reading, watching, listening

February is finally here. 

January felt interminable and dark: if lockdown was epitomised in 31 days, that would be it. 

But we made it through – the days are longer, the prospects brighter (?) and I've got some banging recs to make it all a little more bearable.

Listening:

For a left-wing counter to the mainstream media, I have been enjoying TyskySour – it's critical and interrogative, and offers an oft-ignored perspective. When the news is too depressing and I just want to fall asleep, I've been getting back into 'Nothing Much Happens' where, quite literally, nothing much happens. It's pretty calming and I generally manage to drift off before the podcast ends (although if I don't, it induces much angst).

In terms of music, for work Chilly Gonzales and Ibrahim Maalouf have been keeping me going, as has some more electronica-funky kinda stuff evidenced by my 'fun feisty funk to work to HT21' playlist. I've also been listening to a bizarre selection of 'dark academia' playlists situated in art galleries, baroque french worlds and rainy libraries. Watching what my friends listen to whilst they are working has also been providing entertainment.

For non-work, I made an upbeat 'for how many days am I stuck in this box?' playlist when I was isolating and, surprisingly, it's still providing some bops. I'm also enjoying some mellow evening sounds, featuring a lot of Michael Kiwanuka. 

Reading:

For once, I have manage to complete several books whilst in Oxford. It's been a nice break in longer evenings, and time away from a screen. We have a sick fiction section in the college library, so I have been taking advantage of that. 

I read Magpie Lane, a quasi-creepy inspector story set in Oxford, which I likely wouldn't have read if I didn't live here, but which was quite visceral. Convenience Store Woman was so odd, but lighthearted and warming, and super quick. It was somewhat reminiscent of Exciting Times/The New Me. I am currently reading This Brutal House which is beautiful and wrenching and I am frustrated at myself re how slowly it is being consumed. I don't want to lose the impact or the narrative by only getting through 10 pages a night. It's essentially a written version of Pose – it starts with Mothers of New York's queer scene protesting on the steps of the City Hall. After successive Children going missing, they take a silent stance. It is written in a sombre, poetic tone [I loved the chapter that was exclusively 'category is leather queen/founding fathers/fierce/Chanel/spring-summer realness], and I think is the perfect accompaniment to Pose. 

Watching:

This Brutal House is also a good side to It's A Sin (which I haven't finished, but have enjoyed but also critiqued (definitely too harshly) if you want a bit more queer media. I've also been adoring Great Pottery Throwdown, especially the week with the Naked Raku – yikes! It is so impressive and therapeutic.

Grackle is, as ever, offering immense sanity and stability and whenever I need cheering up, I whack on a vlog and feel content. Her attitude to food is also exemplary and refreshing, but without being a thing and it makes me wanna (allow myself to) consume all da snax.

On topic of food, I also really liked this vid from Helena Rose about the 'perfect' diet. I just generally love her content and narrative about eating etc. Good vibes all round. 

And finally for watching, this video critiquing Bridgerton for race and queer baiting. I hadn't really heard any criticism but had also thought of some quite profound issues (e.g. the unmentioned sexual assault by Daphne), so it was interesting to hear another perspective. 

Misc:

My electric steamer, because we are 00's yummy mummy's who just wanna cook pasta in our rooms; my lack of instagram and minimal desire to return to it; packed lunches in the rain/snow/sun with friends; trying new chocolatey snacks and feeling food freedom; pret chocolate, sea salt and almond butter cookies; tahini + yoghurt + lemon juice; finding the perfect diss reading; wine 

So there we go! 

Enjoy!

endless emotions

I was going to write about some of the books I have managed to read in this interminable lockdown, but instead I've been feeling so much and thinking so much, so that will have to be written instead. 

This weeks moodboard screams: eclectic emotion, pining for summer and freedom, maybe some craving of love and the perpetual reminder to let it be. Senses include: somewhat earthy pastels, the warm tones of sunlight, and the lethargy that comes with it. Exuding a calmness that I certainly am not feeling. 

