This post is going to have a lot of ranting and a lot of wondering so if you are busy, can’t be bothered or just could not care less, I advise you to scroll down and find what you probably are here for the most, the images.

How should I start this? Ah, so much I’ve been wanting to get off my mind. This, really is a great substitute for a diary, I mean, I really can’t be bothered writing all my thoughts down, typing is so much faster and less messy. Hmm.. in 42 days I will be turning 21. Woah, I guess it’s a coincidence that 21 is half of 42, haha. Anyway, unlike most people I won’t be having a birthday party to mark this occasion. I actually have not had a birthday party since I turned ten or something. There are a few reasons. I’d feel kind of strange having a huge event all about myself. The other thing that was stopping me will be explained now.

Every other 21st party I have been to seems to have the host’s friends from high school, some have friends from as young as primary school, university, work, people they met through friends, or some other activity they have participated in. I don’t have any friends from high school now. No, not one. In fact, come to think of it, the only friend I have that I met outside of Uni is my boyfriend, and that doesn’t really count now, does it?

You see, I haven’t exactly had the best upbringing in which any social skills could flourish. I grew up in a very aggressive, often violent, abusive and just in general, greatly negative environment. I grew up in a suburb of Melbourne which I wouldn’t call poor but certainly not wealthy. In general, the sort of people who live here aren’t exactly the most intelligent group of the metropolitan area (not implying that I have some sort of amazing intellectual ability).

Now they’re not stupid. Someone… like say, my dad, didn’t go to University, he completed a trade but he is a fairly smart person. I can tell you now that his general knowledge and natural intelligence is much better than a lot of the people I have met at Uni. Anyway, back to where I grew up. Like I mentioned, I wouldn’t say it’s a ‘poor’ area, however, I have a feeling that a lot of ‘upper class’ people would consider it a ‘poor’ area.

Off on another topic here. The primary school I attended was only a few blocks away from my house, in the same suburb. It was a public school, and definitely not a great public school. Very average, very average. A school that ‘upper class’ people would dread sending their children too. Not that I can blame them. In this instance, if I could afford to, I would also choose a different option if I had children. The school I went to was full of children who really didn’t seem to have the same determination that I did to ‘do well’. From a young age my dad taught me that education was extremely important. It was my only way out of the mistakes that he had made, which in turn caused us (my immediate family) to be in this situation. So, you see, from the time I began primary school, even as a five year old, my goal was to go to University , a good University. I wanted to have a good education, I wanted to have something my parents and their parents couldn’t have.

At that point I didn’t really know I wanted to do but I made up my mind a few years later. I wanted to be a lawyer. I thought I was quite good at debating and arguing a point, I wanted to be those lawyers I saw on television who argued in Court and won cases for their clients. I wanted to help people find justice. During my entire life, from as far back as I can remember I have felt rejected from my mum, for very good reasons, which I won’t go into detail about here but trust me, I’m not just being some whiny attention seeker, the things I have experienced are horrible. My childhood was extremely chaotic and stressful. I was forced into adult problems at a very young age and I often felt like I had a higher level of maturity than a lot of my peers. While other people were talking about which boy they had a crush on I was thinking about the different cities that I could possibly reside in, in about 15 years.

At the beginning of primary school, I would say I was a pretty ‘cute’ kid so naturally I found myself part of the ‘popular’ group. Surrounded by other ‘cute’ girls and the ‘cutest’ guy in our grade level had a crush on me so many other girls were envious of course. Ha, although I was quite young at the time I still remember in about grade 3 or 4 a girl came to me and said, “Oh my god, Joey has a crush on you, every girl wishes they were you!” I remember thinking that was hilarious at the time. Like, it’s just some guy, who the hell cares?! School life seemed to be going ok, that was until grade 2 or 3 when I realised that the ‘popular’ girls were complete bitches. Yes people, it is possible for children to be bitches. I know it sounds harsh, but I’ve experienced it damn it. This group of popular girls believing that they were hot and high and mighty would often tease the ‘loser’ girls. I didn’t really like this part. I was dealing with verbally abusive behaviour every single day at home so I had developed an extreme dislike for any sort of conflict, teasing included. The ‘popular’ girls wanted me to tease a ‘chubby’ girl. I didn’t want to but they told me if I didn’t do it they would no longer be my friends so I reluctantly agreed. I remember the day I teased this girl because it made me feel like shit. After I’d called the girl fat or something, she started to cry and then I started to cry because I felt so bad for her and so guilty about what I had just done. After that, the popular girls decided I wasn’t good enough for them so they slowly began to reject me and the rest of primary school life was hell.

