currently;

After almost an entire month of it being Spring, I am now finally ready to accept this weather. It rained the other night and I actually cried I was that happy (PMS?) After much worry, though, I am going to embrace this weather and put my body on the line in the hopes of going back to my natural colour of brown (as opposed to an off yellow!) 
To everyone who knows me, you're welcome.

Loving: The fact that my Europe holiday isn't that far away anymore! Eating: Eggs for breakfast on the daily. Drinking: Spiders. Also known as coke floats! Yes? Wearing: This weather has me wearing shorts. Don't know how I feel about this yet! Reading: About 3 different books. Just about to start Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Feeling: Anxious but I am taking action! Doing: Anything but assignments!
Happy Spring fellow Southern Hemispherians!

the greatest brother in the world!

The only brother in the world as well.
I think.
My wittle baby brother graduated from high school last week. Which scares me for two reasons:
1) He's practically old now. 2) I'm really old seeing as I graduated a few years ago.
High school was not the best time in the world for me. Looking back, I realise that I was the archetypal high school student. I wasn't really sure who I was, who my friends were or what I wanted to do with my life. I couldn't understand why I was so different from everyone else and felt so alone in my problems. I couldn't see that beauty comes in many shapes and forms, and that it's okay to do your own thing.
Leaving high school (and dating my incredible man-friend) allowed me to develop as a person and to have faith in myself. By leaving the little bubble that high school is, I was able to trust my judgments and to see things anew. 

I was saying to Justin the other day that if I could do high school over and again, but as I am now, I would enjoy it so much more. By leaving and gaining an understanding of who I am (and everything that entails), I think I would have the confidence to deal with the world of high school.

I tried to bear all of this in mind as my brother started nearing the end of school. I like to think of myself as the voice of reason in this house and I was constantly trying to stress to him the importance of being yourself. I think he has left there with better memories than I did and I am so happy for that. Many people wished him goodbye and good luck and it was so sweet to watch. They all hold him in such high regard and I think that's because he can't hide his kind spirit. 

He is the sweetest of kids, just trying to find his way. He has a good heart and is very loyal to his friends. He's smart too, and knows his strengths and weaknesses.
I wish him the very best of luck in his final exams, and know that whatever path he chooses next year will be the right path for him.  

By the way, the kid got like four awards. He also came first in Business Studies, beating me! (I came in measly second by ONE mark!!) Congratulations buddy, you're going to smash your finals!

weekly round-up 13.

Last week was quite a relaxed week at university, in that some of my classes were cancelled. So I did get to spend a bit of time sleeping, yay!
I'm two pictures behind for the Photo a Day challenge but I plan to catch up tomorrow so you can all relax and sleep easy again. Sorry to concern you all.
The good news is that the new Photo a Day October list is now up on Chantelle's blog! I encourage you all to join along -- it's fun and easy and you get to be a photographer. Right..?

15. First thing I saw

16. Strange

17. In my fridge

18. Price

19. Underneath 20. Man-made 21. Sometimes 22. Up
Follow me on Instagram @cuejas1 or Twitter @cuejas!

weekly round-up 12.

Hello little love muffins!
I took some days off from social media because I felt that I was just getting sucked into the little vortex that is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Blogger. Love them all like they're my babies but for reals, it was time to back away slowly.
This week was quite lovely all in all. I saw The Watch with Justin, L & J. Had a good old chuckle. It's thoroughly ridiculous but quite funny. Forgot to snap pictures - again! Here are the pictures I did manage to get this week. 

1. 11. Hero - this is the famous Bruce mug! He is also Justin's dad. And check out Justin being my model! 2. 14. Favourite - one of my favourite animals of course - penguins being the other ;) 3. 12. Together - everyone, meet Sergeant Pepper and Corporal Salt. 4. 13. Table - the old dining table that rarely gets used.
I also have one more photo that I'm hesitant to post... My little brother is in his final year of school and at the end of the year they have a 'muck up' day. It's just a day of general ruckus and chaos. It also usually involves the boys wearing the girls' uniforms and vice versa.
Does anyone want to see my brother in a dress? 
He rocks it better than I did awkwardly...
NB: All of those photos are from my Instagram feed. I'm doing the Photo a Day challenge, follow along!

Tag: If I Were...

Another tag I hear you saying? Well... NIINA MADE ME DO THIS!

That's a lie. She did, however, do this tag and I loved her answers, so I wanted to do it too. 

Plus I can't resist a good tag post. 

Plus she strongly suggested I do it. 

Plus I love her and will do anything she says. 

I'm waiting for the day where she makes me do something really crazy like eat seafood. And trust me, it's actually going to come and I will have no power to resist her. Thank goodness I think she's great aye?

If I were a gemstone, I'd be a pearl.

If I were a scent, I'd be Calvin Klien 'Eternity'.

If I were a pair of shoes, I'd be a pair of off-white converse trainers. {Niina + Jasmine = BFF} 

If I were the weather, I'd be a cold, sunny, Winter morning.

If I were a facial expression, I'd be a smirk for sure!

If I were a car, I'd be a Bentley.

If I were a time of day, I'd be 4 PM. 

If I were a month, I'd be June.

If I were a place, I'd be Sweden.

If I were a liquid, I'd be tea.

If I were a taste, I'd be lightly salted, slightly sweet. 

If I were a sea animal, I'd be a whale.

If I were a food, I'd be blue cheese.

If I were a colour, I'd be canary yellow.

If I were a musical instrument, I'd be a double bass.

