Growing up

There's an odd cottage down
Where I used to play as a child
I miss it, I do.
There I could be anyone I wanted,
Live any life, do anything,
Be anywhere. Be anything.

Imagination was the key to my beginnings,
Imagine this. Imagine that.
The world was at my fingertips, I controlled
My world. The world. But suddenly,
My cottage was crushed,
Not by a devious monster or a speeding train,
Not by the crashing lightning or the frightening rain,
But by me.

I cried and cried for days on end,
Wondering if I would ever have the courage,
The strength to move on. I wondered what
I did to deserve such a fate. Wondering,
Wondering on I did, searching for the key
To my ever-hungry obsessive lock.
I had questions. I needed answers.

It had come to a point, where
I let it go. I got on with my life, with
No trace of my prior life. My secret life.
No one would ever know my little guilty pleasure.
I held too much power in my head. No, not the
Physical kind. It humours me to think that.
The mental kind. The emotional kind.
For the mind is far greater than any man can harness.

And today, every now and then I visit my little cottage,
It is as beautiful as it once stood, never to tarnish,
Never to fade. For being in my mind, it is
Preserved in its original pristine condition,
The tears roll down, one by one, serving
Only to enhance the glistening wonderment of
My cottage.

Making the most of my time

I'm sitting in a chemistry lecture and I should probably be listening, but meh, I can just catch up later. I totally told myself that I would take my uni life seriously this semester but IT'S JUST SO HARD. I mean, my perfect 7.0 GPA is now diminished into a depressing 6.75 with the culprit being not science, but PSYCHOLOGY. Oh well. I never have to take another psychology subject in my life.

I thought I be more productive in blogging some new music I've found lately. I might restrict this post to indie/whatever since I can make a post about electro house later. Enjoy the sounds.

Why Even Try (RAC Remix) - Theophilus London

Midnight City - M83

Swell Window - Zee Avi

Opposite of Adults (Big Gigantic Remix) - Chiddy Bang

A Horse is not a Home - Miike Snow

:-)

UMAT

• I died.
• I came back to life.
• I died again.
• I want to die.
• I want someone to possess me and sit it again for me.

Kill me now.

I don't ever, ever want my results back.

OH DEAR LORD.

UMAT is tomorrow. There's a slight atmosphere of panic running through me right now. Not so strong that it consumes me, but it's annoying me. I know that I've done the best preparation possible and that I can't do any better. However, it still bothers me. Again, I'm going to steal this post from Tumblr.

GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE WHO'S SITTING IT! Just relax because stressing is the worst thing you can do. To everyone sitting it, you've done the best possible preparation you can, and you can't do any better!

I have a few last minute tips - a few of them are a little generic but I'll go through them anyway.

• Sleep EARLY so make sure this is one of the last posts you read
• Have a GOOD breakfast - complex carbohydrates last longer and help you concentrate better :)
• Get all your things ready now - admission ticket, pencils, erasers, ID - before you sleep. Don't want to panic!

More specific tips pertaining to the exam

• Don't stress out. It's a hard exam, but everyone's in the same position as you.
• One thing I've tried out lately is taking the exam 3 times - separate the questions into 3 categories: questions you can do in a minute confidently, questions you can do but will take longer than a minute and questions you have no idea how to do.
• The first time round, do the questions you can do very quickly. As soon as you get to a question which requires a lot of time, skip it and move on.
• The second time round, do the questions which will take you a little longer but you can work out.
• The third time round which should be nearing the end of the test, do the impossible questions. Chances are that you won't be able to work them out anyway, so it's better to get them wrong than to spend a lot of time on it while you have around 10-15 other questions that you could easily get.
• DON'T DRINK WATER LOL - I did that last year so my section 2 and 3 scores were screwed over. I did well in section 1 though but only because I was really concentrating.

GOOD LUCK!

Go to sleep early and don't stress. Take the rest of the day off and hang out with friends, which means do something you'll look forward to.

<3

Happy birthday, mother dear.

Dear mum,

I know that you're not going to read this. I know that there is an extremely small, next-to-none chance that you'll ever read this - firstly due to my disapproval of your reading anything of mine from the internet, but mostly because of your ineptness and almost zero ability to use the computer, let alone browse for your daughter's mishaps.

You're a wonderful mother, and most of the time I fail to acknowledge that. You seem to have this expectation of me and very often, although not intentional, I feel that you don't hold any interest whatsoever in my studies. And I'll give you that I share the same infeignability - I'm horrible at faking interests in anything and I guess that shows. That's not to say that you don't love me - not in the slightest. Your capability as a mother has shown through with both myself and Andrew. We're good kids and we know it. Lazy, yes, but that has no relation on my original argument.

