So I cut all my hair off and I still love it. Sometimes though I feel femininity and desire are all linked with long hair because it seems the moment I got a bob with fringe I was no longer looked at. Is it too hard for men to be with a more androgynous looking woman? I still have definite implications on my body that I am a woman, my curves, my hips, my voice, my petite face and lack of anything muscular would make me a pathetic looking man most likely to turn into a monk or a transvestite called Paige Turner.  At first I thought I was being paranoid but now after more than a month of short hair I am certain about my observations. The looks from men and the cat calls were, although sometimes frustrating or exhausting, a compliment. I was used to this compliment seeing as my long hair and I have been sharing each others company for almost three years now. I wear the same dresses as I did prior to the cut and it seems despite the effects it used to have, the effects have all been cut off along with 24 centimeters of tresses. Although this seems like a pathetic whinge.. it definitely proves that I am very much a woman. Is my whole self-esteem lost somewhere in that old matt of hair that I used to have, now discarded in some rubbish bin? Is all this lack of compliments and cat calls evidence that men place just as much importance on a woman's hair as woman do? I always thought men were about T and A's (work it out) but I have never heard of a hair fetish or a hair man, "I really like a girl with long brown thick hair to her waist." Whatever.. it is growing slowly and maybe in two years it will get to half its' length and my self-esteem might be half restored.

With University beginning again I have been more than frantic plus I made a new friend! One thing off my New Years Resolution.. Talking about which I made a Resolution with my girlfriend that we would go camping together. So during the middle of winter we pick up our sleeping bags and tents in an attempt to camp except we realise that Kiama is pouring with rain, so we settle for cabins. It turns out that these cabins are about 140$ minimum for one night, I don't know about anyone else but paying that for a trailer really puts a question on the term trailer trash? I guess one man's trash is another's business treasure.

So we finally settle upon a youth hostel however upon arriving late at night I realise that I have mistaken two of the names and that the Youth Hostel I had requested was 53 minutes from Kiama. Disappointed after driving from one trailer to the other around Kiama, umming and aahhh a Youth Hostel with no windows looking more like Auschwitz, I resort to my last option, ring up my mother and admit I screwed up. Yet again... So she manages to find us a deal at the Grand Mecure Apartments where for a cheap price we 'camp' the way we secretly like to camp and ticked it off our list based purely on the endeavours we had to go through in order to find a roof over our head.

Okay so I think four days post being 21 is enough time for recovery that I should get back into the swing of things. To be honest my life is pretty dull right now, I am painting my room frantically before I begin camping and I am really not enjoying it. Unfortunately I am now cursing my large room because of the all the space that now needs to be painted and I forgot all the arduous preparation that goes into just starting up let alone actually getting paint to brush.

In an attempt to finally finish my room the way I want it to look I am finally getting it painted in modern versions of white and going South Provincial France. The only problems I am having is finding a cheap French looking bed, not as easy as it seems and mostly hard work. Anway.. if anyone has any suggestions send them my way other than that my life has had nothing much happen.

I thought I would provide some photos of my 21st and the whole family. Enjoy.

4 days until I am 21, 13 days until my French man comes home and 15 until University starts again. I expect lots of comments wishing me a very happy birthday however I will be far too drunk to make sense of my own two feet let alone logging onto my blog via my HTC phone. A few days ago I was in a club sadly using facebook in the toilets to write an email to my Frenchman, I guess once you are single and the chase is no longer there all the excitement of a night has literally gone down to the toilet. Clubbing is so interconnected with games and fun that it really has became a large game of 'Life' where you are either forced to spectate if you have no one to play against or if wanting to play you have to be willing to deal with two players or more. The only game not allowed in clubs is solitaire, no longer are taken women allowed to roam the streets at night, why it feels like social taboo and with each venture out to a club without my boyfriend I realise that my long standing game of solitaire is best played in one's pyjamas in front of the television with a sorry looking tub of Honeycomb Butterscotch Ice Cream by Sarah Lee. May you all get addicted to it.

