I Love London.

Ola.

What is not to like about Urban Outfitters? Nothing really. Their playlists have launched me into a whole new realm of musical satisfaction, namely Kitsune Maison Compilation 1-8, Greco-Roman, Siriusmo, and Girl Talk. Their store theme is based on an urban alternative vibe and most of the pieces on sale are non-mainstream, which basically means you have to have a pretty good imagination to be able to coordinate your outfit.

I mean, what's more fun than shopping + a game + an awesome soundtrack all in one store?

That's the question they asked Beyond Retro. And Beyond Retro gave them vintage. So, it's the same scenario, except now everything is vintage. You've got to love their awesome possum playlists; to name a few : The Phenomenal Handclap Band, Lady Sovereign and a good mix of the Noisettes. I personally prefer the store where I am living to the one in London because it's bigger and it has more clothes from 80s.

And did I mention that the sales assistants in both stores are especially friendly and always dressed so impeccably? I mean, it's a simple marketing strategy. Put on a smile and treat your customers like royalty, because that's when they will have the unsatiable urge to spend spend spend.

Learn something, Topshop.

Bless Topshop, that beautiful place. But I just wish the sales assistants gave you a bit more time of day. I understand it's a busy store and that pile of clothes on the ground never seems to stop growing, but show a little respect. A smile, perhaps. I guess you can't help that so many of the town bimbos spend too much time at your shop (and they complain about American bimbos!).

But back to the point.

What was the point?

I don't know.

But here are the items currently on my wishlist.

Vans Hi-Tops

I want this exact pair because it's funky and it's Vans and ... need I say more? Oh yes, and I can actually afford it. The one problem is that they don't have my size (as usual) but I suppose I should take advantage of the free delivery service.

Hmmm.

Marc Jacobs Satin Shorts

Reality check. I probably won't be afford this until I'm much older or earning in the billions. Whichever happens first. But these are the perfect shorts. I've always wanted a pair in black satin and these have the perfect cut.

Henry Holland Mock Stock Printed Tights

Aren't they cheeky? I can actually afford this pair, eventhough the designer from the House of Holland had a had in it. I need to order them online though, because buying anywhere else might just break the bank.

I have more items on my wishlist, but I might just drive you crazy if I continue. So let's just take a break here and absorb the amazingness of these items.

And take notes.

And remember when my birthday is.

Cheers.

Killswitch.

Kill the switch.

It's lonely nights like these that make you miss the people you love the most.

How true. I haven't missed my family this much in a long time, that is, the family that is halfway across the world. The family that would require crazy amounts of currency to be with.

Goddamn average incomes.

But I'm still missing alot more than that. I'm thinking about my life in its precise motion. Slow and calculated, desperate for something to speed it up to something of substance. I am missing the times that still run through my head in all its technicolour; blue, green, taupe. Violet and charcoal.

I miss the times when things were guaranteed. I miss the times when there was always something to do, something to see, something to be.

And I've lost it now.

The good memories date back to 3 years ago, when things were good. When company was aplenty. When you could have a laugh, instead of force it. When someone was always going to be your personal jester, your personal listener, your personal everything. When you could collectively take the mick out of someone you admire deep down, but never admit to it. When you could wake up to a good feeling in your head, instead of a weight in the pit of your stomach. When you didn't have to sort out anything confusing. When you knew exactly what you wanted and it was still easy to come by.

When you directed life.

Not when life directed you.

It can be cruel. It can change you into who you never thought you would be, sometimes for the worse. It can make you feel so ashamed of the state you're in, and then leave that to control you. It can leave you feeling hopeless, lonely and drained from doing absolutely nothing.

And then it begins its torture.

1. I miss you. I miss how easy it is to talk to you. I miss how we can laugh at something without talking. I miss how you can be yourself in any situation and laugh the whole time. I miss how you and I agree on things others would find disturbing. I miss how you just don't care about things that shouldn't bother you. I miss how you make the world any colour you want it to be.

2. And you. I miss you for being such a perfect listener. I miss how you make me feel better just by being there. I miss how easy it is to start a conversation with you. I miss how I can discuss my deepest problems without worrying about you judging me. I miss how you understand me when I talk in riddles. I miss how I always need to talk to you. And you don't mind.

(Why are you still single?!)

3. And I miss you too. I miss how you always need to go out with me. I miss how you love so selflessly. I miss how you get excited over the cutest things. I miss how I can be myself around you. I miss how you know exactly what's wrong with me and tell me what to do about it before I can finish my story. I miss how you care so much about me.

