Ice cream cone #87: the one when I shared my life to the world

• Hello blog, I'm sleepy again.
• How many traditions have I started on this blog? The always-write-when-you're-sleepy tradition, the yogurt cup, the ice cream cone, the dots, the photos? Such weird stuff.
• So I made a photography blog today, just for the sake of it. I've wanted to make a photography blog for as long as I know it, but could never form what the content was. I think it was either about food, or street style, but both didn't seem to plan so well, as I didn't even make an attempt to make anything happen. But then I logged on to my flickr today and saw that I only had about 80 photos left in my bandwidth, and I still haven't made a visa account yet because I'm lazy, and I'm afraid that I can't control myself with things like Sephora or Forever21 or Drugstore.com or Beauty.com or so or so or so. So I thought to myself, blogspot doesn't make me pay in order to upload more photos, they even pay me back if I upload loads of photos (and of course comes the condition that my blog suddenly becomes popular and get 2 million viewers which always sounds like a joke). And I've already run a blog for more than 6 years, at least I have one or two pieces of experience in hand.
• So I created it, quite no-brainy, and started uploading some of my works on it. My friends seem to like it, which is a really good sign. I'm having actual audience. To anyone who reads this blog, I'm sorry I don't believe that you're humans, but because the counts on this blog also counts the times when I view my blog myself, and I view it a lot, and because my self-esteem is very low I don't actually believe there's anyone who's interested in hearing a girl whining about life for 6 years. So, if you're out there, magically reading these lines, thank you for being my audience when I'm just sitting here writing messy crap that are in my head. I wish you many goodness.
• Alongside with the excitement of having people accepting my works and complimenting on my new template, I shared this blog to a friend as well. I've always wanted to share this one, cause obviously I put a lot of thoughts and works into it as well, and believe it or not, this little corner's been my friend for how many heartbreaks and meltdowns and tantrums ever since I was a freshman in high school. Therefore, every time I share this blog to someone, with a thought that they will spend their time to read it and, if I'm very lucky, make efforts to understand me as well, it literally feels like taking a piece of clothing off in some way. This is way too many thoughts and stuff, cause I only write when my head feels heavy, and when I'm sad.
• As we are already here, and because I don't tend to write a lot very often, let's update a bit about how my life goes, so that I'll have something to look back and be moody about 5 months from now.
• I don't know, I guess I can finally say that I've found myself again. I've been doing quite some independent works, thinking about doodling again, busy with schoolwork and English class and the thought of having to register for a gym asap. After I shared my blog, I sat back and read the posts in June, July and August, and thought to myself, how did I ever get out of those times? But I did, and although as devastated as I was then, I knew there would be a day like this, when I'm emotionally stable, having a little cold because of the weather change, and being able to joke a bit in my blog posts. Jennifer O'Keeffe you've been a strong kid.
• One week until my salary comes. The week of dooooom...
• And yes, the appropriate urge of wanting to go to the bar arises at this very inconvenient moment, despite that, it still got me thinking for about 20 minutes when I was on my bus ride home and when I was walking. But no, Jenny, you can't indulge yourself like this. Stay strong, what would Audrey Hepburn do?

Ice cream cone #86: me today

~*~

• Hello again to my orange room. It feels like the longest time ever since the last time I stayed in this room. Every time I get to sleep in my own room again, I still wonder when we will be able to find a solution to this, and not having to move around every one or two weeks.

