*Obligatory 'I am shite at blogging' disclaimer*
Of course I have failed to update here since my New Year's post. Despite all of my 'new year, fresh start' optimism, I've pretty much wasted these last two months. January quickly crumbled after a row with my partner which left me crying for a week straight over the possibility of breaking up. At the end of that week, even though I uttered the words, "I am breaking up with you," we somehow came to an understanding and are currently enjoying a period of calm.
That little breakdown caused me to miss my first week of classes, which caused a chain reaction resulting in several more missed classes and two dropped courses. I have barely left the house these past two months, and have spent a good portion of my time lying down.
Considering that I would like to, at some point, finish my Bachelor's degree, and then possibly move on to some form of grad school, attending class and finishing assignments is a necessary evil. I decided that I finally had to do something about the fact that I had very little motivation to do anything besides laying in bed and watching Minecraft let's plays, so I went to the doctor.
Now, I even put off scheduling this appointment. I had intended to schedule an appointment for my Reading Week, which was from the 17th to the 21st, but I forgot to do that before the weekend. And then I somehow failed to call the doctor's office during my Reading Week. Luckily, my mother had an appointment booked for this morning, which she wasn't going to be able to make due to another appointment. She let me take her appointment this morning, and after explaining my symptoms and worries to my GP, he agreed that I could benefit from some sort of medication.
As of this morning, I am taking a low dose of Cipralex. The side-effects don't seem too terrifying, and I am actually pretty excited to see if this works. I took my first pill about an hour ago, and I'm already giddy. I know that this feeling is just a placebo effect, because the meds usually take a couple of weeks to actually make much of a difference, but hope is something that I haven't experienced for a while, so I'm going to allow myself this one.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Resolutions
I've become quite skeptical of making New Year's resolutions these past few years. I'm sure this is partially influenced by skepticism becoming a popular point of view on the topic. At the New Year's party I attended to ring in 2013, the walls were plastered with posters reading, "No one gives a damn about your resolutions."
To be honest, I've never been too fond of (or good at) setting (and keeping) goals. Back in elementary school we used to have to write a goal in response to every report card. I hated it. I never had any idea what to write. I usually used to cop out and say that I would, "read more books," because I knew that I would do that anyway (these days, that seems like more of a valid goal for me). I especially hated making an 'action plan' to go along with these goals. All I could ever think of was that I was going to try. What more could I do? Maybe that's why I've never been good at keeping to my goals, or breaking and creating habits.
Anyway, because of my aversion to goal-setting, I haven't really been making resolutions in recent years. I'm fairly sure I probably made a resolution last year, but I can't for the life of me remember what it might've been. Whatever it was, I doubt that I kept it.
If that is the case, at least I know that I'm not alone. Something like 88% of resolutions are not kept (thanks, random YouTube video that I watched a couple of days ago). I think that because of all the buildup, there is an incredible amount of pressure surrounding resolutions made at New Year's, moreso than at any other time of year. Personally, I have never bothered making a resolution until, at most, a few days before New Year's Eve. And honestly, if you think of one any significant amount of time before the new year, why not just start working towards it then?
For some people, the beginning of January might not be the best time to start a new lifestyle, or affect any massive changes. Habits take a heck of a lot of time and practise to make stick. Because of the pressure put on New Year's resolutions, the failures often hit harder than with other goals. So, when we fail, we might think, "Ah well, I'll do better next year." Meanwhile, it's the middle of February.
While I can definitely appreciate the symbolism of New Beginnings that is associated with New Year's, the idea that it is the beginning or the end to anything is fairly arbitrary. The difficult stuff won't get any easier. The good stuff won't disappear. Not at midnight, at least, like Cinderella's carriage turning back into a pumpkin.
This year I'm not making any concrete resolutions. Or, if I am, I'm not telling you. Around this time last year I heard that telling people about your resolutions makes you less likely to succeed in pursuing them. This has to do with the feeling of validation for doing something good that you get when people congratulate you on your new goals. Because you've already had this need for validation satisfied, you then feel less driven to follow through with those goals.
I will tell you, infuriatingly vaguely, that this year I want to do things. So many resolutions focus on not doing things, cutting back, or 'self-control', especially amongst women. The Clothes Horse wrote a post about this a little while ago. She asserted that instead of making negative resolutions (i.e., "I will eat less take-out"), we should resolve to make positive changes instead (i.e., "I will cook a healthy meal for myself at least once a week"). That is to say, instead of focusing on subtracting undesirable things from your life, try to think of positive things you can add. This is especially useful if the things you're adding can help replace the things you want to get rid of (so instead of simply resolving to spend less time on the internet, leaving yourself hopelessly bored, resolve to read more books, which will help keep you occupied). We may have bad habits that we want to eliminate, but it is easier and more effective to make goals about things we can do, rather than things we shouldn't.
