal reading of articles:

And relishing the sheer and utter joy of having a new marker:

And having a breakfast of toast, soymilk-coffee and a bunch of scribbled cards:

And cleaning up the floor so I can actually see it:

And even though none of that may seem like much fun, I have secretly been enjoying it thoroughly. Hence, I’ve also been busy ensuring a continuation of this very wordy nerdy lifestyle, by applying for a second Master’s degree (I hate having to write a letter of motivation, or whatnot. Yuck):

But most wonderful about all this is that no matter how close the deadline for my thesis is getting (four weeks and counting, thank you very much), I am okay. I have cookies to eat, funny comics to read for procrastinational purposes, I have a penguin on my desk, I have pretentious music to listen to, I have shoulders like bricks and I do not think my thesis is going to be any good whatsoever.

And yet, and yet … I’m having fun. Nerdy fun. And there’s hardly a freakout in sight!

Amen.

 

 

Or rather, unruly brain!! Dang it, I’m completely into Thesis Madness … I’m discovering new layers of resistance to work and writing, at levels I didn’t know I had! Basically, this means I have a lot of complaining to do, and a lot of cleaning. Because my room doesn’t get any cleaner than during times of academic stress, that’s for sure!

But here we go. My little thesis-book, and a DVD I use for both information and inspiration on my thesis…And soy cappuchino, obviously.

But I packed up a lot of loose clutter from my room, including my art supplies. Goodbye dear friends, it’s not likely I’ll be seeing any of you guys any time soon … Alas, alas.

Though I will perhaps be grabbing that tarot deck at some point, when guidance from above and beyond is needed. This is not at all out of the question.

Right. Some organized pictures! (Very organized for me, that is …)

Come to think of it, it’s more about bookcase-decoration than organization. But what the hell. 

For inspiration, I like to look at pictures of people working hard, from a book about coffee … But none of it rubs off, unfortunately.

Also interesting (haha): this was my lunch today. It produced about 1,000 words, though much of it in quotes. Maybe something even more substantial than sourdough toast tomorrow …

And finally, I debuted (spelling??) a new brooch (broche? So many questions!) this week, because life without accessories just isn’t any fun. I wouldn’t go as far as to suggest it isn’t worth living, but …

Ciao! Remember to stay sane … Easier said than done, but we must all try our best!

 

Which actually means “Anything But Writing”…I have six weeks (give or take a few days, let’s not get too nitty-gritty just yet) to finish my Master’s Thesis. Right. In any case, apart from the obvious panic attacks, freakouts and those kinds of emotional tasks ahead of me, this relatively short amount of time also means I will have to start writing. If only I had…

Today I read quite a lot, many of it actually thesis-related and in some ways quite useful…But not quite as useful as putting words on paper. Or on screen, to be precise. What I also did was print out some articles from Yoga Journal, about how to release tension in the neck, and about surrendering to practice. I wish reading was the same as doing, I really do.

Printed those articles on previously used paper, I have this huge pile of articles collected over the years for various coursework and essays. The ones with good karma I’m keeping, the ones that make me freak out, I’ve decided to remove from my room. It’s actually a relatively small pile:

And it’s actually also just from one course (yucky course last semester…). By now it’s in my RecyclingPaperBag, and by Friday it’ll be out of here. Phew!

So basically, I’m cleaning house, trying to minimize the amount of crap I am confronted with (visually mostly) every day I’m in my room. Progress is slow but steady. But I just have SO MUCH CRAP! For instance, my bookcase is completely overflowing, so as a counterweight against the psychedelia of titles I face every day I decided to simplify the wall-decoration on the other side of my room. My kimono has been upgraded to wallpaper:

It feels very calm…I’m already liking it a lot. As for my desk, I’ve tried to remove as much as I can, leaving as much white space as I can handle…And I have my eye on a wicker hamper for my clean towels and bedlinen and that sort of hooha, all I need now is to convince my inner-finance-person that it’s okay to spend 30 euros on something like that, if you can actually put it to good use. Here’s a picture of one I don’t actually want, but it’s a good illustration:

Sigh. See what it has all come to? I’m writing about frickin’ hampers. Oh well. At least I’m writing… Rather than dreaming of the vegan cupcakes I want to bake (carrot cake, with coconut icing!), and the colour I should paint my chair, or indulging my total obsession with certain organic beauty products, or visiting the pecuniary bermuda triangles that are Etsy and Amazon, or getting a vocab lesson from Plum (who would probably not appreciate me taking such a familiar tone), or thinking about what a super word that is, “plum” … Right.