Upon realising that the only way to have fun is to play games and get caught in the chase I began to wonder, Is it just me or are there others out there? My girlfriend and I have gone out twice together, both of us have boyfriends and both of us spend the night watching jealously couples madly kissing against a wall. In the end we sigh, then we look at each other and realise that we miss our boyfriends too much and catch a cab home. I am all for the, I am woman hear my roar ... I would be the first to burn my bra seeing as it has little to support and abandon domesticity, seeing as all I can do is cook, but when I have all the club provides in my life, the boy and the game, it can no longer fill that void. Now looking at the girls madly reapplying eyeliner while wiping off old drabs that have slid down their sweaty face and pulling breasts out of bras to make them fuller in club toilets I sigh with assurance that for now those days are firmly behind me. A night out with the girls is more about going to the movies and going out to dinner or having a drink at somewhere like the Shang-ri-la Hotel, I am dying to go there sometime, and I guess my birthday is a perfect excuse?

Although I love going out I much prefer chasing a bus down the road and playing games with my girlfriend and a Scrabble board. I guess I forget but sometimes I'm so busy trying to chase fun that I forget how fun life can be without playing chase.

Right so the holidays have begun and rather than having so much time to write to you I have been so busy that I have completely forgotten my blog though I have been inundated with friend requests. There is so rare a moment in life when one does absolutely nothing and still gains friends. So to compensate I am going to write all that I have thought and have been doing so those reading better be prepared, get those glasses out or start getting comfortable with a soy chai latte, the latest addiction I have discovered though all rather too late in the chai verses coffee debate. I must admit I always feel rather pathetic when other people in line at the cafe order a double shot flat white to go because I am oh so important with my life that I don't have a minute to drink it and then I meekly stand at the counter ordering a soy chai latte please, oh and a large because I have nothing to do.

The first week went by slowly thus the last blog entry and then I went off to Forster to visit the grandparents. After four days with my cousin and them I went to volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul for a camp for troubled kids who are from welfare or refuges, though I cannot say much about it other than it was exhausting. It was almost a twenty four hour job and for three solid days. Though the day it is over you are relieved I felt guilty that some of those children whose problems became evident through the passing of time have not been at the forefront of my conscience since camp. Does this make me a bad person or simply a person subconsciously attempting to find peace through ignorance?

Visiting my grandparents was difficult because my grandma began discussing her will, which is hard to accept when cancer has not managed to kill my grandma twice. It seems as though she is immortal and I have distinguished her  by firmly placing her in that "Jesus Christ- life for eternity" category simply based on how much pain she has had to survive in order to remain here. To me she is indestructible, a solid military tank of a woman.  My grandma is a religious woman and her husband is a priest. Over the three days at her home she asked us on the final day to sort out her will and the jewellery that she had. It was very difficult to hear her mention indirectly her own death. She knew she was mortal and me, age 20, was still unable to see her as a human being. It was like being told by your father in the Santa suit "You know it's just me under all these clothes." In the end my cousin left the room unable to handle the presence of death while I remained listening to every word until she had said what she needed to say but as soon as I got into the shower I silently sobbed until the pain of her absence left me. I know when people are going to die and no one knows this but I knew when my other grandma was going to die. Before it happens I cry, I allow myself to cry for as long as I need so that when they are dead and others are mourning I can remain solid like an anchor among the madness while people begin to loss their identity. With death comes a loss of self and a feeling of loneliness, in that time I cannot also be lost I need to remain focused on staying above the emotion for I fear that I would submerge so quickly that I would never surface. It is in me to wallow and self destruct.

I relish like a pig in mud on drama and problems because they give me reason to put myself down or to focus on something so much more trivial than the core issue, why am I addicted to it? I read in a book that a child who moves all the time has no stability and relishes constant change in ones' life, so when one settles they look for change in their life through creating unnecessary issues for themselves. It also says that a child who was forced to grow up quickly often feels deprived of a child hood and is lacking important developmental stages that allow them to handle complex social issues. Maybe this is just psycho BS or maybe this is what will help me sleep at night, knowing that someone understands my kind of person and that this book implies that I am not the only person that instead there are many more out there creating mess and then forever frantically trying to clean it up.

