V I C E
January 27th, 2012

SO YOU THINK YOU’RE SPECIAL?

Think that you’re soooo important? Pretend that you live in a pretty world with unicorns and pink magical fairy dust?! (it’s a reference to tumblr girlz that you may or may not understand) Well, GUESS WHAT?

You aint special, because one day, you’re going to DIE just like EVERYTHING else on this planet. Err, ok, that isn’t really the reason. Avoid the thought of death, think happy thoughts! NOBODY PANIC, NOBODY PANIC

Here we have, earth and a representation of a person, aka, me. Let’s pretend, that the earth has a lovely pink tinge. See how small we are? DO YOU SEE IT? Well, you have no idea my friends.

Yeah, Jupiter could crush us into a few measly specks of dust. Better not mess with it.

Ahaha, does anyone else feel just as insignificant as I do when they picture these things?

It gets even more unbelievable…

CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW FUCKING BIG THAT STAR IS?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE WHOLE PLANET WE LIVE ON IS LIKE A PUNY MICROSCOPIC GERM COMPARED TO THAT THING. We pretty much don’t even exist. We are like, invisible fragments, dwelling on a puny rock, freaking out about shoes and Twilight (LAME) and shit.

I feel like a teeny weeny cookie crumb. Yum, cookies. Sorry for this random post, I have been feeling this… anxiety provoking, impending sense of doom recently that I’m struggling to shake off. It’s kind of unsettling, so I’m trying to distract myself.

January 26th, 2012

AM I AUSTRALIAN?

For those of you who don’t know, January 26th (today) is Australia day. A day to celebrate all things Australian… but, hang on a second. Err, what exactly is Australian?

In 2010 I spent a semester abroad at SUNY Buffalo in New York State. I was there with one of my friends I met during my time at Uni, who has a Vietnamese background. I can’t tell you how many times people in the U.S were stunned to find out that my friend was in fact, Australian. People often seemed shocked that an asian girl was, well… Australian. This surprised my friend and I. I mean, the U.S itself, is a pretty multicultural nation. I couldn’t believe how ignorant some people were about the country. Someone I met at the campus dining hall thought that Sydney was full of Kangaroos, just to make it clear, IT’S NOT!! But, that’s a completely different topic.

Closer to home, I’ve experienced some sort of identity confusion of my own. I was born in Australia, I went to an Australian public, primary, high school and university. (Pretty much all our Uni’s are public… I think there are only two private institutes) I grew up here and obviously, I’m an Australian citizen. But is that enough? Some people might not think so.

I hate summer. Which a lot of you probably already know. When most people think of Australia they probably think of the beach and surfing and BEACH BAAABEZ… laugh out loud. I am no beach babe, far, far from it, actually. I also hate AFL (Australian Rules Football), Cricket and well, most sports in general. Apparently Australians LOVE THEIR SPORTS. I’m a vegetarian and as Sam Kekovich (read: douche) would state, not eating lamb is UN-AHSTRAAAALYUHN.

My grandparents moved to Australia from Greece and arrived here when my dad was only eight months old. They came because, at the time, Australia was requesting workers from Europe. My grandparents had five children and they worked their asses off (especially my yiayia) to support and give their children the best possible life that they could. My dad grew up in Australia, but while he was growing up, he encountered a few problems. When my dad was younger, it wasn’t exactly uncommon to be called a wog, sorry if I offended anybody by using this term. ‘Australians’ would use the word wog as a derogatory term against those with eastern european backgrounds, mainly, Italian and Greek.

These days, people with these backgrounds have taken the word as their own and often call each other wogs. Even though it doesn’t happen as often now, I hate it when people describe me as a wog. I mean, what the hell is that word anyway? I’m an Australian (just like all the other Anglo Australians) with a Greek background, I’m not a damn wog, whatever the hell that means.

It’s not all one sided though. The other day my dad and I were discussing something and he said something like, “that’s the way the Australians are” referring to Anglo-Saxon Australians. I get kind of annoyed when people who aren’t Anglo-Saxon talk like that. It’s like, err, Australians… and what are we?! This happens often in Australia though. I hear people saying they have friends who are, “Italian, Serb, Greek, Lebo, Aussie” What the hell man! I thought we were all Australian. Why are the Anglo-Saxon people the ‘Australians’? They have some sort of background tied to another country somewhere along the line too.

You know what else annoys me? If my boyfriend and I were walking down the street or something, some derro bogan dude would probably think that my boyfriend was ‘Australian’ and I was a ‘Wog’. The funny part is, my boyfriend was born in Sweden, has a British background, has only been a citizen for about 4 years and doesn’t identify as being Australian, at all. I don’t like the fact that Anglo-Saxons are, generally, automatically seen as being more ‘Australian’.