I remember on numerous occasions sitting at the back oval alone, eating my lunch and crying. I remember the ring leader of this popular group came up to me a few times annoying the hell out of me. I remember she came to me one lunch time, while I was crying and started to annoy me so I snapped and yelled at her to go away and said something like, “what else do you want? you’ve ruined my life!” Yes, it may seem like no big deal but at the time it was a big deal. I dreaded going home, I dreaded going to school. I just hated my life and I was only 9. The years went by and a few girls lower down on the social hierarchy decided to accept me. It was nice to not feel like a loner every single day but I wasn’t really happy. I virtually had nothing in common with these people, I was only with them by necessity, which doesn’t exactly create happy memories either.

Finally primary school came to an end and I was thrilled that I would no longer go to school every day dreading the people who enjoyed making my life worse than it already was. I wonder if they would do the same shit if they knew I was going home and dealing with a psychotic parent everyday. Now, as you can imagine, trying to focus on the academic side of school wasn’t easy. I was constantly sad, stressed out and eventually became numb. I subconsciously taught myself how to be in a constant state of calm by stopping myself from feeling everything.

Even my psychologist was amazed at how much I’ve dealt with and yet managed to do so much, she said the fact that I’ve been dealing with everything from such a young age meant that I learnt to adapt and deal with everything very early on. I guess it makes sense.

Back to where this story is headed, yes, I was glad that the hell of primary school was ending, yet at the same time I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the beginning of high school. By this point I had learnt how to block myself out from the world in order to cope to such an extent that I had become quite socially awkward. By the time I started high school, I generally despised the human race. It’s true, there weren’t many people who had given me a reason to have any faith in humanity. I thought people in general were mean, selfish, greedy, shallow as hell and extremely stupid. The thought of socialising actually made me feel sick.

That summer before high school began, unlike everyone else I had no friends so I spent the summer reading the newest edition atlas my grandparents had bought for me over and over again, teaching myself all these different geographical facts. I also read my ‘big book of knowledge’ quite a few times and my ‘how come?’ book which I had won in a science competition in grade 5. My ‘How come?’ book is awesome btw. It taught me a lot about astronomy and the basic thinking techniques of philosophy which I have always loved. I was a very curious child and questioned a lot of different things. I must have driven my dad insane.

So High School began and well, that totally fucking sucked. Once again, typical public school which is completely shit compared to a lot of the schools my Uni friends had the privilege of attending. To make things even worse, I happened to be in the worst class of my year level. My class was so bad that teachers would complain about us every week to the point where the year level co-ordinator would have a meeting with us every single week trying to figure out why the class was so, well, bad.

For the entire first year of high school I was a complete loner. There is no other way of putting it, I had no friends, not one and I was still dealing with all the shit at home. I would sit alone in all my classes, I would eat lunch alone and groups of girls would walk past and stare at me. Sometimes I felt so awkward and horrible sitting out in open space where people could see me, all alone that I spent quite a few lunch times sitting in the bathroom so people couldn’t stare at me, I was sick of feeling people judge me. I broke my ankle in year 7 too and the whole time I had crutches, not one person offered to help me while I was trying to carry all my books moving from class to class. I had to try and do it all alone. I was also the only person in my class who seemed to care about learning. I got straight A’s effortlessly and as people noticed, I got shit for that too. I was called a nerd, every single day. Over and over and over and over again, it was so fucking annoying. I would be trying to finish the Maths chapter while some girls behind me were talking about a guy one of them just lost their virginity to. People in my class would ask me stupid questions like, “Why don’t you have any friends?” or “Why are you such a nerd?!” Ugh, how I hated them all.

