Things I Have Learnt In the Past Few Months...

• Being broke is not fun. Love may be all you need, but it sure as hell will not buy you a decent cup of coffee.
• University is hard work if you are a science student. For a lazy person like me, this will induce a lot of questions of WHY and HOW and WHY. Then I'll remember that I don't know what else I could do that could contribute towards a future I may actually like. It would be an existential crisis, but half the time I am either too tired or don't care enough about anything to call it a crisis per say. It's a dilemma, certainly. I should probably figure this out.
• If you want to know who your real friends are when you have left school, wait until your birthday and see who still feels compelled to write two letters (hb) and a smiley if they especially like you. If you are like me, that will be less than half of the wishes you would have received while you were still in school. Is this is a bad thing? I personally don't really think so, but you may disagree and face a great reality shock.
• Making friends out of school is hard. Like, you can't just walk up to anyone anymore and say wanna be friends? and then follow them around everywhere. Shit is complicated now. People are still as rude as Hitler too; for some reason I frequently forget that arseholes also graduate. They tend not to magically evaporate into sad post school shadows. 
• A year ago I suspected that the curse of humanity are stupid people. I was right.
• Turning 18 does not magically transform you into a being of pure maturity and adulthood. People will not automatically respect your opinions and values (especially if you are a girl). I still laugh at poo jokes. And Adventure Time is still the best thing since David Bowie.
• Coffee is god. 

Quick Tips for Surviving University

Congratulations! If you are reading this with the intention of becoming a fully fledged university bawus, it can be presumed that you were accepted into a tertiary education institute. Ku-fucking-dos goes to you my friend. Now you are entering into a stage where you are willingly prolonging your schooling years. In case it wasn't made clear to you, university is voluntary. You have already completed the legally required formal schooling.

Now that we have dispensed of the unnecessary crowd, let's continue. Supposing you are studying a degree that holds a certain level of employability (so not an arts degree) you will hopefully be working in a relevant field, with a higher pay-packet than what you would have otherwise received. This will be incredibly useful when paying off all of your atrociously immense student loans.

Otherwise, I have put together an amateur's guide for attaining prosperity at uni. Keep in mind that I am a first year student, who has not yet been to my first class. It's obvi that I not only hold, but I carved the keys to the door of success. Hey, I survived the final year of high school and I have watched Legally Blonde enough times to gain a legit expertise. So, here we go.

1. Like the Undergraduate Quick Tips - From Previous First Year Students page on Facebook. This collection of wisdom comes the creator/s (?) of the infamous Schoolies Quick Tips - From Previous Grade 12 Students and QCS Quick Tips - From Previous Grade 12 Students
pages. You know this is legit. In fact, for any well wishing student, this will be your Bible. With nuggets of wholesome truth such as "Ginger kids are actually not allowed to graduate from any educational institution in Australia", it's not only irresistible, it's essential.

2. Actually refuse to investigate the finer details of your degree. Your catchphrase should now be "what the shit is a major?" People will realise that you're a lewse bastard and instantly want to be your friend. Even your professors won't be able to help themselves from falling for the fine individual you are. The fact that you're flawed only adds to your entire demeanour.

3. Don the appropriate gear to create the whole "I'm a very serious student" aura. At the very least, chunky specs are absolutely mandatory.

4. It is not necessary to attend all lectures and tutorials. You must however be present at all toga parties, ready to rock out with your very best cake face and bed sheet. Have an exam the next day? No worries, have another rum and coke. You are not honestly prepared for the real world until you have completed a three hour exam with an ample hangover.

5. Instead of buying textbooks and watching hundreds of dollar disparate, chat up the unknowing person next to you and photocopy the pages necessary from their edition. This should probably only cost you half of what it should have, with only ten times the amount of effort. Repeat this process for all of your courses.    

6. Always remember the golden rule. May Daria bless you. 

A Face for a Funeral

As it was, I was cruising through the Brisbane CBD when I happened to perceive an immense curiosity. Personally I was too mortified to even think of capturing a digital image to show you, so you're actually just going to utilise some brain tissue and IMAGINE IT. It was an amply sized billboard advertising a funeral service. Upon the left of it, was an elderly lady posed with both hands underneath in an angel pose, with a transcendent smile paused on her lips, and her eyes closed as if she was dreaming of better days.