Ice cream cone #85: the mastermind discovery

• I had to write something. My brain literally feels like there's seven rocks in it, just rolling round and round.
• Thing #1: this has been bothering me since yesterday. I don't usually get myself bothered by something for too long, cause it's really bad for the mental health, but I get grumpy, surprisingly grumpy I might add, when my ideas are taken without me being asked about it. This leads to something called work ethic that gives me another headache every once in a while when I wander my thoughts nearby. But, on a personal level, I don't like my ideas being published by someone who isn't me, whether it's an answer in class, or an outfit, or anything, big or small. Therefore, yesterday when she showed up with an outfit almost identical with the one I paired for her a few days ago, I started to get disappointed. But I can't blame her, cause I always take things that I'm capable of doing for granted. In my insipid little mind, pairing outfits is the easiest, and probably the most fun thing to do. I built my wardrobe slowly, and went through multiple phases of styles to be comfortable with what I wear, that's why I honestly don't understand how anyone can struggle with it. That being first. Second is that, the outfit that she showed up with contained one of my favorite pieces that I lent her for the sake of good fashion, and she went on bragging about how she got it on sale at Oasis, when all she did was show up at my doorstep with a more boring than plain outfit that itched my eyes so terribly I had to make a change to it. I felt like a terrible person to state out, in public, while she was in the middle of her bragging, that the top was actually mine, and it took me quite some work to get a hold of it and paid a good amount of money for it. When I saw those comments, the first thing that crossed my mind was, I need the top back, give it back to me right this second. With just about anyone else I'd humiliate them, but her I don't want to do that. This bunch of anger, disgust and guilt has been weighing me since last night. Ughhhhh
• Thing #2: Just the same thing that's been happening for years. I'm sitting in a café, and just a moment ago, I realized how the worlds of half of the amount of friends of mine work, and how mine works the complete opposite. Ok so they just wander around on facebook, sighting beautiful girls, and when they've sighted someone, they start flirting, just for fun, then abandon the results and go back to being a popular bartender or photographer or socialite. Cause nobody takes flirting seriously, and whatever happens can be later interpreted into "anww I wasn't being serious or anything, don't sleep on it too much ok?". 
• We don't work like that. We can take the non-serious flirting, but don't you dare get our hopes up, then return to your bunch of popular friends.
• Having said that, this probably is just another case of feeling left out in the world, and getting jealous and putting it on everyone else. But in any ways, we don't want to serve as the popular kids' snack when they're bored. 20 years of existence, 6 years of communicating with humans and I still don't get how they work. There's probably this invisible sign that hangs on my neck that says, this one's weird, she's not like us, and everyone's eyes are designed to be able to read that sign, except for me. Maybe the socialite club is even divided into smaller groups, but I volunteer not to go deep into it. Because, the more I find out more about it, the more isolated I feel.
• So that's thing #2.
• Thing #3: this one is actually a good thing, because if it works, it'll solve several of my problems.
• So, I was just thinking about thinking too much (much irony huh), and a thought flashed up in my head that goes, at least your brain works faster in this condition. And then I thought about the moments when my brain constantly gets stuck on ideas, if only there's a stream of electricity that can run through my head and wake some of the neurons up I'd be eternally thankful.
• Hence the rediscovery of this lame game called Mastermind that I used to play with my friends in 12th grade. I was thinking of trying a few boards of that game to wake my brain up every once in a while. And the eager to try that idea makes me so worked up, more than I should, and also causes mental tiredness.
• Plus I had to get up early this morning and had to walk quite a lot. This adds to it.
• Anyway, time to scoot. I don't do much blogging in the morning, when I'm awake, but since I'm yawning constantly, I guess it counts.

All photos taken by my friend, whose name is also Jenny, and was born 2 days after I was. Anyone interested can follow her work here.

Ice cream cone #84: movies

• 5 days til Valentine's day. Ew. 
• I have to start school tomorrow, which means, more bus, more heat, less sleep, less life. Being back to school is soooo hardddd after more than a month of practically doing nothing.
• Anyways, some stuff happened that made me wanna write a short movie review so badd.

• American Hustle: I first knew about the movie through a Jennifer Lawrence fansite that I (was practically forced to) follow on facebook. And although I've watched The Hunger Game, out of curiosity, and Silver Lining's Playbook, with high hopes in JLaw's performance, what she delivered did not satisfy me, not even one bit. Let's talk about Silver Lining's a little bit, IMHO, she was very stiff in pretty much the entire movie, especially on the scene when she explained to Bradley why her husband died, I expected to actually feel something. And as imaginative and full of hope as I was, I couldn't relate, at all. All that was in my head was, maybe it's just bad performance, maybe it's better in the book, if there is one. Therefore, when I watched the American Hustle trailer, I inevitably paid more attention to JLaw's performance. But, after having watched the movie about three times, I'd say this movie is Christian Bale's game. Batman was Bale's first movie that I got to watch, then followed by The Prestige and American Psycho (which I slightly enjoyed, but not as much as Donnie Darko). And in all of these movies, I still see Bale, with his specially structured teeth and his accent and his way of acting. But in Hustle, I think he had a step up. Just by not having to focus too much on the fact that I'm watching a Bale movie makes me enjoy it so much more. His accent, his way of showing the struggle with his marriage, his way of falling in love and even his appearance in this movie makes me gain a big lot of respect for him afterwards. Bradley Cooper did his best to prove to the audience that he's no longer a pretty boy who does silly blockbusters, and for some minute in this movie I actually hate Richie. Amy Adams' was enjoyable, seeing her doing something so different from Julie & Julia and Leap Year was fresh. I'd say JLaw's performance in Hustle has this gap comparing to Adams, especially in the scene when Sydney tells Irv that she might fall for Richie a bit. I started out on this movie thinking that I'd be watching Lawrence's acting for fun, turned out her performance annoyed me the most when the rest of the cast was being in so deep with the script. Overall the movie was enjoyable, I still question the picture quality, don't know if I'd downloaded a bad torrent file or what, full of surprises, but when you've come to know the max, it's not gonna be the kind of movie that I'd wanna watch thoroughly for the second time. 3,8/5.
• Aaaahhhh I've got soo much stuff to talk about in the past few days. But first, I need to fully focus on the fact that hOLIDAY ENDS TOMORROW :((

