(Source: missjennaleencherie, via this-is-unique)
Mina Nada.: Comments at USU Board Meeting, June 01 2012
this, my dears, is the heart and soul of democracy. I didn’t intend for this blog to become political, but I am also physically incapable of watching this current USU furor and keeping silent.
Although I’ve just finished at usyd, I have enough close friends still enrolled in both the highly controversial new pro-life Lifechoices society just approved and in the various anti-Lifechoices societies springing up all over FB to be more than mildly appalled at the state of affairs.
Pro-life is not a popular stance, but the extent and the vitriol of the hostility directed at the Lifechoices society is not acceptable. The true tragedy is that on both sides of the fence are genuinely good people passionately defending civil rights - be it their conception of women’s or their conviction of infantile rights. Yet with differing definitions of the essentials, the suggestion of merging a pro-life and pro-choice to prevent a ‘narrow focus’ is ludicrous and may spark WWIII.
This is NOT, and should not be about your stance on abortion. That is entirely up to each and every one of you. This is about freedom of speech, and acceptance of different world views, cultures, philosophies and religions. You do not have to like Lifechoices. You can be appalled by them. But it is also the height of double standards to deny them the opportunity to exist because they ascribe to a philosophy you do not, *while they have not violated any USU regulation or any legal code*.
Naturally, I agree that running around telling women they are murderers is far from okay. But while accused of vilifying, all I’ve seen so far are very young, incredibly brave students being vilified for holding an unpopular position that is supported by multiple major religions and can be defended even from a secular stance.
I think we all need to take a step back, have a deep breath and perhaps a glass of wine and calm down, because the current hysteria, and the frankly terrifying attempts to change USU regulation to prevent any pro-life actions and activity on campus strike at the heart of democracy.
Universities are meant to be hubs of learning and culture, a time for exploration and growth. I’ve been an exec of a USU society and member of many. Part of my fury at this debacle comes from the fact I have people I love on all ends of the political and religious spectrum, now at each other’s throats. And that has been the most enriching part of my university experience - engaging with, and befriending, people with utterly divergent views to my own…
(Source: dailydoseofstuf)
Santorini, Greece
Ever since I read ‘my family and other animals’ I have always desperately wanted to visit Greece. I’ll shamefully admit that I have
a) watched sisterhood of the travelling pants and
b) seriously considered going to Greece with my two best friends to have similarly cliched adventures/have an unnecessarily complicated european romance.
Travelling doesn’t solve your problems. You don’t leave your baggage behind. But a broadened perspective, the clarity of distance and appreciation of what a vast, teeming, ancient world we have - cultural landscapes soaked in history and narrative, people who have real problems rather than first world quibbles and breathtakingly beautiful sights- make me profoundly grateful to live in a time, and be of an age and means where I can put my career on hold and go out to see them. The “Grand Tour” of Europe used to be the norm of the 18th/19th C aristocracy, the finishing touch to (male) education. modern gap years can range from charity work and spiritual exploration to drunken debauchery and sexploits through european countries, but the yearning to see for oneself what is out there - to walk roads so many have before, or stray off the beaten track and discover new paths - is tucked away in not every human heart, but in my type of one.
the world is amazing and most of it is just waiting to be found and loved.
(Source: Flickr / marcelgermain)
Chocolate nutmeg tart with hazelnut crust
Food - long before masterchef - has always been one of the great and uniting human passions. ‘Eat pray love’ and all that (massively overrated book and worse movie, but the basic concept still sums the meaning of my life anyway). I am aware of the existence of, and continually baffled by people who aren’t as
obsessiveenraptured by the ritual of eating as I am. I’ve always loved food and had a huge sweet tooth, but something happened halfway through university and I somehow became a foodie. Not a full fledged one as I’m a better critic than cook and am rubbish with wine and on a student budget, but I am also not alone! Along the way and purely by accident I’ve somehow acquired so many gorgeously foodie friends who bake and sear and glaze and roast their own coffee beans haunt the same eclectic cafes and hipster patisseries and will leave clubs in the cross to get midnight gelato from messina instead. I don’t know whether this is a quirk of our generation, who know the danger of smoking and have lost reverence for sex, but I really shouldn’t complain about my life as much as I do.
(Source: fiveandspice.wordpress.com, via this-is-unique)
Jessica Stam in Dior
“Fashion is art and history and culture and everything I love combined”.
It’s not a highbrow day if I’m referencing Gossip Girl, but it has always infuriated me that appreciation of the wearable aesthetic is written off as superficial. Yes it is possible to spend too much time and money on fashion. I do so often. But there’s an artistic expression in dressing that goes beyond blindly following the herd. It’s a crafting of a persona or illumination of one aspect of self, and that is magical and exciting and beautiful to behold.
Made in chelsea = guilty pleasure.
It is hands down the most appallingly bad television show I have ever seen and I am enjoying it immensely. Slightly concerned about my own sanity here as it is rather a sick sort of fascination and just how twisted, shallow and superficial human beings can be (the show is a semi-scripted british Gossip Girl with real socialites and far too many awkward pauses)… and also because I am encountering other closet fans everywhere I go who can ALSO talk for hours about minute subplots.
I don’t even have the excuse of too much time on my hands!
You have to give the man credit for confidence and forethought.
2 nights!
perhaps a thousand and ten things to do before then, and during then, but I cannot wait to jump on a big jet plane! I need a break from sydney and fresh perspective. it will be utterly chaotic, but I’ve never really minded chaos.
(via melouize)
reblogged via http://weheartit.com/entry/10143016
unashamed elegance is captivating. while snap judgments are not ideal, you can tell a great deal about a person from the way they dress and carry themselves.
Berets make me happy. This is actually an incredible achievement considering 13 years of unspeakable trauma we were forced to wear them at my school and I ‘forgot mine at home’ conveniently often. It’s been four years since graduation, and this is one, tiny symbol that encapsulates, at least for me, the glorious habit life has of wreaking dramatic internal changes you would never expect. things you swore you would never do, people you never thought you had anything in common with, life decisions and love decisions that are so far from your concrete childhood convictions - in a few short years, so much can be swept away and turned on it’s head.
So yes, it’s only beret. except that it isn’t, not really.
There is something fascinating about the past. Vintage is the natural habitat of any arts student, but there are little relics - hand written letters, pocket watches, lace gloves, that have this irresistible glamour that calls to me. They aren’t practical, barely functional, but I adore them.
