Today is my staff Christmas party. I am quite nervous about this as I am not good with free wine (for example, breaking my arm at my first fashion show featuring bad clothes and free wine…) and I may get very drunk and embarass myself in front of my new co-workers. That said, I am planning on getting quite drunk and having an epic day/night of partying and friendship.

Apart from that, I am feeling very uninspired. I got out some DVDs last night to try and get myself feeling fantastic. I watched 3 episodes of Big Love last night which I watched too late in the night but couldn’t turn off so I went to bed at midnight. One problem with being in this silly sunny country is all the blogs I usually read and think hey I can wear that! are all in winter time right now! I can’t wear jeans let alone coats and sweaters

Anyway, we are secret santa-ing any second now. I was an awesome secret santa and got my girl Chinesse tea flowers. When will I quit being so amazing?

Last night I went to see a documentary about the amazing Patti Smith. Now I thought this was going to be as amazing as she is, and in some ways it was, but I had so much to say afterwards, hence the ramble to come.

So some background behind this film, it was made by Steven Sebring who is a fashion photographer and he spent 11 years filming Patti Smith for the film. Now I find that films made by photographers or artists, people who are generally more visual artists, the films come out absolutely beautiful (for example, my favourite film this year Hunger). And this film was beautiful, some of the sequences looked like they could be put in a modern art museum as video art.  However it seemed like the real point to the film was lost in the concentration of beautiful shots. It just seemed to go from one thing to the next with no explanation and no coherent thread. I kind of assumed that he wanted to give a “snapshot” impression of her but it was too all over the place. I felt like a lot of it would have been the director going “Hey so I have this great idea, do this crazy stuff and talk about your childhood at the same time and it will be awesome!” and sometimes it was but sometimes it just came out a little pretentious. There was a lot of talk of poets and artists and all that which I found a little alienating. Its like when someone really intellectual talks to you and you obviously have never read or heard of anything they’re talking about but they still talk about it.  But it did make me want to read more, and read more challenging material.

Anyway, I still really liked it and it made me like Patti Smith even more. I would really like to be friends with her, she seems to radiate something that makes everyone around her feel comfortable. I am not a massive Patti Smith fan but I was constantly intrigued by hre throughout the whole film. So despite my problems with some of the technical choices, I don’t think you could go wrong with a subject like that.

This girl has a real nice apartment too. I’m going to book it for Saturday I think , I will let the internet world know how it goes!

So my weekend just passed as a crazy rush! I moved most of my stuff to my new house on Saturday, tried to construct IKEA furniture before rushing off to work. I had to sit through a million hours of the most boring choir performance ever and was late for the party I planned on going to. Luckily, it didn’t matter when I turned up because we made the party go on until 5:30am. This night included 4 bottles of cider in half an hour, breaking into an apartment block to go swimming, lots of men and trying to pick a band name for some friends. It was awesome though and I got to hang out with friends who live on my street! We hit the beach at 11 the next day for a dirtbag Sunday but I left after a couple of hours to go home and conquer IKEA before running off to work AGAIN! It was crazy…

Last night I went to my friends exhibition at a pub in Fremantle. It was such an enjoyable night, the art was great, the company was great and the pub is built around one of the best breweries in Australia so the beer was great too! Here’s a little taste of what was there.

The one on the right is my friend Sean’s, that guy was knife fighting with someone else, it was awesome!

I am now counting down the days till I get a week and a half off for Christmas. I will be spending every day at the beach and probably calling Canada every day to tell them about it!

A few things are making my life a-ok today…

Firstly, the rain has stopped and summer looks like its on its way! Beach clud on Sunday is looking forward to a 32degree day

Secondly, I purchased some amazing furniture and housewares at IKEA last night and I am still excited about them.

Thirdly, before going to IKEA, I ran past a few stores and picked up some awesome and cheap sandals! I am so in love, I am wearing one pair today and I keep looking down at my feet and falling in love all over again.

Fourthly, I woke up today thinking a) this is the last morning I have to wake up this early, b) this is the last morning I have to avoid conversation with my mum over breakfast because I am not a morning person, c) this is the last morning I have to run up two flights up stairs in a towel because my bathroom is on the ground floor and d) this is the last morning I have to sit in traffic when my commute to work should only take 10 minutes. OH YEAH! I feel like I’m starting a whole new life tomorrow!!!

Fifthly, today is Friday so the weekend is tomorrow. I have great hang outs planned and all will be done from the comfort of my new house.

And lastly, Lastfm is being amazing to me today and introducing me to new music and making my work day fly by. Thank you world, for making everything ok today.

PS. I am desperate love with this lamp but when we spotted it at Urban Depot on Wednesday, Jessica declared it first, I can’t cut in on that.

And this rug…

And this mirror…

Ok I think thats it… Unless I post up the entire IKEA catalogue and the different style/colour stories I like, which I’m not doing so don’t worry.

Apart from that my day has been an emotional rollercoaster. I almost cried a million times at work and then got extremely excited/inspired by tiny things on the internet. I have been listening to a mix of Cut Off Your  Hands, First Aid Kit and Passion Pit and it has been amazing. I’m also in love with the Miss Dior Cherie campaign that Sofia Coppola shot recently…

Oh too good.

I am so excited for this weekend. I am moving on Saturday, then working, then I have double booked myself with a house warming at one of the most attractive males in Perth’s house and friends bands and party animals at The Rosemount. Luckily, these two events form a golden triangle with my new house so commuting from one to the other will be a breeze on foot! Oh the pleasures of moving North!