I know that many people celebrate New Year's as an end to the old year, and as a fresh start, but should we not look back fondly on our successes from the past year, and celebrate our accomplishments? 2013 was kind of a wasted year for me. This time next year I want to be able to reminisce about good times I had, rather than wiping the sweat from my brow and saying, "Thank god that's over."
(Tune in to Channel 4 Monday at 10 p.m. for the Series Premiere of Skins!)
To be honest, I've never been too fond of (or good at) setting (and keeping) goals. Back in elementary school we used to have to write a goal in response to every report card. I hated it. I never had any idea what to write. I usually used to cop out and say that I would, "read more books," because I knew that I would do that anyway (these days, that seems like more of a valid goal for me). I especially hated making an 'action plan' to go along with these goals. All I could ever think of was that I was going to try. What more could I do? Maybe that's why I've never been good at keeping to my goals, or breaking and creating habits.
Anyway, because of my aversion to goal-setting, I haven't really been making resolutions in recent years. I'm fairly sure I probably made a resolution last year, but I can't for the life of me remember what it might've been. Whatever it was, I doubt that I kept it.
If that is the case, at least I know that I'm not alone. Something like 88% of resolutions are not kept (thanks, random YouTube video that I watched a couple of days ago). I think that because of all the buildup, there is an incredible amount of pressure surrounding resolutions made at New Year's, moreso than at any other time of year. Personally, I have never bothered making a resolution until, at most, a few days before New Year's Eve. And honestly, if you think of one any significant amount of time before the new year, why not just start working towards it then?
For some people, the beginning of January might not be the best time to start a new lifestyle, or affect any massive changes. Habits take a heck of a lot of time and practise to make stick. Because of the pressure put on New Year's resolutions, the failures often hit harder than with other goals. So, when we fail, we might think, "Ah well, I'll do better next year." Meanwhile, it's the middle of February.
While I can definitely appreciate the symbolism of New Beginnings that is associated with New Year's, the idea that it is the beginning or the end to anything is fairly arbitrary. The difficult stuff won't get any easier. The good stuff won't disappear. Not at midnight, at least, like Cinderella's carriage turning back into a pumpkin.
This year I'm not making any concrete resolutions. Or, if I am, I'm not telling you. Around this time last year I heard that telling people about your resolutions makes you less likely to succeed in pursuing them. This has to do with the feeling of validation for doing something good that you get when people congratulate you on your new goals. Because you've already had this need for validation satisfied, you then feel less driven to follow through with those goals.
I will tell you, infuriatingly vaguely, that this year I want to do things. So many resolutions focus on not doing things, cutting back, or 'self-control', especially amongst women. The Clothes Horse wrote a post about this a little while ago. She asserted that instead of making negative resolutions (i.e., "I will eat less take-out"), we should resolve to make positive changes instead (i.e., "I will cook a healthy meal for myself at least once a week"). That is to say, instead of focusing on subtracting undesirable things from your life, try to think of positive things you can add. This is especially useful if the things you're adding can help replace the things you want to get rid of (so instead of simply resolving to spend less time on the internet, leaving yourself hopelessly bored, resolve to read more books, which will help keep you occupied). We may have bad habits that we want to eliminate, but it is easier and more effective to make goals about things we can do, rather than things we shouldn't.
I know that many people celebrate New Year's as an end to the old year, and as a fresh start, but should we not look back fondly on our successes from the past year, and celebrate our accomplishments? 2013 was kind of a wasted year for me. This time next year I want to be able to reminisce about good times I had, rather than wiping the sweat from my brow and saying, "Thank god that's over."
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Happy New Year!
Wow, it's 2014. Once again I have taken a huge hiatus from blogging. To be quite honest, 2013 was not a great year for me. I had a very hard time doing important things like school work, and even simple tasks like showering or getting out of bed became difficult. So, blogging, which is not really an essential activity, fell by the wayside (I even stopped using tumblr as religiously as I used to). Also, considering that this is supposed to be a fashion blog, there's not much to post when I've spent a good part of the last year in pyjamas.
I hope to be back tomorrow with a post about New Year's Resolutions, but for now I'll just show you guys what I wore to my friend's New Year's party.
