liebster award

sweetheart kate has nominated me for the liebster award so i'm going to list 11 facts about me then answer her 11 questions :-)

1. i absolutely love amazon and almost everything i buy off there is used only because it's cheaper lol

2. i'm so shy most of the time and it really bugs me because sometimes it makes me come off as uninterested/bored/stupid/ungrateful :-(

3. it's taken 15 years of existing as i am for me to even begin to properly value myself and i'm glad i've gotten here

4. i've only ever been able to envision myself as a writer of some sort, but as 'adulthood' nears i have no idea what i'm going to do with myself. work seems scary, i just want to learn (formally and not) for my whole life, basically anywhere but in a workplace

5. i'd like to be vegetarian someday

6. while i find it hard to trust other people i think i'm quite trustworthy

7. i was born on the anniversary of the day my nana's uncle gained independence for uganda :-) hashtag proud

8. i think and feel a lot and a lot and a lot

9. i'm not the greatest at keeping up friendships. i could love someone with my whole heart and still manage to not be able to hold our friendship together.

10. drums are one of my favourite instruments and it would be nice to learn to play them some day

11. i've been thinking about being a housewife when i'm older. not the kind who stays home all the time, but someone who has kids and spends a lot of time just exploring the world and always doing stuff.

what song is stuck in your head right now?

well i'm listening to this gorgeymorgeous song right now so...

best day of your life?

to simplify this question for myself i'll choose the best day of this year lol. it was my aunty's wedding in the summer holiday. :-) or maybe even the night before. me and my cousins stayed up till like 2 or 3am dancing (ok it was mainly me lmao) to house music from the hotel radio after coming back from the swimming pool and eating kfc. it was just perfect. the next day we got told off for being really loud, apparently other people in the hotel had complained lmao. we didn't care at all because we just had the best time being stupid. one of my cousins was high at one point and it was so hilarious. we kept throwing pillows at her and she'd fall, not knowing what had hit her. i think that's when i felt most invincible to be honest. like sam in perks when they drive under that tunnel at night. i love my cousins so much. :-) this year has been speckled with gorgeous times i've had with my family.

moi at the front on my aunty's wedding day and one of my cousins right behind me

coloured christmas lights or plain ones?

plain and bright blue lights :-)

be truthful - does blogging ever feel like a chore?

yes, occasionally. it feels like a chore when i'm not blogging for myself or because i really want to.

talk about your best friend.

okay. well she's a beautiful girl, born one day before me. i've known her since reception. we were in the same class until year 4 when she left because she moved houses. we used to walk around the playground, arm in arm, telling each other our secrets and gossiping. we fell out so often though, up until we were like 12 lol. when she left we hardly ever spoke or saw each other for a couple of years, then in the summer of year 6 we found out we would be going to the same secondary school! it was the weirdest thing ever and i think that was the universe saying for fucks sake you two get over yourselves and accept that you're made for each other. not that we did though because i didn't talk to her again until year 8 when we were in the same lessons lol. now we're really close and really similar, though not on the surface. i don't think i could get through secondary school without her and on days when she's not in i genuinely do not know what to do with myself. i love her to bits though i could never ever say it to her because those words physically struggle to leave my mouth. i think she knows though.

the person you've ever felt the most butterflies for?

no details about the person shall be disclosed as they are strictly confidential to my cousin and myself.

do you maintain your cuticles?

i had to think for a second what cuticles even are lmao. i think that answers the question sufficiently.

your favourite magazine to read?

rookie, duh.

pitch an idea for a reality tv show right now.

27 days in the life of abondance ;-)

do you have any allergies?

no. i'm extremely fussy though. the other day my mum said my brother has a 'more advanced palate' than me -.-

last text message you received?

my aunty saying: hiya my beauty i was in portugal sorry about the delay in replying but that was nice of u to think about me i miss you speak to you soon. well the technical last was t-mobile telling me i have no credit left but that's irrelevant lol.

i feel productive now i've written this :-)

today

why is this (tumblr) picture so painful? :-( it's beautiful and when i first saw it my heart ached a little bit.

*

i've just been watching beyonce talk about her new album and i've seen a couple of the videos. i love this woman so much and and have IMMENSE respect for her like it's immeasurable, she AMAZES me beyond BELIEF. beyonce is everything and she really really really inspires me. i can imagine a future world where she and michael jackson are in school textbooks. i want to talk to people about beyonce. she has so much power and influence right now and i'm so proud that she's using it positively and promoting what the world needs: art, creativity, personal freedom, love. she's AMAZING.