Yes, I'll admit that you can be a pain in the ass sometimes. Like when I'm in the middle of something you asked and suddenly change your mind and want me to do something else. I get annoyed at that because you're the one telling me to finish something once I've started and with things like that, I feel like you're rushing me and you know that I hate being rushed. Or when you've told me to do something and I said I'll do it in five minutes. I get up to go and you pester me again, and even while I'm in the middle of doing it! That annoys me also because I hate being asked to do something more than once, particularly when I'm already doing what you want. And your complex about swearing - you have absolutely no idea how much I  swear and even with things like, "shut up," "bloody", "oh my god" and even damn to an extent, you have a problem. Why that is, I'm not sure... you always take these things so much to heart.

Another major thing which has bothered me on and off is the issue of boyfriends and relationships... and to a major extent, friends. In primary school, you made this huge deal about my not being allowed to have a boyfriend until I graduated university, and it was perpetuated all throughout high school. Resentful? You bet. Even with friends, I wasn't allowed to go out with boys at all and I'd have to sneak my way through everywhere. I know it was wrong, but I was what... 13? 14? Too immature but I do realise that these restrictions were in place for a reason. If you'd never said those words, I'd probably be off the railings by now, getting mixed up in the wrong crowd and probably most significant, I probably wouldn't care about my family or school.

And I see it now - you didn't really mean what you said, but you said it to scare me so that I'd concentrate on the right things. I definitely see it. 100% and it's so clear. I don't regret rebelling against you but it let me acknowledge what my limits were - and that influence has rubbed onto me and I'm nearing the best person I can possibly be. Sure, I might not be the smartest person to walk the earth. Hardly expected. Sure, I might not be the most beautiful person you've ever seen. Again, not expected. I might not be the best daughter I could be - but I'm learning.

I could have written a post that flattered the world out of you and brought out the best in you, but that wouldn't have been genuine. It wouldn't have described your character - what makes you, you. I've toned down on your traits but that's not to say that I don't appreciate you, not in the slightest. You're the best mum I've ever had, the only mother I've ever had - the only mother I will ever have.

I love you and I wish you could be here to read this, but instead you're enjoying yourself on the other side of the globe in America, where all the good things are. I'm jealous that I'm stranded here, but it's no matter. My time will come.

Have a great day.

Sweet Treats Vol. 1

Okay, so perhaps my new found university life has deprived me of the time to search for new music, but behold, the holidays have surely partially compensated for this lack. So, let's start with music I've missed out on and I'll catch up with that, rather than posting what I immediately find.

Skrillex's "Sweet Treats Vol. 1" - does that sound enticing enough? Well, technically it's a "vs" album but I'm too sleep deprived to click onto iTunes to see.

I'm sitting here listening in awe. Awe as in awesome. I've decided to succumb to SoundCloud in my posting methods rather than sticking awkward YouTube videos every now and then because they make my pages look annoying. I may invest some time in replacing all the videos with SoundCloud embeds. I just haven't been bothered signing up but.... I guess the time has come. Enjoy.

Tracklisting:

Needed Change - Skrillex ft. 12th Planet | CLICK TO DOWNLOAD

World on Fire - Flinch | CLICK TO DOWNLOAD


Changes - Zedd ft. Champions | CLICK TO DOWNLOAD

Enjoy, ma cherie.

Mum's birthday dinner

So the other day my parents and I went to Cafe les Amourex at Sunnybank - actually it's in Market Square but the Suburb.... nevermind.

We had a beautiful steak. Expensive dinner but good dinner. I just discovered another post I can do about photographing, but oh well, I'll save that for another day.

From photographing the moments, to having our beautiful background of the cafe wall being disturbed by the people who reserved he table behind us, it was a wonderful day. Extremely good steak. I highly recommend it.

Nicely and simply. Just how I like it.

Of course, all the good photos were taken by me. Naturally.

Ultra EP

Okay, so well, I'm writing another post dedicated just to Cory Enemy & Dillon Francis because they are musical geniuses. I posted yesterday having only listened to Ultra, while downloading the EP and I've listened to everything now.

Holy shit.

So they have their Ultra EP consisting of 3 songs. I like Ultra the best but the other two are pretty good as fuck too. The three featured songs are Ultra, I Love You and Who the Fuck are you?

Tracklisting:

Ultra

I Love You

Who The Fuck Are You?

