Summer 2013

I start college again next Monday and I just wanted to let out my thoughts about this summer.

One pretty god damn amazing event happened this summer, LeakyCon London. It definitely was the best weekend of my life and I'm still in denial that it's over. Other than that my summer has been spent in solitude. When I finished college my parents and I went on holiday to Porto, Portugal which was nice and that's all I can really say about it. We saw some lovely things but the weather was just a bit disappointing, because it was completely overcast all week. Of course the cloud deluded us to the presence and temperature of the sun, resulting in my mum getting very burnt and me moderately burnt. I got a good tan anyway, although my skin was peeling for weeks afterwards.

I've been quite unmotivated this summer and been using this idea I had to vlog as much as possible during this month which has been mildly successful. It hasn't been so successful when I've been lazy or my editing software hasn't cooperated. Before Leaky, I was going to bed at roughly 11pm, getting up at 10am, not going to get ready until 1pm and some points not finishing lunch until 3pm. After Leaky, I was going to bed at 1am and getting up at 12pm. I was still tired after this 11 hour sleep and this affected my motivation.

I haven't gone out a lot this summer due to money and I think I went to town once or twice. The days that my Ddad has been off he's gone on walks, but I don't usually enjoy those and I'm usually not awake by the time he goes out anyway. Being inside for most of summer has led to my Dad becoming worried that I'm becoming a social recluse...well I've been a recluse for a while now so clearly he doesn't know me that well if he's only just noticing that.

Other than some significant events, everything else this summer has been timid. In true Karis fashion, I've left everything that I wanted to do until the last week. Including some research task/presentation I have to do for dance.

The week after Leaky I received my A Level Results and they were pretty good as I got an A in Photography, B in Media Studies and a B in Sociology. The first result I saw on my sheet though was my Dance result which was a D. I was pretty much heartbroken, as Dance is a subject I'm passionate about and done since I was five. Particularly as I wanted to continue this subject and discontinue studying Media Studies. The head of department tried to convince me to carry on Media Studies, she did pretty much tell me that I would get a D in A2 althought that's just encourage me to work even harder to do better. I am going to resit this years theory paper though as I was 10 marks away from a C. I was sobbing for half an hour after I found my results, I'm very lucky though to have supportive friends and a supportive Sociology teacher to console me and feel a bit better.

I always say to myself I'm gonna try to blog more, but despite the load of work I've got to do. I'm gonna at least try to do a blog post a week (if I have an idea) in my spare time. Sorry for the very long post, but I hope you enjoyed reading :)

Birthday Book Haul

The Divergent Series by Veronica Roth

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Chopsticks: A Novel by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral

My Idea Bookshelf, edited by Thessaly La Force

LeakyCon Book Haul

Candor by Pam Bachorz

Boy Nobody by Allan Zadoff

Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them by J.K. Rowling

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

NY // 06 - Ghetto/Subway/SoHo/Things

On our second to last day in New York, we took the Subway down to the Staten Island Ferry and took a boat across to the Island and saw the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty etc. (post on that coming soon)

The area we arrived in was quite a 'ghetto' area with a lot of signs of deprivation which I thought was a nice contrast and we then walked on to the SoHo area, where China Town and Little Italy was also located and did some more shopping.

I was really pleased with some of the photos I took whilst there, and they made a nice contribution to my photography exam project. As I was showing the negative contrasts, I experimented a bit with adding some gradients to the photos as well as doing a series of simply black and white photos to show the bleakness.

NY // 05 - Central Park

We didn't spend as much time as I wanted to in Central Park, maybe some other time. It was covered in snow from a few days ago, which made the area look very picturesque and beautiful. Additionally, it was a nice contrast between the nature in the park and the towering architecture on the border of the park. Either way it was still very beautiful.

I was also pretty impressed by the Apple Store bulding. It was just a glass, cuboid shaped building rising from the ground with a glowing apple logo being suspended, with an escalator in the centre of the building taking you down to the actual store. I don't know, I was just weirdly impressed by that and thought it was pretty cool.

