Some Pictures and Some Thoughts

Phew! I am having the busiest time of my life right now. I'll be leaving universtity soon, and so begins the desperate search for jobs, the praying that an agent will take me on, and the mighty mighty business plan.

So I haven't found much time for blogging, to be honest! But here I am with a precious spare hour, and I thought I would share some pictures and thoughts with you.

Some of my photos are lazy and rubbish, some are kinda artistic and cool. But the important thing is that I am taking them! Here are some of my favourites from the last week and a half.

I went for a few morning walks and this is one picture that makes me feel really happy! This place is right by my house in York, I used to go running there all the time. And striding across it early morning filled me with all sorts of positivity, especially as it was such a beautiful day! This pictures stirs up that hearty feeling I had that morning. Early morning walks are good. I may even make a challenge out of them.

Here is another photo of the same place, but on a very different morning! Beautiful, but in a different way. I really love this picture, I think it's one of my best. There's a wee artist in here somewhere! All of my best photos for this have been taken outside, and to be honest it's made me quite appreciative of the beauty of the world around us - I'm glad this challenge has made me go looking for it.


Another good example of that would be this tree! This photo doesn't quite do it justice, but trust me guys, this is an effing great tree. Gorgeously silver. I had been staying in a rented house with my boyfriend and his family for his sister's wedding, and this tree was just outside. I didn't even notice it until the last day. A friend of the family was helping unload left over wedding stuff from the car, and he stopped to have a good look, which of course made me have a good look. And we both marveled at how eerily beautiful this tree was! So I took a photo. I love how photos serve both as a record of your experience but also something on its own. In many ways this photo can't come near the original view, but in many ways it is more beautiful too. I think the camera has brightened the blue somewhat, making a really pretty photo that I wasn't quite expecting. So I have the image vs my memory - both slightly unreliable reflections of a nice moment experienced, which is now gone.

And here is a photo that I wanted to show you more for the content rather than the artistry - I bought a brilliant new suitcase for me to fit my life into! As a self employed actor I need to be travelling light - and so I invested in an uber case that I could realistically go on tour with. I was such a nerd when I got home, I couldn't wait to pack it, so I put all my stuff from the big holdall I had brought home for the holidays into it. And I packed it all fancy so that it would look nice. And there's still loads of room! This perhaps wasn't the most productive use of my time - but I am the queen of active procrastination. And at least I'm mostly ready now for going back to Birmingham on Sat. While I was packing it, I was imagining all the jobs I might do in the future where I will be living out of this bag - and I got super excited. Sometimes it's really nice to do something like that, something that excites you about the future. This week has been a good week for things like that.

And now, let me tell you a bit about the diary writing part of this challenge! I have a lovely story for you.

So I was originally doing the diary writing on my PC - because I wanted to use the pictures. And I actually started to enjoy it! Long gone are my teenage years when I would use a diary to moan and lament about how dreadful my life was. This is different now, it's simply a record of my activities, my feelings on the day, and my plans for the next. It feels like a really nice way to wrap up the end of the day, just getting some thoughts down onto a page, and I go to sleep thinking of my plans and hopes for the next day, and also the future. It's been a good thing for me to do at this point in my life, when the future is very much now! However, it's not great doing it on a computer, as staring at a screen and typing is not an ideal bed time activity. So I decided to go classic and use a notepad.

I have loads of notebooks on my shelves many with barely anything written in them, so I dug out a beautiful one my friend gave me for my eighteenth birthday. I took it to LIPA when I did my foundation course, and used it to write down funny quotes my housemates said. So the first ten pages are full of quotes, but the rest is blank. Reading the quotes that I had almost forgotten, I was filled with that gorgeous nostalgic feeling you get when looking at old photos. What was even better was that I hadn't written down who said what, so many of the quotes I can't remember, and can't even picture who said them! But still, because I wrote them down they are here nonetheless, making me laugh and remember the awesome times I had.

My favourite was this: "If you draw on an X instead of writing it, well then that, my friend, is a kiss - unless it's drawn on a map, because then it's probably important."

I don't know who said that - but it's wonderful.

This was a bit of a serendipitous moment for me, because its showing me the value of writing things down, so that you still have the memories years later. (even if they are only gentle reminders!) When I started this challenge I said I was fairly cynical on the effects of using a diary - but now that cynicism is gone. Now that I feel I am in a good place to actually keep one, a positive place where I can use the diary to keep me moving forward, I think it's a really great thing. And now I have seen how wonderful it is to be able to read these recorded moments again.

And I find that when I am writing, ideas begin to spill out of me. It's like the writing of my thoughts helps to slow them down and organise them, and suddenly I have a steady stream of new ideas, simply because I am writing. And of course, those ideas can go straight down onto paper too. I actually think keeping a diary could help me to become a better writer. Now there's a thought.

So yes, wonderful thoughts on this challenge, which I wasn't actually expecting. I felt like I had kind of wussed out this month because I needed something easy, but it's turned out to be perfect!

One last thing - I'm adding a mini challenge. Next month is my last month and I have a special mega challenge all planned out, but I came up with this the other day and thought it was great so I'm throwing it in - a fifteen day challenge! To keep me going through this busy time and to help fight off laziness and procrastination: I must complete at least one thing on my 'to do' list every day. Yesterday it was making a CV, today it was applying for some jobs (and I've ticked this blog off too!) - a productive few weeks ahead.

Thanks for reading, much love to you all.

xx