You know who you are. Three complex individuals who are so different, and yet so alike. Three people who all offer me comfort in different ways.

Three people who should be here next to me right here right now, creating our own little party.

Our own little comfortable party.

Cheers.

Model Me You And Me.

Everybody loves ... Oh!

I haven't done this in a while, so I thought it's about time. I present to you, my Christmas buys of 2009.

1. Quilted Panel Skirt from Miss Selfridge

My obsession with the pencil skirt is as strong as ever, and here I am racking up my very own collection of them. What can I say? A tug here, a tug there - and it defines you into the perfect female shape. Not to mention this slinky black one has quilting and corset detailing.

2. ________ Dress from Miss Selfridge

This adorable day dress is a past trend, but I'm not defying any principles. I hate trends, you know that right, and I would not be caught following one. This item is nowhere to be seen on the website (because it's a ghost item!)* so here's a similar one from Topshop. I have this one in satin, but replace the pattern on the bottom half with paint swabs.

3. Slouchy Grey Knit Mohair Cardigan from River Island

This by far my pride and joy of the year. Mohair gives it the edge, and the scrap wool in various colours knitted in with the grey rows is just genius! Again I can't find the image on the website, so I'll have to settle for this one from Topshop. It's quite similar, and yet very different. The texture and the mohair is exactly the same, but it's grey and sits on your shoulders like a poncho, rather than a proper cardigan, all the while still being a cardigan. Get it?

Ah, go figure.

4. Black playsuit from Bershka

Since moving here, I have become the lover of two : H&M, my Swedish sexybeast and Bershka, my Spanish sexybeast. Speaking of sexybeasts, would you check out the sales assistants at Bershka? They are spazzingly hot, let me tell you.

So I've always wanted to see how a playsuit/jumpsuit would look on me, and loe behold - not bad at all. It also helps that this was on sale. The one I have is similar to this, but it's a smocked bandeau front, without the bow.

5. The over-sized white shirt from Bershka

It's a wardrobe essential. Enough said. I have the same one, except the buttons go straight down, instead of hanging around at the side.

6. Cowl-neck black knit sweater from H&M

I had to have something with a cowl-neck. And it basically always has to be short. And because it's cold at the moment (it's snowing outside as I type!) I have to make an effort to cover up. This exact one, but in black.

I have so many more to show you, but there's only one me! (Ha-ha.) And to those who have now lumped me together with those girls who have nothing better to do with their time and money and talk about how their next purchase was more expensive than the last, while quoting designer labels all throughout, go suck it. Because each item I have presented here was bought on sale or was well within my budget.

Y'all ha'ers juz trippin' aite.

Cheers.

* So funny story, right. I was prepared to pay XX amount for this dress and told myself that I would not spend this much again on clothes in one go. At the cashier, she tells me my total is four times less than I thought it would have been. So I end up paying X amount for it (single digits!) and no, you don't question the cashier when she asks for less than what you thought you were going to give up. Who knows, maybe she's a lesbian and wants a back rub later.

And then I come home to look for this item on the shop's website and it's not there! So then I thought how could I have paid in single digits for a dress that used to be six times that amount, and not find it on the website later?

Ooh spooky.

My Cocaine.

I'll have you forever.

I've lost it. I've lost how to effortlessly deliver my ideas into my posts so they are worth reading. I've lost how to engage readers, even myself, into understanding my emotions and my thoughts through words. I've lost just how important my blogging is to me. It's now become a chore, a task - when it used to be something I yearned to do. Something I used to shut the rest of my thoughts out from. Something I used to dedicate myself to. And now it just seems like something I have to do, to keep myself busy when the nights are lonely.

Always lonely.

And then I realised it's because the blog needs me now, when I used to need the blog. I treated it like an entity because it was more than a web address, a binary code, or your weekend alternative to sex pages. It was alive. It heard me when I cried to it. It listened and watched as I revealed my deepest secrets, my desires, my obsessions. And it cared. The more I turned to it, the more it transformed to a living being.

But things changed. I started to see the better things in life past the disasters. I discovered the people in my life who were really there for me all the while. People I could touch, smell and see. My reliance onto virtual companions started to dissolve, and soon after that I forgot about it. Unbeknownst to me, this blog was dying and had been left without anything to give it life again.

