got a light?

The semester is officially over, I am being lazy on the couch all day doing nothing and it's way too dreary outside to go out and do stuff. SO here is a collection of images from this semester I've acquired.

Last weekend I went to Champaign and it was really hot in my friend's house and of course I forgot to bring pyjamas so I borrowed his boxers. We had a boxers dance party in his room. The glasses are special nerdy glasses for playing video games or something like that!

Big Cats

You can't tell there is a cat in this last picture, but there is. Spot the cat ear next to my forehead and the big black blob between my face and my arm. That's Panther.

Newly found obsession with Nirvana... no idea why. I even bought a Kurt Cobain sweater.

My studio pictures, taken by Alex Kim

Fashion stuff from various blogs.

We can't go without Alice Glass, right? Her big story this past half year was her broken ankle and their continued tour where she performed on crutches IsAwItLiVe. I got crutches from Martin recently and everyone says I'm just doing it cause of Alice, but that's not true. I've been obsessed with crutches since we did Macbeth in high school, and I performed on stage with crutches, pretending to be some sort of nobleman with half a leg missing. Yep it was a tragicomedy.

What else is new? My obsession with Simon Amstell is not ending at all.

The last one is from my favorite episode of Grandma's House.

I ate a vegan cupcake today, no idea why. I woke up with a severe craving for something sweet and cake-like. It was weird cause I never ever crave cakes/cupcakes/sweets. Strange. This will probably satisfy me for many months to come in sweet indulgences. I am going to read some Sylvia Plath now.

self-reflection

I want to start this post without an explanation really. I think if you read it, it will be self-explanatory.

All I ever want for people is to be happier. I try to make people happier, maybe I do it the wrong way, maybe other things make them happy. I treat people the way I want them to treat me, but that doesn't work really, ever. I may seem like a very cold person, but really I am very caring and concerned. I think about people in my life all the time, and maybe I don't want to speak to them or have contact with them often, but that doesn't mean I don't like them. I just feel awkward around people a lot of the time, and I don't want to bring this awkwardness into our relationships.

I want people to feel comfortable throwing at me whatever it is they feel about me. But I don't want people to be rude, loud, obnoxious about it. If you have something to tell me, please tell me what it is but don't make spiteful remarks that are directed specifically to hurt my feelings, so that you can feel less angry/upset with me at the expense of my emotional pain.

That being sad, few things actually affect me that way any more, probably due to the amount of hatred and misunderstanding I've experienced in my "previous" life. I've had my fair share of depression, anxiety, panic and paranoia. If I could get over those things, so can anyone else I think. After all, we're all just human really.

Forgiveness is what makes us real human beings. If you can't forgive and let go, then what can you do? People who dwell on their positive or negative emotions end up being miserable and lonely for the rest of their lives. Memory, whether fond or not, is a destructive thing because it pushes you away from reality. People come and go, relationships with people don't ever last. So why dwell on them, why not take your current life and make it better instead of sitting around brooding on the past?

I am only writing this because I just watched Simon Amstell try to bring his fictional family together, which ended up a disaster but actually there was a lot of wisdom in this process.

"Do Nothing"....

I love every single person I interact with, every person I spend more than 5 minutes talking to. The difference is in the kind of love that we share. Unfortunately, a lot of those people don't love me back. And that's okay because I've accepted this. I've accepted my guilt in trying to make them love me, and I've accepted my guilt of not treating them the right way.

I am sorry for every negative emotion I've ever made anyone feel, however if you reflect on it better, was it all not worth it?

In the words of Salinger: "This is a perfect day for bananafish".

