also known as: messing around with make-up to look as outrageous as possible in my room
Foundation: Colour Sense Compact Powder
Eyebrows: Silkygirl Ever Green Eyeliner
Lipstick: Topshop Lips in Depth & Inglot Blue Lipstick
Tag: Photoshoots
Time to take out the christmas jumpers
Blue is the warmest
This is mostly a post about:
1) Cutting my hair: So…I cut my hair! I’m still wavering between liking it and regretting it but ultimately I am glad I did it, otherwise I would’ve still been stuck with boring long hair, wishfully thinking about having short hair. I almost chickened out of it but didn’t precisely because of that. But, as you know how life is so funny all the time, I’m starting to take extra notice of images of people with long hair and wishfully thinking of what I could do with my own had I not cut it off. Ridiculous. Anyway, these regrets only haunt me in the middle of the night, so no worries. I love my hair. I love myself. I don’t need anyone else to tell me otherwise.
2) Being a proud owner of blue lipstick: I once tweeted something along the lines of “all i need is blue lipstick and i’ll be ready to conquer the world” and LO AND BEHOLD that’s what my classmates (specifically Harris’ idea) gave to me as a birthday present at Tanamera part II last week. Tears were shed. It was a very emotional night, and not just because of the lipstick gift. And now, now that I can add Wearer of Blue Lipstick as one of my titles, I am ready to conquer the world.
3) Kamikaze Girls: Strongly recommended by Bellyn, I finished reading and watching both the novel and the movie yesterday. It is so, so lovely and left me with this warm and fuzzy feeling inside after I finished reading/watching it. It is a story about the unlikeliest of friendships, and how, despite their vast differences and clashes, the two main characters Momoko and Ichigo managed to warm up to each other, learning a little something from each other along the way, and eventually even ended up with such adoration for each other. Very unconventional, very enjoyable, and very eye-opening as well; I was severely affected by Ichigo’s speech at the last part of the novel, one of the quotes being “She knows you cant really share someone else’s pain or suffering no matter how hard you try. She knows they gotta deal with it on their own.” Man, that entire theme consumed me the whole of today, not in a bad way. I’m still thinking about it.
Don’t you see me now?
Yesterday’s clothing choice was not intentional. You’d think being called “wild and boorish” after entering college would make me revise my clothing choices a little bit more. But alas, you thought wrong. I cared for the first few hours I was told that, but after that I realised I didn’t have the capacity to care anymore. It wasn’t until I went to a local textile shop with my mum that I realised, rather narcissistically, that I reminded myself of Matty Healy, lead singer of The 1975, in his floral shirt. Rushing my mum to head back home before the sun went down, I spent two hours at the empty lane next to my neighbour’s house while residents from the nearby kampung appear sporadically to stare at me incredulously on their motorbikes. I half expected street harassers to make their appearances as well (I had my defense mechanism ready: look as murderous as possible and grip onto my guitar like a deadly weapon) but thankfully none appeared. It’s so sad that street harassment is something to be expected every single time you step out of the house. And societal norm once again expects you to just accept it as something to be accustomed to. Head bowed, lips sealed, don’t say anything. Don’t retort, don’t retaliate, just keep quiet and suck it up. There is nothing you can do. Boys will be boys. Men will be men. Darwinism my ass.
I don’t even know what this photoshoot is themed. It’s saved in a folder on my pendrive labelled “matty”. That’s it. I suppose in a way I was going for the music-festival-hippie-touring-rock-band-member kind of vibe but who cares, really. I wrote this in a Tumblr post last night, that doing this makes me feel like I’m actually doing something and that in itself makes me pretty happy (even though I might not actually know what I’m really doing). I also read this post by May Zhee in which she says, “Do not ever think you’re too stupid for art. Too disadvantaged, too untrained, too uninterested. Stop paying attention to what the art is saying, but how they are saying it.”
This entire week of art therapy at home is going well so far and I’m glad.
I dyed my hair purple
As the title suggests, I dyed my hair purple the second day I came back to Alor Setar. If you feel disappointed about the colour (or lack thereof), don’t worry, I felt the same way, but here’s to hoping the colour will become more obvious after a few more washes.
At approximately 2.45 this afternoon, I hit the ultimate pinnacle of boredom as I scrolled through social media sites. The weather looked good, not too hot, there were a few grey clouds rolling through, that’s okay. I leaped up and dug out mum’s DSLR and tripod in the cupboard under the stairs and scouted the backyard despite my mum having a guest over. The first tripod had a faulty leg, but thankfully my dad found another newer tripod in the very same cupboard (although it was also quite faulty in some screwed places). The first few shots were devastating. Wrong lens. Changed them. Better. Not amazing, but better. It started raining really heavily halfway through, so heavily that I couldn’t even hear the music I was playing on my phone, so I made do with some decent shots that met my low enough expectations.
I am no Bellyn in terms of photography skills but hello Belle, if you’re reading this, you inspired this.
The second week back here is scheduled for studying, so in the meantime, I’ve decided to start seriously writing again. And by seriously writing I mean contributing to KL Noir. It’s not a guaranteed publish but what the hell. I guess something Taliza once asked really struck me, which was “Do you ever feel the need to constantly prove yourself to your friends and everyone else?” and my answer is yes. I don’t want to be just a sad and emotional baggage hanging onto everyone else. And also I just really, really want to create without the presence of pressure or expectations, not to mention the consistently looming obligation to study, study, study
I don’t know I also made a Flickr
Never Get Caught
Those were the words I last heard
Before I swam right into a human fishing net
The irony of it all overwhelming me
That I didn’t even realise the existence of my wrath
Inflicted upon the human race
In the form of grand peals of thunder
And strikingly white lightning
Never get caught
Because as puny and insignificant humans are
They are adamantly annoying
—
Bellyn followed me back to Alor Setar on Saturday and upon arriving at my hometown, we set to work almost immediately for the shoot. The amazing makeup was by both Bellyn and my mum. The photoshoot setting was thanks to my grandpa’s fishing jetty. The thunderstorm was thanks to the higher powers above. Thanks everyone.
now you can’t move up/with your eyes down
During yesterday’s photoshoot, we decided to experiment letting me control the camera shutter myself instead, and surprisingly, it turned out quite well.
How did we end up by the roadside? – something we always ask ourselves when we end up in the strangest of places
Also, I will not rest until all of you listen to HAERTS’ Hemiplegia EP.
Creative Friday Part I
My first post of the year would be one describing our first Creative Friday, a photoshoot (photostory sequence) of a merman literally out of water and on land for the first time.
Members of the crew: Gerald as the model/merman, Bellyn as the photographer and photoshoot idea initiator, Taliza as the photography assistant, Karu as the make-up and hair stylist and me as the DJ and occasional help-about person thingmajig. Zitian, Ian, Austin and Harris were also there, and overall it was a pretty productive five hours spent at Lagoonview apartment where the photoshoot was held, in Gerald and Austin’s unit.
This is my first time being involved in such an activity and it was pretty exciting to be honest, save not really knowing what to do in a sea of experienced members. It was not your typical Friday leisure activity, either.
Looking forward to more Creative Fridays!
michelle teoh 
