mmm

london buses

something i love about london is the buses. inside the mostly double decker machines, so many lives are contained and, for such a brief time, each of them are connected at this one point. no matter what kind of existence they've had, something has brought them all onto this specific vehicle and their lives are all moving at different paces. it's kind of beautiful and really weird and i keep thinking about it. i wonder if anyone else does. i doubt that lots of people do though, because londoners too often seem too occupied and busy and fast and worried.

i use buses a lot. i take two to get to and from school. this morning i really wanted to read on my journey to school, but i was really intrigued by the conversation of two year 7s from my school. my school has two sites, and i moved on to upper school in summer, so i don't really get to see the new year 7s anymore. it was so interesting how they both spoke slowly and carefully and were so bubbled in their conversation. the girls were talking about a music presentation they had to do today. one of them was saying that she would talk about muslims in the music industry, and how quite a few want to be famous but their religion doesn't really allow it; how it's hard to get recognition within that industry etc. i think that's about when i had to get off of the bus. it's so wonderful that she is conscious of problems her people face and decided to educate others about it. i wonder what else she knows about muslim people's experience of the world - i'd like for her to tell me.

i recently read a zine which had a piece about the experience of and by a black american muslim woman. so many components of her identity! and that's not even the whole of it. when i get the zine back from my friend i might put a little extract up on here if i can be bothered. i think i will because there's other stuff i want to say about muslim women.

i just saw this picture on tumblr that reminded me of what i eavesdropped this morning:

now for a kind of irrelevant but really cute song:

:-)

monday moodboard

"i design clothes because i don't want women to look all innocent and naive. i want women to look stronger.

i don't like women to be taken advantage of. i don't like men whistling at women in the street. i think

they deserve more respect. i like men to keep their distance from women, i like men to be stunned by an

entrance. i've seen a woman get nearly beaten to death by her husband. i know what misogyny is.

i want people to be afraid of the women i dress." - alexander mcqueen

life

some screenshots of my tumblr

school is getting on every nerve i have at the moment, but i'm okay otherwise. last sunday my cousin's girlfriend gave birth and tomorrow i'm going to see their beautiful little baby! then i'm going to a surprise party for my other cousin who's boyfriend is going to propose to her!!!! i genuinely think this has been the best year of my life in the weirdest ways ever because it hasn't been particularly happy or memorable all round. i just feel like i've grown so much and there have been lovely lovely things that have happened, like my aunty's wedding in summer. it was the best experience of my life. :-) i read some of john agard's poetry (books make good pets is so good) then started school at 10.30 this morning.
still feeling chill.

thoughts on thoughts

this is so beautiful. the lungs look like the roots of a tree. the trunk is rising up the throat and the fruits of the tree are the words the person speaks; they drop or roll or fall or slip off the tongue. and the very tree-top is where the person's brain is. that's beautiful because your brain is where you develop and process your perception of things. it's you who extends the branches. and thoughts are like leaves on a tree, in how they live a little life and when they die they crumble and they fall. maybe that means that we never really forget our thoughts, they just fall like leaves to the heels of our feet or something, and become the foundation of what we think later in life. so they're always there kind of.

1000 words

monday moodboard

very literally me right now. it's always strange to realise that thoughts and feelings, as personal as they seem, have been felt by other people in possibly completely different circumstances on an opposite side of this one planet. and maybe on another planet too, but hopefully there they haven't fucked things up so much as humans have over here. (would feelings exist on another planet? what even are feelings? lol.) i think that if we, those who are experiencing such thoughts and feelings now, are vocal about them then maybe a change will come about. it's no use to keep quiet sometimes.

all by myself!!

today has been so chill. i've quite enjoyed my friday and i think it's because when i finished styling my hair this morning i spent so long looking at myself in the mirror thinking about how fabulous i am that i was nearly late. i then proceeded to have a really good day. i've been either working hard or just doing what i felt like doing today. sometimes that was the same thing. i think i was subconsciously motivated to get through today because tomorrow i'm going to my cousin's house in kent all by myself (to sleep there bc it's her birthday next monday)! 2 hours on public transport all by myself! i'm so so excited oh my gosh. my dad was going to take me to the rail station but i won't let him because i need to force myself to become more independent and try to actually ask for directions and talk to ticket people all by myself! ooh if this is what it means to be 15 then i think i'm liking it.

monday moodboard

http://jellyandlilipop.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/i-am-not-less-because-i-wear-a-dress/

power

my philosophy:

part animal + part god = human

you're so hypnotizing