This is actually not really directed at anyone or anything. I felt this urge to express my feelings about people for a long time, and today my thoughts have finally come together. This isn't about all the drama going on around right now, it is the end of another brilliant semester that I've enjoyed very much and I would like to say a big thank you to everyone that participated in it. I am glad I have such human interactions and I hope I made some sort of impact on other people's lives. In the end we all die, and when we die we won't be thinking of Lord or Jesus, we will remember that the only thing that awaits us now is the soil or the coffin or the flames. So make it a good one before the soil.

lazy thursday early evening

I want to talk a little bit about Simon Amstell. I don't know what it is about him, but he just makes me love his comedy stuff so much. I mean, he gave Marilyn Manson a toaster as a wedding gift in 2004 on Popworld. He made Britney admit she thinks of herself as a 6 or 7 out of 10 on a beauty scale. He made Preston walk off Buzzcocks, and got Dappy from N-Dubz to spank him. You have to be mentally brilliant in order to achieve all of these things before you're 30. And now he's got a new show, something about grannies, I haven't seen it yet but I need to check it out.

 

I'm really liking the somewhat new show The Misfits. After British Skins were done, I had nothing to watch while eating morning cereal. The Misfits are amazingly brilliant. The actors are spot-on with their characters, accents, mannerisms and dress-code, but also their emotions, appropriate age groups and relationships with each other. I'm amazed that I haven't heard of this show before. I am slightly in love with every single character, maybe just not feeling the runner guy so much, he's a bit predictable. But everyone else is just amazing. I'm a huge fan, it might actually have just pushed Skins to the 2nd place in my top TV stuff and took that first place with the very first episode.

 

B.R.I.L.L.I.A.N.T
I highly recommend. It's got suspense, super-heroes gone wrong and so many other things.
But on top of that, there are other amazing things about it too. The music!!! Every single episode features at least one song that I just love. I mean the opening is "Echoes" by the Rapture! And they've had Klaxons, the Prodigy, Kraftwerk, the Horrors, Blur, Justice (my favorite Boys Noize remix of Phantom Pt II!!), Aphex Twin, the Cribs, the Cure, the Velvet Underground, and so on. If only this list doesn't make you wanna watch this show, you're retarded or deaf.
And how about cinematography?? Those scenes shot at the club, one of my favorite episodes is when Curtis changes back time many many times over so he can undo some of the things he's guilty about. In the club the music and the dancing all synched so well with the repetition of the same shots with different outcomes.... And the mood? Everything is grey, moody, about to rain cloudy kind of light and feeling. Their orange suits break up the dreary landscape so well. And of course, the intro deserves a special round of applause too. That animation together with the little symbols here and there! Somehow the scenes with blood and gross stuff are not shocking like horror movies, but not stupid like cheap wanna-be horror movies or shows.
I could go on and on about it, but I think I will stop here.

I guess this is why I am slightly addicted to British TV and cannot stand American TV in any shape or form (unless it's Twin Peaks or Nash Bridges). They make TV episodes as good as actual movies. They pay attention to everything from camera angles to realistic portrayal of skin, bodies, hair, etc to lighting and follow-up of every plot line. I don't know, it's just pretty cool like that.

I guess I should talk about something else now. This semester is coming to an end and what have I done this semester? One thing for sure - I made a TON of art. Like, literally so much art. Partly because I dropped one of my classes, partly because I am taking it more seriously now and got out of my art rut I guess. And partly because I just wanted to and I've been in a good happy mood all semester, feeling active, responsible, daring, caring, bla bla.

Realistically, I made about 11 paintings. 2 tiny ones, two middle-sized ones, three on the border line of being too big to be middle-sized, two big ones, and two enormous paintings that I didn't stretch but pinned to the wall. They take up all the space of the wall. I am very proud of one of them. I am proud of a lot of the artwork I made. I also made so many prints! I kind of love and hate printmaking now. I like it because if done properly and if it's a success, the prints can look very beautiful. For some things, there is no better media than print. I hate it because it takes a lot of time and patience and I am very impatient. On the other hand, I like that it makes you do everything carefully and slowly because it's a nice counter-balance to my painting which is very quick, sporadic, bursting with energy and color. Sometimes when I paint I put on "Katya's shitty dance music" and sort of dance around while I paint. In print I made 8 books, 6 of which are filled with stuff. I made 4 different kinds of plates all related to sea-life and sea monsters, I made one failed plate that I never actually printed except for proofs. I made two metal dry-point plates the same size, with the motif about lions. And finally, for the class exchange I made a third metal plate as a response to the film "The Fall".

