Coming Of Age - Blog Posts

Bloody Tears

It was a bit tricky, but I challenged myself to make a line less art drawing only using one color pallet. I guess this kind of reflects how I’ve been feeling as of late with my 18th birthday coming up this weekend, and I’m not ready to be an adult yet… I’m not ready for my childhood to be over…

So thinking about NaNoWriMo stuff, I think I know what I want to write.

I'm going to write a novel about a girl with a very silly name (Jane Dogfood) who starts a mess of a podcast where she interviews the people around her about their life experiences and discovers who she is as she explores how she does/doesn't relate to the people she interviews.

While it is a coming of age story, a lot of focus will be developing these characters and exploring their life experiences, possibly in a "story within a story" sort of way

Just found out that Judd Nelson was 26 filming The Breakfast Club, my life is OVER

Photos arrived🌼

My kimono 👘 is so good 🌼🎀☺️

Growing Up

You are three asking your mother when will you be four / You are four and full of life and cartwheels / You are five and love everything other than the unbearably flashy rhinestone dress / You are six and scrawny which also translates to being an easy target to bullies / You are six and you befriend the guy who locked you in the playground because he wanted to see a little girl cry but instead, you climbed over a wall three times higher than you / You laughed in his face as his friends ran away, scared of a little girl kicking their asses / Why am I always small? Why do I always have to be strong? / You are seven and great at skating / You are seven and you used the word upside-down when reading Tom Sawyer and you are so proud of yourself for knowing it / You are eight and love life / You are eight and you love life / You are eight and love life / You are eight and you love books and travel and that one time you walked out of the train station when dawn was just breaking / You saw the prettiest sky of your life; a sky so blue and so dark and so light that it stole the drowsiness right from your eyes / I know you still wake up early in hopes that the sky will one day walk down the memory lane with you / You are nine and you swear the house is so big you will get lost here / You imagine playing hide and seek for hours on end here; swear that you almost forgot where the rooms go / You are ten and the house is not so big anymore / It is full of life and things / You are always somewhere / There is a summer there I spent visiting the hospital / I don’t quite remember now / Hospitals sometimes start to feel like home now / Eleven is a happy blur: I love everyone and everyone loves me / Eleven is happiness: I knew everyone and everyone admired me / Twelve is blue and black; there were moments I lived through that I never knew I would miss / Thirteen is a lot of carrying friendships I don’t like / Fourteen is a lot of sighs of relief; of friendships left behind and the year of growing before everything goes to shit / Fifteen is a lot of fun and not remembering things that hurt us; things that haunt us / Fifteen is fun and shenanigans with newfound friends you like enough / Sixteen is hard work / Sixteen is a lot of fighting and sometimes fun / Sixteen is for the bitch face and cuts / Sixteen is a lot of wondering what you’ve become / Sixteen is fake friends and smiles which will ruin you / Sixteen is the year of silly crushes on boys who think the world revolves around them / Sixteen is a lot of “I am almost an adult” / Sixteen is for parties and the time your life was as perfect as those IT kids in the movies / Sixteen is a lot of cold air on your face and feeling this city become home / Seventeen is for survival / Seventeen is for keeping your head down / Seventeen is for breakdowns / Seventeen is the time you snap and take a stand / Seventeen is having your own back / Seventeen is very alone but that’s okay / Seventeen is a lot of cussing and spiraling / Seventeen is for the nightmares / Seventeen is for closures / Seventeen is survival / Seventeen is for the big fuck you which is never said / Seventeen is for winning / Seventeen is for winning / Seventeen is so many goddamn wins / Seventeen is a big fuck you that escapes as a smile / Eighteen is relief / Eighteen is the growing up that sneaks up on you / Eighteen is acceptance / Eighteen is so much happiness / Eighteen is how everything is okay and everything is home / Eighteen is the year of being childish and loving it / Eighteen is a lot of love and happiness / Eighteen is a goddamn dream / Eighteen is doing everything you love and telling it to its face / Eighteen is dreams come true / Eighteen is growing up and growing up and being okay with it / Eighteen leaves with patience / Eighteen is a lot of learning to stay / Eighteen is fading yet forever / I am always going to be eighteen in some parts /

Review: The Spectacular Now (2013)

Rating: 9.0 of 10

Sutter Keely (Miles Teller) was a party boy who met and fell in love with plain, average girl, Aimee Finicky (Shailene Woodley). The plot just writes itself, really, but it was what happens between them and how they happen that makes the movie shine above others. First and foremost, what makes this movie unique for me was the portrayal of high school that was devoid of the typical high school stereotypes. Cliques weren't in wars against other cliques, people actually treat others nicely, girls don’t get makeovers, the ex weren't an insufferable b*tch, and Sutter—one of the most popular kid in the school—could still be a joke. Basically, the kids were portrayed as human beings. The Spectacular Now has the courage to let story and characters be the drama the movie needs, instead of milking cheap stereotypes.

The Spectacular Now really is not teen movie (it's actually R-rated), rather it's a well-made drama that is incidentally set in the teenage years. While it has an assuring amount of sweet scenes, for me The Spectacular Now is mostly just a coming-of-age story instead of a full-on love story. The film was mostly told from the perspective of Sutter and how his life changed throughout his time with Aimee. We don't really see Aimee's life or her point of view (what's up with the drinking?), and for once I'm actually okay with that. Aimee is definitely not a one-dimensional character though—we certainly have a firm grasp of what her character really is about—we just don't get to see the details of her life and that's okay. This is Sutter's story, and that's enough.

The thing that propels this movie is definitely the rich, sweet chemistry between the actors. Miles Teller's Sutter exudes this good-natured charisma and relatability, with equal amounts of effervescence and anguish, and self-destruction, while Woodley's Aimee was pure, unconditional, and unrestricted—that was actually the bane of their relationship. Even the supporting characters were perfect, giving the right amounts of pathos to each of their characters: Brie Larson, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kyle Chandler, and Bob Odenkirk. They were all understated but memorable, especially Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Sutter's older sister with a mysterious tumultuous past with the family. The movie itself was pretty slow with relatively little drama, but layers and layers of characterization like that makes a worthwhile viewing experience.

TL;DR A teen-focused movie like no other, The Spectacular Now provides lovely, tender antidote to our otherwise cynical lives.

watching coming of age movies to reinstall my love for living

pretty much sums my life decisions 

The modern day coming of age story starts with renouncing the things you loved as a kid for being for babies and ends with you learning to love them again