I'm a clothes dork.

Hi. I started up a fashion blog because I keep buying new cute clothes and I need to be a dork about it and that stuff doesn't quite fit into this blog.

rhiifashion.blogspot.co.uk

A Musical Adventure (how to organise a gig)

A music documentary about Adventure, a Christmas gig organised by 16 year old Dan Simpson in 2013. Dan talks about This Venture, an unconventional music group, the process of organising a gig and the challenges such a eccentric group face in this endeavour.

South Suffolk and Essex Trip

Soo when my dad took a wrong turn to get back to my grandparent's home in Harwich from Colchester Tuesday evening, we spent an hour driving the country roads. I demanded we take those roads again Wednesday with a camera in my hands. We proceeded to take a 5 hour road trip across the border to Suffolk and back, seeing Manningtree, Pin Mill, Shotley, Mistley, Wrabness, and some other little places along the way.

(more photos)

Returning.

Long time since I wrote, eh? It's been a weird couple of months so far this year. Losing people and finding new ones and having things with existing people get shaken up and some dealing with it well, others less so.

6 things I missed about my kitchen

In a kind of sequel to 6 things I missed about my bed, I am writing this list of things I missed about my kitchen. I went to visit my grandparents in Essex over new year and they don't have a normal gas or electric cooker or oven. They have an AGA. For those of you who have never had to deal with one of these things, it's like a massive hunk of whatever AGAs are made of (I think iron?) and it is always on. It' can be like having a fireplace in your kitchen but a metal block you put food in. But I have no idea how to do anything with it apart from make toast on the hob on the top. There are a few other mysteries about my grandparent's kitchen so here is my list of things I missed about my kitchen.

6 things I missed about my bed

So I went to visit my best friend at her uni and I had to share a bed with her, which was absolutely fine. It was a double and she doesn't wiggle much, and her snoring wasn't too awful. It was very much the better bed sharing experience I've had this year. I had to share a single bed with someone and I barely got two hours sleep because I was so uncomfortable. So here's the list of things I missed about my own bed.

Being aware of worlds

I am an introvert. I enjoy being alone at least as much as I like being around other people, even if my feelings for myself are not always satisfactory. It's very easy being alone: the stress and anxiety of trying to please people, trying to make them or keep them liking you, being tactful, being interested in them, being funny, being mentally there with them - that disappears when you are alone.

But so do worlds. Worlds are that other people's lives, their minds, and presence. It is easy to distract yourself alone so you do not feel lonely, you do not miss having new worlds to explore. It's easy to get lost in your own mind. It's easy to think you don't need outside validation that you exist, that you matter, that your world has worth. And it's easy to forget how good it really feels.

And then suddenly, you are thrown back into that situation where you are made aware.

I walked into a room last night, fashionably late, obviously. I couldn't turn up on time, I didn't know every person I knew would be in that room. What if no one I knew was there yet? What do I say? How do I make people like me, make them pay attention to me until my friends do come? No, I avoided that. And as I took a second to look around at the people, to see who I recognised, which was tricky as most of them were wearing masks, I remember hearing a voice or two. I remember my head jerking to look in that direction. I saw my friends and I saw their faces lift a little. I saw widened smiles and sparkling eyes. And they were around me quicker than I could comprehend, arms around me, complaints that my hugs were too hurried and the interest in their voices as they asked how I was. In those seconds I was so aware of my existence in the world, in their worlds and theirs in mine. It is a beautiful feeling to know you mean something. It is easy to survive when you have forgotten how nice it is, but it shouldn't be.

De-stress

I'm stressed okay. I'm stressed because it's nearly the end of my first year at college. I'm stressed because I have deadlines I'm scared I can't keep. I'm stressed because I can't talk to my teachers. I can't even look them in the eye the days I manage to get into college. I'm stressed because I had a small emotional upheaval in my social life. I'm stressed because my friends are stressed over exams and I sympathise. I'm stressed because I have low self esteem and no ambition. I'm stressed because I've forgotten what I love and I've forgotten to do it.
So I remembered to do something I love. I picked up a camera and went on an adventure. Fueled with my favourite coffee-based treat, a soundtrack I only discovered in the last few weeks and probably not a thick enough jumper, I filmed stuff. I tried to find nice angles and spaces. I didn't care if it didn't turn out well, I just liked pointing and pressing the button and trying my best not to shake my hands too much.

I wasn't going to do anything with this. I told someone I wasn't. But I was inspired after finishing an old project. I picked a song. I opened adobe premiere. I spent a couple of hours cutting to beat, a trademark of mine. I feel calm now. I forgot how much I love this pure creativity.

I'm sorry I forgot, there were things. Now I want to do this all summer. I want to film flowers and clouds and my friends and music and happiness. I love that.

Project Busking

My normal college alarm rang out through my bedroom and I could have screamed. I trick myself every morning I have to wake up with this method; having selected the most irritating alarm sound on my phone, every morning I have to hear it makes me want to throw it into the nearest river. I guess you could say it works but it also ruins my mood. If I manage to fall asleep again, it'll start playing again twenty minutes later. 