Usually, along with the rest of the human population I would think nothing of it and continue on through my day. Yet it just so happened that the particular photo they used of the eerily tranquil woman provoked my brain into multiple question mode. What was she thinking when she posed for it? How did this company sell the position to her? Was she a past client of theirs? What are the legal and moral ethics of utilising the image of a potentially deceased person for a billboard? Would that mean that they would not owe her any funds for her modelling services due to her untimely death? Holy fuck, was she even alive when the photograph was captured?

What is simply an image of a sleepy elderly lady had potentially disturbed me for life. Assuming that she consented to the use of the image, what would make the poor old dear agree to the whole situation? Yes please, I would like to represent a satisfied corpse, who was entirely placated by my excellent funeral services. I mean, yes please I would like to represent a service for dead people and alive people who knew dead people. It's not completely jocular is it? Imagine this person disclosing to her friends over some dry Arnotts biccies and cups of Earl Grey about how she was a model.

"Oh yes Marjorie, I saw you on the billboard in front of St. Stephens"-
"Yes Gladys. I'm a model now."
"How marvellous!"

Yes how bloody brilliant, Marjorie is now a model of those who passed on to God knows where. It frightens me that someone would be so openly accepting to include their face onto an entity such as this. I keep striving to resolve it in my mind, but all that results are more questions, that refuse to peacefully fade away (much unlike Marjorie). And then, there in bold is the disdainful question of why do I care so much. Perhaps, I would like to think that none of this is foreseeable in my own future. That I will never become a dreary angel of death. All the same, maybe it is the most reckless and audacious thing that I could do as an elder. Messing with death- isn't that something that young people defiantly do whilst they still feel invincible? I guess that this is just a way to present both society and the Grim Reaper with the middle finger, before finally departing off into the sunset that is the afterlife. I honestly do think I could elatedly rest in peace with that in mind.

Alone Again

For the eighteenth Valentines Day in a row, I will be solitary. I will not consider myself alone. Yet in the typical V Day stance, I will be. My relationship status as displayed on Facebook as it has been for the last five years, will be ‘single’. 

I never have been really sure how to react to the lurve day hype that arrives as January departs. People talk about their plans. Buy shit. It has never affected me personally. My parents don’t even participate in it (Dad believes Valentine’s Day is another “goddamn” American corporate scheme to gain international control).

Yet every year, again and again, individuals around me moan about oh how they’re single yet again on the dreaded day and that their life has no meaning and how they are doomed to be forever alone. Every single year, (and every other day) I am forced to empathize with these people like I give a frazzling fuck. Fine. Yes I am in their exact situation; I know the single blues like the bloody crazy cat lady on the Simpsons. And because of their not being able to handle their lonesomeness, something that had little impact on my existence has now instead transformed it to shit.

This is only becomes depressingly worse when you consider my gender, along with the fact that I have a multitude friends that share my gender. I am not meaning to stereotype here, but lonely teenage girls are the scum of the earth come February. If not the whole population of them, the majority. Their incessant whines of “omg does he lyk meh” are enough to render a bystander into a state of considerable mental damage.

Towards the end of high school, my grade was forced into Mean Girlseque workshop confronting the future and fears and feels. At one point we were to anonymously submit genuine anxieties of ours, which were then read aloud. Amongst the reasonably terrifying statements, there was one that went along the lines of “I AM NEVER GOING TO FIND SOMEBODY TO LOVE ME”. And apparently this was shockingly relatable. And the only real consolation for this is that someone will love you eventually. It just hasn’t happened yet.

Pardon moi? Whatever happened to everyone jumping on Beyonce’s empowered wagon and waving their hands sassily in people’s faces and embracing all the single ladies? To everyone repeating said gesture and exclaiming that like The Pussycat Dolls, they don’t need a man? Was that just a cute trend and not a resonating truth for you all?

