On being in love with oneself.

Hello blog, you darling. It's been a while

So it's pretty late and my head effing hurts and I'm kind of sleep deprived and I've had one of those long-but-short days that seem kind of timeless because it's summer and doesn't get dark. Really I probably shouldn't be writing this, headache-y, sleep deprived blogs are never a wise move, but I just had some musings.

There's this girl I follower on tumblr who's super cute and really lovely and also just seems like a great person. She's got really good opinions on everything, but that's all beside the point. She's got this great attitude, where she's kind of in love with herself but in a good way. She calls herself cute, because she is and she knows it and it's actually so great. So I've been thinking, maybe I should just be in love with myself. I'm not all that attractive or anything, but I think she kind of tells herself that she is and I'd like to try that. I don't like finding myself unattractive, but it seems that some girls feel obliged to. It's like we're expected to complain about our  appearance and not like it and I feel like some girls only do it because they feel like they should. Personally, I do it because I genuinely don't like how I look but it annoys me that that is so okay. Girls -and boys too, of course, but I think the attitude is more prevalent in girls- complain about how they look and everyone just accepts it as normal and doesn't really say much about it. I just don't think that's okay.

I suppose the whole not-liking-how-I-look-thing is sort of a social norm and when people call themselves attractive it's deemed as vain and self-centred and sometimes it probably is, but other times it's just being able to appreciate yourself and that's honestly fucking fantastic. I like to put effort into how I look, my hair and makeup and clothes and if I'm having a good day, I like to make silly/cute faces in the mirror at myself, so yeah, I think I've got the capacity to be a little in love with myself. I don't want to be a part of this barrage of people lamenting their unattractiveness, I want to treat myself like a little bit of a princess.

In other news, I'm thinking of altering this blog a little bit, but there'll be more word on that later.

Forever yours, darlings,
Cíara
xox

Sarah Kay, Spoken Word, being a dreamer.

This is long, but I guarantee you, you'll want to watch it all the way through.
This made me feel. I saw it a few weeks ago and started learning off the first poem she performs and then I watched this again just now and I felt like words that I didn't know yet were bubbling up inside me. I love this. I've always wanted to be a writer, I've thought about journalism because it's a logical career choice, I'd love to write a novel but I never have a plot, I've applied -and hopefully been placed- in KYT's Young Playwrights Programme even though I haven't the slightest clue what I'll write a play about. I'm school journalist, though I've yet to produce a single article. I did NaNoWriMo, I won the Write-A-Book competition when I was about ten or eleven, I've written poems and stories and essays, I got an A in English. I write a blog. I have no career, but does this make me a writer? Or does it just make me, well, me?
I got interested in film production not too long ago and for college I'm torn between that and journalism. I have the vaguest, fuzziest thoughts of the future, in which I'm creative and happy and doing a job that I love, regardless the money, but yet in my vague thoughts I always have money for books and Starbucks and haircuts and a pretty apartment in a constantly changing location- because I refuse to seperate my thoughts and plans from my dreams.
And maybe that's not logical and not mature and grown up, and even though it might be a hindrance, I don't ever want to change that. That is me. 
I loved being in school plays and I joined public speaking in school this year (which I should be practicing now but this is more important to me)  so I do have a bit of performance in me. And watching that video for the second time over, I thought- maybe I can do this. Maybe I should do this. Maybe, one day in my vague future, I'll stand in my pretty but-not-quite-sure-how-it's-paid-for apartment and spill out beautiful words of my own. Maybe I'll vent frustrations from college and critical theory and music history into something heartfelt and honest. Maybe one day I will succeed in inspiring one person.
I love to write and despite my own self-depreciation and criticism, evidence and some opinions would show that I'm at least an adequate writer-and maybe, my words don't just belong on paper. Maybe my words beg to spoken.

So, I had my thought- that maybe I can do this- and then my dad came home and I went out to the hall to say hi- and then, because I was bursting to overflow with inspiration and idea, I said.
"I think I've changed my career plan."
"Oh really?" he replied. Sarcasm. He didn't care. I'm always changing plans and spouting ideas, like a child, I suppose.
"Yeah." I said, and I was looking at my left foot shuffling on the rug as I said; "I want to be a spoken word poet."
This was greeted with derision. There's loads of money in that, I was told, being rained upon by sarcasm-and cynicism.
"I don't care about money." I said, defiant and indignant but let down.
"You will when you don;t have any." came the reply. And, as is my wont, I drew myself up and said,
"Well then I will say my poems on a street corner with a hat on the ground in front of me." And I painted that image in my head, right down the grey trilby hat on the cobbles by my scuff-soled feet. I was taller in this image and I'm gonna take that as a metaphor.

