francophone

Today when getting changed I noticed that there was a sticker on my leg. I don't know how it managed to get there, but it was a sticker from an apple, with the word FRANCE written on it. Not only did I find it funny that an apple sticker had managed to get on my leg, but I was also amused because if I think about it, today I really have been trying to be French.

Let's count the ways.

The other day I was asked if I would like a present from Paris. Of course, my first request was a Chanel handbag. Sadly it seems Chanel handbags are out of stock right now in Paris, but I did receive a French CD with a rather beautiful Frenchman on the cover. I have been so preoccupied this week that even though this was several days ago, I hadn't got a chance to listen to any of the songs. Today I finally got round to listening to them on the way to the library. I didn't understand much at first, but now I've had a look at the lyrics book and all the words make much more sense now. My favourite song is definitely this:

"Etre un héro" Guillaume cantillon show case fnac bordeaux
Uploaded by lachieuse86. - Explore more music videos.

(OMG how cute is he? Even cuter than on the cover!)

ANYWAY. By the time I got to the library I was definitely in a French sort of mood and mainly forgot all the other books I had been planning on looking for, which were all dull anyway. I came away with a French translation of a John Grisham novel; I am hoping that I will be able to read it as I was able to understand the whole blurb. But I have never read any John Grisham in English, which is weird seeing as he's meant to be the biggest bestseller of all time. I also came away with some Baudelaire poetry. Pretentious, much? Oh, but it gets better, as I sat down with a nice cup of English tea to continue writing my short story, which has probably moved past neat short story terrority into rambling self-indulgent novella a long time ago, which is set in Paris.

And now I am sitting here working through French homework about blogging which does feel a little weird! I know two people with blogs, one who is like the epitome of cool and, this may sound harsh, but one who really is not. Now did you know qu'en decembre 2007 il y avait 112 millions de blogs dans le monde entier et 5 millions en France? Well I'm guessing you can understand that even if you don't speak any French.

Anyway it was nice to see that my efforts were rewarded by this sticker, which seemed to affirm my transformation into a true Français.

still judging books by their covers

A photo I took of my latest read. You might recognise the concept of this cover from a book I read almost a year ago by the same author, and posted about here. Turns out this book was actually written first, even though I thought that the book I read first was her only book. I am enjoying this very much; I would describe it as a book about mathetics with the backdrop of a fiction story. It's not quite as all-encompassingly thought provoking as The End of Mr Y, but I love the cover.

followwww!

I am not sure what is going on, but this last week or so I have been rapidly collecting followers despite doing absolutely nothing to encourage. If only the same thing could happen in real life.

Yes, I am in another one of those moods when I can't decide whether it's better to recede into a cave or face the world with a big smile. But when I saw all those followers building up I decided that I couldn't disappoint. Still, I couldn't think of anything inspiring, or beautiful to finish Zmaga's positive tag off.

But look, look, at all the pro-active steps I am taking!

Today I de-activated my facebook account. This action occured all of one hour ago and since then I have completed a one hour essay. Even if socially stunting, it does seem to have some very productive repercussions.

I went to the gym this lunch for the first time since August. I have been running etc, but I haven't had a proper gym workout since then and I hadn't realised how much I missed it. If I am going to become a social recluse, I can see myself becoming incredibly fit... winning all the real running races even if I have retired from the popularity races and maybe even becoming so very hench that everyone will suddenly come running back to me...

Now THAT is the sort of thought I still need to find a way to put a stop to. Melodramatic, exaggerated, consequentialist and totally depressing. I need to do things because they make me feel better, not for long term aims which may disappoint if they do not occur.

And on that note, maybe I can think of a way to continue one of my tags.

Choose one picture that shows your dreams and aspirations, or that holds a special place on your one hundred things to do before you die list

This is a bubble, and this is how I want to live, unaffected by worries about the future, and that means tomorrow, this weekend, Christmas, Valentines Day, exams in May, university application in September, two years, three years, where I will be in ten years time. No, nothing on that list can stress me out, if my only aim is to be happy now.

bag this tag!

More often than not, tags are a chore. A bore. But this one had me floored.

(see what I did there?)

The wonderful Zmaga has tagged me to

• Choose a picture that makes you cringe like hell
• Choose two pictures that you could stare at all day
• Choose one picture that shows your dreams and aspirations, or that holds a special place on your one hundred things to do before you die list
• Link four bloggers- and tell me why they inspire you.

A fab tag, and if I were you, I'd have it in the bag! In fact, as I don't want to make anyone feel like they have to perform a chore, I am going to give everyone on my blogroll an opportunity to do this tag. If you're on my blogroll, you inspire me, for your regular and hilarious and affirming and stylish and charming creations.

