Sometimes when I am in my room by myself listening to music I start dancing and imagining that I can actually dance and in my head it goes something like this:
Or probably more like this:
But really if someone looked through the window they would just see this:
Or if I was having a bad day it would probably be more like this:
OK! Back to essay-writing...
xxx
This has prompted a couple of responses.
So is how my Geology student friend imagines himself:
And my boyfriend and his housemate (not really them obviously but it's close):
Not a proper post. Third year is actually a bit full on (/I am a bit lazy) but I just saw this and wanted to post it.
I saw it in a post from VogueUK on Facebook about how to recreate hieroglyphic nails which were designed by Sophy Robson for Topshop Unique's SS/12 catwalk business.
"This has to be my most ambitious fashion week design yet," said Sophy Robson of the Topshop Unique nails. "We hand-painted 450 fingernails with graphic symbols like the pyramid, tribal stripe and the 'all-seeing eye', which really captured the essence of the collection."
I have to say, after listening to BBC Radio4's piece about the Nailympics (listen here) it does not seem like the most complicated designs in the world, but then I have horrible nails.
Anyways there's always the pretty girls to look at:
I really shouldn't be on the computer when I have a lecture in about 7 hours but I am feeling really nostalgic about museums. Yes I do Classics and I like museums. Stereotype fulfilled. (Btw if you are ever in Manchester check out the John Ryland's Library in Deansgate, it is actually quite beautiful - I should do a post on it sometime...). Anyway I miss my volunteering at the Natural History Museum which I did over the summer. So here are some pictures from my time there:
I think this was the Geology library, there's lots of exciting libraries not open to the public!
One of the specimens from the Butterfly Tent in the front lawn of the museum.
"Mnleeh!" (that's meant to be a sticking-out-tongue noise)
Totally want to make jewellery of these...
Ok this is really immature but it made me laugh...
Making pH neutral boxes for specimens.
Part of the Age of the Dinosaur exhibit, scared the hell out of me when it moved.
Part of the 'Sexual nature' exhibition, they died for love... not really but they died for sex...
pH tape! pretty... pH is really important in conservation for obvious reasons.
The Conservationists' (probably not the right name) kit! Cute!
Big beaker, regular beaker, baby beaker! You can tell I paid attention in science GCSE.
Powder paints, used to camouflage repairs done to specimens.
Hundreds of teeny jars!
I wish I could buy these to use as my packaging... maybe I can?!
Fossilized fern.
I wasn't really supposed to take too many pictures in the lab, especially of what I was working on so sorry if this seems like a really odd selection but it was so fun and makes me wish I had mixed a bit of archaeology and conservation in with my literature modules... oh well maybe they will let me work there anyway!
I was largely watching it as a semi-relevant bit of background before I go and see Sleeping Beauty later today since I was so surprised to find out that the gorgeous but 'cute' looking girl from A Series of Unfortunate Events had grown up to become so breathtakingly beautiful.
Ignoring the rather poor script, incredibly rubbish last 10 minutes and the general misogyny throughout, I would seriously recommend seeing this film. But only if you can watch it on a large screen/projector and have some kind of surround sound going on (I put my computer speakers either side of my bed which was good enough!) I 100% agree with all the reviews that I've read saying that it was written by and for someone with the mind of a 13 year old boy but maybe that is what I am.
I agree with this comment by Andrew O'Hehir that I found on the Wiki page: "If you want to understand Snyder's central narrative gambit, it's right there in the title. He gives us what we want (or what we think we want, or what he thinks we think we want): Absurdly fetishized women in teeny little skirts, gloriously repetitious fight sequences loaded with plot coupons, pseudo-feminist fantasies of escape and revenge. Then he yanks it all back and stabs us through the eyeball"
One of the things that I liked most was totally ignored in basically every review: the set design. Even though Snyder clearly relied heavily on stereotypes, other films (without really 'owning it' as Tyra Banks would say) and video games. I didn't really mind because they were the sort of films that I find visually stunning and the kind of video game that actually makes an effort with detail (I imagine Bioshock would have a similar look if it was set in a time about 20 years later than it is.) Someone clearly spent a hell of a lot of time tracking down every little prop for the every set and each room was appealingly cluttered and natural.
Of course there are no good pictures of the set. Everyone just wants to see the sexy girls.
