26 Things To Do Before I’m 27…

Sitting here contemplating the last 15 minutes of my 25th year on Earth, it momentarily crossed my mind that this year was my first birthday away from the warm blanket of my closest friends and family (minus Bailey of course, as he’s right here!) – then I suddenly realised that this was, in fact, incorrect because exactly five years ago – on the cusp of my 21st birthday – I was in Europe in Monte Carlo half a world away from my people with a bunch of crazy strangers. I don’t expect that 21-year-old would have seen me and my life coming her way!

Monaco at dusk

To guide me through the next year, at least, I’ve decided to taken on a challenge set forward by some fellow bloggers – Elsie from A Beautiful Mess (a HUGE inspiration) and HER inspiration for the challenge, Hula Seventy. Let’s see how I go over the next 365 days working through this heavy to-do list! Hopefully you will feel inspired to do one for yourself – please share, I’d love some friends to try it with me!!

Click for a larger view!

Catch you when I return from my birthday cake-induced coma.

Kx

Music To My Ears – The Art of Sleeping

Like probably everyone, music plays a massive part in my existence and there are many, many bands and songs that come into my life at certain times that seem so significant – I kind of like to think of them as contributions to the soundtrack to my life (sorry if that’s lame!)

One band in particular that has been a consistent chart topper in the “recently played” iTunes list at my house is Brisbane band, The Art of Sleeping.

I would love to gush over the intricate guitar riffs and beautifully complex lyrics – but I’m still exhausted from my post last night. So I am just going to say, please check them out and buy their album on iTunes. Let’s support some local music and our indie scene!! Particular highlights for me are Weightless and Clarity off their first EP (titled The Art of Sleeping EP) and The Daring and the Lost off the Colourblind EP (get them both, they’re $10.14 and $6.75 respectively!!)

Check out the ONLY video I could find on YouTube for a sneak peak.

But please buy it if you like it! I don’t know these guys personally, but I know lots of people who work in industries including music and film and TV and I know piracy is just a way of life these days for most people, but if you’re going to do it – don’t cheat the little guys like these dudes!

Kx
P.S Thanks to Bailey for introducing me to them! We hope you like their stuff :D

Generation Y Don’t You Have a Job?

Does anyone else get asked this a lot? I know Bailey and I certainly do and it often seems that most of our generation are in a similar situation. I have put it down to two things – either I attract people with similar aspirations to me, or we are Gen Y’s who are on a totally different wavelength to our predecessors…

It’s probably more likely a bit of both seeing as I know non-traditional careerists who are from other generations (including my dad) however; I am taking some poetic license for the sake of the title.

Everyone has a different story, a different reason, a different set of circumstances. I have friends in their mid to late twenties who are only now discovering what they want to do and going back to school, and others who still haven’t decided. I know people, including my sister, who work random jobs to fund their real passion for art, writing, performing, and filmmaking, who are just doing what they have to, to get by. There are others on my friends list who have moved overseas in pursuit of international happiness, and then there is Bailey – my closest and most poignant example – who has wanted to be an entrepreneur his whole life and is well on his way.

For me, I have wanted to work in film and television since forever. The past three or four years of my adult life (ie, after leaving uni and wasting a lot of time drinking too much) have been consumed with clawing for work in the industry in Brisbane, working dodgy in between jobs, and just plain being unemployed quite a lot. I could not even count or recall to you the number of times people have looked at me with bewildered expressions and asked how I can manage to live like that. But, just quietly, I LOVE IT!

Living the "dream" (sort of). Photo by Jesse.

Obviously being poor is not on my list of things to do. I like the idea of having a roof over my head and money to buy pretty things (and my recent move to Sydney will hopefully keep this a reality). But, that being said, I thrive on the idea of a constantly changing work environment with new challenges, different expectations, and (most importantly) an end date so that I can bypass the monotony of life and get through each day knowing that there is no way I will be stuck doing what I’m doing for the next 20+ years!

Call me crazy or disagree with my entirely, that is your prerogative (and I will not judge you for doing so) but that is how I like to live my life in a somewhat uncertain, but always interesting way.

These career and life aspirations could have a number of causes. Growing up with the Internet, substantial recent technological and social media advancements, and uncertain, ever-changing job markets are certainly some factors, but potentially more significant are the ambassadors for our generation who have become so by turning small ideas into overnight success stories (anyone heard of Facebook, YouTube, Google?). We could follow in the footsteps of previous generations and live to work, or create a whole new path and follow people who have show us that we can do anything we want – the world awaits us with infinite opportunities.

Working Hard - photo by Suresh

Apparently, Gen Y’s will have significantly more careers and change jobs more in their lifetime than any previous generation. This is a bad thing, why? Is there really anything wrong with trying until you find what you’re looking for? Striving for something better? Or holding your life to a higher standard so that you can look back when you are old and say you took every shot at having the best life you could? I don’t think so.