And here are my pictures:

CRINGE
(which I take to mean recoil in disgust and embarrassment rather than fear in this case).
Twilight mania has me sick already*, and I cannot think of anything more boring than endless speculation over the two stars' relationship status. More than anything though, any pictures of couples make me cringe in my state of embittered singledom..

I think I need to give the other three some thought, especially the last one which seems to me pretty deep. I'll post them in installments; another nice challenge to keep my blogging regular.

*Hilariously, and totally unintentionally, I only noticed once I'd finished the tag that Zmaga has a rather parallel Twilight photo as one of her choices

introducing

A recent new feature on my blog is the tag 'the power of pink'.

If you choose to explore all the posts which are tagged under this category, you will find a plethora of observational and entirely scientifically sound evidence to prove that the colour pink has powerful mood-enhancing properties.

That's why for a while now, my blog background has been unwaveringly, uapologetically pink.

But recently, as a backdrop for richly autumnal mornings and dark black nights, the pink began to jar. That is to say that I, long time fan and die hard advocate of the power of pink, was beginning to grow a bit sick of it. The sweetness of it all was beginning to set my teeth on edge.

(Similar things have happened in my life with overdoses of Weetabix, Friends episodes and the colour green. I find it hard to know when it's time to stop)

I wonder if, like with homeopathic remedies, pink and other things we love in life are more powerful the more dilute they get. Maybe their rarity is part of their charm, or they are so strong that they can becoming overpowering, or they only work on a small scale (like a tiny digital image which would get all pixellated if you tried to enlarge it).

So I have scaled back on the pink. The blog picture has been replaced... yes, I know it's still pink! But this is hot pink which I very rarely dabble in and am therefore not sick of yet. And I know the mauve I chose for my background is basically a darker sister of the baby pink I had before, and the blog titles are pure unadulterated pinkness.

As I said, I am only scaling down; diluting not removing. I still love pink.

filmfest

Beautiful

I can't believe I managed to find the time to post for 6 (almost 7) days in a row and then somehow was unable to find the time for the next 5 days. It re-affirms my belief that success in practice is simply a matter of practising as much as you can. It's the same with running, working, blogging, anything.

Because I actually have loads to tell you. A whole backlog of things I want to write! Let's start with one of the things I have been occupied with since I last posted: watching films.

I have had a mini filmfest, which isn't so rare for me in the less eventful lulls of my life, but I normally sadly seem to abandon culture when I am busy with school, as I am right now. Nevertheless, I have somehow managed to fit in three films.

1. Nineteen Eighty Four
Mainly inspired by La Belette Rouge's post about film therapy. An absolutely horrible films in terms of everything: the colours are grey and washed out, there are no handsome hunks, no happy ending, throw in on top of all that a cage of fighting rats, boots stamping on faces and hangings aplenty and you have one beautiful film. Seriously. That's the thing about all-consuming ugliness and tragedy; it makes you appreciate your sometimes mediocre, sometimes terrible world as beautiful.


2. An Education
Hmm. Probably the best film I have seen in the cinema this year. Beautiful, uncomfortable, thought-provoking, sad and funny, not flawless but still fantastic.
3. Little Miss Sunshine
Yes, I know I am totally three years late on this one. And as is always the case with fantastically received films with loads of hype, rewards and general love from every single person you know who's seen it, it can't fail to disappoint. There was good acting and it was cute. So?

It appears that as my films got progressively more uplifting, I enjoyed them less and less. That probably makes me some sort of sadist.

Have you watched any great films lately to recommend? Have you seen any of these? What did you think?

invent

Oooooops. I got through six out of the seven days of my blog-a-day challenge, then failed. Does this call to anyone's mind that blonde joke about the blonde, brunette and the redhead who are stranded on an island?

Read it here. Now swap blonde out for redhead.

Anyway, I thought maybe I should invent some sort of excuse, but I am way too honest for that. Still, I would like to salvage some of the challenge with the fact that I did actually take a photo yesterday, and had every intention of writing the accompanying post.



I was looking for my hat, which has been AWOL for as long now as it has been cold and rainy enough for me to want to wear it, and for me to realise that it is nowhere to be found. But every time I had looked for it up until now, I was running really late and so normally gave up my search after a couple of seconds. This time, I emptied out every drawer I thought it might be in.

I didn't find the hat, but I did find the navy bag you see above. I bought it around March 2008 for a trip to Paris; the specification was: leather, can carry loads of crap, at least a little chic, and cheap. This £45 Topshop offering ticked all those boxes so I ignored the likelihood that it wasn't going to last very long. Sure enough, by the time I had returned from Paris, the rain had completely transformed its colour from blue to teal, but I was OK with that. But then a little while later the handle came off, irreparably. Still, I couldn't quite make the move and throw it away; I still like the colour and the shape and it carried far too many memories of the trip to Paris. So I left it in one of those very full drawers.