It’s during that year that I turned to the internet. Year 7 isn’t exactly that homework heavy and after I’d get home and cry (as I did everyday that year) I didn’t have much to do so I started spending the majority of my days on the computer. I didn’t have any friends but I made some online friends and they were so much nicer than anyone I had ever met in ‘real’ life but as some of you may know, online socialising doesn’t exactly help with socialising in reality. I taught myself html over many, many hours and I started to download different programs to practice making graphics. I had my first blog when I was 13, back when having a blog was weird and uncool. That’s how I got into graphic design, but back then it was just a hobby, I didn’t actually think it could be a job.

After an entire year, a few people finally started to realise that I wasn’t a complete freak and became friends with me. I think my cynicism won them over. I thought everything and everyone was lame which a few people found quite amusing. I was friends with these people until about year 11. After year 12, I became distant from them too. Even the friend I thought I was closest to drifted apart. It was obvious to me that she wanted to move on. We had different priorities. The one thing that was strikingly different from this tiny group of friends I had was that I was much more academically determined than they ever were. They thought most of the classes were a joke, while I was still trying my best. Eventually, I gave up though. By the time I got to year 10, I was so sick of being the class joke that I started to slack off. Which I regret. A lot. I wanted to be a lawyer, then I wanted to be a freaking NASA research scientist but that was never going to happen. Not with the life I had.

I mean, I know you don’t have to go to an amazing school to get into these professions but it wasn’t just my educational institute holding me back it was the people I was surrounded with every day, pressuring me to stop being such a ‘nerd’. It was home, driving me insane, slowly, every day, at times, making me wish I had the bravery to blow my brains out. At the end, I wasn’t strong enough. By the time I got to year 12, I had been dealing with a terrible life in many aspects for 17 years straight. There was no way I was going to get the marks to get into astronomy. I mean, throughout my life, while I was doing homework, the background noise was screaming and shouting and crying and just, general terror.

It was then, that I decided to do graphic design which one thing after another led me into the course that I will be finishing in 2 weeks. So, as you have probably figured out. I have made a few friends at Uni and now the only friends I do have are Uni friends. I took dance classes for 8 years and didn’t make any friends there either really. Most of those girls were freaking extroverted, girly girls who cared about boring typical clothes, boys and shit music. They were bitches. Despite thinking deep down that they were all lame, I was still nice to them but it was obvious they thought I was a freak because of my quiet nature and the way I dressed. In fact, on a dance trip, someone told me that he had heard the girls I dance with discussing the way I dress and why I was even in their class.

Sorry for going off the topic. Ah yes, All my friends are pretty much uni friends now and I don’t even have that many, so for that reason… I’d be too embarrassed to have a 21st. Who the hell would give a speech about me? No one has known me for long enough to do that. It kind of sucks because I wanted to have a punk themed 21st. You know, like original 70s and 80s punk. Ah, it would be awesome. Oh well.

I have just come to the conclusion that people (in general) and I are never going to be best friends. I just don’t feel like I can relate to anyone enough. Most of the time, I feel like an alien when I talk to people my age. Everyone (in general, I’m sorry for making so many generalisations) seems to be so into taking drugs, having (casual) sex, hooking up, going to night clubs, partying, going to events in order to socialise. It’s just socialising after socialising after socialising, like OMFG I HEART SOCIALISING~ Now, I’m not some perfect person. I have gone through the going to night clubs and hooking up phase, which I deeply regret. Ha, even the universe decided to send me a sign confirming that this shit isn’t for me.

When I was 18, I had a ‘Imma nightclub and hook up with random boyz’ phase for about 5 months. It was horrible, and I hate myself for it. I hate the fact that I acted so unlike myself in order to fit in. I was a loner in high school various times because I refused to be fake to fit in and there I was, at University, doing the stuff I hated. It’s not like I think hooking up with randoms is the worst thing someone can do. I mean, do what makes you happy but that stuff is just not me.

