Back On The Blog/ Blogging as a Buoy

Here I am again; Sitting on my old desk chair, headphones in, staring at a mostly empty Word document trying to come up with a string of words decent enough to be posted on the interwebs. I had not expected to find myself in this position ever again. Somewhere during the first weeks of summer I stopped blogging. I stopped trying to come up with 600 words or less pieces about wrung out truths. I stopped typing or picking up pens. I stopped writing.

Summer is a time for re-invention, or so thought. I was just recovering from my junior year of high school, which had been far from positive and now that I had time to look back at all that had happened, all the mistakes I made and the effect they had had on my mental health, I decided I needed a change. Or to be more exact, changes. Plural.

My plan for ‘ having a better senior year and life in general’  relied so heavily on the belief that change was beneficial, that I quit and threw out almost anything that related to my junior year. This blog included. I thought that to get to a better place, I could not take anything that reminded me of where I came from with me.

I could not have been more wrong. While coming up with my grand scheme to turn around my life, I forgot that I had to thank many little positive activities for the fact that I even got through junior year. These ‘me-experiences’ like writing this blog, riding horses and wasting time with my friends in the park had functioned as coping mechanism. Maybe all these experiences were all somehow overshadowed by the terribleness of my school year and maybe I didn’t need them as much while it was summer, but that does not mean they are unimportant.

It means the exact opposite, actually. Right now, I like to believe that the things we reach for when we are bored/lonely/sad/confused/tired are the ones that matter most. Because they somehow alleviate all the suckiness that is going on for a moment. Recently on Rookie I read Dylan describe hobbies as ‘doors’. I don’t think hobbies are just ‘doors’, they can also be buoys. What we hold on to, to prevent save ourselves from drowning. It’s incredible how important finding those things that relieve your misery is, because then you will know no matter how low you get in life, you will always  have writing/dancing/watching Friends/playing with your dogs/playing soccer to lift you up.

So that is my overly lengthy explanation as to why I’m returning to this blog with a somewhat clumsily written post. Because I want to keep my buoy in the water.

Let's have a song. 'Cause that's how I used to end my posts.

Feels Like Freedom

First of all, let me begin this post with a sort-of apology for my absence. The past few weeks exams and studying for these exams decided to swallow up all my time and sanity (stress...). Fortunately I have made it through my exam period to come out alive and ready for relaxation, because the end of my last exam on Friday meant the beginning of summer for me! I feel extremely excited and giddy with the thought of so much FREEDOM ahead of me. The inevitable boredom, loneliness because all my friends are out of town and going-back-to-school stress all haven't set in yet and right now I am certain that this summer is going to be THE BEST EVA.

Initially my plan was to come up with a post schedule for this blog during the summer, so I could be more active on here and fight my boredom with writing as much as possible. However, I decided not to do it. This is because this summer I want to do things differently. Every summer at the begin of my period of relative freedom, when I'm filled with start-of-summer-excitement, I always come up with a list of projects-to-do, books-to-read, movies-to-watch and experiences-to-have. I have never succeeded in completing any of these lists, because after two weeks of 'the most intense summer experience ever', I come down with a case of summer burn-out and stay inside while marathoning Gossip Girl for a week.

This summer this hopefully won't happen. Besides going to the US to attend a leadership/politics-program (I'm so excited and nervous. omg.), a trip with my family and the aspiration to finally get that summer job, I have nothing planned for this summer. No lists with to-do's or to-read's or to-see's. I can just do whatever I want. Off course I will read and watch movies and go out with friends, but this time it will just come down to what I feel like on a particuliar day. I'm not going to force myself to read Great American Literature or 'visit at least three musuems with a friend' if I don't want to. Because that is the thing with to-do lists, they are a lot easier to write down than to actually complete.

Maybe I'll be able to make the most of my freedom this way. By just doing what I want, reading what I want, watching what I want - simply living how I want - I might actually become a bit more capable of understanding what I want and like and what I want to spend  my time on when I have full control over it.

Maybe just one to-do: Go see TFIOS

A Blogpost in Four Acts

Some random Tumblr art, to add to the haphazardous-ness of this post 

*Warning: Very random and long post ahead* Everyday my summer vacation draws closer, but I'm still in that state where I know it's coming but its just not there yet. While I'm constantly occupied with Life, thoughts and inspiration come in short spontaneaous burts. Like weeds sprouting through a cracked pavement that consists mostly of exam papers. At the moment I just don't have the space to string all these instances together and find the recurring theme (if life ever has one, that is). Therefore I decided to employ my illustrious talent for list-making to create a somewhat readable account of thoughts and observations I've been having lately.

