New Year, New Start

Normally I’d look at lots of other blogs for inspiration and ideas into what new skills I can achieve for the first month of the New Year. A month seems short but in reality there aren’t many people who actually fulfil their New Year’s resolutions, and knowing me I’ll start something and within 2 weeks move onto something else… This leaves my original plan floating in suspended orbit around my head. One example of this would be my super random and weird videos that not only boring and long, but incredibly unorganised and messy. They make total sense to me, but a lot of other people do leave after 2 minutes thinking up ways to eradicate the trauma they’ve just let themselves into. I shall be trying to make my videos more ‘hip’ so audiences will benefit from a lively person rather than a boring old moo. [I have noticed the amount of zazz and good looks on Youtube, and since I am no sexy blonde or brunette so I shall have to rely on my va-va-voom].

I’m still new to blogging about other topics that inspire me, as I’m doing a little better than okay on my other blog and channel. I know what I want to do for this blog, but so far it’s been a test. It’s been working quite well, and I want to keep it up. I don’t have a schedule, but I would like to focus on a series of topics each month alongside my film music, fashion, food and book/comic reviews. So far, porn will find its way on my agenda as it’s something I don’t know much about and I would like to make up my own mind about it and what it presents to people. I also want to read up on various articles and write my response here, as the space they give for writing comments is still small and I have a lot to say (sometimes). Who knows? I just hope this will be Harlequin’s year.

For this year, well every year in general I have written up resolutions that I intend to keep. I make it a rule that I can add or take away suggestions at any time during January, with the knowledge that I can create a very realistic list. I don’t put things like ‘Climb Mt. Everest’ or state that I want to lose another stone, because those won’t work for me. I love Snickers, Chomp and white chocolate, other than that, I dislike chocolate. I put things like ‘Get a new tattoo’ or ‘Compile new recipes and try at least half of them.’ I enjoy writing lists, followings lists and organising lists. This year I shall share with you my top 5 resolutions which include one thing that may not happen for my arty and culture obsessed life. Another 5 will be located on my other blog here.

Top 5 Harlequin Resolutions

• Build up more of a repertoire! Only two of my videos has been successful as information videos, so I can work on this.
• Finish college, and prepare for my last year next year whilst applying for university for the 50^th time.
• Get my own place to live, and turn it into a creative pad.
• Own 10 pairs of Dr. Martens (I’m just over half way…)
• Dye my hair and reinvent my wardrobe for the summer!

I have many more listed in my journal. This year I need a complete renovation. I need to be more spunky, fun, crazy and wild!

What are your resolutions?

Sy Calaelen

My Victorian Correspondence Box

I have a thing for writing letters and receiving them too so I got myself a proper little box to store all of my letters. I love th eidea of keeping my stationary close to hand, and weirdly I have this morbid idea that when I die I want someone to find them in a pretty box covered in dust… there goes my Miss Havisham love again… Enjoy the pictures!

Top view

Frontal view

Top open view, pretty

 

Oh This Post is Funny [From VICE]

Though I really like this video and the free folks in it. I need to do some hippie shoots…. Time to feel the earth!

I find the people in this video to be liberating and very sexy. I like people who are more than comfortable outside of the sheep zone, they are creative and free!

click the image to read and watch the full post!

Burning man festival, expect me soon!

Thoughts? Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan from Vice

I’ve been watching a documentary on the kidnapped brides of Kyrgyzstan on Vice News and I am shaking with shock. Just like PETA videos and films can shock the inner core to the point of pure disgust, sickness or for some a weird kind of intrigue, this film is only one voice from this violent business. I was in shock watching the first few minutes, but as soon as it got to the end of the second video I couldn’t hold the tears back. Bride kidnapping is common in the far east of Europe too, as it was documented on Channel 4 a year or so ago. Lot’s of questions popped into my head, concerning myself thoughts with what these men think they are doing and what made them think it’s okay to treat another human being in that manner? Especially a woman? It’s brutal, and I wish I knew what I could do to stop it.

Watch the documentry for yourself, and let me know what you think. I personally love the way it was filmed, and how the ‘live’ kidnapping was presented, to show how nasty people can be.

Follow this link and watch what journalist, Thomas Morton for Vice, has to offer.

One bride being kidnapped

 

Related articles

• ‘Bridenapping’ – a growing hidden crime (independent.co.uk)
• Bride Kidnapping (wikipedia.org)
• Bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan (cnn.com)
• ‘Bridenapping’ won’t be stopped by mere words (San Franciso Chronicle – sfgate.com)
• Kyrgyzstan starts anti-bride kidnapping campaign (telegraph.co.uk)

Film Lover Reviews

So I’m starting a new mini project to jump start my film reviews and entertainment insider gossip. Hopefully I’ll review enough films for you folks to go out and get some new films or see up and coming films. I’ve posted a few film trailers of films i want to see or buy in previous posts, but I haven’t written a review of what I thought of them when I had watched them! I have a huge back log of films i have reviewed on my desktop which need to be published too, but I’m super behind and the films I’ve done are a year old or so. They shall be up and online soon!