 I actually cannot understand why we so often define ourselves by other people. As depressing as this sounds, you are born alone. Your soul mate is not immediately allocated to you. If you cannot exist as an individual, oh how life will seem to endlessly shit on you. Honestly though, you are you. You are not the relationship status looming on your Facebook profile. You are you and that to me matters more than who you happen to (or not to) spoon at night. Why should we be made to feel descending qualms for not having someone to constantly swap saliva with?

This Valentine’s Day, I refuse to be made to feel inferior to any pair of face licking deviants. February 14th to me will just be another day just like its 364 brothers and sisters of the year. I will continue to exist, just as I always have. I am me. An individual. Not a half of two names jokingly merged together. But a whole.

Where Was I?

Where was I? In the Cotton On outlet in Tawa, Wellington picking up some crazy bargains. I find a super neon green alarm clock for $5 along with a pair of functional and fashionable boots for another five, to replace the $10 pair I had just misplaced on the train below my seat. My young male cousins are discovering the joys of shopping and fashion through the guidance of my younger sister. "Stay away from the v-necks," she alerts them. "And put down that disgusting purple shirt, you're already wearing skinny jeans. Who do you think you are, Justin Bieber?"

Where was I? Standing amongst a progression in a Catholic church in Wellington, silently calculating the percentage of people wearing white in half of the pews, in a half arsed attempt to distract my mind from the temptation of delicious sleep. My aunt had invited my mother, sister and me and my mum leaps at any chance to fulfil the lack of religion she has in her life that came with marrying my father. I honestly thought that any association that I had with Catholicism ended with my graduating from a Catholic girls school. Apparently not.

Where was I? Eating a freshly made lemon crepe from a man who had told me that he was from the south of France, that Wellington is a dead city, that he prefers Australia to New Zealand, loves Melbourne and he hopes to live there. He glances hopefully to me, receiving my conversational input. It's strange, these looks; they seem like something more than polite or innocent eye contact. But he had a strong accent and the stall's music blasted boisterously. Half of the time, I actually had no strong impression of what he was enthusiastically telling me. My sister performs like the perfect social player she is: nodding, smiling giving input, etc. I think to myself oh thank god she's here with her obvious comprehension. Later, my sister told me that she had no idea what he was saying and oh thank god I was there, with my obvious comprehension. When presenting my sister with the first of the crepes, he cacks himself at her overtly jocose expression. He guesses correctly that she is the youngest and continues to chuckle through his work. I realise how numb I've become to not only my sister's quirks, but also my own.

Where was I? Curled up with a book worm nibbled copy of Stephen King's Christine, in my oversized senior jersey and under a blanket, safe from the local daily hurricane winds. It's only one of the towering pile of cheap reads that I have snagged from Wellington op shops and second hand bookstores. I feel like a fully certified thrift shopper now, equal to the godly standards of Ryan Lewis and Macklemore (Walk up in the club like what up I got a big cock/Nah I'm just pumped up by some shit from a thrift shop). Honest to god though, this novel is fucking terrible. It reminds me of a Goosebumps book, one of those ones that everyone used to like in primary school. The plot is so basic I may as well have purchased a brain cell detonator instead and saved myself the trouble. At times, the carved paths in the book by some hungry insect fascinate me more than the actual text. They wind in and out of words, rendering some sentences into fragments and boring through several pages. I wake up later, dazed and as I rise yellowed flakes of Christine float onto the floor.

Where was I? Posing awkwardly with a stretched smile in front of a bathroom sink in the ladies' room of Wellington's Embassy cinema. This is no Myspace worthy bathroom mirror selfie. My mother was so exceedingly thrilled at being in a public toilet with plush carpet, wooden fixtures and detailed tiled walls she felt the need to document it. My sister and I beg her not to, as we stand together next to an apparent landmark for the twentieth time that day. We are in the most prestigious movie theatre in New Zealand, where an amazing and immense sculpture of Gandalf and the Hobbit Hole is plastered onto the front of the building and she wants to capture us in the loo. "It's so beautiful," she exclaims. It may be beautiful, but it still has the same purpose as any other thunderbox. People shit here.