However, I am not going to completely going to ignore the sexism because I am actually just sick to death of the number of rapes you get in films at the moment. Its not even 'edgy' it's just disgusting. And its not 'empowering' even if the rapist gets what he deserves. From the films that have been coming out recently (and even things on the BBC like Luther) you would think that every female can just expect someone to attempt to rape them at some point and unless you have a kick-ass friend with a knife you might as well give up hope. Even if it is integral to the psychological background of a character that they have been raped or assaulted it is not necessary to show if for some pervert to get a buzz. At least these scenes weren't as back as Snyder's other film Watchmen which I walked out of.
Another Wiki-quote: James MacDowell questions the alleged misogyny of the film, arguing that it does not in fact aim to offer female empowerment, but is instead "a deeply pessimistic analysis of female oppression", because it makes clear that, "just as men organize the dances, so do they control the terms of the fight scenes; in neither do the women have true agency, only an illusion of it."
Yeah... that sounds about right. A pretty depressing film if you look at it from a feminist perspective. But I still liked the pretty colours so I am going to revert showing you some pictures now....
The grey sailor suit. IMDB
There was a bit of Nurse Ratched in Dr Vera Gorski and Rocket is a Billy character.
And a bit of Gogo Yubari (Kill Bill) in Babydoll
Tim Burton's Alice
The battle sailor suit.
Tim Burton's Alice in 'beggar' costume.
Possibly inspired by Dodgson's photograph of Alice Liddel as a beggar-girl?
The glitter sailor suit! IMDB
Mary Hilton Badcock, the model for Tenniel's illustrations.
Natalia Vodianova as Alice, Vogue December 2003
The glitter sailor suit again because I love it.
Natalia Vodianova again for the multiple 'Alice' costumes.
End of stream of consciousness.
I hope that series makes as much sense to you as it does to me.
Footnote type thing:
I liked the steampunk Nazis. I was GOING to relate the plot to the Joseph Campbell's journey of the hero concept (check out Hero with 1000 Faces, its a classic, though a wiki search will probably do) but I seem to be devoting a weird amount of time to one, not particularly remarkable, film. I feel that the film may have had a more coherent structure had Snyder followed Campbell more closely (see Star Wars - actually don't, I don't like that series at all but note its success). Though this would have made the film Even More predictable, it doesn't feel as though groundbreaking originality was the aim.
The one interesting break from the normal hero's journey is that there is an advance upon the usual three act sequence of 'ordinary world', 'special world' and return to 'ordinary world'. There is only the weakest sense of the real world where you are presented with so few facts that it is harder to understand than the fantasy, the 'club' fantasy conforms to normal film plots and so hardly even comes across as surreal and then Babydoll's dance-trance reality adds a third layer. It is simply a shame that these are three very shallow layers so you just end up with a mille-feuille of a film.
I cannot wait to see this:
I <3 Emily Browning
Oh! and one last thing, I just realised that it also reminds me of this video. If Sucker Punch was a British Film, I think it would be a bit more like this:
I haven't been online in a disturbingly long time. Summer exams followed by moving into new uni house where there was no internet etc. Also I have just been super busy with my birthday (I am so old now) and stuff that I should probably blog about but I will probably not get round to.
So here is a little post about a very special birthday present I received on my 18th.
This is probably my most precious possession.
(As in material possessions and not including my kitten because I wouldn't describe her like that)
The engraving inside says 'Yasmin 25.09.2007
My mum designed this ring for a surprise birthday present for me using a sapphire that had been saved since I was born and recycling two diamonds from older rings.
Basically it is a large sapphire (I don't know the exact carat) accompanied by two diamonds. The stones are all set in 18ct white gold in a rubover setting and the shank is 18ct yellow gold. The diamonds are 'old cuts' therefore cut by hand and slightly mismatched because they were removed from older designs to recycle for my ring.
My parents purchased the sapphire from a dealer in Bangkok 1984 where my parents were buying stock (before they even had a company but in anticipation of having a business in the future!) but when I was born in September a few years later it was held back as my birthstone.
My mum says she chose to put diamonds either side to set off the deep blue of the sapphire to create something simple, practical and timeless for me to keep and be able to wear forever. This stone is particularly gorgeous because it has that really deep, velvety colour that is an intense blue without absorbing the light and becoming dull. Sapphires can actually come in loads of different colours from very dark inky blue to cornflower blue and also they are found in 'fancy' colours, yellow and pink and rubies are actually technically the same stone but it became the fashion to call the pinky-red stones 'rubies' and the blue variety 'sapphires'. Personally I quite like sapphires because they are a hard, durable stone (only surpassed by diamonds and 9 on the Mohs scale)
(I also love tourmaline.)
Hopefully I've given someone a new interest in this awesome stone but I am not a big expert on gemology - yet.