*

i went to work with my mum today for the first time and i had a good day. we went to pizza hut for lunch and had a buffet and i had hot chocolate. when i got home i peeled potatoes and a book of a play i ordered from amazon came - it's called a raisin in the sun, written by lorraine hansberry. i'm going to drink hot chocolate again now. :-)

we are nothing

this is everything

ORLAN

i am amazed

autumn statement

i was just watching the autumn statement on the bbc parliament channel. it's like a review on economic stuff and it was made by the chancellor, george osbourne. i didn't change the channel because he was shouting about interesting stuff: benefits, youth unemployment, education, families etc. i tried to listen to what he was saying, but it was hard because all the mps do is shout! even when someone else is talking! the disrespect! i was amused and sort of disgusted. it sounded like a primary school playground and all these men in suits were going red in the face and pointing their fingers and laughing at statements they didn't agree with. if those politicians can't even respect people on the same level as them, then how would they treat someone of 'lesser status'?
the speaker at one point said: i think what members on both sides of the house will wish to consider, is how the conduct is regarded by the public that we're here to represent. i don't think they did. and i don't really like that i'm represented by a bunch of loud angry men who don't look or sound or even remotely think like me. it's quite baffling.

monday moodboard

rodarte

i was talking with my mum the other day about how i was thinking about shaving my hair and she said it might be cool if i died it like red or purple and i said maybe electric blue would be nice and i might do it in the summer if i can be bothered i think it will be nice. :-)

just thinking...

i just saw a tweet saying 'but if they was muslim or black, this would of been across every single news channel & newspaper smh'. i think that's kind of true. i don't know why the media demonises some groups of people. is it to disempower them because their influence/power has been recognised? is it to distract the masses while our leaders try to 'secretly' destroy the very same people being portrayed negatively everywhere?







it's frustrating and scary that we don't really have control over what we're fed, and i don't know whether to always believe what i see on the news so i try to be 'objective' lol. i know things aren't as censored here as in other countries - like in north korea recently some guy was edited out of all official videos and stuff - but nothing seems to be done very openly. i don't know if i'm overthinking but you can never know everything and i don't know why sometimes news is presented like you can. maybe i'm just being critical because i don't like seeing the same kind of stuff on the news sometimes then switching from channel to channel only to find the same stories being covered.
i also don't like feeling like i'm not making sense when i have something important to say. -.-
anyway here's a quote i read and liked: "start sensitising we the public on the kind of issues that will increase our alertness as civil society and you will see a big difference." - here 

plastic paintings

"i collect rubbish and create something beautiful from it. i collect something that has no value and give it new life. that's what we can do with ourselves and our lives." - mbongeni buthelezi

mbongeni buthelezi is an extremely creative south african artist. his paintings are cut up pieces of waste plastic glued onto a canvas. sometimes they're colourful, sometimes they're not. they're always beautiful though. i was looking at some on google images and they're so gorgeous, they always look different - like a print or a collage or a mosaic. buthelezi got art lessons from another artist in exchange for bread and tea when he was young, how cool. i want to be taught a skill without having to pay for it in actual real money.

my favourite pieces of buthelezi's work are the ones depicting children, especially this one of the girl hula hooping. the fragmented aura around her reminds me of hula hooping really fast on the school playground; feeling so happy and invincible within my own force field. :-)

"buthelezi is not only aware of the environmental tribulations and the physical deterioration of the townships in south africa, but also of the communal and political destitution and defect of opportunities and choices within the country. his goal is to facilitate and communicate hope in the new age through his art pieces." - article

monday moodboard

audrey hepburn

samuel l jackson

rabari women

alice walker

madiba

why does 'oldness' have so many negative connotations? why do so many people want to avoid and hide it?
'old' is beautiful and regal and wise.

mmm

london buses

something i love about london is the buses. inside the mostly double decker machines, so many lives are contained and, for such a brief time, each of them are connected at this one point. no matter what kind of existence they've had, something has brought them all onto this specific vehicle and their lives are all moving at different paces. it's kind of beautiful and really weird and i keep thinking about it. i wonder if anyone else does. i doubt that lots of people do though, because londoners too often seem too occupied and busy and fast and worried.