NY // 04 - Museum Of Modern Art

On our second(ish) day we went to the Museum of Modern Art. My favourite exhibitions were definitely the illustratin/painting floors and the photography exhibition. I found the exhibition every inspiring, the composition of the photos were excellent and come of the photobooks/essays displayed were very interesting also. I enjoyed the painting exhibition because of the famous Vincent Van Gogh's and the 'Scream' paintings, it was quite a life experience to be able to see them. We spent about two hours in there and then we ended up getting a hot dog from a classic New York hot dog cart. 

I also made a montage video documenting my visit to the museum. You can check it out below:

NY // 03 - Grand Central Station

Grand Central Station was really magnificent and had lots of little shops and cafes to visit. The architecture is excellent and I really like the photos I've taken, as even though the people are out of focus it looks really effective. I miss this place.

Girls On Film

So if you're as dedicated a YouTube addict as I am, you will know there has been a massive debate on the latest 'Becoming Youtube' episode about Girls on Youtube. I did record and upload a video response to it, but there was an editing problem and after seeing other responses to the episode, my opinion and thoughts started to change.

I'll give you a brief version on what I want to say, for time and length purposes. When I first watched the episode, I thought it was really good. It was only after when I saw everyone's video responses that my opinions started to change.

Firstly, I disagree with the proposed idea that these video responses gave Benjamin Cook (the creator of the series) a 'vocal battering'. I didn't appreciate the tone of some of the responses if I'm being honest, but I wouldn't say they gave Ben a 'vocal battering'. They were simply just giving valued and well-reasoned criticism, and they weren't being cruel and victimizing Ben for being 'a sexist pig' or something similar.

Another thing I strongly disagree with, (which may seem quite random, but it is related I promise) I would even go as far to say I don't just disagree with this statement, but that it is factually wrong. What I'm talking about is the idea that 'Oh men and women DO get equal opportunities though!!' HA. No they do not. This is not just true for YouTube but for society in general. There are less women in high roles in politics as the houses of parliament members are predominantly male. Even though women are doing better in education, they still need to break through that glass ceiling of male patriarchy.

This is similar in the YouTube community with males being dominant and just from watching the latest episode of Becoming YouTube I've realised that there are so many more female Youtubers than I expected, just from watching the video responses and all the girls that they've recommended to watch. Also male Youtubers don't promote women Youtubers as much, which I don't particularly understand. Is it because they feel they'll be judged because of it? I really don't know. In my opinion, when females are successful it is kind of down to luck to be honest. For example, I feel Emma Blackery wouldn't have got 100k subscriptions so quickly if she wasn't friends with lots of high brow Youtubers such as Luke Cutforth.

One thing my friend Lauren said when I was talking to her about it last night which I agree with quite a lot with is this: "At the end of the day it's about attracting an audience and I think you have to have a large circle of connections to get noticed in the first place! It's ok for well known female youtubers to say they get equal recognition because they attracted an audience through connections and that's their individual experience! They don't exactly consider the bigger picture in my opinion."

I also agree with something that Rosianna (missxrojas) said, in that okay, as women in some way we have to be better equipped to deal with the hate comments. But we SHOULDN'T HAVE TO BETTER EQUIPPED. You don't see men saying they're better equipped for the hateful comments do you?

As a little experiment I decided to go down my subscriptions and tally how many men and women I'm subscribed to. Here is my total: Male - 49. Female - 47.
So the gap is quite narrow within my subscription feed, and that may indeed be representative of the Youtube community but you never know it may not.

New York Haul

Pylones; Grand Central Station - 70s TV Trivia - $5

Pylones; Grand Central Station - When Parents Text... - $12.95

Pylones; Grand Central Station - Boombox Journal - $12.95

Topshop - Smokey Eye Palette - $24

Topshop - Jersey - $40

M&M World - Flower Box - $9.95 each

M&M World - Guitar Plectrums - $3.95

Urban Outfitters - Deltona Chain Earcuff - $16

Urban Outfitters - Sara Golden, Wild At Heart - $25

Bloomingdales - Little Canvas Bag - $20

Disney Store - Pixar Vinylmation - $12.95

Disney Store - Lotso Bear - $19.50

All the above items are from Forever 21! 

These are the items that I bought from New York last month. I actually bought a lot less than I thought I did, even though my suitcase was full to the brim. I suppose that's a lesson for if I go to New York again to take a bigger suitcase!

I also did a video of these items which you can view above if you prefer. I also bought a tourist-y 'I ♥ NY' hoodie, but I forgot to take a photo of that.