I have been absurdly emotional recently. I sat crying at my desk before a diss supervision yesterday, and had to dry my eyes and make a cup of tea before I could confront my supervisor and the ridiculous project I have embarked on. It was pathetically amusing. I probably took a photo to document it. And today I saw my friends walking across the quad, started crying, sent a rash and heated message, and than thanked Zuckerberg for the unsend function. 

Tiny, unnecessary things are having a monumental chemical influence, and its quite perplexing. It's also a bit exhausting. I learned the other day that our brains think 4,000 words a minute, which is actually quite believable when I think about the rate at which my mind can spiral. 

But no wonder I fall to sleep immediately.

I have been obsessively fomo-ing recently. The insecurity and expectation it brings can be crushing. Why didn't they knock on me, why wasn't I invited here, were they talking about me etc etc. None of these things are true, rational or evidenced. They also make me sound 13, not 21. 

I then cry, go on a walk, feel okay, and the cycle goes on. Amongst all this retrospection, I've also noticed I remedy myself by investing in friendships that aren't fulfilling, rather than reminding myself that those I live with do love me. It's a lot, and probably pretty toxic for everyone involved. It's perhaps all fuelled by expectation: high and unfulfilled expectations of myself leading to unattainable expectations of others. This is something I want to work on in the coming months of self-exploration. 

Amongst all this, I have deleted instagram, for what might be forever. It's liberating and comforting, although I seek a new source of inspiration. Maybe Pinterest is the answer.

This week has been spent in the one library they are cramming us into. I'm no epidemiologist, but that doesn't really seem to add up in my mind. I have, however, had some lovely lunches on the steps of Broad Street or Radcliffe Square, and enjoyed the nostalgia of a making my sandwich in the morning. Maybe the aforementioned emotion was triggered by the inexplicable stress of my diss. There are so many components that make it incomprehensible, but I'd say the fact I am no art historian, no classicist and can't read Arabic are pretty high up there. When I expressed this to my supervisor, he reminded that he 'did warn me' and that the best work is written through suffering. So that's something. 

I have ten tabs open this evening, including: 'Qusayr 'Amra', 'Origins of the Islamic State', 'Al-Baladhuri' and 'The iconoclastic edict of Yazid' – it all frankly means nothing to me, but is supposed to form 12,000 in less than seven weeks (?!)

Amongst this emotion there was so much good: painting clay, walking to a new cafe, eating bagels on the steps, drinking wine in the cold, using my steamer to make gyoza, a frosty morning, a note from a friend, Drag Race, a good book, interesting if impenetrable reading. 

For second week I am manifesting: less ridiculous crying, more progression with my diss, continuing with my 30-days of journalling, this mellow eve playlist and a few runs. All I really want is a massive party and a night dancing, but that isn't gonna happen for a while. 

quarantine diary #5 - freedom

The 15th January was a sort of hurdle in my mind, a day I had only had to reach, and everything would dissipate. First, this date was consumed by my extended essay, 6,000 words of primary sources and secondary arguments that Oxford relishes in saving for the Christmas vac. 

Then, it became overwhelmed by the day I could breathe fresh air again. Dramatic, but also quasi-true. 

Being out was nice, and it was freeing, and I got gyoza with a friend, and ate brownies, and did a million errands for others who, in the chaos of my corona, I had also caused to isolate.

But it was also a bit anti climatic, and still a bit empty, and I wonder will this world ever not feel empty.

I've done all the silly hobbies I can think of to pass the time, I've thought all the thoughts, done all the yoga, ran, read, slept, thought about applying for British Council next year then abandoned it. I have spent so many hours thinking about expectations: expectations of self, expectations of others, whether too high demands are simply a reflection of the love you deserve, or an inherent disappointment. Whether this contradiction and conflict can ever marry. And half my friends can't come back, the other half are still isolating. It's a silent limbo that no longer feels it has the permission to be.