When I came across it yesterday, I was looking for my hat, but also trying to decide which bag to wear in the rain. When I saw this, it seemed ludicrously obvious that I could just tie a scarf through the rings and still wear it. Moreover, I had a silk sort of scarf that I got free and never wear, whose shape and colours would work perfectly.

For a while, I felt like a crazy inventive inventor, until I realised that it was really a very obvious idea.

perfect day?

Today everything has been perfect for me really. A super quick commute; no traffic. My working day finished 2 1/2 hours after it started. I took out two good DVDs from the library, finished a great play and bought a trashy magazine which came with a great gift. I chatted to some fabulous friends, both in person and on the phone. I got home and there was a parcel awaiting me.

All through that, I felt too drained to actually revel in the fact that this Friday the 13th was actually a bit of a perfect day, but not tired enough to go to sleep. So now I feel like a bit of an idiot having not gone for a run when I had the chance and not going out tonight.

I almost don't deserve my good chance.

On the penultimate day of this blogging challenge I set myself on Saturday, I show you this:


Both are hotter pink in the flesh. You know how I feel about pink if you have read even a third of the posts on this blog, and in fact, since my search function doesn't work, I am going go create a special tag for all posts which reference the power of pink!

What you see, in flashed-out pink, are my Etre gloves from LibertyLondonGirl's giveaway! Thank you to both Etre and LLG! I am très excited about this! And I love them a lot a lot a lot! As you can probably tell from multiple exclamation marks!

And matching them serendipitously perfectly is my new nail polish which 'tho not as free as the gloves, came free with a £2 magazine that I would otherwise no way have purchased. Still, nail polish for £2 instead of £10.50 and a fun hour's read. In fact, I am sort of tempted to buy the magazine three more times for the other colours. Anybody fancy a free copy of Glamour, without the nail polish?

Hmm, this week's posts have been much longer than the snapshots and witty one-liners (which I am still deluded that I can produce, even though people keep telling me otherwise...) I was intending. Maybe that's why I have been so unproductive this week.

cannot be/read

Today I almost failed my 7 day challenge to take a photo a day on my digital camera and post it on this blog, when I inserted the memory card into the camera and the words flashed across the screen ERROR: MEMORY CARD CANNOT BE READ.

Thankfully I remembered the eternally useful and used by IT Technicians everywhere (I like to imagine that all IT Technicians operate in the same way as Moss and Roy of 'The IT Crowd') - 'Have you tried turning it off and on again?'. Hey, presto, the memory card reads!

And so do I (argh, how cringy punny was that?).


These are my current reads:

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro which is very strange and still completely inexplicable on page 127/500 and something. I went to the book shop in search of a thin book which I could carry around with me as I read it, but I love Ishiguro's writing so much and the blurb had me gripped. Target fail, but succesful read.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee. Much easier to read than the eponymous author's books, but that doesn't make it less clever. I like reading plays sometimes because they are fantastic works in their own right but loads of the amazing classics are sadly rarely performed.

Both very frightening in different ways. Have you read either? What did you think? And don't ruin the ending if you have!

don't take it off

Me, Day Five (aka I am soo shocked this is lasting this long!)

The purple pendant you see was a present from my aunt about five years ago. I like the design because the chain cuts through the stone, and I love the colour because purple is just so awesome, so regal. It came with the chain.

My mother gave me the other pendant when I was tiny and I have always for some reason been mesmerised by the small swinging heart inside. It didn't come with a chain and thus I have lost it a couple of times.

The chain you see is so thin that it has a couple of knots in it. I don't like thick chains and besides, even if I did, it would look plain wrong with the daintiness of my pendants. The most recent time that I lost and found my heart pendant, I decided to sling it on this chain next to the purple pendant and not take it off.

That way I won't lose it.

basic black cardigan

Try to think of the most basic, versatile, boring even, item of clothing. I reckon a black cardigan would come in pretty far up on the list.

Although my wardrobe is quite 'basic', especially in comparison to most sequinned, tutu'd and feathered teenage girls, a basic black cardigan is one thing I don't have. On the occasion that nothing but black would cut it, I go for grey, or navy. Or hot pink.

I do however have one cardigan which is black, but with pointelle and made of angora and having no buttons, I would say it's anything but basic. I randomly took a photo this morning to illustrate the fact that my getting dressed method daily at 6:30 in the morning is 'pile as many clothes on as you can. Fast.'