Ice cream cone #83

• This was me 4 years ago, taken a week after my 17th birthday. Just how much has changed.
• I don't wanna be someone who constantly looks back on every step she's taken, but, I was going through my facebook profile photos today and saw this. I remember this was the time I wasn't very confident about having my face directly in a photo, hence the mug. The mug, by the way, was a birthday present by a dear dear friend of mine, whom I think I'll remain having respect in, I might say, my entire life.
• As I grow up I've found out lots of things about myself, like the fact that I can't concentrate very well, I love red but red doesn't love me back, I'm a control freak, and most of all, I completely suck at keeping a relationship.
• That's why I was shocked, much more that I'd imagined, when I saw the news, just popped in, like a lost blind dove that hits the glassed window. I had weird and uncomfortable dreams about it last night. It just feels like another one has slipped away, and it's all my fault.
• Maybe Camellia was right, when I was taking this photo, I blamed the world for what was wrong in my life, and hoped that as I grew older, problems would solve themselves and I'd be rested at last. But little did I know, it only got worse.
• Now looking back at it, I didn't even try. I threw the chances out of the window for no reason at all. I fucked up, acted silly, made a fool out of myself, so what? It's just another slipped away, only one I didn't expect. 
• I always thought he was the light in the lighthouse, that safe vision that you have whenever you turn around. I just need to know someone like that exists. But, the boat is lost, and there's no need for lights to guide it home anymore, what's the use of keeping it anyways. The electricity that fuels the light could be used for something much more in need, not just a boat that never touches shore.
• What happened in 2010? Like, what did I do, what did I think about? It's funny how every time things like this happens I look back at my past and, secretively, envy my younger self for not having to acknowledge and suffer any of this.
• But, it's never good to feel down. I don't like feeling down, there's no use in it and I'll just eat more than usual. Therefore, my short-term goal right now is to successfully not think about this, and maybe focus on more important things.
• I'll try my best, I promise you that, Spit.

Ice cream cone #82

• Sooooo, no new name for the cone. Still the overly happy post title that in certain ways annoys me.
• Apparently I haven't written much about work in here. Probably because it's not awfully to my passion, which is weird because I swear sometimes I do feel passionate about it, and I'm the kind of person who can't get any work done without inspiration or good inner motivation. But I guess my work, in my opinion, only defines itself by photography.
• It's kind of true. It's the only thing that I consider an outcome of this. Anything else seems a bit vague and I constantly feel like I don't quite finish the job.
• But ever since I had this 4 megapixel camera that didn't do much of the job, I had this desire to photograph fashion lifestyle. I've always been a fan of toying around with clothes and accessories and finding the right composition. It's art at its best, because it expresses personality directly and fiercely, well, depends on the person, probably. But I haven't had much success in creating those photos. Don't know why, although I've tried and gone into some serious researching, but not much have improved.
• So I switched to food photography, and suddenly it was so much easier. I don't know if it's the much less complicated subject, or because it's another form of art being put together, maybe it's the form of art that indulges the cameramen enough that they can actually taste it. Nevertheless, I started to feel happy about my work again. And it partly satisfies my passion to take fashion photos, kind of makes me believe I'm not that useless with an overpriced camera.
• Every single time I log on to this blog I wander around the good ol' fashion // lifestyle blogs that I've been following for years. I don't add any more blogs because partly I don't find any blogs that are worth adding anymore, and partly because it's really hard to find someone whose work you can get so easily inspired from. And every single time I scroll through those blogs, I feel small, like the work I've done with food is just sand, and theirs are miles and miles of woods. It's almost like a guilty pleasure, because the photos that they took can inspire me to the point where I can pick up a camera to go anywhere just to take a memory card full of photos, then return home, edit all of them and upload them all here. But at the same time, it's just sad, because I'm still here, sitting in the chair I've been sitting for the past 6 years, still blogging about how left out I feel from the world, it just doesn't feel like I'm getting anywhere with this.
• But, to be fair, I might not get as much success as I did if I had a chance to work with real fashion shoots. Food, in some ways, are much more forgiving, and I can put my own opinion into a photo without having anyone telling me they could hire someone who works better in fifteen seconds.
• Food photography is my comfort zone.
• Doesn't make much sense, but, just a few thoughts that I need to get out of my head.