free

A lot has been said about those Free People ‘ballet’ ads for their new ballet-inspired collection/line. Now, I am not privileged or good enough to be a full-time dancer or a serious pre-professional. Instead I am a butt-lazy recreational dancer who gets to wear cool ballet leotards and do pointe work (at the barre, mind you) and enjoy all the fun parts about ballet once a week, without having to work myself to exhaustion, bleed through pointe shoes or worry about my figure – which is great, considering I don’t have the ideal ballet body, whatever that may be.

(…)

tumult.

Joy Womack modelling Cloud & Victory’s scalloped lace ballet skirt in diamond.

I met Joy in Hong Kong, when we came together to collaborate on Cloud & Victory’s fall/winter campaign. It was amazing – a clothing designer from Singapore and an American dancing in Russia converging in a special administrative region of China. We had fun together – talking, shooting photos, eating. I certainly don’t claim to be a close friend of hers: a few days is too short for that. But we empathized with each other and found we shared some common ground, despite differing in circumstance and personality.

I’d chatted briefly with Joy before the proverbial shit hit the fan (pardon my French). She told me about some of the difficulties she was facing, and I faced a moment of genuine helplessness at my inability to make things better for her, somehow, someway.

Make no mistake – she is a survivor. But she is ultimately a good-hearted young lady who simply wants to dance to the best of her ability. And the fact of the matter is that the hyper-competitive, cutthroat world of Russian ballet concedes no allowances to good hearts.

H1: part deux.

Picture gacked from Unimelb Adventures. Because CORGI.

Essays & Exams: how to write a bitchin’ paper.

(…)

wip.

I dream of needle scales: attempting to improve my back flexibility for arabesques. I can stretch reel gud.

H1: part un.

Or: HOW TO GET A H1 IN MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY ARTS.

Now I don’t pretend that I know very much, but I did graduate from Melbourne University with >75% average in arts – political science, to be exact – and nothing below a H2A in my last 8 Arts subjects.

(…)

Fire.

Hunger Games: plz to feed the wild Jennifer Lawrence. Credit: the magic of google.

I confess to never having read the Hunger Games series. I am ridiculously fussy about my fantasy – Arthurian, Tolkien, Narnia and Harry Potter. My familiarity with the world of Panem is limited to gifs of JLaw’s sassiness, and pictures of Effie Trinket painted as some dystopian geisha/Elizabethan lady-of-court. Despite the hype and the accolades, I’ve never had the urge to read the books, much less watch the movies.

But when my sister decided to shell out $3.99 to watch the movie on cable, I figured it was as good a time as any to see what the fuss was about.

(…)

babies.

Just gave birth. Still prettier than you.

Let’s be honest: everyone’s a little disappointed that the Prince formerly known as Royal Baby isn’t a girl.

(…)

milk.

My brother’s biggest grievance when he went to an American college was the tragic absence of whole milk.  His dormitory provided students with a sampling of milks to choose from – 2%, skim and non-fat, but whole milk was noticeably absent. All these pretender species of milk were both tasteless and heretical to my brother.

I am quite the opposite of my milk afficionado of a younger brother. My mildly-lactose-intolerant-self refused dairy of all kinds since birth. I was raised on a combination of apple juice and water. But even so, I fully sympathised with him. Because I like milk – when it doesn’t taste like milk, that is.

(…)

leotards.

Leotards are a very near and dear subject to me, because

1. I’ve been following gymnastics for more than a decade. I’ve seen a lot of leotards.
2. I have many opinions.
3. The longer I follow something, the more opinions I have on it.
4. I actually have to wear those things. (…)

insides.

Inside the gym bag: Adidas leotard with matching scrunchie, bike shorts and wristbands. Cloud & Victory Starstuff shirt. Ten-o velcro grips. Bloch shoebag, used to hold grips. Snacks (very important). Tape, and a lot of it.