i use buses a lot. i take two to get to and from school. this morning i really wanted to read on my journey to school, but i was really intrigued by the conversation of two year 7s from my school. my school has two sites, and i moved on to upper school in summer, so i don't really get to see the new year 7s anymore. it was so interesting how they both spoke slowly and carefully and were so bubbled in their conversation. the girls were talking about a music presentation they had to do today. one of them was saying that she would talk about muslims in the music industry, and how quite a few want to be famous but their religion doesn't really allow it; how it's hard to get recognition within that industry etc. i think that's about when i had to get off of the bus. it's so wonderful that she is conscious of problems her people face and decided to educate others about it. i wonder what else she knows about muslim people's experience of the world - i'd like for her to tell me.

i recently read a zine which had a piece about the experience of and by a black american muslim woman. so many components of her identity! and that's not even the whole of it. when i get the zine back from my friend i might put a little extract up on here if i can be bothered. i think i will because there's other stuff i want to say about muslim women.

i just saw this picture on tumblr that reminded me of what i eavesdropped this morning:

now for a kind of irrelevant but really cute song:

:-)

monday moodboard

"i design clothes because i don't want women to look all innocent and naive. i want women to look stronger.

i don't like women to be taken advantage of. i don't like men whistling at women in the street. i think

they deserve more respect. i like men to keep their distance from women, i like men to be stunned by an

entrance. i've seen a woman get nearly beaten to death by her husband. i know what misogyny is.

i want people to be afraid of the women i dress." - alexander mcqueen

life

some screenshots of my tumblr

school is getting on every nerve i have at the moment, but i'm okay otherwise. last sunday my cousin's girlfriend gave birth and tomorrow i'm going to see their beautiful little baby! then i'm going to a surprise party for my other cousin who's boyfriend is going to propose to her!!!! i genuinely think this has been the best year of my life in the weirdest ways ever because it hasn't been particularly happy or memorable all round. i just feel like i've grown so much and there have been lovely lovely things that have happened, like my aunty's wedding in summer. it was the best experience of my life. :-) i read some of john agard's poetry (books make good pets is so good) then started school at 10.30 this morning.
still feeling chill.

thoughts on thoughts

this is so beautiful. the lungs look like the roots of a tree. the trunk is rising up the throat and the fruits of the tree are the words the person speaks; they drop or roll or fall or slip off the tongue. and the very tree-top is where the person's brain is. that's beautiful because your brain is where you develop and process your perception of things. it's you who extends the branches. and thoughts are like leaves on a tree, in how they live a little life and when they die they crumble and they fall. maybe that means that we never really forget our thoughts, they just fall like leaves to the heels of our feet or something, and become the foundation of what we think later in life. so they're always there kind of.

1000 words

monday moodboard

very literally me right now. it's always strange to realise that thoughts and feelings, as personal as they seem, have been felt by other people in possibly completely different circumstances on an opposite side of this one planet. and maybe on another planet too, but hopefully there they haven't fucked things up so much as humans have over here. (would feelings exist on another planet? what even are feelings? lol.) i think that if we, those who are experiencing such thoughts and feelings now, are vocal about them then maybe a change will come about. it's no use to keep quiet sometimes.

all by myself!!

today has been so chill. i've quite enjoyed my friday and i think it's because when i finished styling my hair this morning i spent so long looking at myself in the mirror thinking about how fabulous i am that i was nearly late. i then proceeded to have a really good day. i've been either working hard or just doing what i felt like doing today. sometimes that was the same thing. i think i was subconsciously motivated to get through today because tomorrow i'm going to my cousin's house in kent all by myself (to sleep there bc it's her birthday next monday)! 2 hours on public transport all by myself! i'm so so excited oh my gosh. my dad was going to take me to the rail station but i won't let him because i need to force myself to become more independent and try to actually ask for directions and talk to ticket people all by myself! ooh if this is what it means to be 15 then i think i'm liking it.

monday moodboard

http://jellyandlilipop.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/i-am-not-less-because-i-wear-a-dress/

power

my philosophy:

part animal + part god = human

you're so hypnotizing

remember ur future!

rookie is literally the best thing on the internet ever and it has played a greatly great part in helping me sort of find myself. this comic really sums up my kind of attitude right now, especially the last 3 pictures:

look at the hands!!!!

what cute knickers.

i like the speech bubble lining.

there are still two more days left of half term. i think i should make my own cutesy collagey comic rather than memorise my four french paragraphs and do maths revision. :-)

pariah

they categorise me as contentious because i can't conform to their conventional culture.
they call me uncanny because it's obvious i haven't been brainwashed by the same bullshit they've been bombarded with since birth.
they've been Programmed to detect those who hAve dodged the effects of this big bRother system. they've been programmed to try to convert the very few who have managed to desert thIs big brother system.
they Are puppets, i am a problem.
they are robots, i am a rodent.
they are macHines, i am a monkey.
yes, i run fast and free, you cannot control me.