It's concrete existence was still there, as it would be permanently -and I started composing mediocre posts. I would combine completely unrelated ideas with false emotions, just for the sake of keeping this blog alive. Just barely. I may as well have started posting pictures of people eating.

Forcing it is an understatement.

But I've realised that a second-grade blog is no blog at all to me. I am going to make an effort now to be genuine (oh the effort) and post about things I really care about and describe how exactly I feel about things, all the while maintaining some sort of quality control just avoid poisoning.

For my mind and yours.

So I either end this writer's block, or kill this blog altogether with the click of a button.

And I'll choose the former.

Much to your dismay.

Cheers.

He's A Jolly Good Fellow.

And he better love me this year.

Last year, I was so excited with the whole new year shebang that I came up with not one, but three posts about ringing it in. This year, I was so caught up in myself and the company that I completely forgot to post my final send-off to the year that was. So hopefully dear readers, I hope you can forgive me for my incredible sense of punctuality and read this post as if it was fresh off the press.

So. What was the year that was ... about?

Quite basically, it started off with exams. One of the biggest challenges I have faced so far, if I may add, and bringing home superb results just meant to me that I can do anything if I try hard enough. The problem was : trying hard enough.

Then I think the month after that infatuation hit me like a speeding bullet (both fast and unwanted) but thankfully it never became anything more. Another year of mental degradation was all I needed, yes.

More exams followed, and this time I was definitely less prepared than I could have been. My birthday came next, and the week after I had one of the most fantastic experiences so far : dancing all night long in a world famous club, illegally.

Doing it legally would have cancelled out half the fun.

My results were out soon after, and then it was tension-filled all the time up to my flight.

And the days after that were just a blur, floating by me. I still wake up everyday thinking I am in a dream. I pinch myself, harder and harder each time, just so that it can wake me from this cruel curse that I have been thrown into.

But slowly I will come to terms with the fact that this is not a dream. I am really here. With family. With new friends. With a new part of my life. I will come to terms with the fact that I am literally on my own now. That I have to make my own choices. That I am responsible for what I choose. That I make my own life path.

And that was the year for me.

This year, I don't want to make any resolutions. I don't want to decide things for myself. I just want to hope that good things will happen for me, and I will not have suffer through anything unfavourable. That I will begin to get noticed and stop watching others get what I can't have. That I will find someone who cares for just as much as I care for them. That I will find loyal comrades to enjoy all my mad escapades with (if I have not found them already.) That I will focus on my work and my exams and not fail myself. That I will love my family as much as they love me.

And that I will never give up on expressing myself creatively, no matter what other people dictate.

So raise your glass with hope in my name and have a blessed year ahead.

Cheers.

Playing With Fire.

Just admit it.

I should be stoned for neglecting my blog for this long. Maybe it's because I haven't had the need to post in a while. Maybe it's because I've been able to hide my depression and distract myself with good company and little bit of relaxation. Or maybe I have just been too damn lazy to come up with something substantial to talk about (like this?)

Nah.

It's Christmas Eve again. I can't even begin to grasp just how fast time has flown by me. I still remember me posting my last Christmas Eve message and what it was all about. How I had my heart broken and my mind twisted from all that shit in that year. How I had tried to turn it all into a good thing, because I learnt a new lesson. And how those memories will last me a while.

But this year I might want to talk about something slightly different. I will actually remember this year for being magical and just totally godsent. I never actually thought that this change in my life would arrive so soon, but I guess just like everything else, the things you want arrive at your doorstep the minute you stop thinking about it. And I was so close to letting it slip away from me.

I don't think I would actually be here where I am now if I hadn't cleaned up my act, and my life. If I hadn't made that single decision to exterminate those parasites from myself, I might have actually failed alot more people than I can imagine. And to this moment, I am so thankful I managed to make that decision. I am so thankful I decided to actually put some effort into my work, to focus on what is important, and to never neglect those always there for me.

And here I am now. Posting miles away from where I used to be. Living my life in a new city, a new environment, and a new atmosphere. Turning my dream into a reality.

I thank God for it so much.

XXX

But I have a knack for spoiling good moments. I was born to whine, people, so leave me be. I try not to be blunt about things, but I sometimes just can't help myself. I won't say who I am talking about, but it shouldn't matter to the story.

I read on a blog that this girl, living somewhere very near to where I am from is getting married to this (apparently) sweet and not-so-bad-looking foreigner who loves her to death. Well and good. Bless them and their future together. But I just can't understand the attraction. No offence intended, but she has one of the most terrible accents and just general language issues imaginable. Her eye and hair colour isn't even real and she hasn't got a pretty face and if the way she blogs is anything to go by about her personality, she seems somewhat caustic.