If I were a flower, I'd be a tulip.

If I were a planet, I'd be Neptune.

If I were an object, I'd be a book. 

If I were a fruit, I'd be a coconut.

If I were a sound, I'd be the sound of rain.

If I were a day of the week, I'd be a Friday.

Ready, steady go - psycho-analyse me! If you do the tag, let me know because I like stalking you as much as you like stalking me :-)

P.S - That picture up there has to be an all time favourite! L & myself formed a secret plan to hug-attack her boyfriend. I personally think it was rather successful. Please note my tendency to wear socks + shoes, leggings as pants, and a hat + sunnies inside.. at night..

weekly round-up 11.

GOOD MORNING, BALTIMORE!
The lovely Megan Flynn @ Freckled Italian just happens to be in Baltimore for work and she just happened to mention that in a post.
So I just happened to YouTube 'Good Morning Baltimore' and it just happened to get stuck on repeat. Such is what I do on Monday evenings. Brings me solace. Join me on this journey of overwhelming happiness and wishing I had even bigger hair than I do! 
But now onto far more serious matters. Remember how I mentioned that I'm doing the Photo a Day challenge this month? I thought I'd show you my pictures here too in my weekly round-up! I'm far too kind, I know. 
Hope you like them! *fingers crossed* You can follow along in real time too if you'd fancy that (I sure would!) @cuejas1

1. You, now. Also pre-races. I won money. 'Nuff said. // 2. Father. Everyone, meet Dad back when he had hair. 

3. Far away. Look how far those power lines go! // 4. In my mailbox. Mum's pretty firm on her stance against junk mail... 

5. Bright. This is my university at night. I stayed back late to do an essay. Looks like Hogwarts, sigh. // 6. Every day. Breakfast kids, it's necessary and oh so enjoyable. Do it. 

7. Natural. My natural 'do for work. That's how I roll. // 8. At night. The aliens just happened to be beaming down just as I snapped this pic. So kind of them.

9. Something I do most weekends. Read for pleasure. I feel too guilty doing it during the week! // 10. Black + White. Just a floral arrangement I whipped up earlier for your viewing pleasure.
What've you been upto this past week? Anyone else doing #fmsphotoaday? 

How to Fail at University

As usual, I have left writing my essay far too late. This wouldn't be such a problem if I had gone to any lectures, taken any tutorial notes or done any of my readings for this subject. Here's a fun fact: I haven't done any of those things and am almost half way through the semester.
At the moment, I'm taking what I believe to be a well-deserved break. I'm just over half way through my essay and still don't know what the question is really asking or what my answer is really saying. I'm in top form tonight.
I've been informing Justin every now and then the things I'd rather be doing (by the way, he is trying to cram for an exam - we're great students...) Thus far, my list involves: poking my eye out and putting my head in a toilet (I didn't actually say that one out loud to him, for fear he would leave me...) Both would honestly be far more interesting an experience.
As another form of procrastination, I thought I would share with you the methods that I am personally testing to see if they will indeed make me fail university.
1. Leave everything to the last minute. Then have a panic attack. Then require copious amounts of sugar and caffeine. Then look like absolute rubbish for the next 48 hours. This particular method has the effect of making you look like a possum (all wide-eyed and nocturnal) yet also like a crazy person who really likes drugs.
2. Continuously swap attending lectures for electronic entertainment. My drug of choice here is Foxtel. So many channels! I attempt to justify this with 'I'll look at the lecture slides later'. I am that bad that I don't even do that. The best bit about this method is you get to play a guessing game with yourself in tutorials and try to work out what everyone is talking about. If you get it right AND make a successful contribution to class, you can leave that tutorial the second you've finished speaking. 50 points to Gryffindor.
3. Wear your 'I hate you' face to university. This is a personal favourite. If you walk facing the sun and squint directly at it, people think you're really mad and generally stay away from you. Thus making it difficult to make friends. Thus making it difficult to steal their study notes. This, however, does mean that people who are really passionate about their political or religious causes tend to throw flyers in your face less often. Although it did result in some guy telling me I looked like I needed a free hug. Yeah okay creeper, keep walking...
The final one is for those truly brave souls who really think they have what it takes...
4. Enrol in subjects that are spoken in another language.  Then proceed to speak a third, completely different language in that class for the rest of semester. 'Nuff said.
If at this point you would like to contribute further ways for me to procrastinate, I would greatly appreciate it. 
P.S - Don't try to fail at university guys. Stay cool, stay in school.

weekly round-up 10.

Hullo! Special hello to all my of my newer followers this week - tis such a pleasure to have y'all around!
And I'm done being American.
The past week was still a bit of an emotional roller coaster but that is life ya know? There was some time to mourn and time to just get on with things. Speaking of which... My new 'tude is all about working with what you got and being grateful. It's nice to just live in the moment!
So, here's to this week being less overwhelming and more zen :-)

This is my new best friend - there's more to this story! // We went to the races for a friend's 21st and had such a ball losing all of our monies!

This bad boy was one of the best purchases I have ever made! // Sitting on the lawn at university, mulling over death and I just liked this photo!
P.S - A little birdy (that's me guys..) seems to think there might be a giveaway happening reeeeeeeeeeal soon. Full of wonderful, wonderful goodies! Stay tuned all you crazy people who think I'm a bird!
"If you're a bird, I'm a bird."
I had to. I'm sorry. I WANT HIM TO FATHER MY CHILDREN! And Justin, if you're reading this, by him I mean you.