i've started this new thing where, if i find a new word i like, i'll write a lil sum'n sum'n using that word. contentious is the word that inspired this poem. i don't even know if i used the word correctly or if the poem makes sense but whatever. i like my poem because i can just imagine some super badass* teenage mi6 girl spy donning all black, living in a futuristic dystopia and being hunted by the government. sort of kim possible meets lauren oliver's delirium (one of my most favourite books in the world) meets 1984 (which i'm yet to read lol).
*badass sounds so ridiculously horrible in a london accent so i never ever say it in real life.

solange my sweetheart

i don't know very much about solange knowles but i'd describe her as a strong sweetheart soldier. i know she has a little son, he's adorable. she's a beautiful beautiful woman and has such a unique, whimsical and interesting image. i like how she seems so confident in who she is and what she does. solange embraces herself and it inspires me so much.

ooh kill em

hey here's a crap quality cutesy picture of me and ma new hurrr :-)

i may look like i'm in pain but it's SHEER JOY

everything is going wrong but we're SO HAPPY!

i don't think anything's going wrong for me right now, i just kind of don't know what to do with my life lol

monday moodboard

stay creative

disillusioned with life

i wrote this last night in the bath:

    i think it's the 20th of october today. i know that it's a sunday because the x-factor results are on and my mum wants me to be watching them with her. i have been 15 for just over a week now and it really is the strangest feeling. i'm trying to work on my articulacy and coherence and good organisation of my thoughts, so the best way i've found i can summarise this feeling is to say that i am DISILLUSIONED WITH LIFE.
    i only know what disillusioned means because we've been learning about germany in history and how germans became disillusioned with the weimar republic in the late 1920s. history is the only subject on my school timetable that i love and that excites me. it is the one lesson which i always leave feeling refreshed and alive because i've been mentally challenged. i've developed recently a completely rational but almost annoyingly constant desire to be mentally challenged. for this reason i cannot watch x-factor with my mum. not only is it ridiculously boring now, but i feel like there's nothing new for me to hear or see. everyone and everything is so samey-samey, which is something i've discovered in more things than i'd like to - hence my general disillusionment with practically everything.

the ability to read awoke in me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive - malcolm x

 this disappointment is unquestionably a product of americanised, media-influenced expectations that i have regrettably been bombarded with over the years. i often wish i could re-do my life right from birth and self-fashion into a sociable, interesting genius of some sort. it's nothing to do with not liking myself (i really like myself), it's rather the knowledge of all my wasted potential. i think i'm a really interesting person, but a major flaw in me is not being able to properly express my interestingness.
obviously, this means that i really really really have to be proactive and personally bring about this CHANGE for myself. my fourteenth year of life was preparation for this, i believe. there's no use waiting for january 1st when each day the sun rises anew. my goal is to get through this last week of school and undergo a massive spiritual, mental, part-physical MAKEOVER throughout/during half term. it will all start by me taking out my extensions on friday after school and washing my hair then cutting off all the relaxed bits!
no matter how daunting, I WILL DO THIS.

monday moodboard

“a huge percentage of the stuff that i tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. here’s one example of the utter wrongness of something i tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that i am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. we rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness, because it’s so socially repulsive, but it’s pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. it is our default-setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. think about it: there is no experience you’ve had that you were not at the absolute center of. the world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your tv, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, infinitely more real.” - david foster wallace, this is water

time flows in strange ways on sundays

petra collins is one of my most favourite people ever and i really love her imaginary film stills and photosets on rookie. they are quite inspiring and when i see them i really want to pick up a camera, grab some friends and go take pictures or maybe even make a short film of them. that would be cool. i've thought about writing and directing my own little t.v series or film one day and it would be nice to make that a reality. maybe like a little youtube thing. :-) i'm so bad at thinking up characters or plots though so idk how that would work lol.

monday moodboard

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT:

the earth is 4.6 billion years old. let's scale that to 46 years. we have been here for 4 hours. our industrial revolution began 1 minute ago. in that time, we have destroyed more than 50% of the world's forests.

CRAIGSLIST HOUSESHARE AD:

"i have a garden growing in my shower so you have to use eco-friendly hair products. you will see worms and other insects, and you will occasionally see a spider too but they all help out the ecosystem."