Best get a good night’s sleep, who knows what will happen tomorrow!

Just as I’m back, I’m going again … Off to clear my head once more and return recharged and (re)inspired. Which I’ve no doubt will happen, for I feel somehow different these days, precisely because I’m not. If that doesn’t make a lot of sense, I’m sorry. Explaining is not my forte today. If forte is the word/spelling I want.

Here are some pictures from my favourite book at the moment, New York Interiors. Funny how even pictures of effing rich people’s homes are inspiring for the student in the attic room. Could I sound more like the thoroughly middle class young lady I am?

I know some would consider it boring, but I just love the combination of the white walls and that greyish green carpet and all the warm wood. And by love, I mean actual physical affection. If I could eat the page and it would taste the way it feels to me, I’d be munching paper by now.

But it’s probably a far better idea to go to sleep. Zzzzzzzzzzzz……

Let’s not even begin the whole “oooh how long have I failed to post?”-dance because I can’t find my dancin’-shoes today. I’m sorry for being absent, most of all because it wasn’t a conscious decision. But here I am, with a bunch of pictures from a short trip, with renewed inspiration, and all that jazz. And it’s Spring! Or something like that. 

Anyhoodle. What follows is a little visual account of my short stay in Malaga last month, and a final picture denoting my general sentiment these days…it’s a craft project but I’m not very good at the spirit of craft so I finished it all in one afternoon. To be done with it. Gosh, what happened to “there is no way to happiness, happiness is the way”? 

Amen.

You know how sometimes all you can think is “Ugh” and “Yuck” and “Dear Lord you sure made a lot a stupid people” and “Why!!??”… (By the way, don’t pretend like you’re very eloquent and never think “Ugh”. We all think “Ugh” now and then). Let me share with you some answers.

Firstly, according to Dharma Finkelstein (so I like taking my advice from fictional characters,  shoot me), you have to put a tiny little harmonica up your nose and then get into a crowded elevator… Which is fine for some, but where is a girl to find a nose-sized harmonica?

So another trick is to read the New York Times online. Granted, some of the news is enough to make you want to hide in your bed and hibernate all year round. But occasionally, you come across something so cute is has got to make you smile. Even if only a little bit… 

In other news, I’m looking for proper bedtime reading. By proper, I mean good. I do not mean  respectable or whatever because if a nice young lady such as myself has to pay attention to that kind of decorum how is she ever going to find the time to whine and blog? Anyhoodle. A while ago I started on Shogun, and for a while it was intriguing, but I got halfway and then it just started to bore and annoy me. If I had to read one more paragraph about how the tall English shipwrecked dude longed for some proper food, and was becoming samurai, I would start eating my hair. And eating hair, as my cat taught me, never really works. So instead of continuing to read, eating my hair and then having to heave it all up again, I decided to put the book back on the shelf. Furthermore, is was friggin’ heavy and my delicate little wrists started to hurt.

A little while before all this, I got started on The Famished Road (this was before I had given up on serious literature before bedtime).  But this book turned out to be just a bit too beautiful, and it gave me nightmares so oppressing as I hadn’t experienced in ages. So that book found its way back upon the shelf as well. Finally, I just started reading children’s books. But that wasn’t the answer either. I need something soothing yet substantial enough to set my teeth into, otherwise I am left in a state of mental dangling of near-but-not-quite-there relaxation. Let me rephrase. Your muscles only really relax after you’ve contracted them tightly and then let go. I need mental-contraction literature for bedtime…And I haven’t found it yet.