Film reviews will have the titles, Glued, Film Review or Sy’s Movie Corner. I haven’t yet worked anything out, and any ideas will be greatly appreciated! I’ll also post links to various review content that i personally love or find so interesting, that I just had to share, beyond the means of Twitter or clogging up Facebook. Lots of support and idea’s my way please!!

My love of film goes very deep, but I will go into a another post a while about my history with film and my experiences studying for TV and Film, the funny comparison with Hitchcock and my birthday and the love of a brilliant actor over time. My reviews are old and shit, excuse my French, but check them out and comment anyway. I shall go now, enjoy previous posts below and watch the trailers of films I’m dying to see. I’ll also post up personal reviews from folks who are willing to have their thoughts shared, and links to other blog posts.

Films I Need to See!

And tomorrow’s showing of This is England ’88 (series 2) on Channel 4

Previous Posts

Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain!

Karl Urban is Judge Dredd: Oh Yeah!

 

 

Related articles

• Film Review: The Artist (filmophilia.com)
• Film Review: My Week With Marilyn (filmophilia.com)
• Film Review: The Help (filmophilia.com)
• The Three Musketeers – Film Review (firstchoice.co.uk)

My Latest Wardrobe Peek!

Watch the video… enjoy… and get shopping!!

I shall catch up with the various articles I’ve been writing whilst I haven’t had the internet, most on comics, movies I need/want to see, a hot crush and amazing people I’ve met via Twitter, travels and youtube. Be sure keep an eye out!

On top of that, I uploaded two videos on my Dr Martens collections with advice and tips a while back, and they are doing brilliantly! Check them out here and here, and share the love.

Kisses x

Click the picture!

Am I Beautiful?

Don’t answer that! Its a question you have to ask yourself. When you do, remember only you can validate that, and it may take a while before you believe it, I know from experience.

This will be a short post folks, but hopefully I’ll get my point across. Bare with me.

What do you see and feel when your standing still, watching other men and women on TV or around you on the High Street? Do you blend in or are you unique and quirky in your own way?

I’m quite a judgmental person to myself. I don’t like to be, but simply saying “I’ll get over it” is easier said than done. I feel that what I do and how I choose to live will be judged by other people in a negative way, and for some reason I feel great. Living a life that is different to other people makes me happy. I’m not a sheep so much, so I’ll do my best not to be late and be polite (if need be, though on the tube, get out of my way!) And I’m not a wolf, I like being unique so don’t follow me… I’m weird stuff! I see myself as a cat. I am pretty solitary, eat when I feel like it and play when the need arises. At the same time I like to be in company and share things (except for shoes, clothes, bags and make-up… So don’t ask). I like feeling like I’m wearing the right shoes to stomp the world in.

I am a giant, so no stores provide clothing for me. I have a beautiful hour glass frame with chocolate skin with the odd rose glow accompanied with bronze. I practice witchcraft, sport tattoos and love the look of my book shaped nose. But these aspects aren’t ‘normal’ to our sheep herd of a society and I want to make a point that I’m not part of it… So much. I take from it what I like and ignore what I don’t. What makes me proud and beautiful is knowing there is more to me than meets the eye, and I wonder what makes you beautiful.

Well?

Sy x x

Love Letters To Myself

Last night, and this morning I watched the film Beautiful Lie’s starring Audrey Tautou, Nathalie Baye and Sami Bouajila. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see, as romantic films are a new venture for me. I hoped that the story wouldn’t be yet another girl meets boy and she messes everything up in the middle, with a bittersweet ending with boy telling girl he loves her after she has apologised. Funny thing is though, this film is quite similar except with a slight character twist and the unpredictable events. It’s a beautiful film, and all fans of Amelie and Coco Before Chanel will love it (especially as the director of the latter film has directed this one). I love it, and highly recommend it.

In fact, after watching it I became inspired to sit and write a few love letters to myself, and I thought about how I could introduce this film to a friend who is an avid film lover like myself – that is the tricky situation I will try to work out… he hates romantic films!

Beautiful Lies (2011)

The idea of writing love letters to myself is something I’ve thought about doing, but I never really sat down and ever planned one or wrote one. I didn’t see the point of writing letters about love since I had no positive understanding of it, and now that I’ve experienced it briefly with a Belgian man it seems I still have a lot more to learn. Besides, I’m 23 – I feel I’ve missed out of valuable years of learning already and I’m not getting any more chances to try again.

What goes in a love letter? How do I start one? How do you make the other person quiver at the sight and sense of your words? These are the questions I’ve been asking myself and to be honest I’m stumped. I can’t say ‘I love you,’ or ‘You are my sunshine…’ as I’ll be writing to myself. I want to feel the words leave my mind and see them on the page. I want my heart to flutter every time I refer to it in the future… I want it to be so fleeting that if I forget, it will brighten up my day when I’m feeling lost, low or bored.

Daily affirmations have come into my head; maybe I can write an extended affirmation and post it to myself? Writing about myself, writing about my body, my mind and the things that make me happy, however I’ll have to limit myself as I don’t want it to be too revealing. The love letter in Beautiful Lies is, well, beautiful. Watching the reaction of the characters’ once they had read the letter themselves was enough for me to wonder what it would be like to receive one. I’ve never had one and I highly doubt I ever would as classic romanticism is hard to find unless you are rich, if you are then you can pay for it.