1. I want to posses all beauty, all at once
I've been experiencing moments of enormous happiness without reason lately. I think I might be falling in love with life. I just never realized happiness could be so addicting. The more I posses it, the more I want of it. In my brightest moments my mind will go on a trip to every beautiful thing in life. Ones I have experienced in the past and ones I wish to experience. The latter are especially strong. I want to posses all these instances, all at ones. I want to lose myself in a Cambridge library, enveloped by epic tales written in words from the past. At the same time I want to serenade a wasted youth, kissing a boy with a late summer-smile in a parking lot, illuminated by the multi-coloured lights of 7-Eleven. (I'm romanticizing, off course. That is what happiness does to someone.) I want to conquer the busy Parisian streets. I want to revisit my old summer home. I want to listen to The Clash, but sing along to Taylor Swift in the same instance. I want to live the stories on my reading list all at the same time. I want to make new friends and catch up with every one I lost contact with. I want to  rekindle old passions, while performing every act unknown to me. I want to experience all beauty and I want to have it be part of me. I want to be made of beauty. I want, I want, I want..... I want to live.

2. Sometimes meaning is overrated
I'm a constant narrator of my own life, searching for wrung-out metaphors and hidden truths in every moment  I divide my days in clearly defined acts as if they're part of a play. I do all this, because I'm continually searching for Meaning (with a capital M) in my every action. Recently, I watched 'Big Easy Express'. It's a documentary about the tour Mumford & Sons, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros and Old Crow Medicine Show took across the US in a train filled with music. Unlike many other movies about people doing something remotely artistic, very little is said in this film. No one tries to come up with some deeper truth behind their travels and music, except simple  enjoyment. I have been looking at my days a little more as if I'm on the Big Easy Express. I've found that a lot of moments don't need to have Meaning (with a capital M), to be good and make me feel all good inside. Not everything is part of a greater narrative, exploring some main theme. Sometimes things just are.

3. Misery is the new black
Feeling good has made me realize a lot of people I spend a lot of time with and believe to care about really enjoy the idea of feeling bad. They wear their negativity like a cool accessory. Expressing they hate this band, or that movie or these people makes them even more cool, or should I say 'edgy'. I have to admit I have taken part in this many times, but now I simply don't understand what the big deal is with hating things. It sure isn't a productive way of living. Perhaps it's because when we believe that having common interests helps to make friends, we are faced with two options: Finding people who like the same thing(s) as you or finding people who hate the same thin(s) you hate. Often it's easier to find someone who also doesn't like (or actually just doesn't care or doesn't know about them, but nods when you express your dislike) One Direction  instead of meeting someone who shares your love for Katy Perry/80s movies/thrift shopping/Rupert Grint/Lord of The rings. After all, the enemy of my enemy is a friend.

4. Life comes in waves
The first months of this year weren't the best times for me, I felt like things had gone very dark and didn't believe brighter days would come again. Yet, like the changing of the seasons, they did. All it took was waiting. Now that I'm living right in the middle of the good times, I still posses the knowledge that this happiness, like my sadness, is also fleeting. I'm usually very sceptical when it comes to Balance-YingYang-Inspirational Quote-stuff, but I do want to believe that life is like a scale held in balance by Good Stuff and Bad Stuff. I feel like they come in waves and the only thing I can do is ride the good ones and wait for the bad ones to ebb. The believe that I control the way life plays out is still very alive within me, but spending some time in the Bad Stuff-wave has made me realize that sometimes shit just happens  and all you can do is try to deal with it as far as your capability allows. Maybe this is all just Good Wave talk, but for now it works as a pretty solid philosophy. (Or at least, the best one I can come up with at the moment ;) )

Kudos to you if you go through this blogpost, I'm not really sure what it was meant to be either. What has been up in your life lately? Let me know!

When I Fail To Be Pretentious

Totally unrelated collage I made. I've been really into Sylvia Plath lately. 

Some time ago I wrote that things were vey hectic in my life, little did I know that was just the begining. The last few days have been blur of graduation ceremonies, extracurricular activities, parties and late night essay writing sessions. There is no time in between to really register what actually happened. My body constantly seems to be ahead of my mind.