 

So I am stuck, sort of just waiting for the time to pass until I start my dissertation (for which my tutor kindly reminded us, we could have 'half a day off' after handing in our extended essays, and then we had to get back on it) and until my friends are free, and maybe until this all blows over.

Will it ever blow over?

It's so hard not to be pessimistic when it's dark and it's cold and it's January; libraries are closing, my working spaces are becoming more confined by the day, the world seems both simultaneously quieter and scarier, and I'm still here, thinking about what I'm doing amongst it all.

But hey, come Monday I'll be lost in a blur of 7th century female portraits, and wondering why the fuck I picked such an obscurely niche topic. 

And I'll run, and I'll walk and I'll drink wine, and probably lament on here a little more about lost youth and unstable prospects.

It'll be okay. 

quarantine diary #4 - gratitude

Shit news, shit prospects. 

Ten things I am grateful for:

My beautiful, and I mean beautiful, view over the quad.

Fortuitously bringing some art things with me, so I can paint in between the work. 

Finishing my extended essay, enjoying writing my extended essay, feeling semi pleased with said extended essay. 

Being able to try out new outfit combos in the warmth and seclusion of my room 

Friends for checking in and reaching out. 

Doing a different kind of exercise for a week, and feeling my body burn in a different way. 

Slower mornings and slower breakfasts. 

Writing letters. 

Having the mildest corona symptoms in the world. 

Being able to hear my friends singing riptide obnoxiously loudly, and knowing I'll be there in a matter of days (update: they're onto their 4th rendition and the noise cancelling headphones are going on)

Food deliveries, and extra treats people put in amongst the essentials. 

Having the permission to stop and be.

I wrote this in my diary today: 

'Have I ever had this degree of permission to stay inside, and do nothing but paint pointless, random objects covered in lashings of gold paint, and listen to happy music, and feel nothing of the angst or sickness that usually swamps me when I try and do nothing? There is no demand, I have practically finished my essay, and legally am not allowed to leave my room. So I have surrendered to the total permission to do what I want, what makes my mind go empty, what feels so natural and so soothing'

It was good moment, and there are so many conflicting emotions attached with this isolation. A wanting to get out, but an enjoyment of the pace. A need to see people but a need to retain the seclusion. 

Just another bizarre feeling to contend with in these crazy times. 

What are you grateful for?

quarantine diary #3

Here's a mood board of the kinda energy I've been feeling today.

Eclectic, agreed. But also sort of apt. I am evidently feeling a lot of passive anger. Yikes.

Today was a bleak one; I couldn't edit enough words out of my essay, had a sad bagel for tea, wanted a g&t but had no t, wanted a run but (of course) couldn't leave my room. It's felt really quite interminable, looking at the same seven thousand words, trying to work out how to rework and reshape and just do anything that will cut it down. I've basically eating the same thing for 6 days, done pretty much the same workout at the same time, taken the same (un)ironic selfies, and listened to the same 'get me out of here' playlist.

I will stop whining. 

It's a very informative process, let me tell you that. Having the time to do silly things like make a ring dish or paint a tin can is blissful and wonderfully defiant of the demands of capitalism. My gold paint arrived, and I've wanted to cover everything in my room. I also enjoyed putting up my postcards, taking them down, readjusting them. 

It's just a bit monotonous, which obviously it would be.

I haven't had any grand realisations about myself, other than I can go days without going outside, the thought of which used to make me feel sick. So I guess that's good. I also have realised I need constant affirmation, which obviously is hard to receive when your friends are together and you're apart, and the silence makes you think the world hates you. 

What hit today was the sense that, even when my iso is over, and I can go for walks and see friends and go to libraries, I'm still not free. (from a place of inherent entire privilege) my emotions about this pandemic come and go in waves. Sometimes I feel I have made peace with it. That the change has gone on for so long, I can't remember the world without it. New normal and all that.