Where was I? Listening to my eleven year old cousin excitedly tell my sister cheats on her Playstation as they squeal together in excitement while they venture through this fantasy world. I can't see them, but I can hear them through the thin walls. They keep me up until some ungodly hour in the morning. It is our last night in New Zealand and it is one of the few times that I think that this little girl is truly happy. Her older brothers are often together, grunting as a forms of communication while they are glued to their world champion boxing game on PS3. And then there's her. She's eleven and although I remember abandoning my soft toys before I was her age, I often see her hugging a withered woollen rabbit. She often keeps a false pretence of happiness before us, which barely shields her evident sadness. This girl is lonely and something is wrong. We discover just what later. However it is now, more than ever that I am thankful for my sister.

Where was I? In a shopping centre, with my mother and sister, struggling not to cry. We are finally back in Brisbane and as our internet at home likes to shit itself occasionally, we are forced to pursue the wonders of free wifi in public places. Usually we would have waited the revival of our interwebs but it is today that university offers come. My future is in cyberspace. So while my family has left me alone to discover my fate, I click away and discover it. It is an offer that I already know I have, from the email I received earlier. Yet I didn't know who from and what it was for and it is now that it is staring back at me from behind a glass screen. It is not the offer I wanted. I told myself it wouldn't happen, I tried to protect myself, but nothing could have softened this sting. Later, my mother is slow to move, slow to understand why I want to go home NOW. I blurt it out to my family, as I am failing to fake satisfaction. Although there are strangers surrounding us and I am striving against it, the tears come. While my sister holds me, my mum is horrendous at comforting me, just as she always has been. She doesn't understand and it takes her too long to succumb to my request to leave. I don't really know why I am crying - just maybe it's that I have never wanted anything more.

Where was I? Sitting behind my mac, typing furiously away. I hadn't blogged since last year. I had it in mind to be a better blogger in 2013. How so? With more substantial stuff, with stuff that is just more interesting, with stuff that I really do care for and mull over. I opened my laptop and I just let my fingers articulate the first thoughts in my head. They were of the last few weeks and of the weeks to come. I am now reconciled and ready to see that this year is perhaps maybe as memorable as it's successor, if not more. I hope. Could it be that the years are becoming shorter? I am only five months shy of 18 years old and already I feel that I am being swept into a perplexing cosmos where time is growing shorter and exponentially gains more value as it does so. Speak of the devil, it is past midnight here. I am working at my receptionist job in eight and a half hours.

Where was I? Bidding you adieu in the ending of this post. Until next time dear reader, I will be here.

I Love Glitter

 My life sucks. I'm serious. I have a Saturday job and have been desperately seeking a secondary higher paying employment for a couple of weeks now (meaning I have close to no dollars in the bank), I have been out of hair conditioner for four days now and my Mother, as much as I love that woman, since becoming apparent mistress of the television remote, has been subjecting me to incessant blaring Korean soap operas. Ordinary soaps are terrible. Korean soaps are absolutely heinous.

My new found bliss after graduation in taking it easy and doing nothing, has become a nightmare of boredom in which I have to be as inventive as fucking Tracy McBean and figure out a way to entertain myself. Perhaps I am being a plain as white whiney bitch today, but I reject this system full heartedly. No, I cry. I am not Phineas and Ferb. I do not want to rise out of bed and create a trendy restaurant in my backyard while simultaneously wondering where is my pet platypus and when will my surly sister finally be pummelled by a rogue bus. There must be another way, an easier and more effective way to amuse my brain.

During a hysterical episode of Dance Moms, I discovered a temporary approach to my situation. I had been painting my toenails with freshly bought $2 gold glittery varnish from Kmart. If there is something that instantly generates a happy Sarah, it's glitter. To me, almost anything is improved with a coat of glitter. By this, I mean that it can either look fabulous and in that be a blatant improvement, or it can create a great visual felony which is so horrendous, it somehow crosses back into the realm of amazing. This prompted me to search online to produce evidence.

In my search, I found a blog under the name of Glittery Shit which I thought would produce some grouse results. Assumption proven.