I think it is one of the reasons why I begin a relationship and then do all I can to get out of it by creating problems, I hate his hair, I hate his selfishness (over something as petty as he always pours water for himself first at a restaurant) and now with my recent relationship I am trying all I can to reverse this bad behaviour. Instead of fighting we are attempting anger and conflict management where we step by step go through the phases to manage the problem rather than having a useless fight that ends up doing so many circles that you feel nauseated by the end of it. I am also planning things to ensure that I have commitments that make me unable to make up some pathetic excuse to break up, we are travelling to Tahiti at the end of the year and prior to that we are doing the City to Surf charity walk and we are going trapezing together. Crazy but I am using this relationship to change all future relationships, this is the first stone in hopefully what will begin so tritely be titled the foundations to future marriage, loyalty and love. I laugh at myself while reading this... I sound like I am talking out of my ass but if we are being honest often what we most often wish for does sound rather cliched, money, women, world peace, wealth...

I wish to go to bed and with that good night.

Well, I am sorry I have been so lazy in responding to my blog and now I am finally going to write as I have a whole day ahead of me and I have done nothing since I woke up three hours ago. Yes for three hours I have been on the phone, sitting in my parents heated bed and watching cable while eating my lemon meringue pie with custard for breakfast.

Sadly, I will confess the Lifestyle channel is my secret pleasure, I love so Life Begins Again where someone completely abandons their life on a whim to start up something outrageous like a chili farm or a haunted hotel in Devon. I think I am jealous of these people because my dream is to own a boutique hotel/day spa, which would mean abandoning my English literature degree and doing something completely foreign. I fear the thought of failing and realising that a dream I have harbored safely in my imagination is in reality an absolute disaster.

The lifestyle channel is the epitome of my true character, the real me, it has the cooking channel with Nigella Lawson, Life Begins Again, Risky business where couples change old office spaces into hotels, Antique Roadshow which only serves to humor me and finally Property where people change a home entirely into these modern, chic cottages in the English countryside. I am sadly extremely domestic though lacking any sense of cleanliness, I could not distinguish my Ajax from my Pino Clean. Even though I love to go out with my girlfriends I could easily stay at home and cook amazing food, last night was my sister's last night so I whipped up fillet mignon with mashed potatoes and a blue cheese sauce, roast asparagus and mushrooms with garlic butter. It was presented with garnishes like potato rosti and chives to ensure it looked professional, I even like the atmosphere of the room to be perfect with candles, flowers, table settings, large white restaurant sized plates and music.

Well, if you will excuse me I am watching LA Animal Rescue and a man is catching an 8ft alligator from a pond.. I just can't resist reality television.

Logged into Skype today and here is an example conversation they provided:

Smith
13/11/84 11:17 AM
Does Big Brother exist?
O'Brian
13/11/84 11:17 AM
Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party
Smith
13/11/84 11:17 AM
Does he exist in the same way as I exist?
O'Brian
13/11/84 11:17 AM
You do not exist
Smith
13/11/84 11:17 AM
I think I exist
13/11/84 11:18 AM
 
I am conscious of my own identity. I was born and I shall die. I have arms and legs
13/11/84 11:18 AM
 
I occupy a particular point in space. No other solid object can occupy the same point simultaneously
13/11/84 11:18 AM
 
In that sense, does Big Brother exist?
O'Brian
13/11/84 11:18 AM
It is of no importance. He exists
Smith
13/11/84 11:18 AM
Will Big Brother ever die?
O'Brian
13/11/84 11:19 AM
Of course not. How could he die? Next question



Is this not completely weird? Who would write this?

University is finally over much to my delight and I will actually be able to relax. The University's decision to go from 14 weeks to 12 has made me really question what the University values more, our education or longer holidays. I have no problem with spending longer relaxing but on the same hand I need that extra week just to recover from 12 weeks of solid work, no break and no STUVAC, study period. Also they have reduced the number of staff members for various faculties meaning that there are less tutorials, so it is back to high school with 30 in one tutorial meaning that you have to fight for one of two tutorials, one of which will either be on Monday at 9 am or Friday 10 am.

The day enrollment opened it was a massacre, people were fighting to the death for the last seat in any tutorial but Friday's, the Uni email site closed due to over usage as complaints started poring into heads of faculties about the limited seating, people were swearing and crying over loosing out and everyone was being called to ensure that their classes were with all their friends so they weren't alone.

It really has turned enrollment day into a day of madness because you have about an hour gap to find your tutorials before they are all booked out. The problem is no one really cares that our grades are suffering. I think I should get the newspapers involved on this one. It is an easy angle to write. Anyway enough ranting I have study to cram in before exams.