This intense level of constant activity has also made me realize I'm a true introvert. I do really enjoy all these social events, but after a whole day of being around other people, I am exhausted and feel like I need  time to enjoy some aloneness (which, I might add, is very different from loneliness). My social-exhaustion also changes several habits I have, including the books/Tv-shows/movies/music I 'consume'. I find myself throwing my 'sophisticated smart (/pretentious) people'- literature to side and picking up easy reading YA series. I suddenly go on a Disney Channel- movie binge and my favorite musice genre changes into 'love songs about high school boys'. 

These entertainment choices go against everything that I as an entertainment snob (I know, it's bad) believe in. I'm that person who proclaims there is no hope for society when I see trashy reality TV and go on a thirty minute long rant when I see some book about an unrealisticly sappy romance is on the top of the bestseller list. This is not just outward appearance. I do truly love my high-brow-intellectual-pretentious-person entertainment and get sad when I see it doesn't recieve the recognition (or at least, I think) it  deserves. I hate to see a theatre or museum close because lack of visitors or really cool artists not getting a big enough audience to support themselves. I am (or was) truly puzzled about why others can't appreciate poetry or 18th century lit or some indie film, like I do. 

Another totally unrelated picture of my messy art supplies.

My own change of behavior this week has really made me cirtically look at my attitude. As I observe that the busier and more exhausted I become, the simpler my entertainment gets, I wonder if all that artsy-intellectual is only appealing for those who have time to worry about it. There are many great literary novels that, however brilliant, are actually really depressing. They're inspiring and thought-provoking, but not something I like to read after a long day of studying/work/socializing with family you barely know. Sometimes I already have to many things to worry about to leave room for some fictional artist's existential crisis.

I know that there are many more much more complicated factors that influence what kind of entertainment/media a person consumes, but perhaps I should be more understanding when I see 'said book about sappy romance' sell better than 'intellectual artsy novel about wretchedness of society'. One of the most powerful things entertainment does is providing an escape. Especially when life gets hard, a world that is different from ours becomes appealing. That can be a world with magic and dragons or one where simply all man  our amazingly romantic lovers. Or one created by Disney for 12-year olds.  Quite often high-brow-intellectual-pretentious-person entertainment doesn't offer this escape, or does it in a more complicated way. A complicated way that you don't want to deal with after your own life has already worn you out. 

All my ramblings above do not mean that this whole phenomenon is not more complex. Many factors have a say in what kind of media and entertainment a person consumes. It also shouldn't be forgotten that high-brow-intellectual-pretentious-person entertainment can often make us feel understood, inspired or just simply happy. Good art doesn't always have to be sad. 

Also, I would like to point out that no kind of enertainment is better than the other. Despite my sometimes snobbish attitude (that I have to work on getting rid off!), entertainment is good as long as long as you find it enjoyable/inspiring/interesting/etc. Labeling something as 'great literature' and 'easy summer read' is a highly subjective matter and you shouldn't let those labels define your own experience with entertainment/art.

Talking about music: Vanessa Carlton - Rabbits on the run

Like most people I like music, books and movies. I also really (really really really) enjoy talking about them, but for some reason I don't do that on this blog. That reasons probably is that I feel totally unqualified to share my opinion on entertainment-y stuff with the world. I mean, I still enjoy Disney Channel movies, often pretend to understand the books I read better than I really do and don't even know the genre of half of the songs on my iPod. Still, in the spirit of Doing Things Simply Because I Enjoy Them I will write about some music I discovered recently. 

You know those annoying autoplay music players on blogs? That is how I discovered Vanessa Carlton. As I unsuspiciously scrolled through the blog that had this player, I was suddenly attacked by the intro of 'White Houses'. Altough I almost had a seizure (the loudness of my volume might have contributed to this), I wasn't even that mad. The piano sounded nice, the chorus was catchy and I felt like I could relate to the vulnerable girly voice. It was one of those songs I like to listen to when I need a break from all the punk and rock music.

Like I ussually do when I discover something I like the slightest bit, I Google'd Vanessa Carlton. After discovering she was the girl from the 'A Thousand Miles'-song (Have you seen 'White Chicks'?) that has been played so many times I just can't not be annoyed by it and watching several early-2000s videoclips, I stumbled upon her 2011 album 'Rabbits On the Run'. (You can listen to it here and if you like it you can be a good person and buy it.) Maybe it's because I don't know much about music, but I had never heard something like it before. 

