Paddlin' Pool

Arright, so memory # 1...

When I was a kid, we lived in an apartment building for quite awhile. It was nice and I liked living there.

We had a balcony and on it, my Mum had made a bit of a garden and we had what was really important: a little paddling pool. I think I was about 3 or so, and I had been making near daily use of the little pool.

Then I guess I took a couple days reprieve, because when I came back to it all of a sudden there were tadpoles. At least, I thought they were tadpoles. I thought it was pretty magic of me to summon baby frogs up out of the depths of a plastic puddle.

I quickly brought it to my Mum's attention.

My Mum didn't seem as enthusiastic about this minor miracle. I guess in hindsight, your kid paddling excited amongst mosquito spawn isn't a thought

most parents would relish. So, grossed out, my Mum tried to figure out how the heck to get rid of the mosquito water. She chose the mature route and dumped it over the side of the balcony.

At which point she became aware that the people on the ground floor had chosen that moment to start moving a sofa out through their balcony. The ground floor peeps rushed upstairs and started pounding on our door and, again, my Mum chose the level headed adult route and she locked the door, chained it, turned off all the lights and we hid in my room, listening to the threats and expletives through our door.

Good times.

Just to be clear...

I'm not an interesting person, okay? I'm actually pretty boring. I hope you didn't come here hoping for FABULOUS SUPER EXTRA ADVENTURES! AMANDA GRABS LIFE BY THE HORNS AND THROWS IT IN YOUR FACE!

Cos I can usually be found doodling, playing solitaire or reading.

Please like me.

School photos and crazy hair.

So, I have weird hair. It's kind of curly, wavy and straight all at once. It is NEVER orderly. At the very least, I always have wings of baby hairs sweeping away from the sides of my face.

I don't think I ever got a photo day picture at school that I didn't have to get retaken. On the morning of the day, my Mum would shampoo, wash and dress me with a kind of grim determination I picture they use on angry but smelly rottweilers at dog groomers.

She would dry my hair and shellac it to my head with mousse, hairspray, nails, planks of wood, whatever was handy. Then, handling me like a bomb about to go off she would toddle me off to school and, accompanied by The Look, tell me to PLEASE keep my hair neat.

I tried. I really really did. I even brought my own supplies; brush, comb, hairspray... just to pounce on any infringements of decor my happy hairs would try.

This is what my Mum dreamed of hanging on the wall:

Note the cherubic smile, the beautiful waving hair, the sane look to my eyes.

This is what she got instead:

Note the crazy eyes, the wild witch of the west hair do complete with twigs, rat's nest and the lovely stain on my shirt. Yes, I'm also drooling here.

I'm sorry Mum. It's my cross to bear now.

Wilkommen.

So I decided to make a public thingy cos I got lots of time on my hands and I've picked up drawing and photoing again.

These last few weeks, I've been doing a lot of reminiscing and remembering... it's really weird, I've dusted off a lot of really old and obscure memories of being a kid. I feel really grateful to have them back, actually. I thought I was going senile early, losing my memory.

I know mostly people want to know if I'm doing exciting things over here but for the most part it's been kind of like a retreat. Not working and not having familiar things and people around to distract me or take up my time has really forced me to pay attention to myself and it hasn't really been all that easy.

Sometimes this overwhelming sense of panic and dread bubbles up and I feel like I need to DO SOMETHING, ANYthing. I've found that not having a job to go to has really messed me up, and I never would have pinned myself as someone that needs to be kept busy. I'm usually pretty laid back and I'm able to float through time passively.

But I think I was and do put a lot of importance in the 9 - 5. (although, never had a 9 - 5 job...) And I think I was putting a lot of self worth into it as well. A huge part of that is, "What will people think?"

That's another big theme I've been picking out of a lot of areas in my life; the constant watching my step and looking over my shoulder, always wondering what people will think of each decision I make. Why does it matter so much to me? It always has, right back as far as I can remember. Those people who might be judging me have their own lives to live, mine was given to me so I could live it. It's that simple, but easier said than done.

Becoming a mid-twenties and making such a big change in my life has rocked the foundations of what and who I think I am and how I feel about it.

An important thing that this retreat has given me is the desire and joy I find in drawing, painting and being creative for my own sake.

I guess this is boring stuff, heh.

I've drawn up a picture of a couple childhood memories, I'll have to photograph them in for now because I don't have a printer/scanner yet.

13 November, or, I am 25 now

I'm over a week past my birthday, I've passed the 25 years old milestone. I don't know exactly what I expected. It was... underwhelming and a bit lonely. That's not to say it was bad or I hated it. I was just alone for most of the day, missing my friends and family, feeling homesick. S was away at a lecture and the hours were dragging by. But, he cheered me up when he came home brandishing a bouquet of roses.

First bouquet of flowers I've gotten from someone that wasn't my parents.

The rest of the evening passed by quietly and I was content. I just missed my family a lot but I didn't want to talk to them and get overwhelmed and cry, letting everyone know how much I'm struggling.

30 October, or, Fish Out of Water.

So. I've been living in the UK for over a month now. I guess nearly two. I think this is the beginning or the continuation of a quarter life crisis. I hope this means I make it to 100 years old, because I'm 25 in 5 days.

I have a degree it's possible I will never use. I don't have a job. I don't have any goals. I seem to be out of ambition.

If only I knew what it was I wanted to do, then I could go after it. I had it in my heart to go to the university of my dreams since I was 11 or 12, and I went out and did it. Now I have a piece of paper saying I'm qualified in... what, exactly. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts, I majored in Photography. See that? I upper-cased that Photography bit. It still seems to have a sense of mysticism around it.

It's too bad I've become disillusioned about it. Every person and their dog can own a camera and call themselves a photographer now. It was different when I was just starting out my degree, in 2004. (I graduated 7 years ago?! Ugh!) It still had a shroud of glamour about it. Now every hipster and every stay at home Mum seems to be offering their services as a baby/wedding/engagement/graduation/boudoir photographer for tiny amounts of money.

I suppose one could blame the rise of digital, disposable photography. I'm guilty too, I have my DSLR and I do love it. But it's changed the way we look at photography and therefore how I look at being a photographer.

The reason I'm doing all this self reflection, and it's in no way new, is due to my reaching and passing the goal of this University. Then this crushing feeling of, "Now what." Not that far off from feeling like free falling. Alice down the rabbit hole.

My next goal was to make my long distance relationship into a relationship. He lives in the UK, I lived in Canada. It was a huge time difference and it was becoming impossible. So I took the leap, I applied for a working holiday visa and now we are living together after pretty much 8 years of just visiting each other whenever we could.

But now, again, now what.

It's been 2 years at least since I did anything serious with my photography, even longer since I did anything art-wise. I want to change that. I just want to create things again while I navigate being a fish out of water in this new country (well, new to me). And here is where I start.