June In Review

SPADE LIST ITEMS COMPLETED -

#25. Make a stop-motion movie.

(Completed 10/06/10)

PROJECT 365 PHOTOS TAKEN -

Day 181 - Me And My Pervy Donkey!

So today I was hanging out with some donkeys :) I think this one below is Maggie... but I'll check that haha.This one is Stan. I have decided if Stan was a human he would be my boyfriend. He seemed very interested in my boobs anyway! :P So it's the first time I've been perved on by a donkey..... don't ask, honestly!And this little cutie is the newest one, she's adorable! Shy, but adorable!I had a fun day, hanging out at Mich's :) Check out this post in her blog to see something else we did ;) Again... it's best not to ask! :D

Day 180 - Upon Rediscovering Fish Eye...

So you may remember that post I had, "Upon Rediscovering Macro..." in which I had taken pictures with my macro lens, rediscovering my love for it. Today I rediscovered my fish eye lens! I realized (facepalm for not realizing this before) that you didn't have to have it fully zoomed out to get a distorted picture. Half way between actually works really well!

Here's some pics I got of my sister... oh how she loves the attention! She's always happy to post for the camera, but will rarely do what you ask her too haha!

The one above makes me laugh :D and so does the one below actually... I'll tell you why. So Katie often asks me to show her some karate. One of the katas I often show her is Bassai. So I asked Katie to stick her hand towards the camera so that I could make a wide angle distortion, and she did this - which is actually the exact hand position for the opening of Bassai. This kid picks up things quick!!

Speaking of karate, tonight I'm going out to dinner with the karate gang! :) Should be bant!

Day 179 - BOOM!

I feel this would have worked a lot better if I could draw guns.... ah well, it was a nice idea!So today I said goodbye to yet another friend!! *sigh* Tomorrow my "favourite person for food and hugs", Fiona, leaves to go to Africa for a month! Wowee!! Yeah it's through World Challenge, and I'm sure it'll be amazing! So today I cycled down to Newcastle and met up with her to have some lunch and say "bye bye"!

Good luck Fiona! :)

Day 178 - I'm... Tired... :) But Happy!

This is a series of pictures of one of my mum's Willow Tree ornaments... yeah I think I'm getting a bit addicted to black and white, but I think it works! Hope you like!Well last night I was at one a sleepover at Crosspoint, the drop in near where I live! And now... I... am... shattered!! I got home this morning at about nine, and then slept until lunch time. Ah naps! Love them! But it was a very good night! We watched movies, for example, The Lovely Bones! It's a creepy movie, but very well made - I was analysing it like I would do in Moving Image Arts class... lol. :) Yes I enjoyed myself! All day I've been in one of those moods where you're so tired that you have no idea what to do with yourself... so it's been a long day, but I'm looking forward to sleeping again tonight haha!

Hope you've all had a nice weekend!

Day 177 - "Strum!"

Not the best photo ever, but I guess you'll just have to put up with that! And... yep! That's all I'm going to write in this post!

Day 176 - My Best Friend.

My sister is such a poser! Any time I have my camera with me, she runs up to me and poses! And when I say "pose" I mean pose. I think she watches too much TV! Haha! I just managed to get this shot of her before she turned around and stuck her tongue out at me. I just love her bemused expression! My sister is my best friend :)Well yesterday my insurance for the car (whom my cousin has named Mowgli) got sorted out, so I've been driving around a few times... on the roads!! It's a little scary!! But I'm enjoying it!

Day 175 - Los Estados Unidos!

So this picture seems rather appropriate for today. It's of the American flag Corinne brought me back from America last year, with my fairy lights.

The picture is appropriate for various reasons -

• Dear Vikki is currently cruisin' round America and will be for another good while!
• Dear Corinne leaves tomorrow morning to cruise around America for a good while!
• Dear Samantha will also be leaving in the not so distant future to cruise round America!
• I already miss / will miss the above a lot!!

aaaaannd.....

• I'm talking to Americans on Skype...
• Those fairy lights are really pretty and I think I'll turn them on more often! (okay that was more of a train of thought than a reason...)

But I said goodbye to school for the last time before results day today, so summer has officially begun!! :D And a good summer it shall be! I hope all of you have a truly wonderful summer, whether you're in America, Northern Ireland or anywhere! :)

Day 174 - And So My Face Is Revealed

Oh dear... it would seem I've Photoshopped another photo... :(

Okay so I wanted to take a self portrait, but I kinda hate my face, so I'm rarely satisfied with them unless my head is not in them... if you look at all my other self portraits on this blog, I'm pretty sure my head is chopped out of all of them. So I'm not happy using pictures of myself unless I've done some fancy editing on them... as vain as it is.

Anyways this one was taken against a white wall, so with just a little contrast boost it looked like I'd taken it in a studio or something woop woop! Dislike this, but there's nothing much I can do about that...

Have a nice day!!

Day 173 - Edit Like Crazy!

