camera obscura - french navy

i wish there was a soundtrack to life.

and that all your experiences played in dreamy montages such as this one

you are but the clothes on your back

in an interview in GQ magazine, fashion designer Mokotjo Mohulo said :

"fashion is an illusion. a way to make people see you the way you want them to see you"

 i laughed after reading it, the kind  of silent laugh that you use when you laughing at someone to their face, because it was just so true.
every day when you stand in front of your wardrobe - before you have even put your undies on - you assume a character. Black lacy bra - woman in charge. Nude seamless T-shirt bra - simple and understated, functional.
its up to you, every morning, to decide how your day is going to go. many women shy from so much responsibility in their own lives, from so much control - so they resort to a bland, depersonalized 'uniform' that they can pull on every morning, knowing that everything will go without even having to bother to put the light on. this is the easy way - and the boring way.

every day is a new you that you create. my one friend dresses 'clever' when writing a test or exam - pencil skirt, crisp white button down shirt, hair in a classic chignon. when i am at home on the farm, i look like i have walked off the cover of a Country Life magazine - bootleg jeans, golfer tee and a round neck, cape cod inspired jersey draped over my shoulders.
its not like you have to be someone you are not - a person's personality is multifaceted, like a diamond. it is only when you allow all parts to see the light, that it shines. there is a very fine line between being a different self, and trying to be someone else.

take some girls in the more alternative Stellenbosch hangout, Bohemia. the whole point of Bohemia is that you don't have to fit in, everybody come just as they are. then you find the poppie girls who come dressed in leopard print, lace and black - their idea of alternative. just because some punks shop at jay jays, doesn't mean that if you also shop at jay jays you are a punk.

knowledge

So today I am writing the first last exam of my university career. Economics. The most boring and useless subject in the world, if you ask me. After 3 years of it I still can't manage to make my pocket money last an entire month. I've been studying for this exam for about a week now, 10 hours a day, only to never use any of the knowledge I have forced into my brain ever again after 10pm tonight.

This got me thinking about knowledge and the problem with the way the university tries to apply it. Most of the stuff I have learnt -facts, numbers, dates and rude acronyms - over the past 3 years is actually absolutely useless in the real world. Perhaps it is because I'm studying a very wishy washy, academic degree - Politics, Philosophy and Economics. I suppose an engineer learns something useful in his time as a jeans-and-takkies dork. I recently read the Tao of Pooh - Chinese Taoism through the world's most loved bear. It kinds of makes you understand what Milne meant when he said he did not intend the book to be read by children. I came across a bit on knowledge, which kind of said what I felt:

"Owl, instead, seeks the Knowledge for the sake of Appearing Wise, the one who studies Knowledge for the sake of Knowledge, and who keeps what he learns to himself or to his own small group, rather than working for the enlightenment of others. That way, the scholars can appear Superior, and will not likely be suspected of Not Knowing Something."

Maybe we should stop trying to know everything, and be everything, and rather just be. As Piglet said : "Pooh hasn't much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right.". Maybe we should be more like Pooh.

when girl meets boy

interviewer: why can’t you be alone without yoko?

john lennon: but i can be alone without yoko, but i just have no wish to be. there’s no reason on earth why i should be alone without yoko. there’s nothing more important than our relationship, nothing.

and we dig being together all the time. both of us could survive apart but what for? i’m not going to sacrifice love, real love for any whore or any friend or any business, because in the end you’re alone at night and neither of us want to be. and you can’t fill a bed with groupies. it doesn’t work. i don’t want to be a swinger. i’ve been through it all and nothing works better than to have someone you love hold you.

never let yourself forget

i am an incredibly nostalgic person. i get all teary eyed 

when i look at old family photos, and when i scratch

  through boxes filled with letters, report cards and 

newspaper clippings. i am also a die hard romantic, the 

type of person who gets a warm fuzzy feeling when i see my parents kiss, or my grandparents hold hands. i cling to

these moments with such vigour that i sometimes find 

myself living in the past. these are some things i never

want to forget:

riding on the back of the motorbike with my dad, and racing my sister and my grandpa

birthday parties and cupcake decorating tables

flora bay and playing with the dassies

christmases and my dad in green wellies

high school pool parties and lying in the shade of the bulldozers at the show

standard nine december holiday

falling in love

"There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colours are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again."
Elizabeth Lawrence

chase the moon