And how I’m probably equally bad at both of them!
fashion Blogging And teenage Girls and why Our world Is Weird
“The rules of capitalization are so unfair to words in the middle of a sentence.”
Margot Roth Spiegelman, Paper Towns
Last year, in my grandparent’s house in Galway, I finished my book. It is not unusual for me to finish books. It is not unusual for anyone to finish a book. What was unusual for me, however, was that I forgot to bring a second book. This meant I had nothing else to read but a myriad of my grandad’s crime novels (“too violent”), the books my sister had brought (“Give it back Ciara I was reading that!”), and any of the Sunday Times magazines lying around.
After reading a two-week-old Culture, I looked around and picked up a dated-by-a-month-and-a-half copy of Style. I bluffed my way through the makeup (“What’s that even meant to do..?”) and body image (“Oh okay my body’s a piece of fruit?”) before alighting on one particular section on Teen Fashion Bloggers. Mentioned were Dianna Agron, among others, and, vair vair importantly, Tavi Gevinson.
Now if you haven’t heard of Tavi before, I feel obliged to send you on to The Style Rookie, her early fashion blog, and her wonderful brainchild Rookie Mag. I’m not going to go into detail here, because this post is not about her, but what I will say is that she’s a wonderful and talented role model who inspires me all the time with her utter fabulosity, and I am basically a feminist because of her.
Another thing I have gained because of her is a sense of potential. There are lots of fun, interesting, creative things I can make, or write, or do with myself that I haven’t yet, and that I can do despite my age. I know that in the grand scheme of things, I am not old, even remotely, but it still chafes a bit to be treated like a child when I feel so much more than that. Maybe I’m not more than that; maybe I’m still just a child that got bigger, but I feel like I deserve a bit more respect than I get.
My recent dream of being a fashion blogger is not going to get people to take me more seriously. If anything, less so. Oh look another teenage girl trying to be an individual isn’t that unusual. (Note: I have no issues with teenage girls. I love teenage girls! They’re the best! And if a teenage girl wants to assert her individuality, good for her! I want to be her friend! We can watch Heathers and Clueless and Ghost World and do photo shoots and try on hats in charity shops together!) I want to wear weird clothes and enjoy myself and be taken at least a little seriously.
Is that so much to ask?
SILTW 5
Writing and Perks and THE NOTEBOOK
So for those of you who don’t know, Perks means the Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. I have wanted this book since I was 13, where I picked up a copy in Charlie Byrnes (the best bookshop in the history of the universe, if you were wondering), liked the look of it, and was immediately told by unbending parents that perhaps my level of maturity might be better suited to other books. Ones about rabbits, maybe, or a different form of small harmless animal.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I downloaded it onto my Kindle earlier, and, so far, I like it! The writing style is unusual, and the narrator has a pretty simple view on the world, and as much as I hate to condense everything I might like to say about it into a short paragraph, keep your eyes peeled for a book review!
We are reading To Kill a Mockingbird in English, and, surprisingly, we are making decent headway! Another book report is to come on this book, methinks, when I’m finished it. I’m going to read Perks fully, first, then a novel adaptation of the Dark Knight that Chelsey gave me, and then I will start reading TKAM properly, as opposed to the sporadic couple of pages we read in class. Another thing we’re doing in English is writing a short story, on a topic of our choice, using vocab words from To Kill a Mockingbird. For the second time, I’ll be writing on my laptop; being able to drag-and-drop paragraphs from place to place helps me organise my stories better. Right now, I only have a rough draft, with no required words in it at all, so… Mm yes I will be working on that!
On another note entirely, I have filled up exactly half of my ideas notebook! I was given THE NOTEBOOK as a Christmas present in 2011, and it is probably the closest I’ve ever come to keeping a diary! I’ve always wanted to, to record my day-to-day life on paper, to see how it changes as I get older, but I am not a finisher, and I just can’t dedicate myself to something like that!