Update on that cool movie poster

I finished the whole DVD sleeve! I may tweak it a little more as I still have a week before I hand it in, but it's pretty much done. Just gotta do my production log and research.

Sometimes I do college work and enjoy it

My second favourite class at college is a class where I get to use photoshop a lot. I think it would be my favourite class if I had it more than for an hour and a quarter once a week. We've been doing this assignment since the beginning of January which involves creating an original dvd cover design. I was so happy when I got this brief, I was thrilled. I love photoshop. I may not be the best photographer in the world, but I can god damn manipulate multiple images in compositions. I am yet to get a firm grasp on typography but there's time for that in the future.

Rhii goes to Iceland: The Motion Picture

So I finally took two hours out of my busy, busy life and edited this together.

Potential

My whole life has been dictated by potential. I don’t think I was ever really that smart. I mean, clearly I am not stupid because I care about grammar, and even if I can’t spell everything ever, I can’t bear not spelling something right, even if no one is going to see it or care. But really, for the most part, I don’t feel smart at all. I feel a jumble of facts and emotions but none of that makes me smart. And I compare myself to my peers far too much for my own good.

Cold? What is cold?

I don't really look out of the window very much. In college, the windows have the blinds down most of the time, for reasons I am oblivious to, apart from Film Studies class when we watch films. Most of the time in the mornings I'm not awake enough to care what's happening outside and by the time I get home in the evenings it's too dark to see. Sometimes when I sit in my lovely red computer chair I can see the frost on the tops of the houses opposite. And today I sit here and see frost on the top of the tree that grows at the end of our garden. And it is still. Really still. No wind at all. And no birds chirping, which was a godsend. It's not that I dislike birds - birds are beautiful creatures, I adore looking at birds! - but wow, they are noisy.

Rhii goes to Iceland

So I went to Iceland for three days back in April.

It's been really long.

Really really long. The first of April was my last blog post, when I was in Iceland. Wow okay, let's start again.

After Iceland, where I was the Northern Lights and whales and swam in the Blue Lagoon, I was working in a primary school doing all sorts of things. I went to work with my dad a few times as well to get some work experience. Most notably, I did work experience in Camden with a small production company making current affairs programs for Channel Four and had the time of my life. Since September I've been in full time education, doing a Creative Medic BTEC at college. It's December now, I celebrated my 18th birthday last week.

At college I've made a music video and I'm working on a silent movie type video. Here's the music video.


Sorry it's been forever. I'll probably go and make a post about my Iceland adventures now.

Iceland has great wifi

This is a blog written in Iceland. I'm on a short break here, with my mum.

We arrived last night, around 1am local time. We're safe - though I had already made a man's head bleed on a plane, whoops - and now we've slept well and had breakfast and lunch and mooched around Reykjavík, everything is great.

I'll upload some photos to my flickr later, we're just having a quick break from town. Surprisingly, it's not that chilly. My laptop says it's 5C outside but I'm strolling around without a coat and it's just a bit nippy when the window blows.

No sign of any beautiful Icelandic musicians I love yet, though I had to drag myself away from the vinyl before I brought all the Seabear/Sin Fang/Sóley.

A Graves Story

On Monday 30th of January 2012, I met a great man, one I admire though I have not seen much of his work. You probably know him most recently as D.I. Lestrade in Sherlock. 

It's a dark early morning when my father awakes me to ask if I would care to join him at work that day - he's spent the last 10 days working on a Channel Four documentary about the sinking of the Concordia (airing Tuesday 31st) and it's the last big push towards broadcast. He's not particularly busy, my father tells me, just supposed to be there if anyone needs help. The editing for Tuesday's all done. That's his job, tv editor. Puts it all together, makes everyone happy.

I agree to go with him once he tells me there's going to be a special someone there. He knows what a big Sherlock fan I am...

This feels like a long post.

Sometime in the early hours of this morning I finished reading "The Fault in Our Stars". To be quite honest, it made me want to die, but equally it removed any trace of that thought forever. I think this book has changed me but I'm not sure yet. It's too early to tell. I kind of feel a little empty when I think about it, about the beginning and the middle and certainly the end and the beautiful characters and the horrible characters and everything. It said a lot of smart stuff - one quote I remember in particular, murmured by my least favourite character to my favourites "the important thing is not whatever nonsense the voices are saying but what the voices are feeling". I was disappointed that they did not understand what he meant, when I understand so clearly. I don't want to say much more; I have book feelings.

I suppose it doesn't help that I'm still getting over my heart break from the BBC Sherlock finale. But it's probably a good idea not to get me started on that.

There's a fine, fine line between the fault in our stars and humming

Today was chilly and frosty and I waited a long time until I woke up and even longer until I actually got out of bed. I sat and read one of my new books - "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green. It was only released last week and I'm on page 129. I've wept over it only twice so far. It's about this teenage girl called Hazel who is has cancer and it all begins when she goes to a support group. I don't want to spoil it, but I think Hazel may be one of my all time favourite characters, though John Green is one of my all time favourite authors and vloggers (check out John and his brother Hank's youtube channel) so I would expect nothing less. John signed every copy of the first print of TFiOS. My copy has a neat green signature, and though green sharpie is my least favourite of all the sharpie colours, I am happy with this.