Well, I have actually pathetic excuses as to why I have not been doing my blog. I have exams coming up, which are mostly open book so I have not been studying... much, there have been an inordinate amount of fantastic movies coming out that I have been seeing almost every night (Ironman, 21, Indiana Jones, Sex and the City this weekend) all with various people, me and the French man have found a debutante and finally exchange forms have been handed in after a final five hour push to the deadline.

Among all the chaos that is my life I have been organising my birthday plans and writing a collection of poetry for my major assessment. There is something deep, poignant and brooding behind my disorganized and scattered personality, which my friends often mistake as me being slightly batty. I listen to Christmas music as suggested by an ex-therapist, yes one can have ex-therapists like one can have ex-boyfriends. After hearing that I might never get married due to my mature understanding of love at such a young age and my inability to show large amounts of selfishness in a relationship. I'm sorry I presumed a relationship was about two people and that by making the commitment to be with that person you sacrifice some of what you want to make room for what they want. I maintain that logical argument now and I did while walking out the door of my ex-therapist mid-session.

I am a therapist type of person, I find friends often make my decisions harder because I have to then acknowledge their opinion and input into my own. In that regards I am extremely selfish, I like to not know what other people think about my life and for them to not solve my life with answers to mistakes they made in their own. I often like to see what various therapists have to say about my life and how they interpret my personality. Some say I should start writing journals others suggest Christmas music, others have claimed I have displaced anger management while others say I have to focus my anger from birth and release it. Is it really realistic to say that my dad not being there for my birth is the reason for my anger? Supposedly I was a very angry child. Possibly could be that for a while I was an insomniac and was simply grumpy from months of no sleep.

Winter is here, officially on June 1st and I am delighted. I am now looking for a restaurant with a fire place so I can snuggle up with my French man. Tres romantic? Non?

I promise to update you all soon as soon as I have something decent to announce.

Not much has been going on since my last blog except that I am attempting to get all my papers in order for exchange. It seems the process is more difficult and extensive than getting an adoption. Ten forms to get one out of nine steps completed, people must fill in forms, sign, approve, photocopy, fax, reference, resumes... it feels like all the other exchanges I have done are a dodgy business out of the back of a van with cardboard box cum office complete.

I am struggling to find courses that match the Australian system, it seems after serious research that they in fact do not match. Wonderful. So what the hell am I meant to be doing? Frustration is also building about choosing my courses for next semester, for all those deprived of life's most frustrating experience, one must individually find four courses that do not clash times and certain times like those for Lectures are locked, so if it clashes with your Lecture you cannot take the course but if it clashes with another tutorial timetable there is a possibility you can change it. Cross your fingers. Problem is unless I want to study the migratory movement of ants there seems no viable option for me next semester.

I want to smack someone.. not literally, do not use this as later evidence that I am a few burrito's short of a fiesta. I am.. but when I get my timetable locked in I will resume my sort of sane lifestyle. ARGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Debacuhery is a mild word for what I did get up to. Friday I stayed in with my sister, ate gourmet pizza and watched Sex and the City. Saturday was one of those nightmare situations that you dream about, everyone else was not dressed up for a costume party and there I was in a public place dressed up like a princess with tiara. I had a lacey "Southern Belle goes to her Debutante ball" skirt on with a baby pink top, pearls and curly Miss America hair. Everyone thought it was my Hen's night and not wanting to have to explain any further my get up I went with the flow and for the rest of the night people congratulated me on my upcoming wedding. Almost everyone was wondering who the lucky man was to have snagged me me so young. My friends all piped in, "He's loaded. That's why she's marrying him. Oil tycoon from Dubai!" It seemed no one was willing to shout me a drink after that or talk to me.

My ex Frenchy... has come back somewhat crawling into my life. We had a huge discussion and it seems his mother gave him a serious reckoning of words. Now with his tail between his legs after his own mother said she was disappointed with his behaviour and furthermore he needed to be taught morals and ethics once he returns to Paris in July.  So when he asksed me back I told him to see me after Paris. I don't know what to do in all honesty and I am tired of boring my friends on this moral dilemma. I am just pacing in my head and I know any woman with common sense would say, "Isn't it freekin' obvious?" But any woman who has experienced a relationship will understand that it's never as simple as one hoped. It's not surgery, there is no clean cut and stitches. It's like a first year med student doing heart surgery, absolute disaster, blood everywhere and often the body flatlines after a few minutes with little chance of resucitacion. I don't know if we can be resuscitated?  To be honest I was starting to get comfortable with sleeping on my own and being independent, maybe I should just let it flatline and call the time of death.