But why? Why the attraction? I still don't understand it. Post after post, conversation after conversation, argument after argument - and I still haven't found an answer. I want to be attractive, I want to be desirable, but there is something about me that seems to just turn people off.

And yeah, I have body issues and face issues and general appearance issues and personality issues and height issues and speech issues and just-about-anything issues, and I don't give a fuck when you tell me to stop talking about it. Just because you say stop talking about it and questioning it doesn't mean it's just going to disappear. This whole self-esteem situation has to come from somewhere.

Oh, I don't know - maybe I was spoilt rotten as a child, maybe it was the bullying in primary school, maybe it was the building myself back up from it in high school, maybe it was the whole situation a year ago. Maybe it was just the plain old fact that I haven't actually had a proper relationship before.

You tell me that it's not all that it is hyped up to be, while you're in one with no intentions of leaving it. And even if you did leave it, you wouldn't mind the next one that came along now would you? And how on earth can you tell me that a relationship isn't that fantastic? Come on, are you fucking telling me that there are people out there who actually dream of NOT being in a relationship? That there are people out there with no intentions of meeting someone and growing old together?

That people actually sign up to die alone surrounded by your 47 cats?

Exactly. Which is why that argument is shit.

I honestly don't know where I am going with this post. I should have stopped ages ago when I was talking about how I worked my ass off to live here and almost before I started talking about that girl who is going to get married (honestly, bless her because I am genuinely happy for her) and live happily ever after. But I decided to continue and mash two completely separate ideas and emotions into one skanky post.

Maybe it's because it's 2.26AM and my battery is just about 34% charged.

And I need you to answer me.

Cheers.

Evolver.

Because I'm not feeling this.

I had to refresh my blog twice just to make sure I wasn't accidentally clicking on some post from the archives because I cannot believe it's been that long since I have posted anything. It's like putting your diary away under your bed for so long, that you have to blow away the cobwebs from it when you finally open it again.

Some people can live without blogging for a while, and I can understand that. Your blog is just your way of telling the world you are still alive, or bragging about your sexcapades, or making sure your readers understand how much money you have, or beauty, or how some people just adore you.

Very few people use it as an escape. As a break from reality. As a time away from your problems. As your companion in solitude.

And some of us just like to talk to things that aren't really there.

I should have posted just before getting the train home, but I was never really sure when that would be, even as I was boarding it. And now I am here, three months down the line, looking back at the time that was.

Throughout the term, I never thought I would miss anybody or anything like I do. I miss the people that let me trust them, and those who I can rely on to keep me happy. I miss the things I do on a lazy Tuesday (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) and the places I go to, to keep myself busy. I miss this new part of life that I have received, and the excitement my new home has given me.

And despite all this, there is still a sadness. An emptiness. A void within my depths I am desperate to fill. I then question myself, what is this urge, this necessity to fill this hole? Why can't it be filled with just about anything? Why I can't I leave it be? Why is it there in the first place?

Answers. So many of them, and not one that completely satisfies me. I thank those who have attempted to give me a plausible solution, but none of them fit the puzzle perfectly. They are always either too weak, too broad, or just too silly. And 9 out of 10 times I have been misunderstood as needy and quite literally, pathetic, however tactful you all may like to be.

And then there is the other question? Are my insecurities secretly stopping me from achieving what I need? Are all these questions holding me back? Will this all disappear only after external validation?

Do I need someone else to prove to me that I am better than myself?

Well, perhaps. Perhaps I do care what other people think. Perhaps I do like to ask myself a million idiot questions before I can figure out which direction I should head in. Perhaps I am driving myself mental because of the very people I am trying to impress.

But then again, who bloody doesn't? Who doesn't ask for external validation? Who doesn't need someone to tell them that they can be who they want to be? Who doesn't need any sort of motivation to keep themselves confident? Unless you're totally cocky and so bloody up your own ass, you would be inhuman if you don't.

And that is who I am. No one's personality is absolute and neither is their well being. How I feel about people is relative. I compare myself. I want to know what she has that I don't, and vice versa. I want to know what I need to do to be better than myself. I want to know what makes you want me.

And then the problem will be settled. I'll do it. I'll change. I'll morph into something different to achieve happiness.

And if that fails on me, the world shall drink to failure.

Cheers.