List 6: Things I'm Grateful For This Week

1. Jesus and Easter!


2. Friends and family.


3. Fun times in Acting & Production I.


4. Public holidays.


5. The arrival of Yellowcard's When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes [FIIIINALLY]! Listening to it is like coming home and getting a massive bear hug. I have missed those boys so much.


6. My teddy bear and childhood cartoons. Thank you for making me feel a little bit better this week.


7. Discovering new and amazing bands.

So this week has been an up and down week. But it is Easter weekend and I have next week off from uni and God is good and taking care of me when I'm all by myself.

Let me know what you're grateful for :).

Direction

Have you ever felt directionless? I've been feeling quite directionless lately. Not just in regards to my future but to everything. I'm not quite sure why.

People have been asking me what I plan to do after my degree or what I can do with it and to be honest, I'm not quite sure. I know what I want to do, what I want to be, but not what I'm going to do or end up being. I see my friends who are at WAAPA and I can't help but feel really sad whenever I do. Jealousy is probably partly there somewhere in the mix but I mostly just feel sad and disappointed in myself that I'm not there; that I wasn't good enough. I'm still dancing, which is great, but it's not quite the same.

What can you do with an English degree? What can you do with an English and Creative Arts degree? Don't say teaching, that's so obvious. And like they say: those who can't do, teach. I want to be able to do because I know I can. I think I can? I just don't want to be a failure and disappointment to myself.

Mix in a huge dose of loneliness and you've got yourself an unhealthy serving of self-loathing and hatred. Why is life so hard? Why am I so bitter to myself? I don't want to be. I want to be happy with myself and who I am. To not have to worry about what size I am or what my face shape is or how smooth and even my complexion is or what people think of me. I just want to be content. I feel like a hypocrite sometimes. I want to help people but I can't even help myself?

I just don't know where to go or what to do.

I found this band yesterday. They're called Adventure Land and they're from Brisbane, Australia. They're an awesome band and they have this one song called The Eastern Sky that I've been listening to all day (I found it yesterday and I pretty much know all the lyrics to that song already). It's an amazing song with amazing lyrics but probably the lines (of many in the song) that gets to me is the part that goes "this couldn't hold you down, you know you're stronger than you think. So get yourself off the floor and grab hold of all your dreams".

I wish I had more faith and trust. But I realised that I don't trust easily. I don't forgive easily and I never forget either.

I wish I knew what I was doing. I wish I knew what God was doing with me.

List 5: Things I'm Grateful For This Week

1. Birthdays and birthday parties!! Happy birthday to Adele and Amy!


2. Friends who take care of you when you can't (SO grateful for them).


3. Hilarious (albeit extremely tiring) day at uni on Tuesday.


4. Time spent with friends I haven't seen or talked to in a long time.


5. Finding old assignments on novels that I'm studying again to use for my presentation.


6. Yellowcard announcing that they're coming on the Soundwave: Revolution tour (it seems like every week, there is at least one thing involving Yellowcard).

This week was a fairly good week. What are you grateful for this week?

List 4: Things I'm Grateful For This Week

1. THE RAIN AND COOLER WEATHER! In the second half of the week, at least.


2. Finally getting my acceptance package to Ithaca College :).


3. Donating blood with Mel (her first time!) and managing to fill up a whole bag.


4. A good ballet class on Thursday.


5. Yellowcard's music video for Hang You Up was released and I actually really like it.


6. Spending time with family.

This week's been a bit of a tough week but I managed to find some small things that made me smile. What are you grateful for?

Hourglass

Streaks staining threads. Dirt dusting soles. I watch as she plays in the sandbox. Building sandcastles and knocking them down. Up, down, up, down. She chuckles as she knocks them over, laughs as she builds them again; never giving up in rebuilding her fortress. But now she is digging. Digging and searching for something only she knows. Or maybe she is burying something, hiding a toy she will later find as buried treasure. She lives in her world of saturated colours and cuddles, paying no attention to the outside.

There is no room for sleep or bath time in her doll house. No time to waste in braiding hair at her tea parties. There are new friends to meet, new things to learn. She lets me tuck her in at night only so that the next day will come quicker.

Streaks staining threads. Dirt dusting soles. She drags herself home, painfully aware of the outside. Saturated colours melt into grey as days pass into weeks into months into years. I watch as she grows older, no longer lost in her own world but lost in herself. There is now time for sleep but no room in her mind for rest. Time for baths but no hope of being clean. She collapses each night so that the day will end and fights the morning so the day doesn’t have to start.

Every sunrise that comes brings a moment of remembrance. Crimson, navy, indigo and ochre covering a canvas of beige. Ebony and slate washing out minutes of hours of days.

I see her toeing the sandbox where she used to play and upsets the sand. Pink pops out. It is her doll; doe-eyed and rosy. A reminder of her saturated colours and cuddles but covered in dirt and sand. She picks her doll up, smooths out her ringlets and her doll gazes back at her. Her doll has not aged in years and she thinks that ignorance pays for immortality. She lets go and her dolly falls down, down back to the ground where other left over toys and half-built sandcastles lie.

Streaks staining threads. Dirt dusting soles. I watch her as she turns away, not bothering to rebuild her crumbling sandcastle.

List 3: Things I'm Grateful For This Week

1. Getting accepted into Ithaca College!


2. Hearing that Matthew Leone is going to return to the stage soon.


3. Finding old David Tennant Doctor Who episodes that I hadn't seen before.


4. Taking a legit Harry Potter quiz (in an attempt to procrastinate and in relation to something my friend and I were talking about) and finding out that I'm supposedly in Slytherin (yessssss!). Just like I'd thought (I was either going to be in Slytherin or Ravenclaw.


5. My sister introducing me to Audrey Assad. Such a beautiful singer.

What are you grateful for?

LXD at TED

I love TED.
I love The LXD.
The LXD + TED = happiness, excitement, epicness, inspiration

Everyone should watch this and be awe-inspired. TED does some amazing things, watch a few of their other presenters and guest speakers doing their thang.