When those damn bogans start rambling about how, “fucken wogs stole our country” I think to myself. Wait a minute, if you want to get technical, none of us are real Australians then. The only real Australians are the indigenous people who lived here for thousands of years before anyone else got to this piece of land. You know what the sad part is? To those bogans, Aboriginal people aren’t really ‘Australian’ either. I know, it’s fucked up.

I think this rant mostly came to me thanks to the Sam Kekovich advertisements. They really piss me off. Eating lamb and having a ‘barbie’ (BBQ) is not what should constitute as being Australian, damn it! There isn’t just one identity to classify what a ‘true blue Aussie’ is. Being Australian should be about diversity and promoting an open mind. This country wouldn’t be what it is, Melbourne wouldn’t have so much damn good food, if people from all around the world didn’t decide to call this country their home.

Oh before I go, I think one of the things that pisses me off the most about some of the effed up ideas of our national ‘identity’ is the fact that people often use humour to defend offensive actions. When ‘Australians’ participate in activities that could very well be offensive to a large group of people, they often defend themselves with the old, “Australians are laid back and like to have a laugh, it’s our humour, get over it”. I’m sorry, but jokes that are at the expense of others are not funny. Ha, the fact that I back other cultures up at times like those probably makes me un-Australian. Ugh, now that, is a joke.

Anyway, so I’m not a total joy kill and don’t get hate mail from people telling me that I should move back to Greece or something. I don’t actually think Australia is that bad. I just think it’s stupid when these issues are totally avoided and people completely deny the fact that racism in Australia still exists. I know we don’t live in a perfect world and racism will probably never be completely eradicated, but it’s ridiculous when racism is still prevalent to the extent that innocent students from India are killed for no reason, purely based on their ethnicity.

But, I do admit, I’m quite lucky. We have a pretty good standard of living, free health-care, (kind of) free education and compared to a lot of other nations, our wages are quite high… which is extra good considering how strong the Australian dollar is right now.

Happy Australia day :)

I apologise for the slightly crappy images. There wasn’t a lot of light and we used my boyfriend’s camera which doesn’t shoot as well in low light areas. The internet is also slow as hell right now, so I’ll reply back to all the comments tomorrow :)

P.S Do I really dress that weird? Yesterday when I was walking around Crown in Melbourne, loads of people would so obviously stare at me as I’d walk past, like I was a crazy person or something. I was wearing the outfit shown in these images.

January 23rd, 2012

SLOWLY MELTING

I was going to bring up and discuss my possible intentions of starting a magazine today, but… IT’S TOO FREAKING HOT sorray. I just can’t be bothered. I’ve been way too warm all day and right now, all I want to do, is sit in a bath full of water and ice and eat a shit load of icy poles, of course. Actually, I would prefer tubs upon tubs of ice-cream but, sadly my metabolism runs at the rate of metro trains… OH YEAH, FUCK YOU METRO. Sorry… Melburnians might be the only people to understand that, haha. Our trains are actually quite clean but the punctuality is terrible. Oh, some good news, I just found out I got a job at K-mart, YAY! It certainly isn’t Hugo Boss, but you know… it’s still a job that will help earn some $$$$ money while I’m still studying.

I was going to apply for a job at American Apparel tomorrow… I don’t know if I still should, now that I already have a job. Apparently AA only hires people who are of certain height, looks and weight. I’m short, not exactly a supermodel and I’m not that skinny either =/ Advice?

This is what I wore yesterday, gawd, it was BOILING! Yes, yes, I know black isn’t the best colour to wear during summer but I really like that dress and I wanted to finally wear it.

There I am, hanging with some trash cans in my ghost-like state xD

I wanted to add this image at the end of this post because, well, I think it’s so wonderful. The outfit, AMAZING, her hair… also pretty amazing. I’m not sure about the source of the image, if you know, let me know? I’m off to try and figure out how to do a beehive now.

OH OH OH.. I have to quote what my boyfriend said while we were eating yesterday.

“I get scared when I’m about to finish my food because then I to start thinking about what I’m going to eat next and how much it’s going to cost…. I don’t like it”

January 22nd, 2012

I’M A FREAK?

Seems like a lot of people enjoyed the previous post. Seems like a lot of people like to read my rants haha. Hey, I’m a pretty damn cynical person, if you want me to complain about pretty pointless shit… (let’s face it people, every single one of our lives is pointless, we are all just little pins in a very, very, large hay stack) more often, then let me know, ok? I don’t think this post is going to be anywhere near as entertaining. It’s going to be more like, a little, sob story. Sorry dudes! But hey, they are what keep today tonight and a current affair running!