So there are days when you're doing Project #365, and you just don't know what to take a picture of... so you doodle in your notebook, take a photo of it and then edit it like crazy on Photoshop to make it look even slightly more interesting... yup! That's what I did today!I figured this doodle represents my lack of inspiration...

Despite the way I look in the overlay of this picture I had a good day today! My first thought after waking up this morning (well after the expected "oh my gosh I am in so much pain why did I walk up various mountains with very little suncream on it burns so much and i can't move my neck but wow that was a fun day... ouch" thought) was "hey! I want to make some brownies today!". So that's what I did today - make brownies! :)

Day 172 - Spontaneous!

I believe the best adventures are spontaneous.

At about 11:30pm last night a spontaneous decision was made for two besties to hike up Donard together. It turned out to be a good plan. :) :)

Yep! I had a good day!!

I am fortunate enough to live in a very beautiful part of the world... you can see, my hometown Newcastle, beside the sea in this picture. The mountains of Mourne really do sweep down to the sea!
So my friend Mich and I decided to hike up the tallest mountain in our country (sounds much more impressive than it actually is). The natural thing to do at the top of this mountain would be to blow bubbles - so we did!
I love this picture below... I set the camera on a rock on self timer. The angle it's set at was an accident, but I think it works really well!
So I'm really rather sunburnt now, and in quite a bit of pain, but in good spirits! I'm looking forward to the rest of my summer now... :D :D and that's exciting!! It feels like summer has begun now.

Day 171 - Have A Nice Day! :)

Yeah, I know this isn't a great photo but to be honest, I really can't be bothered being creative today! But despite my laziness, I hope you had a great day today!

Day 170 - Chillin' Out Maxing Relaxin' All Cool

Summer is sitting in the garden, reading a book, with your iPod plugged in and a bottle of cream soda in your hand... :)

Day 169 - Sweet Sixteen For Sweet Sarah!

Water fights are fun! That's what I did today! It was my best friend Sarah's birthday party which was a lot of fun! Her birthday party never fails to mark the start of summer... I love it. There was mucho bant to be had... lots of fun and games and messing around and swimming and chocolate and laughing and some great conversations too! A lot of the people there I didn't know very well but it was a good chance to get to know them better, and I like those kinda oppurtunities! Below are some more pics I took today... the first one being Sarah, the next some sort of plant I found on the rocks and last, a group pic! (I'm in the hammock... wearing my favourite socks wooo! They have ducks on them!)
Also... my provisional license arrived today! Booyaa! I shall be properly hitting the roads soon! Drove a bit tonight, braking is currently a major issue... I just can't do it haha! I'm sure I'll get better soon though (I hope!)

Day 168 - Contemplating Existence...(?)

Today I was contemplating the existence of bees. I came to the conclusion that they exist. My belief in bees was confirmed when one landed on my nose and stung me.

While most of you are reading the above 3 sentences with baffled expressions on your ignorant faces, one girl is sitting on her computer giggling because I kept my promise ;) I like confusing you people!

Today I was back in school... yes. I was taking a few sports day pictures first, and then we had our magazine tea party!! It was a lot of fun! :) Mrs Ellis brought in a lot of Shloer (real posh fizzy drink, or "soda" for you yanks) so that's my pic of the day!

Day 167 - 夏

It's summer!! (Summer in Japanese is 夏, hence the title of this post) I have finished my last exam and now it is summer! Wanna know something ironic? I'm going into school tomorrow.... lol(?)

Ah well... tomorrow will actually be fun! ;)
Tonight Jayne and I went for a wee walk at the outskirts of Tollymore. (We were at the buildings opening - I had designed the new logo so my dad wanted me to go... a Blue Peter presenter [Helen Skelton] was there... she's nice! Lol) 'Twas nice to have a little catch up! It's a bit sad that the best picture we had decided that I took was one that didn't include Jayne's face though... =P

So here's a picture of her face haha! :) Love her!

Day 166 - Penultimate (Is A Good Word!)

The sky was pretty tonight! Just had to make it my picture of the day!Haha, I'm laughing at my "deep post" for yesterday... I guess I was in one of those moods...

So tomorrow is my last exam! NO MORE REVISION!!! YEAHH!! Then I'm off for summer woopaa! It's Moving Image Arts... I'm not overly worried about it... meh, we'll see how it goes!

Day 165 - Hope.

Hope is like a flower. Sometimes it's tiny, a dainty, fragile object you can hold in the palm of your hand, easily broken by anyone who touches it. Sometimes it is big, opening up like a rosebud to give your life colour, the most noticeable thing around. But, no matter what the size, even if it is that tiny buttercup you're clutching between your fingertips...

whenever the flower of hope blooms... it is sure to be beautiful.

Day 164 - Writer's Block

So I actually have no idea what to write today, so I'm just gonna leave it! This is a feather.

Day 163 - In Dublin Fair City...