And then sometimes (i.e. today) I feel angry and depressed and it feels relentless. That this has been going on for so long and our liberties have been so radically curtailed. That I might hand in this essay on Friday and I might be able to leave my room, but what does that really mean. I still can't go to the pub or meet with more than one person outside for anything other than exercise, or even buy a copy of Frankie magazine that for some, bizarre reason, I am craving. And, I think, you become desensitised to it. Not desensitised so much to the stats, they are shocking regardless of how often you hear them. But desensitised to the enormity of the other problems going on in the world. How has this all culminated in the most perfect storm? As I got ready this morning, I listened this episode of TyskySour (a really, really good - non affiliated - news podcast). One of the reporters said 'the apocalypse is multifaceted', and man this sure did hit home. How can we jump from the undermining of democracy in the highest echelons of power, to a virulent pandemic, in a matter of seconds, and keep on doing our daily 'ting? 

Man!

So that's where we are at, on day five of solitude. 

A MHN quote to soothe the soul:

Let July be July.

Let August be August. 

And let yourself 

Just be

even in

the uncertainty.

You don't have to fix everything.

You don't have to solve everything.

You can still find peace

and grow

in the wild of changing things.

g'night.

(all pics can be found here)

quarantine diary #2

I think this is day 3, or maybe it's day 4? 

All I really know is I haven't seen another person in the flesh since the nice lady who stuck a swab down my throat on Wednesday. 

In a world where there is so much insurrection (see: Trump and the capitol) and crisis (see: state of emergency in London hospitals), my 10 days of iso are so minute. But they are also so alone and quite a feat of resolve, so here I am writing about it.

Things I have learned thus far:

Routine is essential, you can run a fast 10k and still find a 20 minute HIIT impossible, silence is terrifying and addictively avoidable, there's a lot of time and space to dissect yourself and feel alone and feel hated, eating when you can't taste is boring, and the days go by quicker than I thought they would. 

Tonight, it all felt a bit interminable and I was acutely aware of my life in this box. I feel stressed about completing my extended essay whilst in this hermetic space, knowing I can't get any separation from this space and this mental state. But I don't have a choice, and it doesn't matter, and for fuck sake Katie, get on with it. I'm also a bit annoyed because my outfits have been popping (see: this hair scarf, my t-shirt/dress combo in the last post) and I've got to wait for their debut. I think perhaps the moments are most hard when I am between working sessions, or can hear my friends together next door, but every second that pasts is a second closer to a run and a glass of wine!

Some other things to look forward to: 

Virtual breakfast with my grandparents tomorrow, two separate Tesco deliveries and maybe a chance to wave to someone out the window (!), a parcel for my mum that includes: pillows, running kit (for post-iso), skittles that I left in her bag, a book and all my room decs – all the eclectic things I left at home. I've also got some air dry clay (how did I bring that, but not pillows?) and have ordered some varnish and gold paint, so am going to spend an evening next week avoiding my essay and making a ring dish instead. 

Thankful for having the mildest symptoms in the world, thankful for a beautiful view, thankful for my own space, thankful for technology and for kindness. 

Peace and love x

(pics: 1)@justarthistory 2) here 3) @museelouvre 4) @palomawool

quarantine diary #1

*This in entirely in the vein of Lexie, even down to the photo, and I am almost shameless in my copying*

Today was a lot, starting with the intentions of a planned walk with a friend, and rapidly concluded with my last breaths of fresh air on my way to the test centre. What a world we live in. What a time to be alive. 

In some ways it's almost nice having time and reason to do all the silly things you don't usually, when you're cooking tea or walking or with friends. I took advantage of the room below me being empty and did a HIIT work out, I made a plethora of paper stars (pattern found here) that I have now stuck up on my wall – a decision I know I will regret when it comes to removing them. I also listened to Newscast, which I think is becoming my favourite podcast, did my washing up immediately after eating and FaceTimed my mum. 

It's sort of sad hearing my friends around me, but it also feels bizarrely adventurous and secluded in a safe way. I am also blessed with a gorgeous view over the quad and the old college buildings, and this morning I saw a fox run across the path. 

