MOM JEANS

Last week I bought these uh-may-zing jeans from a charity shop for only £3.99. It was FATE. That exact same day (or around that day anyway), my brother found this knitted jumper in some random pile of clothes in his room and was like, 'Is this yours?' It is now, yessss.

I felt so grunge in this get-up, especially with a huge woolly jumper on top which is just as well because nothing much, other than jeans and jumpers, suits this rain/sun/rain/sun weather. This weather will probably be the thing that I remember most about this entire year: The Revision Weather of 2012.

these are troubling times

hand-me-down jumper, thrifted skirt, new look belt, necklace from a school trip to Trewern

Transitional periods like this one, the one in-between the seven-year arc of secondary school to three years of university, are very awkward. Not in an endearing, 'awkward turtle' way, but a full blown 'shit-what-am-I-doing-with-my-life-and-my-time' kind of way. When I go through one too many awkward-scared-confusing-sad moments, I write it out in my diary. There's something profound about getting miserable thoughts and experiences down on something as tangible as paper. It turns abstract thoughts into a physicality and though they are no easier to handle, it gives me hope to flick through old pages (that I can't ever bring myself to read because it's so embarrassing) and think, 'I was cripplingly sad when I wrote that. I'm okay now'. 'Fear of the name only increases fear of the thing itself', and fear of my future is as irrational as it gets. After all, as Saphira said, 'Live in the present, remember the past, and fear not the future, for it doesn't exist and never shall. There is only now.' (Okay, no more fantasy-book name-dropping.)

Still, I do get nostalgic to think about the old times, before I needed to document things to remember them. I remember having deep conversations with my friends during so-called 'maths lessons' (so-called because we didn't even have a teacher for most of the year/s) about philosophy, religion, life/death. We'd stay up till silly-o-clock talking about the scientific impossibilities of a higher being, the way our lives somehow seemed to be pre-determined even in a stuffy classroom, how we thought everyone we knew would turn out, how we thought we would turn out. It was typical angsty-teen stuff but at the time it seemed like I lived for those conversations. Now the ones that I used to speak to are going through similar phases as me and I wonder if we're all dealing with our teen-to-adult growing pains in the same way. I guess I don't really know what that way is for me, let alone anyone else.

Today, I'm going to the theatre with my English class to see The Duchess of Malfi, hence my early blogging. And also, I'm trying to go into school a bit later because they've tightened their maintenance of dress-code and Doc M's aren't allowed. Does this make me a rebel, for being late, or a prude, for not wanting to get caught? I'm going to go with prude, because techically, I have no lessons till 2.

the beginning of an end

Hand-me-down Espirit jacket (it looks like my dad's chef jacket which I like), my mum's old picnic blanket shirt, £2 thrifted Topshop dress, eBay docs.

This week marks the start of the final term that I'll be spending in sixth form, and the final few months of living in London. When the realisation hit me on Sunday, I almost cried from relief and happiness even if it means the following months will be full of revision and coursework. Despite all the happy, comforting times that I've had and am going to have here, I'm really grateful to finally be leaving. When I was 12, we had an induction day for our secondary school and I remember that I was scanning the crowds for a friend before looking up at the ceiling of that huge hall and being struck by the enormity of the situation; my brother had just gone to start his course at Imperial university and the next time my parents would be preparing pans and cutlery for someone, it would be me.

In the meantime, I'm trying to get through each day with as much enthusiasm as I can muster but it seems to have already run out.. I'm aching to go to sleep but am desperately trying to practice my violin for a late night run-through of my exam pieces tomorrow. Not to mention countless coursework's and practical's to write up and maths papers to do and finance forms to fill out. Needless to say, it's going to be a tough 'un and this on again, off again weather isn't helping my slowly dampening mood at all; this picture was taken this Monday and ever since, it's been jeans and a coat everyday.