CLICK HERE to download Ultra EP

Mmm, sexy yes? I already know. It's been a while since I've listened to worthwhile dubstep worth jizzing over but I think Ultra comes close.

Thinking of what else to write but I think the music covers everything.

Enjoy.

Replacing the other video

Merrrrrrrr wasn't happy with the audio as in my voice was a bit fucked in terms of volume and what not. Anyway, enjoy this one. I changed the songs.

:3

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask :-)

Chill step

So I was on hypem the other day and fell in love with this. It's like dubstep but way less scrubby and more of a chill song. I really like it.




Enjoy my weird taste in music.

How to care for your contact lenses

Lol enjoy, haven't been bothered to delete the other one I made........ I screwed up the audio because I underestimated the volume of the songs :(

So yeah what of it, and I'm aware that I may look/sound like an old lady OK GIVE ME A BREAK, MADE IT AT LIKE 1AM.

Let's not be judgemental here.

Personality Test

Blustering through the world with the finesse of a thunderstorm, you are a natural leader, a creator of consensus. You will often plan out the future in deliberate and at times frustrating detail. This ability to create and to plan is sometimes expressed as a facility for the telling of tall tales.Your friends often find themselves assigned tasks or roles within the group. This can be very useful when action is called for and equally annoying when the idea at hand is rest and relaxation. When challenged, however, you can become cold and argumentative. Your understanding of the world is deliberate and well thought out. Your emotion comes in two varieties, either restrained and sincere, or else melodramatic and loud and usually inauthentic. Affection for you is best expressed through action, by doing things for the people you care about. This need to always be proactive can lead you to feel that there is no end to the trouble in your life.

Fairly accurate, I must say. Here's how you do it; stay relatively close to your screen and choose the first picture that catches your mind. Don't read the question - it's only really a bunch of text that they've put there. It's not a test that examines your cognitive ability; rather, one that encapsulates parts of your brain put into action. You should try it.

CLICK TO GO TO THE TEST

Publish your results! I'm interested to see what everyone gets and I'd do it over and over again but that would be pointless since I don't have that much effort.

It's so fluffy, I'M GOING TO DIE

I have a spare half hour or so to pump out this post before I have to go. I recently picked up my raccoon tail keyring from MukuCHU and I love it. Originally, I was going to get it as a birthday present for a friend's 18th which is coming up really soon but I decided against it because it was too cute to give away. Sorry about that.

It's so soft and perfect and fluffy and thus far, I've managed to creep people out by running the tail across their face LOL IT'S SO FUN. Call me weird, but don't hate it until you try it. Pro-bably not good to be the victim in this case, though.

I was a little scared about what my parents would think about the newest addition to my collection of unique things, so for about 3 hours I stuffed it into a drawer so they wouldn't see. Eventually, I grew a pair :-). I was surprised by their reaction, actually. It was more welcoming than I'd anticipated. I would post the photos but they're taking.... For. Ever. to upload, and I'm not the type to write a conventional review so I guess I'll make use of this time while I wait. I'm a bit chuffed because I'm not sure how to do a non-circle lens review! Let's see what I can come up with.

A walk away from home

I meant to post about this an entire week ago but I just haven't had the time/effort. Sorry about that. Well, I'll get this over and done with so I can go ahead and play tf2 with my homegurlz. My parents and I drove up to Maleny last Tuesday to go see one of mum's oldest friends, Ludmila. She's the most adorable old lady you've ever met. She's Russian and used to work with mum as a translator. You wouldn't picture her as being technologically able, but she types faster than any other old person I've ever met.

It took around an hour to get to Maleny and straight after, we went to a restaurant overlooking the Glasshouse Mountains which was absolutely breathtaking. It was Christmas in July and there were 3 functions being held at the same time so we were only able to get one of the booth tables. Didn't make any difference to the food though and in some ways, it was probably better where we were sitting because it was really, really bright outside.

Argh, hate how blogspot kills the quality of the photos a fair bit, but then again I'm really not bothered uploading EVERYTHINGGGGG onto Flickr.

Dad looks keen as a bean to eat his food. It was beautiful. I had a steak but for some reason I didn't take a photo of it. Sad. After we ate, we went outside to take photos of the landscape which was just breathtaking.

Jacket/blazer from suitcase rummage, bag from UrbanOutfitters (not in stock anymore but can be ordered from Alphabet Bags), shirt from FCUK

Stupid wind made it really hard to take photos but yeah. There were a few good landscapes but again, couldn't be bothered uploading.