Oh glitter. You are utterly splendid, you in your glinting majesty. You're quite a tease- sparkling wildly in the light and you have to power to not only be beautiful, but also to be quite grotesque. I love this. You're versatile. The multitude of pieces of you that make up a powerful body could be likened to that of a teamwork metaphor, which is fucking beautiful. You're like sand, glitter. Not many entities have this and for that, I salute you. You go glitter.

  

Tumbling Down Tumblr: December

I recently mentioned my newly found obsession of one of the greatest tools of procrastination: Tumblr. Sometimes, images win where words fail. That's the appeal in tumblr for me, where I become so enticed by a multitude of pictures, which maybe reflect just what kind of person I am. Have a taste of what I reblogged this month:

Apocalypse Now?

It is Tuesday, 11 December, 2012. There are 10 days until the supposed end. People have started to panic. I have read statuses on Facebook asking if anyone would like to spend the next two weeks swapping saliva and being impregnated (or whatever they need a boyfriend for) and I have read job adverts (hopefully) jokingly implying that all applicants should hurry before the world ends. Soon, I suspect that there will be shortages of canned food, torches and battery powered radios. Or maybe not. Y2K was only a decade ago. Hopefully the majority of the human race can remember it and maybe overlook the terribly misinterpreted message of the Maya.

I do have one word to equate all of this apocalyptic bullshit to. Hollywood. The film industry has fed off our fear, like one giant crooked dementor, raging not for our souls, but for our attention and our money. Yet if you know me, you'll know if there's one thing I love, it's irony. This apocalyptic season, I plan on watching only the finest in dystopia, delivered by Hollywood itself. In order to find the biggest and the best I asked the only the biggest and best experts. Not really, I just asked some blogger gal pals over Facebook.

MEG: The Day After Tomorrow which I don't remember seeing but the ads used to freak me out a lot. 2012 was cool because of the hot Russian dude but other than that was shit. Do zombie apocalypse sort of movies count as the end of the world?

ELLEN: The movie Knowing... It's like a scifi movie but it's about the world ending and these people's children being the next generations adam and eve. It's a Nicholas Cage film, enough said.

MEG: 28 Days Later is pretty cool. The main character is a complete idiot and he probably should have died but the zombies were cool. Looking forward to when I get around to watching 28 Weeks Later. 

Zombieland was amusing. Cool take on the whole zombie virus thing really. 
I can't think of anymore off the top of my head right now...
Ellen, that sounds cool

SARAH: Yeah, dystopia + bible references + incest + Nicholas Cage = quite a watch. (Ellen liked this)

ELLA: How about the movie Melancholia and Another Earth?

ELLEN: Melancholia is amazing!

SARAH: What's Melancholia about?

  

MEG: I want to see that! Sarah, this is what IMDb says it's about: "Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide with the Earth." Also, I think that Dogma can totally fit this criteria

[NB Meg and I are both Dogma fanatics. As far as we're both concerned, it's gospel. Any Dogma reference is a fabulous reference.]

SARAH: Totally. If there was going to be an apocalypse, I'd like to think that two fallen angels named Matt Damon and Ben Affleck had something to do with it.

MEG: And that Chris Rock, Jay and Silent Bob and Alan Rickman would be part of a team trying to stop it.

SARAH: Don't forget Salma Hayek.

MEG: How did I forget Salma? I wish I was a prophet so I could hang with Jay and Bob

SARAH: I know right! Although Jay and Silent Bob would hit on you constantly. Those boys are desperate for some skirt

MEG: Yeah but I would find them some skirt elsewhere and we would all basically become bros that spread the word of God and stop Matt Damon and Ben Affleck from destroying the world.

SARAH:  I just want to be God in that movie. You know when you see God and (s)he is just smelling flowers and doing cartwheels?

MEG: I think that is exactly what God should be like. I feel like watching it again but I won't because I will save it for rainbow pancakes.

SARAH: I am so pumped for rainbow pancakes at yours. I seriously do bags a pink one, otherwise there will be an apocalypse.

