Baking with Maggie

A new blog, this time for food :)

Check it out here.

Strawberries & Cream

Baked by yours truly.

A buttercake with strawberry jam, fresh strawberries and cream.

Best thing I've baked yet :)

la petite mademoiselle

So I haven't posted in a quite a while. University has taken half of my time and the rest has been allocated to my business la petite mademoiselle (you can follow my actions here). There's a heap of things to buy so head on over and spend some :)

University has been crazy busy. I'm lucky I don't have exams but I have a tonne of essays weighing 50% each due on the first day of exams, giving me very little time now to finish them....or start them more like.

I'm looking forward to next weekend, Queen's birthday long weekend, as the family and I, including my tail (boyfriend) are heading up to Terrigal. It'll be good as we (partner and I) are looking to buy a house some time in the future in Terrigal so it's time to investigate.

My life is pretty boring at the moment, not a whole heap to report on. Got myself injured and now don a pair of crutches.

So if you're bored, like me, and enjoy shopping, hit up my little online boutique :)

Long time no...post?

Visit me at www.lapetitemademoiselle.com.au

Tell your friends about it :)

So it has been the longest of times since my last post, and I've been busy as anything. Won't bore you with the minute details, but I have found something to bury my other time in. I've started a business called 'La Petite Mademoiselle'. It's an online boutique (mainly for women) and I stock jewellery, clothes and whatnot. It's only a small project at the moment because money's a bit tight, but it's going well.

Eventually, I want this to become a brand people know quite well. I will eventually take up clothing designers, jewellery designers, shoes and bag designers too, but that's a few years off for now. Hopefully I'll get a nice big warehouse to wholesale out of, and retail shops to also sell and market my items off through.

I want to be able to turn my ideas into a reality, so after my Bachelor of Socio-Legal Studies (which has eclipsed my life for now), I will go to Tafe and do a website designing course (do you know how much people charge for a website! Golly gosh!) and do a fashion designing course. And maybe throw in there something for me, a photography class.

On a completely unrelated note, for Christmas last year, I got a nice Nikon D3100 :) Thank you mama and papa Ye :)

On a more personal note, life is treating me well. For those close to me, you will know everything has changed from a year ago today. My life couldn't be more different. I'm more independent, somewhat more confident and more motivated for sure. I'm battling 5 subjects this semester by comparison to 3 and 2 last year in semester 1 and 2 respectively.

For now, that is my update. It's time to dive, once more, head first into my readings.

xx

New Project

I mentioned in my previous post that I was searching for my passion, photography being the last one discussed. I also love sewing and making things, especially clothing. So I've started to sew and dress-making again, not very well, but I'm doing the best I can with my lack of experience and my hand-sewing techniques.

Check out http://margaretye.blogspot.com/ to see what I've been up to.

I was at my parent's this week and some bougainvilleas were hanging over the pool and I took a nice snap of it.

Passion For Photography

At this very moment in time I'm unsure of what I want to become 'when I grow up', so I'm going to try a variety of things to try find what my passion is.

I love photography and I'm seriously considering getting back into it. By seriously I mean save up for an expensive Nikon camera I've been eyeing off.

Here are some of my favourite photos I've taken.

Pin-hole camera

3m Diving Board, School

Nikon D50

Tree stump, Hawaii

Nikon D50

Black sand beach, Hawaii

Sony Cybershot

Staircase, Tasmania

Sony Cybershot

Cherry Blossoms, Great Wall of China

Brink Of Insanity

I watch as the time creeps by, each second ticking away on the white face beside my bed. What was once my time to wind down, to review my day’s decisions, is now eclipsed by this emptiness; a mental block. The life that was once clear, focussed and laid out is now a pool of murky thoughts.

Two candidates sit before me, both with contradicting properties, both of which leads me down a different variation of myself and my life. What was seemingly perfect now blares its imperfections, searing it into memories.

