'Tis the season

So, it has been over a month since my last post. That's pretty shameful, but I guess that time flies when you're having fun. I finished my second year of Uni, got some pretty good results, spent a couple of days at the beach, have been to a handful of birthday and Christmas parties, and turned 21 yesterday. I'm having my party on Saturday night, which should be really fun. Then it's Christmas next week (although I'm still not entirely sure how it got to be this late in the year so fast...), for which I'll probably be working lots of shifts and somehow managing to buy the presents I've got left to get.

I have mixed feelings about Christmas. It used to be my favourite time of year - probably because it's so close to my birthday, but when I was younger I used to get so excited about Santa, presents and lots of interesting food. Even though my family wasn't super rich, my Dad always got really excited and that was kind of contagious. Then, when I was 15 and working in a supermarket, I realised that that sense of pending excitement I had was strangely missing as I worked double shifts up until the Big Day. Same thing the next year, and the year after that (except by then I was working at a cafe, which was much less harsh than Coles had been). The third year that I worked in the lead up, I was so blase about Christmas - until Boxing Day, when my Dad played these old tapes of Carols for the first time that season, which made me come home.

The year of my Gap Year - so the Christmas just after my 19th birthday - was exciting for me again, with the only difference being that I wasn't working, and had time to actually get excited. Then last year, it was back to that sense of indifference that I'd gotten used to in my teenage years.

This year, is different again. I'm not really indifferent, or being a total Scrooge like I was last year, but it doesn't feel like Christmas yet. It's really surreal. Still, I am looking forward to the food, and the family. Even though Santa feels like a relic of my childhood, he is still found in various places around my house at the moment (including in one particularly scary incarnation that reminds me of Chuckie from Child's Play, and which my Mum and I have petitioned in vain to have banished from the house). I decorated most of the tree this year, with great results - it's entirely decked out in red and green.

I think that as I've grown older, even though I've lost that sense of excitement, but I've gained an appreciation of the traditions that make this time of year so important. It really is about family, friends, food and stories that are shared amongst everyone. As much as Christmas has become one of the most commercial, capitalist entities of our time, those values (I think, at least) will always be around. And that's why Christmas is special.

So hear this, Robert Zimmerman...

Nearly at the end of the semester! Yay! There's only two thousand words on the internationalism of German cinema from the 1990s to the present in between myself and freedom. I think I'm going to use Goodbye Lenin! and either The Nasty Girl or Beyond Silence for my films... or maybe The Lives of Others or Run, Lola, Run. They're all pretty solid.



In other news, Beauty and the Geek is making me lose faith in humanity. I'd like to say that I'm trying not to watch it; my Mum has it on in the background. It's really awful. Although, if one of my friends ever decided to enter the show, I'd support them wholeheartedly. It WOULD be funny, for me at least.

Fooooood

Okay, so you know how a while ago I wrote an entry about how easy it is to photograph food badly? And how, when that's done, it's more nauseating than enticing to look at food? Well, anyway, I found a new blog that completely contradicts that.






It's a little blog called "The Boyfriend Replacement", and it's found at http://boyfriendreplacement.tumblr.com/, and I swear to God that it has made me so hungry, and craving things I haven't eaten in ages. Like fried rice. Nutella straight from the jar. Tomato soup. Cupcakes (although, I'm always craving cupcakes!). Penne with vegetables. Onion rings. Strawberry tarts. Baklava. Hot chips. My mouth is watering.



I really like food.

Words

This video speaks for itself, really. A good friend described it as a "word-gasm", and I think she's probably just about right.




And as an aside, I'm currently having a love affair with the word "evocative". It's just so full, so lucious to say... it's so, well, evocative of emotions and senses. Lovely.

Nuances

I'm currently reading a crappy chick-lit novel called "Weekend in Paris", by Robyn Sisman. It's pretty good... I like the main character etc etc, but there is by far one of the worst Australian stereotypes featured in there. It's making the book on the whole a lot less enjoyable, which is a shame.

Why, why, why, Robyn Sisman, did you feel the need to resort to annoying cliches to create a two-dimensional, shallow character?? It's incredibly frustrating.

What's in YOUR handbag?

I just found the ultimate in girlie voyeurism... a website dedicated to showing what's really in girl's handbags. Finally, I get to see if other people carry around as much crap in their bags that I do! (And the answer is yes, they do. I am not alone in my carrying of assorted paraphernalia in my generally oversized handbag). Interested? Check it out at http://fuckyeahwhatsinyourbag.tumblr.com/

And what's in mine? Well... I should probably make a list.

Wallet, keys (mostly), phone, ipod, makeup, camera, a novel, bottle of water, prescription sunnies and their case, normal sunnies, spare contact lenses, hand sanitiser, a pen (or more), a notebook (when I remember), painkillers, (in winter) gloves/scarf/hat, aaaaand lip balm. Not a bad effort, really.

Eat, Pray, Love

Nearly two weeks ago, I went and saw Eat Pray Love with my friend Hayley. I really enjoyed it - it hasn't had the best reviews, but I loved the cinematography and the way that they showed Italy, India and Bali when she was there. I also loved the soundtrack, which featured Neil Young, MIA, Aphex Twin and Mozart. I don't really understand why people seem to have hated the movie - I thought it was a nice, slow-moving film that reflected how life and relationships don't really work the way that we expect them to, but if you give them a chance, they will work for you.

Anyway, I went on the IMDB message boards for this film earlier today (when I was supposed to be writing an essay on Banksy, but that's by the by), and amongst all the people who loved or hated it, and one guy who inexplicably couldn't understand why on earth the main character ever left the USA, in his words the "greatest country in the world", I found one thread where the person who started it asked where in the world everyone else would go to eat, pray and love, just like Liz Gilbert in the movie (who went to Italy, India and Bali respectively). I thought this was a nice idea, but when I went to reply... I struggled.

I want to travel to lots of different places all over the world, but I don't really have any reason to want to go to those places, other than to see and experience them. I used to think that was enough, but now I'm feeling that if I'm ever going to even get close to cutting through my list of places to go, I should have some sort of order - or at least, a more cement reason for going there. After all, I sometimes think that my dream is to travel to amazing places, but my nightmare is to be 'just a tourist', who goes to amazing places only to say they've been there.

So after much consideration... here's my list.

EAT:
Turkey or Spain. I've been to Spain, and it's fabulous. The food, the atmosphere, everything. Paella! Sangria! Fresh bread! And I love Turkish food as it is here in Australia, and I'd love to make an educated comparison.

PRAY:
Morocco, because the architecture looks amazing and very reflective. Or Nepal, because the mountains seem as though they'd be cathartic and ideal for meditating on life in general.

LOVE:
Who knows? Where ever it finds me. Maybe Paisley in Scotland though... I am a sucker for the accent.