looming over us all

So, summer is almost over.
As a rule, I kind of hate summer as a season. Tanning? What is this tanning you speak of? I just freckle.
Throughout my life, summer's one redeeming feature has been summer holidays.

^
I wrote that the day before the summer holidays ended and never finished the post because I was busy preparing for school- by which I mean lazing around the house the whole day conveniently forgetting to pack a pencil case, sort out my uniform or consider the ramifications of going to school with green hair (I was made to dye it back anyway; if you follow my tumblr you knew that. But you probably don't follow my tumblr.).

Just to elaborate on one point, the inability to tan thing is completely true, not an exaggeration at all. I was  in this netball tournament and I was like, okay, I'll get tanned shoulders and arms from being in the sun all the time! Awesome! Alas, my shoulders are still (hideously, according to my mother, who frequently laments the fact that I don't have pristine, porcelain skin anymore) mottled and freckled from those two days playing netball.
It's a tan of sorts, I guess.

Anyway, this post has nothing to do with fashion!
I just felt like I was abandoning the blog and should probably post. Currently, I'm exhausted. I swear my body was not made to wake up at 6am every day (though it's more like 7 when I finally drag myself out of my room).

photo to illustrate my dark circles and general air of tiredness

what do work permits have to do with dyeing my hair?

this accurately shows the colour of my hair

It sucks, right? It's morphed into a vaguely greenish brown reminiscent of dying moss and my parents won't let me dye it until they have their work permit sorted out (where is the logic there?) which is in September. I have to go to school with this hair. I feel like those last three sentences should have a whitegirlproblems tag.

this photo looks completely different to all the others, I know. It's all awesome and blue.

I'm not actually sad in these photos, that's just my face. My mum frequently grabs my cheeks and says, "Hannah, you have a crying face! Your lips turn down!". I also should explain that my (insert the name of that bit between the lip and the nose) is too short for my face, or something - as determined by my dentist- and so my natural, completely relaxed facial expression is kind of pouty. But that's irrelevant, right, because you guys want to know all about my achingly trendy shirt as skirt thing!

I have no idea how all those other people did it, I just kind of slipped into the shirt and knotted it around my waist; it looks completely different to all the other pictures of shirt-as-skirt outfits I've seen but that's okay because my top is awesome. I got it for something like 50 kuai at a tiny little shop and it's incredibly warm and soft (I know it's summer but it was raining the day I took these photos) so in winter I don't even need to wear a coat with it (provided it isn't snowing, raining, sleeting, hailing or incredibly windy). I honestly don't know why it took me so long to include it in an outfit post.

gifts from Taiwan

I wore those two hairbands at once because...well, they didn't cover enough of my head alone. That's really all I have to say about that.

Outfit details:
- top from tiny shop with no name
- pink Tommy Hilfiger shirt
- scarf was a present from a stall in Wangjing Hualien
- hair bands were presents from Taiwan
- shoes from TK Maxx

also, I found two awesome DIYs to attempt sometime in the future- cosmic shoes and pikachu nails

Hannah

I dance, again

I don't like this outfit that much, to be honest. It seemed like a good idea but isn't it a bit boring? Or is it interesting? Or is it only interesting because of the colour of the dress? I just don't know. Too many questions for my exhausted mind. Seriously, ALGEBRAIC FRACTIONS ARE KILLING ME. I keep working each one out on paper, very methodically- I even check the answers!- yet as soon as I click "Mark it", mymaths.co.uk is like, "Screw you, Hannah, it's all wrong. ALL WRONG."

And then I die inside and write bad, super angsty poetry about parental pressure and schools.

off to go lease a new car. not me, my parents.

remember last time I danced? of course you don't.

add caption. I have nothing to write.

this looks posed, but it wasn't. I swear.

headscarf dislodged slightly

my brother! also known as, the one responsible for the two pictures of me dancing that are now loose on the internet

uh. shoes? I feel the need to caption everything if I caption one otherwise it looks weird.

-hot pink New Look dress (I know. They've changed since whenever this dress was bought.)
-random floral unknown brand shirt, knotted
-sheer black bow print tights from River Island
-shoes from shoes0.taobao.com (linked so you can go peruse the awesomeness)
-ribbons, purple one is a strip from a cloak that my brother wore for Roman day at school, the orange one is from a school trip- they tied it on our wrists.
-Scarf from mother's scarf box.

Hannah

they didn't photoshop me (this time)

I think. I mean, it was never confirmed, but I know what my own legs look like and they do not look like that.

Roberto Cavalli top, hole-y scarf from market in Shanghai, black skirt from ballet classes when I was 11, socks borrowed from my brother, shoes from shoes0, Monsoon bag, random ribbons tied onto shoes.

Straight after this, another woman came up and asked to take my photo for a magazine but because I'm a complete idiot I forgot to ask for the name of it. Therefore, as I'm evidently a sane and rational person, I set aside some money to buy a few Chinese magazines next week so I can pore over every page obsessively looking for a streetstyle feature. Seriously though, it still blows my mind that anyone would think I was cool enough to warrant a picture. I mean, look at me. I look like a goth garden gnome.