I don’t like having a digital cry, but, not even my boyfriend wants to hear about this stuff, so, I may as well put it out there on my blog and those who can be ceebs reading it may do so, and those who would rather spend their time on tumblr or something can skip right to the images.

Here I go…

Yesterday marked my youngest cousin’s second birthday. My auntie threw a birthday party for her in a pretty large park, not too far from my current place of residence. Regardless of what you may think, I do think of practicality when I get dressed… well, kind of. I wore these shoes because they’re probably the most stable compared to all the others. Plus, they look the most ‘casual’. My hair looked like total shit yesterday, oily, frizzy, usual non-curly, just kinky grossness. So, I opted to wear one of my wigs. I have to wear them sometime, right?

Sadly, yet unsurprisingly, this resulted in my dad having a mini spaz attack just before entering the party environment. The point of his freak out was to express how ‘paraxeni’ he thought I looked. Paraxeni is greek for, weird or strange. That’s partly the reason I don’t enjoy family gatherings to a certain extent. I’m pretty much the only person in my immediate extended family who is this way. You know with a, creative, imaginative, mainly… uncommon style. I’m the only one who doesn’t like house music, I’m the only one who likes fashion and other artistic related fields, I’m the only one who couldn’t care less about sport etc. Everyone else dresses pretty typically, which is fine, they can dress however they want. It just sucks because, my dad obviously thinks I look, ‘weird’ compared to them and has, numerous amount of times, told me how he wishes I was just like, a ‘normal’ girl.

I don’t think he realises how hurtful his comments are. I went through high school feeling like a total freak most of the time. I think it’s sad when, even your parents, are against who you are as a person. I mean, it’s fine when random strangers look at me weirdly, well… not really fine but you know, whatever, I can deal with it. It doesn’t feel so good when your own parents fail to support you though. It’s not like dressing this way is bad, I’m not harming anyone. It’s not self destructive, it’s just different, that’s it… different. Isn’t it sad that something that isn’t considered ‘normal’ can annoy people to such an extent? I get irritated when my dad tells me to be ‘normal’ As far as I’m concerned. I am quite ‘normal’. Despite a kind of, fucked up, upbringing, I finished school, went to Uni, graduated Uni, I’m going to get another qualification this year and then I’m going to look for a job, just like everyone else. I don’t see how dressing in an unfamiliar way renders me so different that I’m no longer considered ‘normal’. I think my dad has absolutely zero sense of style, and I find most of his outfits quite repulsive…

Haha, I can just imagine people from my family reading this and shaking their heads. But, you know, that’s my opinion, I don’t rub it in my dad’s face and make him feel like shit about it.

I guess it upsets me because, I looked up to my dad a lot when I was younger. He seemed smart and grounded, patient, kind and generous. I always felt quite rejected by my mother so I always hoped that my dad would accept me, and when he feels the need to tell me I look weird in a derogatory way, in front of other people, I feel rejected again.

I’ve tried really hard to please my parents. I used to cancel a lot of plans when I was younger. I had a tiny social life, and on the occasion that I’d get invited to a party here and there, I would often say no because I knew my parents were pretty strict and wouldn’t allow me to go out. I never tried or thought about getting a boyfriend, because I knew my dad wouldn’t allow it. I didn’t have my first kiss until I was almost nineteen! I didn’t rebel at all, like other teenagers. I basically did everything I was told, so the fact that I’m still not good enough, because I don’t dress like everybody else. Well, yeah, it pisses me off. I just feel like, no matter what I do, I’ll never be good enough, or accepted by my family. Sometimes, I feel like the only way I could ever satisfy them, is to become someone I’m not. Sigh, how depressing.

I wish they were less narrow minded. Does anyone else have this issue? I’m guessing I’m not the only one who has had arguments with their parents about the way they dress.

I think, when I’m older and I maybe, have a child of my own, I’m going to encourage her or him to be whoever they feel like they are, dress however they want to and pursuit whatever they’re passionate about. I think being different is a good thing, no one remembers those who simply follow the sheep.

I added these spike shaped studs to an extremely cheap bow tie I purchased via e-bay. It doesn’t look quite as omfg aye-maaaaaay-zing, as it did, pictured in my mind, buuuut, it looks alright.

Try to ignore my face, I was experimenting with different gif exclusive effects.