I observe closely at the hearts splayed out in front of me, wondering which is more worthy. Both screaming out for attention, requiring some acknowledgement that they have a place in my heart. One ready to bite the bullet, and the other not so willing. However, no matter what, me being the link between the two, will endure the biggest loss of all.

Who knew a simple “I love you” would transform what was once a selfless person into someone who must for the first time become selfish. Both declaring their love, proclaiming how I’m their one. I sit and ponder whether either are mine.

My thoughts slowly devour my soul, leaving a husk of what I used to be. The person that they fell in love with slowly disappearing, succumbed to the numbness that embraces my mind, body and soul.

“If you’ll be my star, I’ll be your sky. You can hide underneath me and come out at night. When I turn to jet black and you show off your light. I live to let you shine.”

I feel myself drift into the dark corners of my mind. Those suppressed feelings of a time long gone now floods to the surface. Those haunting memories of self-destruction bubbles to a point where all you can do is surrender and be swept away in that moment.

The feeling of strength I once possessed now seeps away with every rolling tear. A battle I can no longer fight, I slump back and wonder what more I can do. Personal morals and promises slowly deteriorate with every ounce of energy I have remaining.

I tread carefully on the line of sanity; a soft breeze could trap me in a world where my mind dictates where my life goes from here on in. I watch as the life I am to live passes me by. Those who once looked through to very core of my soul now fears being drawn deep into the void that has begun to eat away at me.

No-one is quite sure how lightly to tread. My mind has become a minefield, where every step is a conscious effort to remain in this world.

One can only wander in this world of limbo for so long before the inevitable happens.

All For Nothing

What do you do when you feel your world spiral out of control? Where everything you once knew has gone and you’re left in the rubble – the remains of what once was your everything. You search frantically, trying to find remnants of something, of good times passed. Those perfect moments slowly fading into oblivion, leaving you with the bitter taste of reality. Everything you once had, diminished to nothing. You had it all, but you threw it away in the name of love. Cliché?

You glance across the pillowing white sheets and hope that you could be swallowed and smothered in their cushiony comfort – your last breath being taken away gently and softly. No stress, no struggle.

*

As a child your fears are instilled in you. You are taught to fear. Fear doesn’t come naturally; it’s not instinctual until a threat (which is too taught) is presented. The first threat we are taught; a treat to our health and happiness. As human beings we do anything and everything to avoid being hurt, thus fear is created.

No one can avoid being hurt, it’s impossible. However, the extent to which you can be hurt is within your control. Each person has their own defence mechanism, a mechanism that operates subconsciously and consciously. Some people’s better than other’s. Some explode in anger and heated rage. Some withdraw and let their pain swallow them whole. Some unfortunate few are caught in both extremes, leaving them unable to communicate their thoughts coherently.

*

In a world as vast as ours, simple human emotions still orbit around one’s ability to sympathise and empathise with others. Without this ability you are deemed unable to connect with your fellow human peers. This inability renders you almost unhuman. As humans we seek individuals we can empathise with and gain sympathy from. If unable to gain sympathy when situations arise, one could go to the extreme of creating a situation where a feeling of warm sympathy wrapping its arms around you is achieved.

If this person happened to be one of the unfortunate few who is caught on the spectrum of extreme defence mechanisms and is too the same person who is unable to successfully obtain sympathy then problems begin to arise. This individual’s inability to communicate due to their thoughts being scattered and therefore speech is incoherent, creates problems when in dire need of sympathy. As this individual cannot request a need for sympathy more lucidly they begin to push those around them away so to victimise themselves in their mind and begin to sympathise with themselves. Since they cannot receive sympathy from others they must sympathise and empathise with themselves to fulfil that void where they are ignored.

If this destructive cycle continues, it chips away and eventually will consume this person whole. They would have pushed every person that was ever close to them away leaving them alone and in a pit of misery, where they once again begin to sympathise with themselves. Although this is not the most ideal method of dealing with situations, those trapped in this cycle find it difficult to free themselves from the destructive behaviour they exhibit.

So what does one do when their everything seems to be worth nothing?

