Peculiar Julia - Thought repository and wine-fuelled rambles, digital scrapbook and general shambles
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Looky here … a Beardsley design!

29 December, 2009

And Deliverance on Movie Greats. And rain and an un-hot night (although the fan is still blowing on an unclothed me sitting on my bed). Finally a moment. It feels like I haven’t had time to scratch, for the longest time (well, starting with the pre-Christmas doings anyway).

I’ve been starting to feel restless again. I haven’t written for a long time (not even here, but in my paper journal) and I’m starting to feel the lack. And the lack of meditation. The time for solitude and introspection has come around again, quite aptly at this time of year. I usually like to spend New Year’s Eve alone, looking back, writing in my journal, looking forward.

Again the theme of friendship, who really is, who really isn’t, what I mean to people and what they mean to me and the inequities. What it is they want from me. The way people use each other, bitch about each other and the games people play with each other. Why do we think we are so above the REST of the mammals on this earth? At least with the rest of the animal kingdom, what you see is what you get. Sometimes, quite often, I feel rather disheartened and despairing over the way people treat each other. I understand hermits, yes I do. I spend times wanting nothing much to do with human beings. It’s all too overwhelming. Again that need for learning where boundaries are needed, where to say “NO”, to walk away and save my energies for people who treat their personal relationships with utmost integrity … for REAL. Perhaps a time for silence, reassessment (yet again), and action, or lack of as the case may be. And soulmates … are there really such a thing? To me it seems some people use the term to describe nothing but people who enjoy much of the same things. A pithy excuse for a term, really. pah.

Christmas … man I’m glad THAT’S over. Too much of some people is not a good thing… people who are better off taken in small doses, not day after day. Now I have a bare month before I will be forced out of ‘recovery’ and into job searching. And in a month I go to Western Australia for a fortnight, at the request of my sister, to look after her daughter while they fly to New Zealand, where I might have been going otherwise, myself. A kind of a suicide-watch trip. I love my WA trips. They are spaces for me, spaces for different air, clean space, pure meditation and thinking space.I

My final grade for last semester was a D (that’s D for Distinction here). Not bad, considering I’ve been out of school SO long and it was my first subject, and considering the toll chemo and tamoxifen have/are still taking on my brain. I’m very, very happy with that. I’m all enrolled for next year’s subjects. English and Music. Semester starts while I’m in WA unfortunately, so along with my art supplies, I’m going to have to take textbooks too. I’m going to have to pack as few clothes as possible!

My book list for this year is out of control. I’m going to have to go through my bookcases and note down what I have ended up reading. At the moment, I am reading “Travels with a Donkey” by Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s a great little book, with some beautiful landscape sketches. This book was only his second, and a kind of little travelogue, like his first. Read the beautiful chapter “A Night Among the Pines” here. So enchanting.

I have no energy. I’m tired … I’ve been sleeping an average of three hours a night. I feel as if I have so much to say, here, albeit here may as well be to myself anyway, but I just don’t have the energy to think or say it. Perhaps, then, it’s best to say nothing, and perhaps even to the person I best like to discuss my favourite things with.

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Who IS this Julia?

27 November, 200913 July, 2016

It feels like a world away, since I last posted here. So much has happened. So much is still happening. And all of it good (touch wood). My world finally feels ‘true’. I’m self actualizing. I’m in constant wonder at this ‘new’ person who is me. This person who is creating and creating, and studying, and enjoying life after cancer. Who IS this? I have never felt so good.

I spent a lot of time in solitary confinement, studying my first unit in Film Studies. I’m very relieved to hear seasoned students who also did this unit say this was the hardest they had ever done, as my first assignment was returned with something that devastated me … a mark of 58%. A pass. It was a good lesson. A good kick up the bum. I wasn’t the only one to get bad marks either.

I got my final paper back yesterday. I was so nervous when I opened that envelope, but … I’ve been celebrating since! I got a high distinction on this one. Did NOT expect that. Hoped for a distinction, expected a credit. All that hard work and dreaming of plot holes in Mad Max was worth it! I feel on top of the world. I feel re-motivated. I know now I really can do this. However. When I went online to enrol in next year’s units, I found I could do music as a major for a BA. I didn’t know that. I thought you could only do a BMus, which I could never attempt as I never did grades, don’t have the performance skills, etc. So … my majors are now English and Music. I still intend doing film studies, but as a minor … as my elective subjects. I’m REALLY excited about this. I can’t wait to start studying music. I’ve made sure I’d not throwing myself in the deep end by contacting the head of the music dept and sussing out the situation. He said I should have no problems.