For the following 7 days, I’m going to test something. I’m going to write several letters of love to myself, and possibly add that little bit extra with letters of self-love back. Who knows what I could find out? This could be a very positive project.

Have any of you written love letters to yourselves? Or sent one anonymously?

Does Skinny Rule the Fashion World? [Chictopia blog]

I read this on Chictopia, where I have an account and love to chat with creative fashion types [such as myself *ahem*]… o_O

Anyway, what are your views? Read the article below and tell me what you think. For me, I’m not the skinniest or the prettiest woman in the world, but I don’t mind. I love who I am, and I’m able to admit that I did and still do in some way have an eating disorder. It’s not a major health issue, but I do hate parts of my body and I wish I could look like ‘her’ [whoever the ideal 'her' is], and so I won’t eat after certain times of the day, I just drink water if I’m hungry which is BAD! Don’t do it!

With the media constantly putting out photos of thin ‘role models’ but contrasting other headlines with a worrying stance, it can confuse the hell out of anyone. I sit and compare parts of my life, personality and ideal body with many celebrities on the web, in magazines and on TV, wishing and hoping that the song ‘You’re Nobody ’til somebody Loves You‘ is true. I now know, after a ton of research, self discovery and asking around, that this ‘thin’ ideal isn’t such a good idea. If you are naturally curvy, you’ve heard it before, Embrace Them! and If you are someone who is thinning themselves away just to be noticed, then I’ll have to recite what Gino D’acampo said on a lunch time show ‘Women are beautiful… but no man wants to make love to bones.’

But the whole debate on whether the fashion industry is to blame? Personally I don’t think so, I think it comes down to individual fashion houses – one fashion house in particular comes to mind when they were asked why they didn’t make clothes for bigger and black women, and they simply turned around and said they only made clothes for the beautiful. I don’t own or will never buy anything from that company for as long as I live. Dolce & Gabbana are one of my favourite design houses, as they make beautiful clothes for everyone, of any age and any shape and I love spending money on their items, as they make me feel beautiful.

So, read the article and tell me what you think::

[courtesy of Chictopia :: KAYTURE]

“Let’s have a look back at the fifties, when women such as Marilyn Monroe had the bodies that every girl wanted. Feminine curves with generous hips drew her silhouette. In fact, the iconic actress weighed around 60kg for 1m64 (over 130 pounds at under 5’4″)!

Well, now as we can see, the beauty factors have pretty much changed since Marilyn’s sultry and shapely days. Today, we are influenced by models seen on the designer’s haute couture runways or girls posing for popular fashion magazines, both of which tend to show thin and very tall, young models. Are we influenced by the constantly changing beauty criteria? If we browse the Internet it is easy to bust into the “thinspiration” trend on blogs, which show skinny bodies or even give readers advice on how to lose weight. And if you remember a few years ago, it was almost impossible to gain success online without having endless, thin legs. So the truth is that we are influenced by the mainstream concept of beauty, and not always in a good way.

Should we blame the fashion industry for showing us that type of body, for telling us how women should look like in order to be beautiful? It is of course easier to dress up a thin girl for a runway if she has a model standard body. However, we have all heard about anorexia in the modeling industry and this shouldn’t be the image that other girls want to follow without seriously thinking about it. Let’s also not forget that not every girl can have such a body- it is a matter of corpulence and metabolism.

It is possible to be thin by having a healthy lifestyle routine. Matching daily sport to a good and reasonable diet that avoids starving is the best way to take care of oneself. So even if fashion seems fascinating in the glossy pages of magazines, it is better not to put one’s life and mental health in danger with the ideas of beauty. Staying aware of what you eat and how you exercise while ignoring beauty standards is perhaps the best solution.

With my own personal experience in the modeling world of Switzerland, it is possible to do beauty shoots, walk on small runways or have a fashion blog without being very thin or very tall. The most important thing is to be confident about your body and feel good in it by having a healthy lifestyle. Of course, I’ve received some rude messages from anonymous people saying that I have fat legs, but it is important to ignore those types of people. As long as you feel good with who you are, you do not have to adapt to the fashion rules and fall victim to the ideas of the “perfect” body type.

The skinny type has never been the one for my body. When I took part in the Miss Switzerland 2011 competition I wanted to stay true to myself and to my fitness without being afraid of what people will think about me when they saw me on television. The thing is that I could never resist my favorite desserts, and didn’t even want to try. Those are little pleasure of life— why should we avoid them?

In conclusion, let’s hope that one day fashion will reveal to us, girls that aren’t afraid to enjoy food, that self confidence resulting in a healthy and athletic body will rule not only the blogosphere but also the way that women and men interpret beauty.

______________________________________________________________________

by Kristina Bazan”

DIY FAUX FUR STOLE [chictopia blog]

I loved this article so much, that I intend to do my own how-to, but without fur/faux-fur, for other items. Well, for now, click the image below to read the guidelines and enjoy!

click the image above

and more on the site =]

 

[courtesy of Chictopia :: SYLANDSAM]