I know my dad didn't mean to crush me or tear me down- he's just a bit cynical, perhaps and doesn't quite get that I am still a kid and still a dreamer. I'm not practical. I'm a teenager and full of sixteen year old wisdom but that's okay, because that's how it's supposed to be. See, that line sounded silly, didn't it? And what I said to my dad sounded silly to him. But even though that line sounded very silly, it doesn't make it any less true and so, perhaps the same can be said for what I said to my dad.

Maybe I can do this. Or maybe I'll change my mind. Or maybe I'll just keep it as a side thing. Or maybe-
no.
I can do this. The maybe- is maybe I will.

Love, now and always,
Cíara.

Paper Towns

I have just finished reading Paper Towns, by John Green and it was every bit as beautiful as I had expected it to be. It was heart-breakingly beautiful, bitter-sweetly beautiful, inspiring-ly beautiful and even heart-warming-ly beautiful.

It was, in a lot of ways, quite similar to Looking For Alaska, which was John's first book, but that's okay- more than okay, actually, that's good, really good because Looking For Alaska is one of favourite books for so, so many reasons, and Paper Towns shares these reasons.

What I want to really write about though, is the end of the book. If you plan on reading it, this will spoil both Paper Towns and Looking For Alaska, so turn back now, because I'm sure as hell not stopping.

The end of the book, from when Q and the others find Margo to the very end was, to say the least, thought provoking. Emotion provoking too, but I don't quite know if that's a usable phrase. Margo and Q have this big fight, which unsettled me, because, I realised, I shared Q's idea of Margo and even though I'm sure I knew deep down that Margo would not be Q's idea of Margo, I still wanted her to be. He loved her and so did I and so we both wanted her to be the Margo that he had not quite created in his head, but was still not accurate.

So they fight and then they talk about everything that had happened and things are cleared and explained and made sense- and yet, the actual plot mystery is not what I want cleared up.

And then comes more of the ending, beginning with this:
"She stares at me, her eyes and my eyes and nothing between them. I have nothing to gain from kissing her. But I am no longer looking to gain anything."
That is the type of beautiful that this book is.

The last paragraph, is a long paragraph, which really has few little paragraphs in it, but I'm not sure what one would call it and that's not important right now anyway. It did not make me cry, really, it just made my eyes well up. Q stands and watches Margo leave, thinking about what is happening and Margo is standing with her back to him but has not yet left and all I want is for Q to run to her and hug her and say goodbye again, but he doesn't. Instead, Margo turns back to him and "the physical space between [them] evaporates. We play the broken strings of our instruments one last time." And so, they kiss again, in the dark with their eyes open and it's bitter-sweetly beautiful and this is why I'm crying and then after they kiss, they rest their foreheads together, which makes me cry for a whole other reason, and then Q
"can see her almost perfectly in this cracked darkness."
and then it ends.

Because it ends here, maybe I could imagine that Margo stays and goes home with Q, but I know that she doesn't. I know she is kissing him goodbye but the likelihood is that even though Q is Q and not Miles (from Looking For Alaska) and even though Margo is Margo, and not Alaska and also not dead, Q will always love Margo Roth Spigelman, his crooked neighbour with all his crooked heart.

There is plenty more to be said about this book and plenty more than I have thought about- but this is all I want to say about it for now.

Merry Christmas to everyone. My friends have all gotten me the loveliest of gifts and they are all beautiful and make me happy- but I cannot go without mentioning Dom, who, in his in infinite loveliness, got my NaNoWriMo novel printed and bound and wrote the best foreward to any book that ever was and ever shall be.

Love,
Cíara.

Projects and things

I'm more or less writing this post as a sort of motivation for myself and to actually keep track of what I'm doing with my life and things. I finished NaNoWriMo, and despite how truly awful a literary piece my novel was, I'm still really proud of myself. The thing is, I realised had been channelling everything- all my crappy moods, 'cause it's not really a great time for me right now- into my NaNoWriMo, and then without that to channel everything into, things got pretty bad. But, I do actually have quite a lot of things to be doing, and so I do have more creative outlets.

1) Public Speaking - Ohmydearsweetjesuschrist asdfghjkl. The first round of the public speaking competition- which is for Mental Health Ireland- takes place on Wednesday, and my speech still isn't finished, because Ms. Corr comes up with something new every-single-day. It is fairly effing difficult to learn a speech off by heart if it never stays the same! Honestly, I know I should be glad for a creative outlet and the opportunity to work on speaking in front of people and all, but jesus christ, it's just annoying.