Since submitting that last paper, I’ve been spending time reading … fiction. Wonderful books. Good books. And drawing. Can’t stop drawing … I’m at it more often than not, now. Lots of pen and ink, watercolour pencils and even plain old coloured pencils. I bought a book on drawing with coloured pencils and have been having a ball doing the exercises in it. In addition to the usual spheres, eggs, pieces of fruit, here are some examples of the exercises (my work):

teapot

partial_face

 

These were done with Derwent Studio pencils. Not really the right pencils, and the paper is too rough in texture I think, as I’m using my art journal rather than a proper sketch book. I rewarded myself for my high distinction by buying a set of 132 Prismacolor pencils, half the price I would pay in Australia, from ebay in the US. Can’t WAIT for those to turn up!

I’ve also been drawing some things for Liam. First this, copied from an illustration in a Pamela Allen book (his favourite author):

done in pen and ink, and watercolour pencils
done in pen and ink, and watercolour pencils

And he requested a Bakugan when he saw a ‘how to draw a Bakugan’ thing in a magazine. It was very complicated drawing, and I can’t imagine anyone but an experienced drawer of high school age managing to do it:

This is a wip. I've just completed the pencil outline, next I go over it in pen and ink, and colour the thing in.
This is a wip. I’ve just completed the pencil outline, next I go over it in pen and ink, and colour the thing in.

So yeah, I’ve been busy 🙂 I’ve also been coming up with some ideas for some artworks, even a self portrait of sorts. I have Christmas cards I want to make by hand and have to get started on for my friends OS.

I’m creating, creating, creating, and in a way I wouldn’t have thought. I feel as if I have FINALLY come out the other side of those horrific, dark woods I’ve been in the last two years. And better than ever. I don’t remember ever feeling this good. And strangely, I have cancer to thank for that.

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SERIOUS fun for doodlers…

11 November, 200913 July, 2016

I had the BEST day today. No study. Paper is submitted. Semester is FINISHED. Why do people put themselves through that, I wonder, and how on EARTH do they manage a full time study load? I swear, if I don’t get a better mark this time, after studing obsessively day and night for weeks on end … to the point of DREAMING of problems with the Mad Max narrative … I’ll … don’t know what. Can’t think that far yet. Now I can read Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” just for fun. Ha!

I spent the day reading … a NOVEL … and drawing, or doodling. Check this out: zentangles.com. SERIOUS fun for doodlers. SERIOUS doodling. ***** drooling*****. Here’s an example (one I did today):

Extreme doodling!
Extreme doodling!

Best done with a good quality pigment liner, and shading with lead pencil. It looks so much better in my art journal, of course. Now I’m thinking it would look really good with watercolours on top. Looks like I have a brand new obsession.

There is no right or wrong with zentangling. There is no up or down. Doing one a day would be a great thing to get the creative juices ‘untangled’!

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It’s a wonderful life…

27 October, 200918 March, 2015

I. feel. so. damn. good.

I have thoroughly enjoyed these last few weeks with my housemate gone (as much as I love her). Until the last couple of days, at least (because it’s turned cold and rainy), I have been living outdoors most of the time, even whilst studying, meditating, whatever.

New favourite things:

my zafu - buckwheat-filled meditation cushion
my zafu – buckwheat-filled meditation cushion

 

tingshas - little Tibetan bells/cymbals
tingshas – little Tibetan bells/cymbals

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A kick up the bum

20 October, 2009

So, I got the results on my first assignment back on Friday. I only just scraped through by the skin of my teeth. A pass at 58%. Mortified. Appalled. Tears and massive self doubt ensued. Of course I catastrophised it all and was sure I would never be good for anything, ever again. When I saw where I went wrong I could have kicked myself to death. But after a weekend (totally alone) of reflection, silence and meditation, all is cool.

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I wish I never…

11 October, 2009

but wishing is a useless thing, something children do.

Did you ever see a photo that was so beautiful it made you feel sad and feel sick to the stomach? I did today. And I want to cry.

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So this is bliss…

9 October, 2009
MY piano!
MY piano!

Yep, there she is. She came at midday today (and it is needless to say I played all afternoon). It’s in dire need of a good clean and polish, and we’re going to reupholster the seat. It’s also in dire need of a good tuning (booked for Monday afternoon). It’s stuck in the front hallway (half in half out) because there is nowhere else in this tiny little house to put it. But there’s light there, there’s room enough. And people can use the back door LOL!! I have my priorities right *grin*.