(Note: Cool Blazer Girl -Sabrina- may not start off on the topic I sent you to her to hear, BUT BY THE END SHE WILL TALK ABOUT IT. This is a test of your- yes, your- own finishing skills)!
Anyway, I didn’t use this book much until late January last year, when I started planning a website design for the class my friend and I teach at Coder Dojo, and since then, every time I need to plan something (like a story, or more websites, or how my year is going to go), or get something down on paper (any fleeting ideas/ my feelings) it goes in THE NOTEBOOK.
I feel like keeping THE NOTEBOOK is that little bit safer than keeping a diary, in that if my sister/parents/friends steal it it won’t be THAT big of a deal, but it’s still not exactly something I’d be showing off.
AND THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS THAT YOU REALLY SHOULDN’T TOUCH THE NOTEBOOK SORRY
KISSES MY PAINED DAHLINGS,
Ciara
PS: I say pained because I got my braces adjusted earlier and HERE’S A THING: my face hurts.
Why do things matter?
Today, I got an A on my Tech Graph homework, a B+ on an essay from my English teacher, and was elected one of four Second Year representative on our school’s Student Council.
One of these on their own would probably make my day, and all three at once is sort of wonderful for me, and more than enough to make up for my abysmal Business Studies, Irish class where I bring the wrong book, and Science where I break the rim of a conical flask while trying to rinse it out.
Each of these things could have completely counteracted the positives if my teachers were that bit more mean; my Science teacher smiled at me and said it was okay, my Business teacher told me where I went wrong, and my Irish teacher just asked me to get the right Book next time. What I’m trying to say here is that good things > bad things, which is awesome, because given a situation gone even a little bit wrong my first instinct is to curl up into a ball and berate myself for caring too much.
Most of the time, investing too much of your feelings into one thing is a bad idea, because when you don’t get the part/grade/medal/season 3 of Sherlock, it’s sad and it’s awful and it has the power to ruin your day/week/month. On the flip side, when you do get the part/grade/medal/season 3 of Sherlock, it’s made a million billion trillion quadrillion quintillion times better because you have made it such a part of who you are, even for a brief period of time.
Things matter, I think, not because other people think that they matter, but because you have emotions tied up in them. Even if all of your friends right now are super-emotionally-invested in, say, cats right now but they’re allergic and coincidentally you hate cats, and they expect you to care about cats too and be sad you don’t have a cat except NOT REALLY
Because they may care about cats, and the fact that they can’t have cats makes them sad, and you sad, it doesn’t mean you too would sell your soul for a cat. What it does mean is that you would sell your soul for your friends.
KISSES MY METAPHORICALLY-ADVANCED DAHLINGS
Ciara
PS: I call you metaphorically advanced because you might even be able to tell that that up there is actually an ANALOGY
MAYBE
HMM
GRAMMAR
ALSO: A WEIRD CLOSE UP OF ONE OF MY STUDENT COUNCIL CAMPAIGN POSTERS
My Top Five TV Shows
KHAIDEREDIVINGRIGHTIN
- Doctor Who
I’m a nerd you guys
#sorrynotsorry
I’m not even going to try and explain how wonderful and ridiculous and brilliant this show is. I’m not going to mention the brilliant actors and actresses that have made and make Doctor Who so amazing. Something else I’m not going to talk about is the GORGEOUS INTRO that I saw for the first time on an actual tv screen and cried about because IT’S SO PRETTY YOU GUYS I CAN’T DEAL
- Pretty Little Liars
I started watching this show last week, and now I’m on season 2, which may not sound like that much of an achievement, but there are 22 45-minute episodes in season one, so THAT’S A LOT
I like it because of three core reasons:
- The plot. It has a plot. I like it.
- The actresses. They’re ridiculously gorgeous
- Suspense- This show is literally overflowing with it.