On the plus-side, my Easter went wonderfully! I turned 18 two Saturday's back and was surprised by all my friends for a meal in London at Chiquitos. Urgh, their bean burgers were SO GOOD and it was so ironic because that morning I was just reading about them. I've also been using Motorola V3 phones since I was 11 so it was a kind-of moving coming-of-age moment when my dad handed me his old HTC. Finally! I have a smartphone! I'm hoping it's like a beard-makes-you-wiser kind of a transformation. That would really come in handy right about now.

what it is to be a rookie feminist

The first time that I experienced feminism in the mind-blowing and life-changing way (the kind you usually get in people who are discovering religion) was when I read the Rookie article, 'Getting Over Girl Hate'. Up until then, I didn't know much more about Tavi other than the fact that she had a blog and she was really young. I would go on her blog and scroll through the archives without ever reading the accompanying notes or description; unless I wanted to know where something was from. After I'd read that article, and many of the ones that followed, I started questioning my misconceptions about girls friends, slut shaming and, in particular, my own self-esteem-  made more profound by my intense feelings of misery and not-matching-up in the face of being told by someone special that I was no longer good enough. By questioning, I started to doubt. By doubting, I began to realise that the social values that  I discovered my own self-worth.

Since that moment, I've pored over countless feminist articles and videos from Eve Ensler, to the spoken poetry of Katie Makkai, to the thought-provoking documentary Killing Us Softly, to the beautiful girl who spoke so perfectly about Slut Shaming (who I found after I rediscovered Tavi's actual writing), to quote after quote of Angela's wisdom. I posted outraged tweets about the double-standards of society and relationships, I had intense private conversations with my friends, I took out every book I could find about feminist history. By sharing these on social media, I sought to give girls the moment of discovery that I'd had that lifted me out of that blurry eyed, heavy chested state, out of the feelings of self-dissatisfaction and hate. While I never really got over them entirely (who can in this day and age?), I still feel that every step forward is one that everyone should take. 

Katie Makkai - Pretty

Killing Us Softly Part 1

Slut Shaming and Why It's Wrong

Angela Chase talking about self-esteem

Unfortunately, that enlightened and hopeful mindset only intensifies my initial feelings of despair and horror when I'm faced with intense homophobia, widespread slut shaming and casual misogynistic support for abuse and rape. Instinctively, I'm the kind of person who avoids arguing about most social principles - when conversation turns to religion and atheism in school, I quietly slide away because I know that in arguments like that, nobody's fundamental beliefs will actually be truly challenged. The only true exception that I make is for feminism. I step in and argue whenever someone makes an assumption about a girl based on her clothes/pictures, whenever someone claims that being gay is a choice, whenever someone offers their support to Chris Brown while also denying his need for repentance, whenever someone negates another person's right to feel sad or happy, in the same way as these kinds of pictures:

Feelings aren't relative to what you have, guys.

And so on and so on. But after months of these conversations and debates, one of which was sparked by my friend that then went on for a few hours in our school study room, I feel like I've made no progress in sparking  the same inspiration and self-satisfaction in somebody else. After every conversation, most of which end up in the same way as the religious ones that I'd avoided and the one in our study room that left both parties frustrated, I feel like I would kill to live in a more liberal town full of feminists and people openly proud of their sexuality. I feel like moving to that imaginary, accepting place made of candyfloss and gingerbread so much. Especially after becoming the school subject of widespread, rumour-fuelled slut shaming. I tell ya, it's incredibly hard to deal with Girl Hate when it's girls who are tweeting constant rubbish that; just like Angela said before, 'I just think people wanna believe things about people and so they decide certain things are true and they don't even ask, and it's not fair.. Cos you have to live with anyway'. 

But then I realise that when you know there is so much potential in people, if they could only see it themselves, isn't it more frustrating to be in a place that you can't make a difference? Sure, I'm in a pretty crappy town with some dodgy people. But isn't that all the more reason that I should actively fight to be heard? So I end up here. Between wanting to make a difference but feeling that it's pretty much impossible unless everyone else is already aware and happy with themselves and understanding of each other. Coming to terms with my own feminist views is easier the more I talk about and engage with them. It's much harder to come to terms with the fact that there are some insecurities in girls that will take more than just me to help.

I feature this outfit alongside this rant because it got me a lot of beeps and jeers from cars and even more backhand comments from people on the streets. But I don't care. And I don't feel ashamed for what I wear. Nobody should.