I hope to be back tomorrow with a post about New Year's Resolutions, but for now I'll just show you guys what I wore to my friend's New Year's party.
I did my make-up while I waited for my hair to set.
My hair ended up looking like this.
It's still a little bit too short to get a good set out of it.
I wore a lilac blouse with huge flowy sleeves, and a black PVC circle shirt.
(Both from Missguided)
I had bought green sequinned dress for New Year's from Nasty Gal, but I wasn't able to pick it up from the post office because I didn't have sufficient ID (don't even get me started). My package from Missguided had been sent by FedEx, and they were nice enough to make an exception for me to take it even without the right ID. I ended up having to put together an outfit from the new pieces I got in that package. I think it worked out alright.
Oh yeah, and I have blue hair now.
Friday, June 7, 2013
The Great Gatsby/I got a haircut
In May, The Great Gatsby, a film that I had been waiting on for over a year, came out. Now, being the nerds that we are, and also super excited about the film, my friend Amanda and I went to the first showing at our local cinema, and we dressed up. Readers of my blog (haha) may not know this (as I don't post incredibly regularly), but I am pretty into costumes and dress up. I will go out of my way to put together a costume, even if I'm only going to be wearing it for a few hours. In the past, I have even been known to cut an dye my hair to better suit the costume I am wearing (i.e. Madeline, Velma from Scooby Doo).
This past Hallowe'en, my friend Brandon and his girlfriend asked me to do their make-up. He was Frankenstein's monster, and she was the Bride.
Now, in order to make sure that I knew how to do the make-up properly, I made sure to try it out on myself a few days before the party.
I did the same thing with my make-up for Gatsby.
This past Hallowe'en, my friend Brandon and his girlfriend asked me to do their make-up. He was Frankenstein's monster, and she was the Bride.
Now, in order to make sure that I knew how to do the make-up properly, I made sure to try it out on myself a few days before the party.
I did the same thing with my make-up for Gatsby.
However, with long hair, I looked a little more Lillian Gish than Louise Brooks, and I wanted to go for a more authentic flapper vibe. So I got a haircut, and I finger waved my hair for the movie. I also bleached my eyebrows so it would be easier to soap them out.
I also did Amanda's make-up and hair (finger waved and pin curled at the front, in a bun at the back), and lent her a dress.
Anyway, this is what my haircut looks like on a day-to-day basis:
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Blog Therapy
I have been severely depressed the past few months.
This depression has made it difficult for me to get out of bed and bathe myself, let alone leave the house. It has affected my academic life and my romantic relationship.
When I do manage to leave the house, dressing myself has lost all of its joy. I've had about a week and a half's worth of outfits on rotation since about January (though I've had to augment that roster a bit now that we're having intermittently warmer weather).
Also, because I have very little money (I work two days a week, for a little bit more than minimum wage), and because I tend not to leave the house if I don't have to, I haven't been buying any clothes lately. Even when I took a trip to the mall a few weeks ago with a couple of my friends to pick out a date outfit for one of them, the only thing I bought was a holographic nail polish.
Nail polish has been one of the only things I have been buying, apart from absolute necessities. I've actually become kind of a compulsive polish collector. I buy it whenever I'm feeling sad and need a quick pick-me-up.
Even though I haven't really been feeling better lately, my depression has gotten to the point where it is actually ruining my life, so I've had to kind of struggle to pull myself up by the bootstraps and try to function again.
I'm now finished all my exams for the semester, but I still have five essays to finish. I suppose I should be working on one of those instead of writing this, but ho-hum. Once I'm finished those, I'm free for the summer.
I thought that maybe one of the things I could do to recover this summer would be to start blogging again. I've decided that this will be the blog with which I accomplish that. Since nobody reads this right now, I'm going to just roll with it for a while, and if I can achieve some sort of rhythm I'll start spreading the word on my other social media.
Anyway, I figured that I could give a quick overview of some of the things that I hope to do this summer:
This depression has made it difficult for me to get out of bed and bathe myself, let alone leave the house. It has affected my academic life and my romantic relationship.
When I do manage to leave the house, dressing myself has lost all of its joy. I've had about a week and a half's worth of outfits on rotation since about January (though I've had to augment that roster a bit now that we're having intermittently warmer weather).
Also, because I have very little money (I work two days a week, for a little bit more than minimum wage), and because I tend not to leave the house if I don't have to, I haven't been buying any clothes lately. Even when I took a trip to the mall a few weeks ago with a couple of my friends to pick out a date outfit for one of them, the only thing I bought was a holographic nail polish.