There were cows! It was really hard to take a good shot and this was the best I could do because of the really distinct shadows, so the background is a little overexposed. Sorry.

The outside of the restaurant. Couldn't quite remember what it's called BUT OH WELL. There aren't too many restaurants up that way so if you're ever near Maleny, I really recommend this place. Afterwards, we stopped by to the lookout ... I think it was McArthur's Lookout? Something along those lines, but oh my god, the houses were stunning. I'm pretty sure it's a rich street, considering that they're all overlooking the mountains. They would be a great investment - no flooding, beautiful views, quiet at night, but out of Brisbane so yeah, not really looking to live there anytime soon, unless I choose to work rurally.

We went back to Ludmila's house afterwards. Stupid reception was horrible. Facebook wouldn't even load properly! If it had good reception it would have said "3G" on the reception bar up the top. Stupid woop woop reception. I decided to take photos of the house since I don't go there very often.

Maleny is beautiful. Just breathtaking.

I love it there, except the roads are confusing as fuck and it would be a real pain in the ass driving there.

Sweet as dubstep

Theresa reblogged a song on Tumblr this afternoon and I had to ask her what it was because I'm kind of inept in the music department. Not really, but the song sounded really familiar. I remember hearing it on TV as an ad for one show but then again I don't reallyyyyyyy watch TV anyway.

I downloaded the original but she didn't know what the remix was so, me, being the curious person I am, decided to stop at nothing before I found it.

And, I did. It's Breathe Me (Butch Clancy Remix) - SIA

Enjoy! I love it and I'll give you the download link under the video.



CLICK TO DOWNLOAD

Also, a side note, I see a quite a lot of people lurking on my page but no one ever says hi. It's not creepy or anything but it is a bit unnerving at times. Particularly sometimes when there's 40+ people viewing, not even so much as a hello. D:

Hey, hello, not sure yet.

Dumbfoundead has a new song! Kind of catchy, yes? No? Oh well, you can waste 3 minutes of your life which you'll never get back listening to it.

I really like his music. It's pretty down to life. Life? I think I meant earth. Oh, the life of a sleep deprived university student. I downloaded the mp3 but I think it was a dodgy YouTube rip because the crappy intro was still there. Cannot wait until the HD version comes out. Like, the legit shit.

Kind of edging for his new LP to be released. There's another song leak from it - "Selfish" but I couldn't find a legit video to accompany the song. The closest I came to was a guy's personal edit while skateboarding. Hmmm...

So, enjoy!



In other news, I downloaded Digitalism's discography the other day and it just reminded me to post about it. Was looking at TheHypeMachine just this morning and it reminded me to post it up! It was released a couple of months ago. Here's their "2 Hearts" which is an incredibly catchy song.



From the album, "I Love You, Dude". I've always liked Digitalism, but my favourite song is still Pogo. Nevertheless, still chill as fuck.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD "I Love You, Dude."

PEACE OUT, Y'ALL. Currently playing Team Fortress 2 gettin mah bitch shootin shit on yo.

Eat the happiness away

Posting a lot lately! Mainly because I actually have something to write about. I wanted to include this in the other post I made but decided against it because the other one is wayyyyyy long enough, que?

The other day while I was at Eliza's place, my parents went to a wedding for someone IN DENTAL TECH AT MY UNIVERSITY LIKE SERIOUSLY HOW WEIRD IS THAT. They're related to a family friend and we got invited. It didn't click until mum told me the name and I'd recognised it from the Facebook dental group that everyone joined.

Apparently the wedding was beautiful, but I didn't get to see. My parents brought back 2 jars of personalised lollies and it's something I'd really like for my wedding. I ate most of one bottle and dad got kind of annoyed because there's going to be none left soon. Oh well. They're so good.

Looks beautiful, no?

Tastes even greater. But yeah, seriously wanting lollies for my wedding gift.

Makes me think about how my wedding is going to be. Probably more relevant though, cats aside, a lot of the time, I genuinely wonder who will love me for who I am. I look substantially different in person to how I look in photos, I'm not the smartest person you'll meet and I don't have much going for me, in all honestly. And the aesthetics department is on the rise.

Just makes me wonder, who will I marry?

Legitimately though, everything about "I just want someone who loves me for who I am, regardless of who they are" completely ignored, I don't think I can handle someone who doesn't have at least equal intelligence as me. Like, I wouldn't be able to hold any of my memorable conversations with them. At most, a superficial glance at my argument, followed by a cascade from submission to acceptance without so much as a blank stare rebounding off the plains.