'I don't want to be a bride', my favorite from the album

It is like a cute-sy singer/songwriter album, but strange. The first two songs 'Carrousel' and 'I don't want to be a bride' set a very magical fairy-taleish tone for the rest of the album. I immediately tought of Alice in Wonderland when I heard 'Carrousel'. Although both songs are upbeat and have a magical feeling to them, they also somehow sound haunting. In the rest of the songs on the album, for example 'Hear the Bells' and 'The Marching Line', this feeling that I can only describe as 'Bittersweet about the fact that everything is fleeting' is even more present. 

All the songs, some of which consist mostly of piano with very little vocals, on 'Rabbits on the run' are very different from 'A Thousand Miles' and other songs from Vanessa that have slightly awkward video clips.(I have to admit I'm not a really big fan of those, although in every song she shows she can really play and sing.) Still the songs from 'Rabbits' are just as nice to listen to. 

That's it. My first time of trying to write something semi-interesting/intelligent about music on here. I hope I didn't embarras myself too much and I have convinced at least one person to listen to a Vanessa Carlton song without the using autoplay. 

Poorly Taken Pictures of Happy Days

I'm feeling really really really good *insert bouncing emoticon*. The past few days I can't stop myself from smiling. What I'm experiencing is not the kind of happiness that comes with all sorts of 'buts' and 'howevers', it's the good kind. The simple kind. The outside world hasn't changed much, but my inside universe feels shifted somehow. To record my probably annoying and certainly fleeting positivity, I decided to take capture some shots (with my just decent phone camera) of things that made me happy today.

My floral skirt tells me I am the cutest flower princess in disguise. My face is unfortunately to engrossed in the art of taking mirror pictures to show it.

A heart my friend drew on my hand and my bracelet that I wear almost every day. If you look closely, you can see my name ingraved in it.

'Johny Boy' by Twenty One Pilots. A song to conquer the world to.

I bought these on a whim a while ago, expecting to never wear them. They are my favorite sneakers now. 

School can actually be fun/interesting sometimes.

I love Sylvia Plath. 'How does one read books of poetry?' is the question I ask myself the most.

'Ariel' and 'On the Road'. Designing book covers must be a cool job.

Let's play dress up

"Why are you dressed like that?" and "Do you have somewhere special to go to?" Where just a few of several comments I received on my outfit today. When I decided to put on what I was wearing in the morning I had never expected, or hoped for, receiving any response to the way I was dressed. I had simply put on  these clothes, because I thought I would enjoy wearing them.

I would be lying if I said that I can't understand at all where my clothing critiquers were coming from. I had indeed decided to put on a black dress with a black blazer on top of it, an outfit that can be seen as quite formal for a regular schoolday. The fact that several people pointed this out wasn't what bothered me about the comments I received. It was the "why"-question that often followed that did.

In asking someone to explain why they made certain fashion choices, lies the belief (that some may be aware of having and others unconciously act upon) that the reason 'I wear it, because I like it' is not valid or lacking. Now this is not a belief that is uncommon and I experience having it as well when I stand in front of the mirror and find myself wondering "if this shirt isn't too crazy" or "if these heels won't look weird under these jeans".

Fashion is a very outward directed form of expression. The world gets a better view of my outfits than  I do myself, so it isn't strange to assume that dressing up is something one does for the world instead of themselve. Yet, when we hold on to that belief, we forget fashion (or just wearing clothes) is a form of expression and expression is inseparably linked to feelings within ourselves.

Sometimes putting on certain clothes is a way to show these feelings to the world. To let my nine-inch bright red heels shout "Look at world! Because today I'm a badass b*tch from hell!". However, it can also work the other way around. Dressing in a certain way, can make me feel certain things. When I wear my favourite dress and put my brand new wedges under it, I instantly feel like a million bucks. Or when I put on my paint-splattered sneakers and a band tee, I will secretely be convinced I'm a really cool and artistic person that is ready to make art all day. It's like playing dress up with emotions and identities.

The realization that fashion can do pretty awesome (and maybe even magical) things just for me has been vital for me to have fun in shopping for and wearing clothing. For way too long the belief that I was dressing for the world has left me frustrated each morning and every time I set foot in a clothing store. Trying to either please or make a statement with every item you put on can become a pretty tiring task, that for me eventually resulted in complete disregard for all things that had to do with 'personal style'. I only started to enjoy dressing myself again, once I realised it was a tool I could use for my personal expression and happiness.

So, to summarize all my ramblings (if you are too lazy to read everything, just check this out: ) WEAR THINGS BECAUSE THEY MAKE YOU FEEL AWESOME. (OR $EXXXY OR COOL OR LIKE A UNICORN)