After this exchange, I watched the other film that Ella had mentioned, Another Earth. It had a promising central concept as mentioned in the title. There is another planet, that is exactly like Earth. It is discovered that everyone has a twin living on Earth 2 that is identical in every way, even in their past lives. WHAT. However, I had mixed feelings upon the ending credits. If you don't appreciate a very gradual movement in plot and action, this film is definitely not for you. In that, it will slowly tear at your fast paced or even merely moving loving self. Note that it does break the criteria by not portraying an end of planet Earth.

Otherwise, I wish all the very best for the 'end' and the actual end of the year. Have a very happy apocalypse!

What is Life? What is Blogging?

Hello blogtopia. Miss me? I missed you. Well, I lie. I didn't really, I just experienced strange pangs of guilt whenever I suddenly thought of you. In the whole week since I spoke to you, I could have written, but I just didn't. In a sense I feel like I shouldn't be immersed in such emotion. This is MY blog. I own you. These roles cannot and should not be reversed. Besides, I have close to no faithful followers that I know of.

I also have felt peculiar when indulging in my latest addiction, Tumblr. I do still keep my prior view that Tumblr is one of the many greatly useless predicaments of our generation and yet now I am a constant scroller and reblogger. My life is proving again and again to be a fucking paradox; I do this also when I am a vegetarian that only wears leather but loves it and I contradict myself in basically everything else I do. While I am posting images of interest on the other site, I keep thinking of you, dear blog, you with your great many rambling and ageing posts and melancholiness almost eats me. After about a month of tumbling down Tumblr, I have gained 14 followers, a step up from my 3 followers on Blogger. This is not quite at my Pinterest fanbase, but what I can say. Pinners be batshit crazy.

Sometimes I feel like I am not worthy of a blog. Blogs are for interesting people with interesting lives and do interesting things. I mean, just look at Tavi Genison, Leandra Medine, Kobi Blake-Craig... 

However on second thoughts, I think that this may be false. Blogging is for people with internet connections and a genuine interest in what lies in cyberspace. Blogs are not really for individuals who are necessarily fascinating. They are for people with captivating things to exclaim to the digital world and who are able to express themselves fabulously. (Yay being articulate) Blogs are for everyone and they are outlets for us, the next best thing to a battered journal or a wall in a public toilet. The world may not actually care about what you have to proclaim. Yet that should never matter. Sometimes you may need to publicly declare something, if only to yourself.  

I can fulfil this criteria. I can talk needlessly about topics of questionable relevancy even if no one will listen. I didn't start my blog for a group of readers, I started it for me. Even I resemble something like a digital ranting stranger usually found in the depths of public transport that obnoxiously notify you of their conspiracy theories, I am sorry. This is my domain and I welcome you into it. Just brace yourselves. I am a bloggress out to satisfy herself and not always you with my keyboard. Selfish, I know. Coerce all of your friends, family and crazy fellow public transport riders to religiously follow me and I might change my mind. Maybe. Tata, I must dash off into the material world. 

Doing it in Style: Anklet Me

Over here in the southern hemisphere, summer has arrived. Sweat inducing, sunburn spreading, humid and hazy summer has arrived. In such weather, less clothes are in call. This means more exposure of flesh and more notably, of leggy leggy leggy legs. Why not decorate your fine stems with little anklets? If you are like me, this activity will lend a way to temporarily escape your easily found boredom and to possibly start conversation (especially when near girls - bitches love anklets). If you are clever, you may use this as a way of producing cash (again, bitches love anklets). I don't know and I don't care how you'll use this information, but here. Let me show you.

1. You'll need three bits of embroidery thread, each approximately 1.4 metres long (this is a rough figure, you may change it to suit). You can find floss easily at a craft store or have a dig in your local Vinnies. Cut them in half. You should now have six threads.

2. Lay them all out together. Tie a knot about 4cm from the top. Do a double knot, it'll be more secure.

3. Now separate your strands. Grab one, and using this fine individual, tie a knot around the rest of its brothers.

4. Repeat step 3, nine more times. Or however many times you want. I am not the knotting police, I don't actually care. Whatever. After this, separate the strands into three (you may do it in colours if you wish) and then braid it until it is long as your knotted section.