I don’t even think money is the primary motivator – although there is some attraction to the thought that ‘a million dollars isn’t cool, you know what is? A billion dollars’ – I think we are attracted to the idea that we can do whatever we want and create the best life for ourselves. My dream job involves all my favourite people getting to work together, preferably being creative while making money, and eating lots of cake. I’d really love to see judgey, other-generational, or just more mainstream people try and wrap their heads around that concept next time they ask me or any of my friends about our non-existent, not yet formed, or totally out-of-this-world careers…

P.S I have to thank my family for being super supportive about my life choices and putting up with me when it’s been tough!

A Few of My Favourite Things…

Inspired by a Facebook joke with my sister’s boyfriend last week, I decided to take a moment to give praise to a few of my favourite things (and The Sound of Music).

I’m not going to lie, there are many things in my life that make me happy – certain people, things, and moments – so this may become a regular thing :D

• Living in Sydney and seeing the bridge from so many random places. It shows up in places you’d never expect (stay tuned for photos) I hope the novelty never wears off!

Sydney Harbour Bridge

• Pink accessories. I never wear the colour but literally every time I buy some kind of accessory, case for something, etc, it HAS to be pink.

Pink!

• Bailey’s CRAZY hair. I have never met hair with such personality – alas, he will not allow me to share photo evidence of this with the world, so you will all just have to trust me on this one.

• Cake (I may have mentioned this previously)

Mmmm...

• Embarrassing myself for the sake of being entertaining or getting a cheap laugh (see above and look out for more of this).

• Lanes (especially those in Melbourne, Australia and Brighton, England), particularly if travelling down them leads to coffee and cake or boutique shops (it always does).

Melbourne

• This little guy – he’s a keyring my sister, Rach, brought back from Amsterdam and he reminds me of her when I’m feeling far away from home.

 

Wooden Key Ring Dude

• Staying up late and sleeping in late.

• These tights (that I snagged today and had to throw out due to a MASSIVE ladder – sad face)

Bow seam stockings

• This ring – it was my great grandmother’s ring, then she passed it on to my grandma, who had her initials DP (Doris Pearson) engraved on it. She gave it to me and it is probably my most treasured possession ever.

Ring

• And when my bestie, Sarah Jane, tries to be mean to me when I’m being hard on myself to secretly encourage me to keep going instead of giving up (it usually works)

Classic times, Classic friends…

Classic best friends pic...

Yesterday, whilst searching my iPhoto library for my best cake photos, I found myself reminiscing over years gone by and good times once had and I realised three things:-

1)   I don’t take enough photos of my life and the people in it as I used to or want to.

2)   Thanks to the phenomenon that is social networking, you can still connect with the people you have known in your life without actually having to commit to seeing them regularly (both a good thing, if you don’t live close by or your lives have gone in different directions and a bad thing because you no longer have to make too much effort), and

3)   I am too young to be using phrases such as, ‘over years gone by’.

Benjamin and I

Upon discovering some fairly classic moments and photos in my library, I decided to conduct a little experiment; posting some of my favourite images of good friends that I have maybe lost touch with a little – or who now all live in a different state to me and I miss daily!

Melbourne Cup, Birch style...

The result: collective replies from these people commenting on the photos with the same fondness that I had felt just moments before – and I only picked about 12 photos out of a library of thousands!  I then had to pause at the thought of all the people who have passed through my life and who haven’t made it into my digital archives for some reason or another…

How often do you find yourself wondering about people who used to be in your life (and life, being the way it is) are no longer? How often do you compromise on real friendship by simply hitting the ‘like’ button on an old friend’s Facebook status update instead of sending them a message so they know you’re still around?

Girls from the Edge

Stuff happens, friendships fall apart, life moves on, and we really all just carry on in our little worlds doing our thing. You can spend your whole life working and whinging about bills and money and bad drivers and the weather, but at the end of the day, all that really matters is what kind of person you are in your life and the people you spend it with. So this blog – and my latest Facebook photo album – is a shout out to all the friends (new, old, existing, no longer, and life long) I have had and, even though years have passed and photos or distant memories may be all that remain,  I hope that we can still think back every once in a while and remember each other fondly.

Crazy Contiki Kids in Venice, 2006

Totally Addicted To: CAKE!

One of the reasons that I will never look like a super skinny model is partly due to my genes and MOSTLY due to the fact that I am a cake junkie and think that cake is the best invention since…well possibly ever, but at least since the Internet…

Cake is obviously the one true love of most children, and for some reason I have just never grown out of that phase. I’m not too fussed on chocolate or other sugary treats, but cake – especially once joined by my other true love, coffee – is one thing I cannot say no to.