Then I got overheated and took it off and lost it at school some time today. This got me thinking about the fact that I am not immediately concerned; for a supposed basic I rarely wear it. It probably gets pulled out about once every three months, and normally because it's so warm or the sillouette works really well with more weirdly cut clothes. But I am a bit upset as my grandma gave it to me one of the last times I saw her.

Ah well, it should turn up soon...

This is part four of mainly mundane posts to accompany daily digital photo week.

hungry

Today I have been so hungry. Not in the all too normal, I just can't stop shovelling food in my mouth way. Proper hungry.

I woke up and had two breakfasts to stave off the hunger at 7AM. Worked solid until 11AM so didn't physically have a chance to eat, at which point I prompty finished off my lunch. Completely ravenous. At 1PM, bought a nice snack bar. But oh my god I cannot describe the hunger I was feeling from 3ish to 5.15. The kind of hunger which you can physically feel, and can almost describe in words... like a bubble inflating in your stomach, kind of gnawing. Then I had a bowl of soup, then an apple, then a roast dinner. Mmm, finally, not hungry. Except at 9PM when I sat down to watch TV, I was hungry again.

So I ate, cinammon and apple ricecakes. Scrumptious.


Fascinating, eh? You will have to live through another 4 days of this I'm afraid.

yuck

So I am still doing the photo a day thing - read my explanation for that here.

I thought that I would go for a compromise today. I am not actually going to post up today's photo on this blog, because this is a blog for pretty things and today's photo certainly isn't pretty.

So click on this link for an enlarged photo of a split hair - and don't tell me I didn't warn you!

I am completely disgusted by the state of my hair, but I can't stop fidgeting with it. I think the only solution is to cut it all off, an idea I return to as my patience wears thin at regular intervals. I mentioned this to my friend on Friday. We made a bet: if he had an invite on Facebook to a party that night waiting for him when he got home, as he felt he ought to, I would have to cut all my hair off.

Luckily/unluckily/interestingly, I won the bet. Now, what do I make my side of the bet??

bits and bobs

I've had an idea which might help to make my blogging a little bit more consistant.

Every day this week, I am going to try to post. But there is no use planning one of my normal half hour plus writing sessions for a single post, because, as if I haven't said it enough already, There. Are. Not. Enough. Half hours. In. The. Day.

Instead, I am finally beginning to utilise my summer birthday present of a digital camera. Because, yet again, There Are Not Enough Hours of Light to use my DSLR. Then I can post whatever interesting picture I have taken from that day, with maybe one or two lines, which should hopefuly be insightful and wonderfully witty.

Happily, I already have a couple such photos stored on the camera. Let's start with this one:

Three, or maybe four days after, I am still in awe over the intactness of my self-manicure. I have had this dark purple by MAC for a long, long time now. At first, I hated it; it's so thin and takes about three layers to look consistent, which with my span of patience means that I could never get it right. But I haven't bought any new polishes for so long now that the rest of my collection has descended into shitness, so I thought I would try this out again. Who'd have thought that some polishes actually improve with age??? (although admittedly this is a shot of my lefthand which looks much better than my right hand).

Tomorrow: I am not sure yet, although I do have a spectactularly focused shot of the tip of one of my hairs split in 12 different places. But is that a bit gross for the internet?

g(love)

You know that sweet little phrase designed to console those who've lost some money while gambling, who are feeling a little down on their luck, 'lucky at cards, unlucky in love'? Well, maybe they should have spared a thought for the poor souls who suffer miserably any sort of board game of luck, card game, lucky dip or competition raffles and who are not lucky enough to be enjoying scores of 'happy love affairs'.

I know this sounds a little bit silly, but I have been entering a lot of competitions lately, wondering if with the rules of probability on my side, I could try to give my luck a more forceful nudge in the right direction. Well, guess what?

The delightful LibertyLondonGirl recently held a giveaway for a pair of cute gloves. In my new spirit of entering as many competitions as there are prizes I want, I went crazy, I entered. The odds were more heavily for me than most competitions I enter, but right now I wouldn't trust a flip of the coin to choose me.

But, but, I won! OMGOSH, WTF, WTH, OMGZZ!

As I pushed my index finger through the hole on my old cashmere gloves to turn the page of my (incredibly whiny*) book on the freezing cold bus at a time when no human beings should really have to be awake, I thought about how great it would be when I got my fantastic new gloves.

Thanks again, LLG. Thanks so much!

Maybe I should try to employ forcibly nudging of luck in other areas of my life.

*Although I realise that I am being just as whiny as Franny and Zooey of Franny and Zooey. I hope no-one's still reading this!