Later that year, I was at the peak of my clubbing phase and one weekend, I went out on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday and hooked up with 4 guys (just making out, I never let it go any further) the following Tuesday I was in hospital in the cardiac ward experiencing exactly what a person would experience during a heart attack and, I was 18. Some of you have probably already read about this so I won’t go on too long. Long story short, a virus attacked my heart, it was serious, it was dangerous, and I learnt that kissing those 4 guys probably played a major role. That was a wake up call and I decided those days were over. I hooked up with one more guy the next year in January and what do you know, I got a bad case of tonsillitis and after that I decided that it was definitely over, I haven’t ‘hooked up’ with anyone since.

That whole, meet dudes, hook up with them thing, didn’t work for me because I hate freaking small talk. I HATE IT. I hate the whole, “hi, how are you, how was your weekend?” shit. Hello! I DON’T CARE ABOUT HOW YOUR FREAKING WEEKEND WAS. I don’t want to hear about how great everyone is all the time because it’s always so freaking boring to me. Like, yeah, I saw my friend and blah blah blah and then I get asked and I just have to say it’s ‘fine’ because you know. People don’t want to know that on my weekend my mum punched my sister in the face or something dramatic and depressing like that. I hate small talk because it’s all so, light and bubbly and dandy. I hate it because small talk is the reason I feel like I have to be fake 24/7. I always have to be fine, I always have to be happy, despite the fact that I’m struggling to deal with various things all the time and listening to how great everyone else’s lives are does not make me feel better.

I would much rather talk to someone about something philosophical, or scientific, or politics, or ANYTHING, other than, “I went to this party on the weekend”. I’m so sick of hearing that shit, I listened to it for an entire year once and it’s always the same crap.

Well, I think that’s pretty much the end of that rant, but, there is something else I want to discuss. Remember I mentioned ‘upper class’ people and later I was typing about how I feel like I can’t relate to anyone my age that well. I felt like that would change at Uni but, no.

The university I go to is in an affluent area and a lot of the people I know are from affluent areas. A lot of them went to much better schools and they have just, in general, been a lot more privileged than I have. Now, how does anger get bought to any of this? Well. Let’s see here. Many of the people I know have had, way, way more of an opportunity to learn and exceed at life than I have yet they still remain ignorant as fuck in many ways.

For instance, someone I met in my first year of Uni came from an extremely wealthy family, went to an extremely good school and seemed to be quite well spoken. Well, turns out he hadn’t heard of a lot of basic areas in Melbourne most people such as say my, ‘lower class’ dad would know of. Someone else I met from another ‘upper class’ area, learnt where I grew up and live and asked me one of the most stupid questions I’ve ever heard in my life. It went like this:

Dude – “Omg, you’re from _____?”
Me – “yeah..”
Dude – “uuh, soo.. um, no, never mind.”
Me – “Whaat, just tell me!”
Dude – “Well, uh, have you ever been stabbed?”

0_____0

SIGH.

This person was serious. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?! Another thing I have noticed. So many people seem to just have information spoon fed into them by various people and sources. The ignorance that I have seen from some of these privately educated people about general information most people on the freaking planet should know, is ridiculous. If I, person who went to said ‘shitty’ school, know of these things then how can people who went to school that cost thousands of dollars a year, not know this stuff?!

Eh, at the end of the day. I think, I’m just sick of people and I wish I could give a lot of them a reality check and tell them to get out of their damn bubble and go and find out things for themselves damn it. I didn’t sit at my computer every single day for years reading and learning and teaching myself things so I could be sponged off by people with far more opportunity. I should be the one sucking information out of them.

< /end rant >

< ~ FASHION STUFF ~ >

I have not blogged for an ENTIRE week because I’ve been at home doing homework and not going out. I had a lot of work to catch up on, ok! This outfit I wore today is really nothing special. I had another job interview so I was trying to keep things as plain as possible. I don’t want to miss out on a job because the potential employer thinks I look too ‘out there’

That shoe you see is the Clinic by Jeffrey Campbell. If the toe was rounded, I’d be considering it. Still, it looks cool in red and I think it would also look mad in pink.

Holding one of the posters of a series I made for a project due tomorrow.

Wrapping paper for the posters.

Ha, ha… so much text, so little imagery. It won’t be the same next time. I just had a big rant coming.

< / ~FASHION STUFF >