Someone Else's Shoes

Have you ever felt that someone else's shoes are simply too big to fill? That you could never induce the same feelings in someone that someone else could?

That's how I feel and have felt for the last 6 months.

No matter what I do, there always seems to be this shadow looming over head that constantly reminds me of how someone else was always better. This person (let's call them Carol) Carol could subconsciously control another person (let's call them Henry) Henry's emotions. Carol made Henry the happiest he's ever been but could make him cry like there was no tomorrow. There was something that Carol possessed that I do not and I can't quite seem to get it right.

I'm not nearly as intellectual as Carol, nor do I have an edge. I cannot sing to save my life, and she made a life out of singing. I must admit, she's pretty damn good looking and I don't quite sit on the spectrum as high as her.

I know that I shouldn't be comparing myself to her, she was the past and I am the present. I don't want Carol to be erased because she did much good but in my view, she did much more bad than good. In the end Carol crushed and tossed Henry aside, I could never do that.

All this said, there are somethings that Henry has mentioned that soothes me at heart. The fact that what I see, Henry's inner 5-year-old, is his true self that he doesn't reveal very often. This inner 5-year-old who is predominately there than not, although sometimes a little frustrating, is the person who loves me most.

I know there are many things I have grasp on that puts me miles ahead of her, but it's these little things I wish I could possess. But you always want what you don't have. There is always something more out there that you want and it doesn't matter how much you already have.

But no matter how much time has passed, these images in my head play over and over again. These images of you and her.

Façades

One person holds many identities, all of which can be interchangeable depending on the situation at hand. One could be a sister, wife, employee, student, Chinese. They can be dependent on one's gender or simply their status in society.

I've always known that I had many identities which I had to live up to, but in recent times it has been painfully obvious how with each identity I act very differently. With my friends I'm loud, opinionated and slightly crazy. With my partner I'm romantic, bubbly in a flirty way and definitely girlier. With new people I'm shy, quiet and overly smiley. I act in a way in how I'm comfortable that certain group perceives me.

I have a few people, two to be exact, whom I always feel slightly intimidated by and am always self-conscious about what I say and how intellectual I sound. They are both much more mature than I and in my opinion world's more intellectual than myself, so I don't tend to speak or dominate the conversation so much, just in case.

Also I've notice you put me with certain people such as my parents and you will see me ready to argue and full of opinions and corrections, but with other's like those I mentioned, I'm ready to accept and listen to what they have to say.

Not only do these tolerance levels of people flux depending on whom it's concerning, my confidence only appears in certain departments. Some females, for reasons I do not understand, find it embarrassing to buy pads and tampons or ask for some, let alone admit they have their period. I have absolutely no problem with going out there in search of a pad or tampon. I also have no problem striking up conversations with people if I'm on my own, but if I have another person with me, meeting new people is difficult because I would sit back and observe.

I've also noticed how violently my mood changes are depending on whom I am with. When I'm with my friends I'm a little bit crazy, but overall, happy. When I'm with my partner, no matter how terrible I felt before, when I'm with her it feels like there's nothing wrong in the world. I feel honestly on top of the world, I can't stop smiling, even hours after leaving her presence. When I'm with my parents I feel melancholy and prepared to put out an argument defending my point of view, which is futile as it is always disregarded regardless of how brilliant my argument was.

One thing I have learnt about myself recently is that I hate to be humiliated, or seem to need help. I don't really like being helped. That's definitely the pedantic, OCD side of me that shines through in that circumstance. I realised this today where I was left out on my own to find my way around the labyrinth that is Sydney University. I was too embarrassed to whip out a map like many other's were doing, not to mention too embarrassed to seem like I was lost or looking around, so asking someone for directions was a big no-no. (I have no problem asking for directions if I was in a bookstore for example) So thank god for technology advancement, I used my iPhone discreetly to search up directions to each of my lecture halls.

I guess 2010, this new decade, has really enabled me to learn more about myself on almost a daily basis.

xx