I can't decide if I am running on empty or I am just feeling empty. At the moment I feel disconnected from everyone and I find myself just wanting to be by myself. It is almost like when people are around me I am hearing it through a closed door, I catch bits and pieces but it's mostly muffled and misunderstood. No matter how much I try to add to the conversation it feels I am few minutes behind or not listening at all.

Tonight is formal dinner and for a person not in the mood for other's company this is posing a problem, I am not in the mood for small chat or for being feminine, all the screaming, drama and did you see that guy in that suit over on that table? Who cares?

I guess I must feign some sort of giggly euphoria if a man so much as even looks my way because without that reaction I am either blind or boring. Heaven forbid I just don't think wasting my minutes on a guy who doesn't have the balls to come over but rather stare like a psycho over my direction.. but never mind.

At least I am wearing my new ostrich feather dress that flatters me in all the right places. I think I might be just be tired. I could have a serious sleep right now. Oh and in a hilarious new game my ex-boyfriend Frenchy decides to come into my room at 2 am when I am half asleep and wishing him dead for waking me. What is he doing? Don't answer that, I am not completely disconnected. He happened to run into a sign on the back of my door reminding me that he is and i quote:
"an arrogant, selfish, ignorant, immature, non showering, sleazy and so over you French man"

I blamed it on my friend. I have no balls myself. See what did I tell you hypocrite!

I presume I am the world's worst hypocrite. I don't say things and then do it anyway, I do things and expect others not to do it. It is terrible.. but let me be specific I do things with boys that I expect my ex-boyfriend not to be doing with any female. So when I came to get my French Assessment from his room and there was a female in the room, much to my surprise because as much as he thinks of himself as God's gift to women he has the slight problem of actually not being able to find many attracted to his lack of showering, his thick French accent or his arrogance. I fell for it.

So as I walked in there suddenly speech abandoned me and ran down down the hall, I was left inside the room with nothing but stumbling, stutt-stutt-stuttering letters that could not force a word, heaven forbid a sentence together. Not only did I make myself look like the world's most illiterate and socially awkward person, my opportunity to be carefree and so over him failed miserably. I could not have looked more jealous and crestfallen had I not just jumped on the girl and choked her with her gorgeous, long brown hair.

The thing is I was very sure I was over him, in fact I was more than sure and now I wonder whether I was just convincing myself in a Darwin survival of the fittest effort. Now I am more than confused and embarrassed by my inability to ever be the person I wish I was. I wanted to be the one caught mid kiss with some boy at the back door just as he was exiting, I wanted to be the one holding some gorgeous guy's hand while he just stares heart broken, then he has a moment and runs to me realizing that he lost the only thing that was every important. Maybe I have been dreaming a bit too much.... Well now I seemed to have resorted to the only thing that can ever make me happy, Christmas music. I have been playing it since the incident and nothing but Bing Crosby will be my man of choice tonight.

Well I was seeing this guy called Nick and upon hearing that he was sick, thus being the reason he had not messaged, I wrote back after a few champers post fashion week, "Oh a cold? Take a spoon full of cement. It shouldn't have stopped you from using your fingers and messaging me to organise another date." Aren't I just the next Florence Nightengale?

So karma being what it is decided to give me a whopper of a cold a few days after I saw him on our second date. He told me that he was rather disappointed I didn't bring over Chicken Soup and some DVDs to comfort him during his time of need. For unknown reasons calling him soft didn't seem to have him dying to message me back and my lack of 'motherly instinct' was not meeting his expectations of his ideal woman. Some told me you don't want somebody who you need to nurse and be mother to while others have been surprised as I am usually (though this may come as a shock) the most thoughtful out of our friends, with some asking why I didn't listen to my Martha Stewart instincts and play to his needs?