Eating cake at JK Rowling's favourite spot in Edinburg, 2005

Tea, pan, mud, carrot, cheese, chocolate, or cup – I’m there. Add a latte and a good friend to share it with (the experience, not the cake) and that could be one of my favourite things ever. Maybe it’s because my mum and dad always took my sister and I out for coffee and cake as kids instead of to McDonalds or maybe it’s just because adding coffee to the cake equation has less childish implications – I don’t care either way, it is good. As is baking it yourself and licking the bowl afterwards…

V-day cupcake display

What’s your all time favourite? Please send recipes :D

P.S This blog is dedicated to the Smith’s (my family not the band) – for this is where I believe my love for cake, coffee, photography, and movies comes from ;)

iCollect Movies – Do I ever?

So I’ve left it way too late tonight to do a proper blog – mostly due to Breaking Bad and pancakes (classic Kato!),  so I’m doing a little cross promotion for Bailey’s blog that I have a guest post on this week!

If you’re like me and into anything to do with anything Apple check it out for all the latest on app reviews, cool accessories, and latest Apple news – plus a review from yours truly on app my new favourite app, iCollect Movies. What are you waiting for? Head on over to iDevices World (click there or here) and go get your geek on!

Delicious Viewing – Pushing Daisies

 

Being the film and television geek that I am (as you will come to learn if you didn’t already know) Through My Looking Glass will inevitably feature – from time to time – some of my favourite viewing delights. In these early blogging days, I had a number of other things planned for “blog number two” but Pushing Daisies kept creeping up in my thoughts and I thought, who am I to argue?

Pushing Daisies follows Ned (Lee Pace), a pie maker with an immediately apparent gift for waking the dead (with some fairly serious conditions attached to it). He uses his ability to help a local P.I, Emerson Cod (played by the hilarious Chi McBride), solve murders and this leads him to his childhood neighbour and sweetheart, the not-quite-alive-anymore Charlotte ‘Chuck’ Charles (Anna Friel), and thus begins a rather unconventional love story. Along with an assortment of other quirky characters including Kristen Chenoweth as Olive and Chuck’s crazy aunts Lily and Vivien (played by Ellen Greene and Swoosie Kurtz) Ned, Chuck, and Emerson Cod solve some wacky murders and eat a lot of pie.

Ned and Chuck

Bryan Fuller’s romantic comedy-murder mystery-forensic fairy tale is a delight for all the senses. The technicolour world and costumes and pies are like a visual mind explosion, the characters are fast talking, quick witted and utterly loveable, and Jim Dale and Jim Dooley provide the comforting storybook narration and heart-warming soundtrack respectively.

Pushing Daisies brings me a level of happiness that I didn’t even know a TV show could bring a person! If you don’t fall totally in love with Lee Pace in the first episode, then you need help – he’s like one of those cute puppies that you feel instantly compelled to take home with you and love forever, especially when he’s spouting lines like ‘I just thought my world would be a better place if you were in it.’ Swoon. Anna Friel is just gorgeous and I spent the entire two seasons green with envy over Chuck’s adorable wardrobe.

Charlotte 'Chuck' Charles

A show centred around mouth-watering pies – how could that be bad?  Digby! Oh and Pigby! (you’ll see what I mean). And the way the use of alliteration and repetition for names and places makes even the dialogue visual in their colourful world. Look, I could wax eloquent all day over my love for the characters, the clever writing, and the uniqueness of the concept in a world of repetitive cop and crime shows, bad writing, and sloppy comedy with overpaid drop kick actors, but instead I will just insist that you watch it and let me know what you think!

[On that note, I must warn you of one thing – despite 57 award nominations, including 17 Emmy noms, wide critical acclaim, and a significant fan base – Pushing Daisies had a pretty terrible run of luck and was taken from its fans long before it should have been. Even with prior knowledge of this, you may find yourself wanting more when the climactic story arc of the two (very short) seasons is suddenly wrapped up at the end of the last episode. Don’t let this deter you though; the minor heartbreak is worth the 22 episodes of pure elation that comes from knowing the Pie Maker and his world.]

The Pie Maker

(All promotional images sourced from here)

Through My Looking Glass

I have always loved the idea of Alice in Wonderland so it seemed a good place to start – everything from tiny bottles saying ‘drink me’, tea parties with mismatched décor, characters inspired by playing cards and chess pieces, Mary Janes, and the idea of a place that no one else knows about but you.

Mad Hatter's Tea Party original artwork

Ultimately, we all live in a world that only we know. Nobody is with us 24/7, seeing life as we see it, with our thoughts and feelings. Mine is a world that I can only reflect through a mash of words and my own looking glass – my camera – and maybe you will see what I see, or maybe you will see something I never did.

Me through the looking glass

My wonderland is full of inspiration, admiration, and incredulation for the people in my life, the kindness of strangers, and the capabilities of humans. I want to reflect that through sharing the things that inspire me, that I admire, and that leave me constantly incredulous at our own abilities – be that through movies, books, photographs, style and fashion, stories, or things I come across in my every day life. So down the rabbit hole I go…

P.S The film was disappointing, but the costumes and artwork (as seen below) were amazing, there’s no denying it. Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland – image from Beyond Hollywood