She’s old. Don’t know how old. Iron frame. Don’t know what wood it is made out of … walnut perhaps? The hammers and felts and strings inside look immaculate (and OH IT HAS THAT SMELL I FORGOT ABOUT … THAT PIANO SMELL. The smell of music.) And it has some nice carving on it.

I am rusty. SO rusty, and have lost the touch, the delicate touch. But with lots of practice and Hanon exercises I think I can get some of it back. But it’s about purely enjoying it while I’m playing it, isn’t it? And I’ve been playing the guitar a lot lately too. Happy happy happy.

30 years I’ve waited for this.

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Courage

5 October, 2009

 

“It isn’t for the moment that you are struck that you need courage, but for the long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security.” — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” — Emerson

“Friend, it’s time to make an effort,
So you become a grown human being,
And go out picking jewels
Of feeling for others.”

 Two steps forward, one step back.

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Slavering…

30 September, 2009

Yes, drool, slavering, utterly enchanted … with my new arrival from Amazon today: “The New Annotated Dracula”. It’s hardcover. It’s BIG. It’s cover is black red and silver (and the red is sticky, like blood!). It is VERY annotated! I think there is probably a bigger word count for the annotations than for the novel itself! Chock to the brim with information on the novel, the Victorian era and historical oddities, such as the science of blood transfusion, illustrations and images galore … it’s a treasure. I’m going to shelve the novels I was reading and get stuck into this instead. And all for the price of $25 USD. In Australia, a book like this would be well upwards of $60. OOO and it smells deliciously booky, unlike most new books. Good paper stock.

WATCH RICHARD III!! That is, the 1995 version with Ian McKellen (he also wrote the screenplay). PHENOMENAL. All round. McKellen set Richard III in a pre-war (30’s that is), facist Britain . McKellen’s Richard of Gloucester is suitably twisted, physically and psychologically, quite mad, creepy, yet you sympathise with him.

I’m having bad dreams about failing my first uni assignment. I spoke to my counsellor about it at my monthly session on Monday, and she reminded me … “have you actually failed at anything before?” No. Never. And I came top of my class for the welfare class. But never before have I had to deal with chemobrain before either. How long will this last? I always feel slightly spacey, dizzy even, and my brain seems unable to grasp hold of anything definitively.

I’m very much in a place of peace despite my unruly intellectual vicissitudes. I’m reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Meditating. Sleeping. The weather is beautiful this time of year, though this morning I noticed it looked like the dust was back over my ‘old town’ when I went in there, but it was purely bushfire smoke.

I did something yesterday I never do … gardening. It was such a beautiful day. I tackled the little shady garden underneath my bedroom window. Big elephant ears, azaleas, bromeliads, a lovely ground cover (which I need to transplant more of) … a pity the azaleas flowers are just on the turn. There are gardens all over the placehere, so I am going to have to weed continuously it would seem, as my housemate, while she has lots of plans to get in the garden, does nothing! The froggies are happy with my efforts … a little fella in my patch hasn’t shut up since! Some pics of my bedroom garden:

Garden beneath my bedroom window. Looking bare without the weeds! (err, after weeding and before sweeping hence dirty path)
Garden beneath my bedroom window. Looking bare without the weeds! (err, after weeding and before sweeping hence dirty path)
the view from inside my bedroom through the wooden venetians
the view from inside my bedroom through the wooden venetians

And, because these were on my memory card anyway:

Through one of my kitchen windows ... a rainbow lorikeet
Through one of my kitchen windows ... a rainbow lorikeet

 

fuzzy close up of rainbow lorikeet
fuzzy close up of rainbow lorikeet

 

And because I’m really in a sharing mood about my world today, check this out. The song of the male whip bird, which we have down in the little bit of bush behind our backyard. The liquid sound of the whip bird always reminds me of rainforests. (The image is crap, but the sound is clear.)

 

But wait, THERE’S MORE! Photos from my Gloucester camping trip the previous weekend over at my photo galleries.

Hope you’re all enjoying your world as much as I’m enjoying mine.

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I say goodbye, and you say hello…

26 September, 2009

 

“To live content with small means, to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion, to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich, to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly, to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with an open heart, to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never, in a word to let the Spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common, this is to be my symphony.” ~ William Ellery Channing

It’s the bearing all cheerfully, and not hurrying, that I have problems with. Working on them though 🙂 Nicked from Rena.

I wrote a long post here earlier, and lost the lost *sigh*

In the early hours of yesterday morning, I wrote and sent a goodbye letter/email to Mr Music. I know every single one of you who knows me and is reading this will be cheering. I’m not. I just feel sad. SO. SO. SO. Sad. But quiet, and still, and very, very calm.

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