2) Kildare Youth Theatre Writing- Now this, I am super excited about. It's a chance for me to write a play. Really and actually write a play and then have people perform it.  I want to dance just considering it. I am a bit nervous about it, but I'm getting much better at disregarding that. I have to have an application in for this by the 31st of December, so I'm starting to work on it after Public Speaking on Wednesday.

3) Junk Kouture- I think this has to be finished by 31st of January- which suddenly seems all too soon. I decided to do it by myself this year, and actually think I've done more work because of it, but I'm kinda nervous about making and modelling the dress by myself, and to be honest, I feel a bit pretentious. Making it to fit me is just much easier than measuring someone else and all that, but I feel a bit silly. I've really only started work on this, and I can't work on the top part until after Christmas, but I'm sure it will be fiiine. Pictures to come soon :)

4) Less Than Three- This is not a definite, but it's something I would love to do. Two youtubers, Kristina Horner and Hayley Hoover, are writing a book of short stories about people meeting through the Internet, and it's a really lovely idea. As well as their own work, they are also going to take in some short stories from other people who can just write them and submit them by January 31st... so yeah, I'm going to see if I can come up with something adequate. I'm not really sure if I could come up with a good story, but it would a really great opportunity if I was to get into the book.

5) School Journalist- I'm so happy that I got to be school journalist, but now that I am, I have no idea what to do with it. Nothing happens except sport, and I'm leaving that to the other guy. Honestly, I'll probably end up doing a report on Public Speaking -.- I'm on the lookout for relevant news and stuff, but there's just nothing. I might do a feature on people's Mini Companies, as a bit of promotion, and then maybe I'll do a report on eating disorders or a good charity or something. I feel quite guilty for having not done anything yet, but I'm really stuck for opportunity- although, maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

I also have Mini Company -which I despise- regular school stuff, Gaisce, which means homework club on a Tuesday, Kickboxing on a Monday, and drums on a Saturday, some Tuesdays or Thursdays, and then whatever I do on my own obviously. I would like to do Project for Awesome, but I really haven't a notion of where to start. I'll be starting to learn ukulele when I get mine for Christmas, I have a lot of books I want to read and I really, really need to do my Christmas shopping. All in all, I'm pretty busy, and I'm still writing random scraps of literary rubbish in my diary/journal/notebook/thing-with-everything-in-it that give me some time to vent my thoughts about shitty things so that I can channel all my energy into creative things.

I shall be posting again soooon, because I am having a college-plan crisis, two and a bit years early, and I'd like to spread my thoughts out on the internets. Hope you've enjoyed reading what is essentially a to-do list with detail ^^

Peace and love,
Cíara xo

Singles and Doubles (Changing Things)

Today I wanted to tidy my room and put new sheets on my bed. So I picked up all my clothes off the floor, and I took away all my empty coffee cups.

And then I got two pillowcases and a quilt cover, and put on the new pillowcases and then realised I had to go get a different quilt, and a new sheet.

There was already this big, really white quilt in my room that I had been using because I was really cold the last few nights, but it was for a double bed, so I went a looked in the blanket box for a single one, but they were all double ones. All the sheets were too big too. So I looked in the hot press, but there was only double bed sheets in there too and I pulled an old off-white quilt from the very top shelf, but that was a double bed quilt too and when I tried to put it back up, I was too small to reach.

And I felt really alone. 

So now I'm going to take the quilt I had before that I wanted to change because it's too thin and because I wanted a change of quilt pattern, and fold it over -because it's a double quilt too- and put the cover on it, and then I can pretend it's a new single quilt with a nice cover, but really it's and old double quilt folded over, hidden beneath the cover.

The sheet didn't really need to be changed, anyway, so that's okay.

But I still feel really alone. 

Heart on my Sleeve

This.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFN5QUZVtpE

Self explanatory. 

SO MUCH EMOTION

Right, I know I just blogged, but all my thoughts on Steve Jobs, and my ecstaticness from the great day I had with great people and now all this emotion from two vlogs about Lauren and Matt's wedding (two vlogger/wrockers, Lauren is one of my favourite people ever), and John Green and his dedication to signing all pre-ordered copies of The Fault in Our Stars, which got me going with all this love for Nerdfighteria, and some wrock news, which got me going with a lot of love for the Harry Potter nerd community, I am so emotional, ahhhh!!SO MUCH NERD EMOTION!!!!

<3