- Adventure Time
Adventure Time is BASICALLY the weirdest thing ever? It takes place in a post-apocalyptic Earth, with characters such as candy people, Ice Kings, rainicorns… It follows Finn, the hat-wearing last human on earth, and his best friend Jake the Dog, in there adventures throughout the lands of Ooo and all it’s kingdoms. It’s weird and cute and wonderful, and even if it is a liiittle bit of a brain fuck, it’s totally worth it for all the awesome.
- Glee (Strictly seasons 1 and 2)
As anyone who has ever watched Glee knows, seasons 1 and 2 are the best. They’re the ones that really highlight what the show is supposed to be about; MUSIC and DIVERSITY and the TRIUMPH of UNDERDOGS and also UNICORNS and RAINBOWS. The first two seasons have the best written characters, the best plotlines, and also Klaine, which admittedly season 3 has the most of, but still KLAINE SO CUTE AW
- Survivor
Everyone, I think, has their own little reality show that they only ever watch with their parents; Survivor is mine. Basically it’s a show where people send in application videos, sixteen people are chosen and sent to an exotic location and every so often there’s a tribal council where people get voted off aaaaand yes not much to say :’)
Oh oh they win a million dollars if they make it to the final three and all the people that were voted off already don’t hate them!
KISSES MY MILLION-DOLLAR DAHLINGS
Ciara
Self Esteem and Special-ness
If you’ve ever read John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines, you will know of the mini existential crisis that the main character, Collin, has, in which throughout the book he slowly begins to realise that he is not quite as special as he would like to be.
I am a smart girl, and I know that, but there’s something in me that always wants to be the smartest, if you know what I mean. Everytime my friends achieve something, I get a niggling feeling in my tummy that it could’ve been me; if I’d TRIED HARDER or if I had PRACTICED MORE or if I had MORE TALENT or if I was PRETTIER. And, while some of these things are under my control, a lot of them aren’t, and I need to realise that.
I take rejection badly, especially in things that I care about, and this often overshadows the achievements of people I care about, in my head. For example, in fifth class, I tried out for Sciath na Scoil, a competition of Irish sports between schools, in camogie. I didn’t get in, and that crushed me at the time, so much that I could barely be happy for two of my friends who did get in. What I did do, however, was practice super hard for the year after, when I managed to get in after all. That said, I was still really bad, and the team lost all their matches, but I think that’s OUTSIDE THE POINT THANK YOU
My point is, I don’t know if I’ve really matured any since then. In sixth class, when I didn’t get the part I desperately wanted in our class play, I burst into tears. Last year, when I didn’t win something I thought I maybe had a chance at, and someone who put a whole lot less effort into it than me did, I (almost) burst into tears. This year, I didn’t understand something in Tech Graph, got a nosebleed, had a panic attack, and burst into tears. Again.
I’m not sure what the point of this post is, maybe to show you that I’m a terrrible human being or that there’s something wrong with my tear ducts.
I always start out my posts so full of ABANDON and POTENTIAL :’)
KISSES MY SURELY DISAPPOINTED DAHLINGS
Ciara
The Bookshop
That’s right- it’s Ciara’s crappy poetry day!!
Ambitions and Apologies (and also, Nosebleeds)
To start this post, I want to apologise for not posting the past week; I’ve been busy, and lazy, and writing sometimes is something I want to do privately. I’m really, reeeeaaallly sorry, and I’ll try and get back into my schedule!
Yesterday, I decided to run for student council. This mightn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s playing into my general goal to MAKE MORE EFFORT THIS YEAR. To that end, I’m studying more, writing poetry for the biannual school magazine, the Sketch, and, yes, running for student council. Last year I didn’t want to stand out in particular, but this year, well. I’m already cookie hairclip girl.
(Did I mention I finally wore my cookie hairclip?! And only, like, three people asked could they try some!)
Stuff I Like This Week 4
Feeling a little amnesia-y today? Check out what this is here.
SILTW numero Quatro!
(Is that how you spell it?)
ciara the unicorn 