Well.. now I feel like death and if anyone so much as dared to tell me to toughen up I would hack my diseased phlegm all over them. Now I want someone to bring me Chicken Soup and some DVDs but I can guarantee the one person who won't be feeling sorry for me, smug maybe but not sorry. The only thing going for me is a lack of appetite so at least if Karma is going to bite me in the ass, at least it is going to be sinking into an ass that is hopefully shrinking the winter fat away.

If you ask me to explain why the pictures are not facing the right way my answer is I don't know, if you ask me how to make them larger without having to view it on another page I don't know, apologies, blog is still new to me! These were all taken with my HTC Windows Mobile, quality huh?

1. I love my black trench coat, it is a winter staple and so is a Chanel Vintage Handbag such as the one on my arm.
2. The brown skirt with bow and black cami is what I wore on my first date, so I consider it first date worthy.
3. The brown dress is flirty and feminine, I am starting to horde clothes with similar designs and look. So hopefully when I get there next year I will have accumulated like a squirrel who stores nuts for winter, some serious dresses that feel like France.
4. The leather jacket is real and from Paris, I wear it with either flats or heels depending on the event with my Chanel headscarf used as a bandanna with messy hair and of course my Chanel Vintage Handbag.
5. Finally my black and white print dress mini. I only recently bought this and I am not a print girl but I though it was too much fun to miss, I also love black and white so it worked with France for me.
6. Black, wool high waisted vintage skirt with cream cami with pintuck detailing, vintage belt and bag. Day of mixing the old with the new. Formal yet casual enough to wear around the day.
   

Here is what I find eternally frustrating... as soon as something important comes up, a 21st, a first date suddenly all your clothes disappear into a void and only resurface once you have settled on that old dress you have worn a thousand times or that t-shirt you didn't have time to wash so you had to go excessive on the Emporio Armani White, my perfume of choice.  Either way it's a disaster.

I find often that these items only shamefully come out of hiding a few days after the event, when I can either blame the clothes for the reason he did not call or shrug the clothes off with my new found easy going attitude because honestly I can only focus on him, meaning my date. Suddenly it doesn't matter if I wear trackpants or ugg boots outdoors, one of my biggest pet peeves, because I now am officially off the market meaning I am allowed to look like a molerat in everyone else's company but his. When he sees me I have to look like I just fell off the catwalk but still say, Oh this old thing?, it is a hard thing to master because often when I have gone to extreme amounts of effort I make it obvious with my far too confident attitude that this is not just an ordinary outfit. Instead of saying, Oh this old thing?, I often come across strutting down the street with my old thang.

Last night though I had savoured a dress for the perfect moment, instead of wearing it at some completely inappropriate event I chose my sister's 19th to get this gorgeous black ostrich feather dress out of the closet. I checked on it throughout the day to ensure it was there and not going walkabouts. My sister looked absolutely gorgeous in a figure hugging dress that showed all her "ass . . .  ets" while her friends could easily be models.

We went to Wildfire restaurant and although they made us wait thirty minutes extra for our table the cocktails really hit the spot, so I opted for a liquid diet while waiting to eat. The Truffle Martini was to die for while Sally kept ordering the Bohemian Martini, it really is up to your taste but the choice is so wide you can't be disappointed.

The waiters here are almost borderline doting on you except we had one very gay waiter comment on my 5ft 2" friend by saying "Well you're short aren't you? Are you under alot of pressure? Aren't I just being naughty?" Well, no a**hole, you're just being rude was my first thought. We paid for dinner and not for insults so please excuse yourself awkwardly and don't return. Rather he stayed around to soak up the awkwardness until it was so pregnant that he just flicked his head and left only to return to sing Happy Birthday in a Marilyn Munroe tribute way while staring deeply into my sister's eyes. I was in hysterics.

Then we had some Queensland Dairy Farmer sit at our table as a bet, he told us he would earn $50.00 for sitting with us for a minute, then said "Oh maybe $100.00 for another 60 seconds." After the third round of sixty seconds he was scrambling for an excuse but not before his friends took a photo with our table of ladies. It was so strange, he was definitely a few burritos short of a Mexican fiesta and he sat opposite me. Remembering that the waiters dote on us I requested that if he came back to our table he be quickly escorted back to his own and they did! Fantastic service... that really made my night.

After all the food my dress was struggling to keep it all in, it is very tight, so for fear of ripping the seams I took a taxi home and kissed my sister goodbye.