Oh before I’m off, I should address something. A few people with blogs on blogspot/blogger have been e-mailing me with complaints that they can’t leave comments on my blog. For some reason, blogspot often doesn’t seem to allow people to comment on wordpress blogs like mine. If you have a blog, use blogspot, want to comment but can’t seem to. Don’t type your URL in the URL box. Just leave your name and e-mail. If you would like me to visit your blog back, you may leave its URL at the end of your comment :) WordPress might see the comment as spam, but I always check my spam, and if I find it, I’ll simply approve it as a comment and check back. I hope you’re all having a nice weekend.

January 19th, 2012

HOW TO BE THE COOLEST GUY IN THE ROOM

Have you ever wondered how to be the most awesome person ever? Have you ever wished you exuded that cool, calm, demeanour, that makes your hipster idols so, like, perfect? NEVER FEAR, my friends, for I shall teach you the ways of the cool group.

1. TRIANGLES, I can not stress the importance of Triangles.

If you, like me, make graphics, put them everywhere. Especially on random backgrounds.

Put triangles, everywhere. Put them in your hair, wear t-shirts with them, draw them in your sketchbook, make triangle signs with your hands. Pray to triangles, breathe triangles, BECOME… a triangle.

Remember what I said about placing triangles on random backgrounds? That actually works with any symmetric geometric shape.

And there you go, your very own trendy as fuck image. Ten bonus points if you get it printed on a t-shirt and wear it to coffee and cigarettes (of course) with your friends.

2. Take webcam photos of yourself, trying to look as fucking sexy as you can.

Post images like these frequently but complain about how ugly you are and how girls like Angelina Jolie are soo perfect!! Lyk ohmahgawd, y cant i juz look like herr?!

3. Constantly discuss and bring up how you just don’t understand people and simply can’t even big to fathom the human race. Express how alienated and isolated you feel most of the time, when in reality, you have a booming social life, consisting of many drug fuelled parties and disco dancing.

4. Frequently complain about how disgustingly overweight you are, even though you’re an AUS/UK size 6/8 (US SIZE 2/4) in the presence of your larger friends.

5. Become a vegan (not because you give a shit about the animals, very important), give people shit for eating meat or dairy (vegetarians like me) yet still wear leather and real fur. Justify your actions by telling people your stuff is second hand. Despite the fact that you’re glamourising the products to anybody who sees you and doesn’t know where your items may have been purchased. Oh and smoke cigarettes despite the fact that most cigarette companies conduct horrible animal testing. Even better, roll your own (especially in front of others to show off your rolling skills), despite having the money to afford actual cigarettes.

6. Repeatedly use lame phrases like ‘Cool beans’, ‘oh poo’ (I hate that word), ‘so groovy’, you’ll be totally ironic and soo awesome!!!!

7. Create pretty imagery and post negative phrases on top. Like, “go fuck yourself” or “I want you to die :)

8. Act like total top shit, put other other people’s tastes down and prance around knowing that your musical tastes, grungy nonchalant style, and everything else about you is SOOO much better than anyone else’s ideas. Even though you enjoy Beyonce, Lil ‘Wayne and a few other mainstream artists (Even though you used to glare your friends off for listening to stuff like that 4 years ago), just cause it’s like ironic and cool now, ya know?

9. Transform into a total bitch if people question your taste at all in response to dissing theirs. In general, just be a complete dick to people who disagree with you in any way, because you obviously know everything. I mean, you’re pretty much god, k?

10. Of course, you should only hang out with people who agree with your highly pretentious and obnoxious views and only be seen with people who reflect the exact same fashion sense that you have. Being seen with a typical dude or someone who is too ‘over dressed’ could pretty much result in… SOCIAL SUICIDE!!!!

11. One of the, perhaps, most important parts of being the sickest bitch ever, is to be part of an almost incestuous group consisting of equal amount of boys and girls. Attempt to date every single person in your group.

11A. Your dream place to visit should be Berlin and your favourite music, folk rock. (Music too quick is SUPERR LAAME, EEEEEEW)

12. One must always give off a cool, suave, ‘I DON’T GIVE A FUCK’ vibe. Any public display of too much emotion could render one a peasant to the remainder of your awesome group of the awesomest people ever.

13. Believe that you’re so awesome that you’re basically above the rest of humanity and always display self destructive habits, because as one cool indie-vidual once told me “true artists are self destructive”* Ah yes, words of wisdom my friends.

P.S This was written with the intention of possibly being amusing to some people. Personally, I try to live by what the ancient greek sophists used to say, “I know one thing, and that is, that I know nothing” So true…

*Fuck you.

This work is licensed under GPL - 2009 | Powered by Wordpress using the theme aav1