I need someone with the same interests as me. Even if they hold the same level of intelligence, there's not much point if they're a humanities junkie and they have zero insight into science, which is my forte. Might not be the same for all people, but it certainly is for me. Which means, I'm pretty much restricted to people in the medical or dental field, really.

Once I find this person, whoever it may be, I want our wedding to be the most memorable day of my life. Some people like simplicity, but not me.

I want extravagance.

Oh, the pondering of a teenager. Let each day come as it passes.

Maybe someday.

Photography tip #1: eyes are the pathway to the heart or in this case, a good photo.

I'm becoming a cat lady. Too bad I'm allergic to them, else I'd seriously consider dying alone with cats in my possession.

Cats aside, I've always been taught to focus on the eyes because even if the rest of the photo is out of focus, it still looks good. That's why when you take portraits, it's always best to focus on the eyes. I mean, theoretically, you should be able to focus on anything and make a photo turn out well but it always seems to be the eyes which make or break the photo. Just a tip for portrait photography. I'll give you a few examples with a cat I was trying to photograph yesterday.

The cat had a really unique patch of brown fur on the white surrounding its mouth. Check it out. It was beautiful. I must say though, on the way home I was suffering a major hayfever attack and it was annoying me. It chose to rub itself on my leg continuously and seriously, it wouldn't stop; you wouldn't believe how hard it was to get some actual decent shots of it.

I'M ALLERGIC TO CATS, WHAT OF IT.

There are only a few photos which turned out nicely. This one didn't turn out tooooooo badly, but I guess it's because you can't see the face of the cat, just the top of the head.

See, with these two here, the photos look quite odd because the face isn't in focus. In particular, the eyes aren't focused and I've focused on the fur in the background. Mind you, it wasn't intentional; the damned cat wouldn't stop moving and it kept rubbing its fur onto my jeans.

Let's contrast them with these. The first one is my favourite; it's framed really nicely and I had to be quick because the cat was in a rush to move for some reason.

Exposure: 1/90

ISO: 100

Aperture: f/4.0

Exposure bias: 0

Exposure: 1/90

ISO: 100

Aperture: f/4.0

Exposure bias: 0

Eventually, the cat went into the sun so I had to change the evaluative metring on the camera to partial metring. I quite like how the photos came out, even though you couldn't see the cat's eyes. The fur was a much richer, stronger brown; quite striking on camera but it couldn't compare with when it was magnified on the screen.

Exposure: 1/180

ISO: 100

Aperture: f/5.6

Exposure bias: 0

Exposure: 1/180

ISO: 100

Aperture: f/4.5

Exposure bias: 0

Exposure: 1/180

ISO: 100

Aperture: f/4.5

Exposure bias: 0

Exposure: 1/350

ISO: 100

Aperture: f/8.0

Exposure bias: 0

I miraculously managed to maintain focus on the face. After this lot of photos, I realised that I'd been chasing a stupid cat for about 30 minutes, waiting for a few moments to photograph.

So, a few take home tips for animal/close up shooting: make sure your subject DOESN'T MOVE AROUND TOO MUCH, and make it so that your animal or whatever is not on your allergy list. Not very pleasant at all.

Make sure your lighting is favourable. Most of the time, the camera will automatically adjust its ISO (a measure of light sensitivity) to match the background lighting, provided you leave the automatic settings and you're using a digital camera. The next thing you want to make sure of is that you're not too close to the subject; a lot of the time, people overestimate the "macro" ability of their lenses, particularly if it's quite a wide angled lens with not much capability for zoom.

Adjust the lighting if you must; either overexpose or underexpose, depending on the background light. In addition, focus on a point where you want to set the standard for lighting. For example, if you set your focus to something completely black, your camera will adjust itself so that the dark thing will be illuminated because the camera interprets your focus as a "lack of light" and subsequently, your background will be completely overexposed - bright, almost blinding. Alternatively, if you focus on something really bright, the background will be dark because your camera will try to compensate. I think it's mainly when your settings are on "spot focus" rather than evaluative metring or partial, or even centre-weighted average.

Anyway kiddos, I'd better sleep. Mum just came down and had a little hissy fit at me because I was up at 2:30am... which is the time right now. I'm going out tomorrow anyway so I'd best be getting some rest. All photos that I take with a DSLR are with a Canon EOS 5D Mk II and currently the only decent lens I have is a 24-105mm f/4.0L lens. You'll notice some details and numbers with a few of the photos - if you understand what it means, then great. If not, I'll make a post about it later. You don't really need to worry about the terms; just putting the details there for interest.

Farewell from the cat lady.