Enough typing for now. I’ll be damned if I’ll become one of those people who write entries so intimidating in size that one (the reader) simply sighs and clicks away. I have too often been that reader. No patience….

Right. The embedded video still isn’t working, dang it. So please click again. This is the last Daily Show video I will make you watch, promise.  

I both rue and celebrate the day I got me a creditcard. On the plus, I can buy really awesome things. Like my latest obsessions, vintage haoris* (to complement my pretty kimono, and to wear outside the house…A kimono outside the house is very wrong. I already feel weird answering the door in it. It is so theatrical…But a haori!):

 

 

On the minus (literally), you spend a crapload of money on things you (pssst, don’t tell anyone) don’t really need.  

But I don’t care anymore. I’m having bad-vibes-days, which basically means I am grumpy, therefore everything I cook turns out awful and not tasty at all, therefore I am grumpy.  As long as people will listen to me being grumpy, it all works out. But why else would you have a blog, or a phone, right? 

Now, excuse me, I am going to throw the better part of my blah lunch away, eat an orange, (pretend to) read the news, pack my little bag and be off to class.  Share the grumpiness. Sharpen my intellectual claws. Growl at random people. By my calculations, I should be sunny again by tomorrow.  

*By the way a haori is like half a kimono. Or something like that. I think. 
 

I’m getting to be somewhat bored with this blog. HOW MANY PICTURES OF MY DESK WILL I MAKE AND POST??!!! Ugh. This is what I like to do on my computer now (crap the embedded video doesn’t appear to be working… so please click here or here instead): Watch Stephen Colbert. Watch Jon Stewart. Laugh green tea from my nose. And then go out into the world, spending money on organic cookies and National Geographic. That, I’m not bored with yet.

It’s February. That probably hasn’t escaped you, but I still wanted to point it out. All throughout January, February was the Promised Month, there was merely a Sea of Words to be parted (and digested, and regurgitated into three neat little papers) and then I would get there…And now I’m here, and yes, I feel free and light as a bird or one of my own stray blonde hairs. But the Sea of Words hasn’t gone anywhere, I’m afraid. To wit, my reading-list for the coming three months:

That pink thing in the middle is my pencil, with which I will leave my mark (critical margin-remarks and smiley faces, as always) on all of these fancy books. Am I trying to look interesting by showing I will be reading Arendt and Freud etc? Totally. 

To balance that, here is a close-up of my new lipgloss, carried all the way from London by my tree- and view-obsessed friend:

 

What’s that in the background? Yes, those are the mini-packets of cornflakes I bought, in a flakey mood. I used to get those on holiday in the UK, and so this was all very nostalgic. Too nostalgic to have breakfast with them, so they became snacks.

 

Also, the health-fanatic person within me completely disapproves of eating that stuff (just think of the sugar! And it ain’t vegan either!). Breakfast is a time for soymilk and green tea and expensive granola, thank you very much. Preferably eaten in bed, in the midsts of messed-up sheets. 

 

Right. Enough about the cornflakes.

The title of this particular post referred to LOOOAAADS of work. And you may be cruel enough to look at that first picture and think to yourself, “One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight Books!” (Why would you count with capital letters, that’s just silly!) “Eight books in three months, that really isn’t so bad…That odd blonde girl really whines about everything, golly.” 

Well, you would golly-well be wrong.

Why? I’ll show you why! There’s another pile!

 

This is the preliminary thesis-pile. Take a wild guess what my thesis is about…Go on.

And, hello, who’s on top of the pile? (Besides me. I am on top of that thesis!)

 

Serene, isn’t he?

You know who else it pretty serene? In a loopy, fruity kind of way?

 

Banana Girl, you old fruit, you really pop up everywhere, don’t you?

Okay, time to stop and get back to doing all those important things I should be doing. There’s many of them, trust me…

Until the next ridiculous pictoral interlude!