My friends cooked me pasta, I wore a nice outfit just for me, and managed to harness a lot of sympathy (for doing absolutely nothing).

I think tomorrow, on top of my extended essay (due on the day I can break free, conveniently!) which I seem to be getting more and more lost in as the days go by, I'll write a letter or two, to post when I can leave this room, call Libby, and maybe have a nap. Oh the joys.

Please send art recs, watching recs, listening recs – anything I can access without leaving my room.

dreaming of the post-covid

The past few days have been bleak for us all (see: covid restrictions, limited Christmas, Brexit chaos, threatened food shortages), so here I am on Christmas eve-eve, surrounded by wrapping paper, drinking cider and musing about my gap year in Berlin. 

Yes, a second gap year. It's happening, I know it's ridiculous and privileged and honestly girl put that £30k to good use and get yourself a career.

But no. I want to mess about for a year, in a ridiculously naive blur of ignorance. And come on, I missed out on almost a year of my 20s!

But for reals, I've had a lot of conversations with myself on dark runs where I think about what I should do and what I want to do. 

I should be applying to jobs, or at least masters, and I should be taking my future a bit more seriously. 

I want to spend a year working a bit, and finding my post-degree feet, and mostly just living in Berlin. Entirely unrealistic as I can speak no German, but honestly it is what my heart is dreaming of.

And I really do think, what is the point of not doing what you want. This degree has been, and probs will be, one of the hardest things I ever do, with a pandemic on top of it, the world needs to catch a break – and that's what I intend to do. 

So, before I justify my break from the capitalist cycle of perpetual labour anymore, here are some muses that have been getting me through the grim Tier 4 news. 

Enjoy my loves!

What are your plans for next year (if you're graduating) or things you are dreaming of. 

Firstly – this song. Because it starts with 'it's my first night in Berlin, and I wanna dance', and honestly. That is all I want. Similarly, Ananas by Bleu Toucan transports me immediately to a hot, sweaty club and I've found myself almost dancing on the street numerous times as I listen to it on my walks. And Peggy Gou, mostly Starry Night. Again, just a vision of me, my friends, pres in an apartment, and hours dancing to make up for all the nights we spent at home. I also saw this quote in my reading yesterday: '...found release by dancing the night away in various gay clubs in East Berlin', and honestly – what a mood. 

My extended essay for the Christmas vac is all about the revolutions of 1989 and whether they were indeed revolutionary. Debate and semantics aside, if there was one historical event I wish I could experience, I think it would be the fall of the Berlin Wall. Beyond the discourse of what it meant, it just looked a fuckin' sick party, and I'd love to feel that momentary thrill that comes round on such improbable occasions (i.e. what I imagine the first night out post-'rona being). 

But I am also just somewhat fascinated by Germany, historically and transformatively. Man, I wanna be there. I wanna see the history I've read about play out for for real. I wanna see the Plattenbau housing and the remaining Soviet architecture and I wanna drink beer and fancy every person that walks down the street.

This is all entirely idealistic and existing in no realm of reality, but, in a year that has taken almost everything, a girl can dream, 'eh!

I had a lovely, drunken conversation with Vassia last week, over fish and chips (tier 2 vibes, am I right?), where we mused over gap year possibilities. Maybe visit her friend in Paris, or her sister in South Korea, or just live together and make up for 2020. But really – I'll go anywhere. Do anything. 

And then real work will begin, I promise! (I have actually got tangible gap year goals – get NGO experience (esp. try and volunteer with a refugee organisation), apply for a masters, join a netball club, run a half marathon, write as much as possible because I've found that is what makes me happy (even writing essays!).

(also I know this is all such a horrible privileged cliche, but today has been v. rough in terms of news (Tier 4 lockdowns, 3rd strain of corona, hospital admissions almost at peak) so I am really just trying to manifest something better for 2021)

(all pics from here)