Hannah

this is vaguely related to the other post

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/on-the-un-democracy-of-fashion-blogging/

is really good.
It's basically what I was trying to say about fashion blogging, only much, much more eloquently.

strawberry dreams and custard creams

(titles usually have little, if any, relation to posts. this title is just something I pulled out of the air. Or the biscuit tin. HAHA. bad joke.)
This is an inspiration post mainly comprised of photos from The Ardorous (I think they're all Petra Collins' work but I'm hesitant to make any assumptions because I tend to credit things wrongly) that I happened upon when looking for room decoration inspiration. Oh, that will make no sense without any context- I recently moved to another room in my family's house; it's smaller but with awesome high ceilings and a much more cozy feel. It's also kind of bland right now. That will soon be remedied, as long as I don't succumb to another bout of laziness and indifference which I am very prone to do. Take my old room- two years ago I asked my mother if I could paint the walls. They still haven't been painted.

Anyway,  the photos! You know how you get certain feelings from photos? These make me think of the very end of summer, old friends and being in a new city for the first time- a weird, nostalgic kind of sadness. Things lost, I guess, time slipping through your fingers and that first feeling of wonder that can never be replicated.
I feel super pretentious right now but that's okay. To continue with the theme of talking annoyingly about photos when you really just want to stare at them for a while, I'm captioning all of them. ALL OF THEM.

this reminds me of going to stay with a relative and looking out the window for the first time at the city, the windowsill cluttered with things that aren't yours. I always feel kind of out of place, like my presence is jarring.

end of summertime

old friends 

new cities

memories of when it was sunny and everyone was lazing about

Now I'm going to have a look at teenagebedroom, because it is a really cool tumblr so anyone who hasn't checked it out definitely should!

Hannah

an imaginative title escapes me

Okay, I wrote a huge essay-long post on fashion bloggers and popularity and things but I realised I kept contradicting myself and when I went back and re-read it I felt like during the time I was writing it I had completely changed my mind.

Am I making sense? I feel like I'm not even writing in English. Nothing makes sense when I re-read it anymore.

Okay, this is just a quick summary of the thoughts that led me to write that really long post that I've since deleted. 

Thoughts about sites like Lookbook, Chictopia, etc

• Why is it that you only ever see conventionally attractive people on, say, the most hyped page of Lookbook.nu? Does not fitting society's standards of beauty mean you can't have great personal style?
• Which then made me think, do people judge personal style photos based on physical attractiveness? 
• Is that fair? 

Thoughts about general things

• Have popular fashion bloggers ceased to be relatable because of their access to expensive clothes? (This is not an attack or anything- I mean, if my favourite designer sent me some clothes, there is no way in hell I would refuse them).

And there were more but I'm really tired and I just want to stare at cdg dresses and lolita shoes for a little while, then maybe take a bubble bath.

Hannah

P.S I just looked at the homepage of Chictopia and Lookbook.nu to see if they had disproved my statements (I always make grand, sweeping statements then go and find that they've been disproved) and nope, it's all -seriously, ALL- thin, conventionally attractive, (mostly) white people. I'm not trying to say that their outfits have no merit but seriously, does nobody see the pattern?

ways to dress interestingly

I'm stuck in a clothing rut.
For the past few days, I've been wearing stretchy exercise trousers and (admittedly pretty cool) Uniqlo t-shirts.
IT HAS TO STOP. I hereby order myself to take an outfit photo every day for a week and then put them all on the blog in one monster post. Feel free to scream at me if I don't.
Also, I'll post proper pictures of my new dresses (photos of which can be seen on my tumblr) and musings on fashion bloggers. And maybe my article about rape that was rejected by my school magazine, as was my article about abortion.
I've got a good feeling about this, guys.

Hannah

and maybe it was the nicotine racing through my bloodstream but I felt light

I went grocery shopping with my mum and brother today, and made the mistake of letting him use my camera because he was bored.
What follows is a series of highly disturbing 'paparazzi' pictures.

I was momentarily heartbroken when I couldn't find any bacon.

The woman in the blue skirt is my mother, guys. 

I realise how odd this looks.

I guess on some level it kind of works as an outfit post? But not really.
-Top from Uniqlo collaborating with Theatre Products
-Skirt from American Apparel
-Tights from River Island
-Shoes from this place

On another note, due to a recent influx of money, I bought two awesome dresses which will soon be photographed. Also, I'm supposed to post something to the Fashion Click every two months so let's just pretend this is an outfit post and keep quiet.

Hannah

new leaves and things

This blog is turning over a new leaf! Yes, I haven't informed Naomi of this but it was a spur of the moment decision and I have decided that from now on, I'll update at least once a week. Because it got kind of sad watching Style Hawkers gather dust while my tumblr was updated every day.

Okay, the second I wrote that it started raining; I'm thinking that's a good sign. I don't actually have any outfit posts or words of wisdom to impart, so I'll just end the post with a vaguely narcissistic webcam picture of myself in McDonalds. I think I mentioned that I dyed my hair.