Nail polish has been one of the only things I have been buying, apart from absolute necessities. I've actually become kind of a compulsive polish collector. I buy it whenever I'm feeling sad and need a quick pick-me-up.
Even though I haven't really been feeling better lately, my depression has gotten to the point where it is actually ruining my life, so I've had to kind of struggle to pull myself up by the bootstraps and try to function again.
I'm now finished all my exams for the semester, but I still have five essays to finish. I suppose I should be working on one of those instead of writing this, but ho-hum. Once I'm finished those, I'm free for the summer.
I thought that maybe one of the things I could do to recover this summer would be to start blogging again. I've decided that this will be the blog with which I accomplish that. Since nobody reads this right now, I'm going to just roll with it for a while, and if I can achieve some sort of rhythm I'll start spreading the word on my other social media.
Anyway, I figured that I could give a quick overview of some of the things that I hope to do this summer:
- clean my room (it's a mess)
- organize my bathroom drawer (it's also a mess)
- DIY nail polish rack (plastic ones are hella expensive)
- join the Ord Brighideach (I need Brighid's inspiration back in my life, and I find that the day-to-day processes of worship help to make one's spirituality more present in one's life)
- get my hair dyed (teal or dark green, I think)
- dress up to see The Great Gatsby
- move out of the hell that is suburbia
- j'ai besoin de pratiquer mon français (I've signed up to take French again in the Fall)
- write a self-motivated research paper on queer homeless youth
- read books
I really wish I still had a camera. Maybe I can get a small one off of eBay or something.
I feel like I should post some pictures from my instagram on here or something. Nobody likes text posts.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Well, this is embarrassing...
Hey, remember when I had dreams of being a teen fashion blogger? Yeah, that didn't really work out.
Lately I've been considering starting this this up again. I even went through and made some of my more embarrassing posts private.
The main problem with this whim of mine is that I am broke, and I sold my camera several months ago to try to remedy that situation. That means I can't really do outfit posts or anything.
Maybe for now I could just go through and curate some old pictures from the past few months. I could do a 2012 round-up, or something. Maybe I could drown y'all in a flood of Instagram photos. (by the way, I'm @littlestmatryoshka on Instagram, if you wanted to follow me there)
Lately I've been considering starting this this up again. I even went through and made some of my more embarrassing posts private.
The main problem with this whim of mine is that I am broke, and I sold my camera several months ago to try to remedy that situation. That means I can't really do outfit posts or anything.
Maybe for now I could just go through and curate some old pictures from the past few months. I could do a 2012 round-up, or something. Maybe I could drown y'all in a flood of Instagram photos. (by the way, I'm @littlestmatryoshka on Instagram, if you wanted to follow me there)
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Hey guyz...
I'm super sorry for not posting here in forever. I just haven't felt up to talking about fashion or music or anything like that.
I think I might have to start another blog. One just for funny stuff. I won't call it 'comedy' or even slightly 'comedic', because I don't think that highly of myself.
Would it be weird to do a post about fish on here. I promise they'll be pretty ones.
Anyway, I'm going to try to update here more this summer. I'm still looking for a perfect picnic outfit. I missed the magnolia blossoms, but I've got some other blossom photos for you guys.
So many things are changing this summer. Jessica is joining the Navy, she ships off in July. Her mum is moving to Bracebridge, and I'm not sure where that leaves Jenn. I'm not sure if she's going to be moving in with her boyfriend this summer, or going up North with her mum for a while. I know she wants to stay at Seneca, though, as she finally got into Animation like she'd wanted.
---
I hope this summer ends with me dancing in slow motion to David Bowie's 'Starman'.
I think I might have to start another blog. One just for funny stuff. I won't call it 'comedy' or even slightly 'comedic', because I don't think that highly of myself.
Would it be weird to do a post about fish on here. I promise they'll be pretty ones.
Anyway, I'm going to try to update here more this summer. I'm still looking for a perfect picnic outfit. I missed the magnolia blossoms, but I've got some other blossom photos for you guys.
So many things are changing this summer. Jessica is joining the Navy, she ships off in July. Her mum is moving to Bracebridge, and I'm not sure where that leaves Jenn. I'm not sure if she's going to be moving in with her boyfriend this summer, or going up North with her mum for a while. I know she wants to stay at Seneca, though, as she finally got into Animation like she'd wanted.
---
I hope this summer ends with me dancing in slow motion to David Bowie's 'Starman'.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