So this is the first day of showing you my style. This dress with bow is from Japan, the boots are from France but the top and tights are Australia. Surprisingly the top is Events and it is really comfortable. The tights are simply Witchery. All very simple black and white. Hair out and with black Diesel motorcycle bag. Not as feminine as I hope. Maybe I will change it to my Kirrily Johnson bag.

I have this idea of doing a week of taking photos of my various fashion to show you who I am, what I wear and what I consider fashionable. Don't argue with it outloud... just keep it in inside your head.

Here is my review of a few cultural activities that I did over the week:

Puppetry of the Penis It was something that you have to see to believe but once you've seen it you don't need to see it again. Some say you forget it is a penis but the things they were doing to it had a cringe factor dominantly because I was thinking about the penis being stretched and inverted (yes I meant inverted). I  had just come back from Kobe Jones, an amazing Japanese Irish Fusion restaurant, who makes the most amazing volcano rolls you have ever tasted along with Number One Special, hot crab meat and something else unknown. There was free champagne at the after party for Tina's show so I thought I should prepare myself for an hour of staring at a man's crotch.

The other thing I did was the 7 kilometer walk from Coogee to Bondi Beach. At the end of the walk we all went to breakfast where I had an amazing fried potato with smoked salmon, spinach and a mustard sauce. The cafe was called the Trattoria and despite the fire alarm going off during our meal, they continued regardless, it was a fantastic way to end the morning's exercise. The views along the way were breathless, literally some of those steps were a real killer, however by the end I was so starving I was willing to run the last leg to the cafe.

Finally the Comedy Festival is on at the moment so I went to another performance in Newton Theatre called Prequels and Sequels, the audience got to decide who to replace characters in famous films or alter an ending to one they disliked. Some of it was hilarious, some of it was okay, I must admit I still have a soft spot for Scrabble Unscripted and I think it had to do with the level of professionalism. I will say this though, I am going to another Comedy Festival Show next week in hopes for some more giggles and quick wit.

Ladies.. bless your attempts to stay warm and fashionable but yet I must critique.

• White tights, pale tights, any tights in general of that palish colour.... black tights are for everyone because they are slimming but tights of grey or light brown colour are for those who are thin as they simply draw attention to them
• Shorts and tights...need I say more
• Big oversized sweatshirts with hoods.. unless you are gender disorientated I ask of you to please refrain, you wouldn't wear bring your microwave from home to work, so don't bring your home clothes to work either, some things should stay within the confines of your own four walls
• Socks and sandals... (not joking I saw someone wearing it)
• Too tight jeans that we all know you know are due for Vinnies
• Stripes in colours other than black and white or navy and white.. sometimes red and white is appropriate but only if your name is Marcus and you work on a gondola
• Short lengthed tops, I find anything that shows midriff when it is 17 degrees outside shows a simple  miscommunication with washer and dryer and lack of care to read washing instructions, wools and dryer do not mix

MY WINTER STAPLES:

• Black Woolen High Waisted Skirt
• White Business Shirt with some detailing, pin-tuck, ruffles
• Black Shirt with Pussy Bow or in Deep Red
  
• High waisted skirts, lots of them
  
• Black woolen tights/ Black opaque tights
• Boots- brown and black, leather
• Leather jacket in black or cropped in brown, but only in deep brown or else it is cheap and pooey
  
• Knit wear, nothing too heavy or oversized unless it is a knit dress because knit adds volume, volume = fatter than you are and that is just injust
  
• Jeans, dark and skinny, 18th Amendment wide legged linen pants if weather is optimistic
• Trench coat, fitted with belt around waist
  
• Striped black and white shirt
• Black flats
• Simple basic long sleeved shirts in organic cotton, brown, cream, black
• Cashmere
• Dresses, woolen and fitted that can fit a long sleeved top underneath and can accompany a high waisted belt, preferably not one of that thick cotton stretchy material, it won't last a season
• Blazer or Tuxedo Jacket
• Long cardigans
  

Shop away but avoid light tights, shorts and anything too heavy, layers work but only if you combine the right colours together, try a blazer with a cropped cardigan with a shirt underneath and a scarf...but keep the bottom simple. Try also to shop outside the shopping centres, hit Paddington, Surrey Hills.. Explore Sydney.