Today I was in Dublin fair city! (Where the girls are so pretty lalalalala COCKLES AND MUSSELS ALIVE, ALIVE-OH!) It was a lot of fun! I went with my good friend Debbie and for most of it we just walked around and then in the late afternoon we went to go see Prince of Persia, which is a good movie!I photoshopped this picture, if you can't tell! ;)

There was someone making HUGE bubbles on the street and I got a picture of some of them. I thought it would be cool to decrease the saturation around the bubble but keep the bubble itself bright and colourful... I really like how it turned out actually! :)

Day 162 - A Wee Quickie!

Wee quickie post before I head out tonight... pic of my sister's trike... zoomy photo! Long shutter speed! Really not that great but meh!Have a nice day! :D

Day 161 - Good Oul' Manual Labour!

Guess what! ^This little video here is another one off my list! Hoozah!

#25. Make a stop-motion movie

So it's only 30 seconds long, but I made this today! It was of some pics I had taken last month... hope you like it!

I was out at Crosspoint tonight, helping build a little flowerbed. I had a lot of fun!! Nothing like some good oul' manual labour! :D Some of spent a good hour or so digging up soil and screening it. But we had a lot of fun doing so, it was great!

But it was so good to get out after my exams, I've needed a night out!! :) And I'm glad I went tonight. I got my FUN!

But yes, my shoes did get rather dirty! In fact I generally got rather dirty! I got compost thrown at me various times haha! :) Twas a good night.

Day 160 - Returning To Narnia...

RS is done..... Thomas Merton may you bother me no longer! (Unless I repeat, which I don't want to do, but after that exam I may never know....)

So on the way home from school I took the Dundrum bus home and went for another wee walk down Narnia. :) :) Best part of my day to be honest; walking through that road.

I'm pretty exhausted after those two exams... I kinda just want to get out of my house and go do something FUN (I apologise, I have a habit of writing FUN in capital letters... long story) now, while I've got the chance, before MIA. Hopefully something will pop up soon! :)

Day 159 - "These Things Take Time..."

I kinda like this actually... these are lyrics from the song 'These Things Take Time' by Sanctus Real.

...yep. More Sanctus Real! I do like them :)

Anyways, today was my first AS Level exam... English Lit. ... it was hard, but it's over now! Just RS tomorrow to get through, and then I'll maybe have a few days off before looking at some Moving Image Arts...

I have used a lot of ellipsis (...) in this post... my use of ellipsis reflect how I am full of doubt and my life is broken =P

Note how I'm being all poetry analysis-y ... can't help it... it has been drilled into my brain...

*The word drilled here is a metaphor, symbolizing the physical pain of revision...*

Day 158 - **Sigh...

I HATE REVISION.

Crap photo due to exam tomorrow and the next day.

Sigh...

Day 157 - Revision. You Bore Me.

This is just a quickie I took with my fish eye lens. Spent all day revising again. Yay.

Day 156 - Bonding With Besties

This afternoon, I was sitting in my room doing some revision, and I just thought, "I wanna meet my best friend for tea!" So I rang my good friend Sarah and was like "hey! meet me in town?" and she was like "sure!"

So we met up and had a nice bonding session before going out to youth club! :) I enjoyed myself!
Sarah took this picture of our feet ^ should give her a wee shout out! Love ya!

Day 155 - I Love Manual Mode!!

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky."
Rabindranath Tagore

I love this quote. Its full of optimism and it kinda sums up my life at the moment. So there's some stuff that might happen that seem like big storm clouds, but in the reality, they make me who I am, form what I will be. :)
Yes. The sky really did look like this this evening! :D Twas so pretty! So I don't know why I don't use manual mode more often, it always brings the best results. I took pictures of the sky in manual tonight and I'm really pleased with the results!!

Day 154 - Petal In The Grass...

This flower petal was lying in the grass in my garden today, I thought it was rather pretty so I took a snap!! :)

Day 153 - Walking Through Narnia...

I went into school today for a wee while just while to pick up some stuff / drop some stuff off. You know, there is nothing to do in Downpatrick! Vikki and I waited around for an hour for the bus to come to take us home... seriously Downpatrick... get yourself something fun! ... like a playpark!! :D

Ah well, I got the Dundrum bus home which involved walking home for about 2 miles, but that didn't bother me. My normal bus home (Castlewellan) has a tendency to be temperamental and one time I was left to walk 2 miles on a dangerous main road. Scary!! But walking home from Dundrum means country roads, hardly any cars. It's also a very pretty road!

I happened to have my camera with me, so I snapped some pictures on my favourite road - the Moneylane Road, a.k.a. Narnia. It's called Narnia because it takes you from my road directly to my friends house, and you reach the end of it and say "Woah!! How did I get here?? I was just at Jo's house!!" The above picture is the view of the Mourne Mountains from Moneylane. I love the sky in this picture.

Cow parsnip grows all along the roads along where I live, it's hard not to see it when you're out for a walk! It's a really dainty little flower and rather pretty! :)And finally this is a picture of a tree I have to stop and admire every time I walk past... it's so pretty.

Day 152 - Daisy Chains...

Revision is killing me a little bit inside... I can't wait until summer really begins! Then I can spend all day taking pictures of daisies without feeling guilty for not being inside studying! Wooo! Cannot wait!