So last night I watched The Black Balloon. This came out while I was in Canada so I never had the chance to see it and since I’ve been back there has been a lot of hype around it due to the AFI Awards over the weekend. Australia seems to have this fascination with suburban family life (maybe its not just Australia…) which is not a bad thing but it seems like the films set in the suburbs, storylines built around the battlin’ Aussie family, always seem to do really well (for example, at said recent AFI awards, The Castle was voted best Australian film of all time). I guess this is because people generally like things they know… That all said, this film was super good and I totally understand why there was so much hype! The story was great, really something different, and it showed a different side to a family living with an autistic child. It was very intense and confronting at some points, the performances were amazing at these times. The only performance I didn’t really enjoy was Gemma Ward’s, I know why she’s a model now and not an actress… But the relationship between her and Thomas really well done and exactly what you would expect from a teen romance. I would have liked to have seen more of a character development from the father because there was something going on there but it was never fully explained. But no, it was super good and I really enjoyed it.

In other news, I have a super fun week planned full of Ikea and friendship. I am also so excited about summer (even though the weather has been shitting the last couple of days…)! We have started up a regular Beach Club on Sundays that we will hopefully keep up for a while. I’m moving out this Saturday which is exciting and scary at the same time. It will be great to live so close to my friends and hopefully I will make some new friends due to proximity. Yeah! Thats my life right now.

Hunger – Seriously one of the best films I have ever seen ever. I talked about this to anyone who would listen for a weeks afterwards and I still sometimes think about. It is work of art and if I was a film maker, I would aspire to make something as beautiful, confronting and intense as that film.

The Visitor – This is such a great simple story. There is limited characters, limited dialogue, but it says so much about people and the world we live in. I saw this on the plane from London to Singapore and I seriously cried at one point (and I was sitting next a super cute boy, no wonder he never spoke to me!!). It was so moving and you really fell in love with the characters. I love most films set in New York and I felt like this film showed some of the best parts of the city.

Towelhead – Because it was funny when it wasn’t meant to be. This film was so heavy with all the political issues and paedophilia but I thought it was all done so well and not as disturbing as some would think…

Man On Wire – I’m so glad this got released in Australia because I loved this film so much when I saw it at Hot Docs. I don’t know how the director did it but I was on the edge of my seat the entire film, I was constantly wondering if this guy was going to make it (of course he does because they interview him a lot in the film…).

The Dark Knight – I don’t care that its all Hollywood superhero crap, it is still a good movie, Heath Ledger was really great in it and Christian Bale is always nice to look at. Plus Batman is totally the coolest superhero ever.

The Wackness – I really really enjoyed this film. I still want a summer romance just because of this film.

Burn After Reading – Sometimes particular directors/writers just can’t go wrong. That seems to be what the Coen Brothers are like. They’re lucky they have such good friends as well, Brad Pitt was so many levels of awesome in this.

The Counterfeiters – Because I love films about Nazis and World War II. Don’t ask me why, but I love them. I haven’t seen a bad one. And they pretty much make me cry everytime. This one is totally amazing. 

Be Kind Rewind – I love Michel Gondry. He is a genius. Has this guy ever made a bad film?? Um no. And I love Mos Def. Because I’m super white…

Tropic Thunder – I laughed so much during this film and then talked about it alot whilst drunk. I will always have fond memories of seeing this film with all my friends in Canada. Plus I love Jay Baruchel a whole lot…

Yeah! Awesome! There were a few that just missed out (like the movie I saw a few days ago…) and a few that I left out because I can’t remember if I saw them in 2008 or 2007… But still, pretty good year for film.

So the Film Festival finally started (for me at least) last night! As an usher, I got to watch all of the film, which was Young @ Heart. So I have wanted to see this film for like 9 months? Its been a long time… But it was worth the wait! It really did make me laugh AND cry!! I thought the director did a really great job of making the audience fall in love with all of the characters really quickly, which made it heartbreaking when some of them passed. I think everyone could see one of their grandparents in that choir which made the whole thing really relatable. And it was all so inspiring! I think there are alot of people aroung my age or younger who would say that they never want to get that old, they would be happy to die when they’re like 50 (I have definitely said this at least once in my life…). This film made me want to live until I’m at least 80. Some of these people seem to have experienced some of their greatest moments in life when they were over the age of 60, it really made me want to live forever. And it motivated me to do more with my life! If they’re doing amazing things with all their health problems and I’m doing not much with NO problems, I should really start doing something. I really liked the attitude some of the characters had, you can see that they’ve been around for a long time and they have a great no-nonsense attitude, they don’t care about what anyone thinks and they just say and do whatever they like, I wish I could adopt that attitude at my young age of 24 but I think its going to take another 50 years…

Enough film rambling, I have done not much at work today and it has been great. I’m almost done for the day and then I’m back to Somerville at 5:30 for a door shift. I should eat somewhere in there too. Today has been full of myspace mixtapes made by me, I have been trying to discover new bands, I feel like my music tastes have been very stagnant lately, its getting a little tedious… Its been full of etsy.com as well. I think I’m going to buy this!

Cute huh!

I’ve also been cruising the IKEA website because I am moving out of home in a week! Exciting times! I’m moving into an area with so many potential awesome hangout opportunities, its going to be amazing! Summer of friendship!!