 5. Repeat steps 3-4 until you reach your desired length. Finally, tie a concluding double knot just like your initial double knot. Trim off excess floss.

6. Tie around your ankle. Done! Now go my son, go create more anklet children. You may adapt this technique to create bracelets, shoelaces, headbands, etc. Just don't use it to floss your teeth, because that is just nasty.

Pinch and a Punch on the First Day of the Month: December

For me, December has always been and will continue to be quite a month. Being in Australia, another school year will be out, with the internal embodiment of Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens in a High School Musicalesque echoing chorus of "Summer. Summer. Summer..." (Please tell me I am not the only person who does that.) It's time to increase our risk of skin cancer diagnosis and to rock up the beach, or to find sanctuary in the air conditioned cinemas, or to take on what I find to be the true holiday spirit and to eat a substantial amount of heavenly food. I find now that when I engage in social outings, my friends and I will plan our get togethers around food. Yum food. Oh a side note, I somehow always find myself embracing and then quickly abandoning a new year's resolution of 'being healthy'.

December is also a blatant month of traditions. Sure, everyone shares Christmas and New Years' together and we meet up with our families and give and receive presents. Yet in this month, I like to embrace my own personal traditions. Every Christmas since I was 15 (which sounds impressive until you consider my current age, 17) I have read only the most beautiful novel, Mark Zusak's The Book Thief. I adopted this tradition after viewing some god awful film with Sandra Bullock being a conceited bitch to Ryan Reynolds. (The Proposal?) Irrespective, it's a smashing custom and nothing that is not really related to the silly season says Christmas to me like The Book Thief. This is fitting, as I kind of despise all Christmas related books/films. With the Christmas spirit restored, Santa and the reindeer were able to give all the girls and boys their go suck a dick. Nothing screams inadequate and unoriginal like a good old Christmas film. There are only a golden few that are bearable, like Love Actually and It's a Wonderful Life and ...

This is why every year, my family watches The Godfather. It's an offer we can never refuse (geddit) and in it there's traditions of our own. My father will always offer his own commentary, but wait, in a terrible European impression while coming to the apparent realisation that he is the Don.
"I am the Don." (in a classic murder of the Sicilian accent)
 "You are not the Don Dad."
"Oh but si, I am."
In the words of Natalie Tran, "I could cut off your lips..."

Earlier then this, however, when Don Corleone and his daughter waltz together at her wedding, Dad will lean in and verify that something identical will occur at my own matrimonial affair. He never senses my sky braising raised eyebrow. Meanwhile, my mother will have already left to attend to another matter, so as to avoid the 'violent'. If she stays as long as the (SPOILER) horse's head, she will have already winced and moaned enough to derive anyone of their sanity. (For fuck's sake, it's a movie about the Mafia)

This year, I am especially excited for December 21. Regardless of whether Hollywood's and the New Age movement's interpretation of the Mayan calendar ending really was legit, I cannot wait to see individuals acting like lunatics. If there is a time that #YOLO will be recklessly embraced, it'll be then. December 21 will be the day of desperate desperate people and it will also be the perfect day for people like me; cynics who have a healthy sense of irony to watch the blockbuster 2012. 

With endings, there also comes its binary opposite beginnings. Starts, firsts, establishments, etc. As this year is ending, I have decided to create my very first zine, just a little something to enjoy in all physicality. Top Knot Issue is a bonus for girl with a top knot readers and it is just a little glance into what December means for both me and you. There's insights from Kobi, an amateur’s survival guide for the end of the world and a vision of my/girl with a top knot's future. 

a preview

It's fun. It's double sided. And it costs zilch. Except for a tree's life. Can you handle that? You also need to fold it a couple of times and to give it a little snip. Please refer to this tutorial. If you follow it correctly, you'll have a mini me of books. You should defs get into it right away.

It's in December that we all realise that another year has trickled away from underneath us and each year it seems to gain more momentum. 2012 is ending, and quickly. Bring on 2013, I say. Bring on the end and bring on the beginning. For all we know, this could be the start of something new.

May Santa Somehow Break Into Your House and Deliver All That You Desire Under Your Tree,
girl with a top knot x