I've also made a film, Honey Dreams, a music video "Cathouse presents: witchhouse", an art video thing from footage from London called "Colored Motion" and filmed three bands perform one night and made individual videos of that and edited them altogether as well. Here are the links:
Honey Dreams
Cathouse presents: witchhouse
Colored Motion
Negative Spaces performing
Hastas performing
Clash of new sounds

I think it has been a very very productive semester.

vent/rant/meow

Should I really comment?

I mean. It has been three years now and people are so slow to forget things. I can't fucking remember what happened two months ago. And they still talk about three years?

And then another stunt. What's gotten into people?

But I want to quote Matt on this because he said it so nicely. "You can always be lovely as you truly are".

Well, emo kids, it's time for you to grow up or grow balls. I am not sure which any more. All I know is I won't be bothered by this. Flowers and kittens and various other things that are all pure love and joy and meows and purrs. My cat wants my attention now so I will go cuddle with her now!

feeling blue

I don't know why I'm feeling kind of blue tonight. I had a nice shower, and washed my hair, which usually makes me feel better. I had some tea. I played with cats. But nothing is making me feel better. I guess sometimes you just feel down, no matter what situation you're in. So I decided to listen to Death Cab because listening to "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" always reminds me of Adrian and Christoph, and that party in Germany when I got lost in the house and walked in the fields and broke someone's heart and Adrian had to hold her hair because she was puking. It's funny. But this song reminds me of when Adrian told me how when they went to see Death Cab at a festival, and they played this song, a woman was crying hard next to them. And I've never cried to this song, but I wish one day I can. Only sad Placebo songs make me cry, even though I don't listen to Placebo any more.


Love of mine some day you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark

No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark
If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me
"Son fear is the heart of love"
So I never went back

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

You and me have seen everything to see
From Bangkok to Calgary
And the soles of your shoes are all worn down
The time for sleep is now
It's nothing to cry about
'cause we'll hold each other soon
In the blackest of rooms

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the No's on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
Then I'll follow you into the dark 




Well I just sang along to the song and it made me feel a bit better. I sang it to Panther, she is sitting here cleaning herself. I wonder if she likes my singing. The truth is I love singing, but I am so terrified of singing in front of people. I guess cats are okay.


I'm off to a party. I hope I can cheer up there a little.

thoughts

Instead of going to paint today, I decided to stay in and do some more editing. It may sound like not such a good idea, because I need to paint and it's my class, but this is just as important. I work better at editing when I do it non-stop, then I perfect everything instead of leaving it half-perfect.

I decided to write down some thoughts as they come to me as I do this for the next 4 hours.

Why do the cats not bother jumping over my lap w/ computer on it, but choose to walk over my belly like it's part of the couch? Is it because they enjoy stepping into my warm soft belly, or do they just not care too much about stuff like that?

Sometimes it is so hard to choose the right music for the video footage. When I am filming without an idea of what the details should be, it's always so hard to find the details for it afterwards.

Some people are just so beautiful, I could watch them day and night doing normal things like brushing their teeth or falling asleep.

Cats really are the future. They will save us one day, but first we have to save the lions.

Finished London video finally!! Jeeeezzz 5 months later, but it's done. I am very proud of it because it's exactly what I wanted. Now only to wait for it to render... fuck I wish I had another computer that all it would do is just render videos and I could use my computer without it doing four million things at once (and being very loud and hot).

Warm and fuzzy... my cats, my blanket, my computer. Time to watch endless fun from Saturday.

I think when I have some free time I will make a video "A day in the lives of two cats".

Taco salad, tomatoes+cucumbers salad. I feel like everything I eat now is salad. Mmm good.

Next 30 minutes will be spent working very hard. This day has been more productive than my usual Tuesdays.