beach

The beach always looks almost surreal in its perfection, no matter where you go (or maybe Australia is just blessed and beautiful) but the sea, the sun and the sand come together to form this eye-watering picture of lapping blue and white hot sand with the endearing grotesque green of algae, seaweeds and rock marking the meeting of the two. 

I could just stare all day. 

17, dancing queen*

Last year, I made a birthday post, and I think it's a good thing to try and continue and reflect, or plan each year. New Year's is always too confronting to really sit down and think about anything, it always feels like a shock that another year has gone by, a whole year that I'll never have a change to go back to. But birthdays don't have those connotations, so it feels a bit less confronting.

This year, I know, will be gone before I know it, but there'll also be moments which feel like they'll never pass. It's an important time in terms of dictating future paths, but also not at the same time. There are always uncertainties, always alternative ways around. I read something the other day, which I think is valuable advice to keep in mind

"Be firm about your goals, but flexible about your methods and how you get there."

I find that personally, I'm much more effective and significantly less crazed when I concentrate on each singular task before me, rather than fixating on all that is before me and the whole culmination of tasks yet to be done. Because I have no clear goals or career(s) in mind, I want to well enough to provide myself the widest range of options possible. That's going to take a lot of hard work, but I'm up for it. I just hope that it's enough. But even if it isn't, it'll have to be.

*I'm actually pretty terrible at dancing 

favourite blogs (cities)

Hello!


It's been a while, year twelve leaves little room for life's more indulgent pleasures and though I have quite a photos backlogged in my SD card, I have no time to actually edit them. It'll probably be a while yet before I do anything more than mindlessly browse through instagram/twitter/tumblr/youtube in my free time, however I do think it would be a good idea to compile a few master posts of my favourite web places.

First up, cities. As much as I love to read lifestyle or style blogs, the best pictures to scroll through when the real world is being particularly grey or disappointing, are the beautiful backdrops and blogs of these lovely ladies:

Ashley:

(image taken from historyinhighheels.blogspot.com.au

If you like history, Florence, travel, style or anything in between, you're in for a treat. I could not believe my luck when I stumbled across this little beauty very recently and I have not been disappointed since. Personally, I believe there's far from enough blogs which have an interesting and intellectually stimulating mix of style AND substance, but Ashley fills the gap quite nicely.

Briony:

(image taken from agirlastyle.com)

Miss B lives in Cambridge, and works as a senior political advisor by day and whimsical blogger fairy by every-other-spare-minute. Her unique sweetheart style and impressive resumé coupled with the magnificent sandstone (ask anyone who knows me, I effin' LOVE SANDSTONE) wonderland of Cambridge, produces a quaint loveliness which can not be matched. She also happens to be a fellow Australian, so that's always nice. 

Carin: 

(image taken from parisinfourmonths.com)

Ahh Paris! The city of love, lights and romantic connotation, we've all dreamed of Paris at some point, no(n)? Carin made this dream a reality and packed her bags and moved to this fair city without a second thought, and I am very glad for it. Carin's photos are breathtaking in their composition, capturing the essence of Paris and providing my daily dose of pretty. 

I hope you love these as much as I do! 

x

christmas loot '14

Happy holidays! Christmas has come and gone and now, presents all unwrapped.. it's time to shop all those sales! .. see messy heap of bags in photo 1. No need to worry though, I didn't go very crazy, just picked up a few tops from h&m which hopefully will appear on here soon enough in the form of outfits and a simple but very versatile navy linen and black trousers from Uniqlo <-- GREAT for basics. But more about that some other time.

My parents were rather generous and I received from them all of the above as well as the book 'Letters of Note' by Shaun Usher which I am eagerly awaiting from the postman.

How were your Christmases?

p.s paddington bear is the most adorable film.

oh holiday

some kind of egg-y thing at sotto on west

It's Christmas! Or the school holidays at least, since last Thursday, but Christmas is happening soon too. That time of year were everyone talks about festivity and presents. Time gets a bit weird too. Minutes past very slowly, but days often blur into each other.

Two of my good friends are spending it overseas this year and they've just left, one of them flying over the pacific ocean right this moment. These holidays in particular are a bit of a weird groggy time. There is so much work to do, but also a lot of time to do it in. I have a few chapters of maths homework, a rather large number of essays to write and three major works to get well under way. Nothing I've started on yet but I have relative faith that I'll get it all done. fingers crossed.

The graduating class of '14 got their atars a few days ago, the numerical value of thirteen years of education has been assessed. Phwoar. That is certainly a lot to feel whether good or bad and it's almost unbelievable to think that I'll be getting the same thing in a year's time.

This is a pretty intense period of time, possibly the hardest months that I've gone through so far, but I'm still alive and kicking after the first exam block, and we'll see how this goes. Now that's it is the holidays, I'm going to try and enjoy myself at least a little and who knows, maybe post more than once in a blue moon.