The Art of Reinvention

So whilst half asleep this morning and attempting to wrestle myself into some sort of clothing for work, I caught my reflection in the mirror and couldn't help thinking how much I've changed over the last year or so. I'm now rocking being a dumb blonde, I've pierced my nose, got my second set of holes pierced in my ears (but they closed up), and got inked twice (a blue Aum on my wrist and 6 ladybugs on my foot to represent my Mummy and Sibs), and I have also lost about a stone in weight (although there is still about half a stone to go until I'll be a little happier with my weight). And it got me thinking about how people constantly reinvent themselves.


Now I don't know about you, but it is pretty apparent by the above description that I enjoy reinventing myself and the way I look. I was speaking to Miss Red Star and Miss Koko about it the other day and I worked out that in the last year I've changed my hair colour at least 4 times. I've gone from Ribena Purple -> reddy brown -> blue black -> blonde. I suppose I am a little like Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim vs the World film, as she was constantly changing her hair colour... although I do draw the line at bright green. However, the last hair colour change is still on going, (due to it being almost impossible to go straight from blue black to blonde), but I am enjoying my newly acquired drop in I.Q., which seem to comes as a side effect of the hair colour. That's my excuse anyway and I'm sticking to it! I have also got super cool brown- eyed prescription contact lenses, which have been known to make an appearance on nights out recently, much to the bemused looks of my friends. Gone is the geeky girl who actually wanted to pass her exams in school and enter the pierced, tattooed and grungy looking girl who has finally been let out of her cage, donned the geek chic glasses and adopting a more 'who gives a fuck' attitude to life. Well that's the plan anyway and that is only just the start.I am already itching to get a new piercing and another tattoo! They really are addictive little buggers. So in an attempt not to let modern technology get the better of me I have attempted to make a collage of photos illustrating the changes... so here goes...

Going from black to blonde; First Tattoo - Lady Bugs; Second Tattoo - Aum; and my nose piercing with my wicked brown contact lenses in.

Well after a lot of swearing and puzzled facial expressions about how to make a word document format as a picture it uploaded :) *does a little victory dance*. Modern Technology -0, RQG - 1.

Anyway I digress as per usual. I suppose for me reinventing the way I look has always been the best way I can express myself. Whilst I like to know what the latest fashion trends are, I try not to follow them to the t. I like to find a look and then make it a little different to fit with the way I am. For example, I went to Reading Festival in 2010 and the weather was a lot wetter and colder than any of us expected, so after a quick trip to one of the market stalls on the festival grounds, I came away with a wicked Minnie Mouse Vintage jumper. I love this jumper to bits as it is sooo versatile and 2 years later I am still wearing it and even as I type, I am cwtched up on the sofa wearing it. It can be dressed down with jeans or more grunged up with a dress and I have to admit it has become one of my wardrobe pieces that I dread ever breaking as it would be like losing a friend. Whilst I am on a roll with all this picture uploading malarkey, here is a picture of said jumper at said festival! I apologise in advance for the state of me, but at this time it was day 3, so I really was rocking the grungy look...

Me and Miss Red Star and my beautiful Minnie Mouse Jumper :)

See what did I tell you! Just amazing :) I remember in my early teens going through a massive hippy phase. I must have just come back from my first trip to Goa, (India) and thinking the hippy lifestyle was for me. I can't tell you how many pairs of stripey knee length socks and flared jeans I possessed during that phase, but there were a lot! There was a shop in Bridgend, known as the Hippy Shop, and on the rare occasions when me and my friends would venture into Bridgend, we would always end up in there for ages looking at all the stuff. One Christmas my room was practically redecorated with things from there. I have always dressed differently from my friends growing up though and always went with whatever I wanted to wear regardless of what fashion told us was a 'must' have. Myself and Miss Koko must have looked like a right odd pair of friends, as growing up our fashion tastes couldn't have been further apart! She was very prim and proper, (ignoring the pink outfit mishap of course), and I was there in loud colours and weird hair styles. But it worked! Even now we scare one another when we like the same outfit. But even then we wear it completely differently.

I suppose my love of fancy dress can be explained by my love of reinvention. When you are in your costume, you adopt a different persona and for that amount of time you are no longer you, but the character you are portraying! That, and I am still a big kid at heart. Uni was amazing for fancy dress as there were themed nights galore and often people would choose a fancy dress theme for their birthdays. I still have a box filled with fancy dress outfits and I await the occasion when I can rummage through the box and dress up again.

So whilst I am sure over the next year things will change even more, I look forward to the outcome. My hair will probably be a different colour by the end of the year and I may have new ink and piercings and I look forward to it all :) Life is too short to stay still for too long! Bring on the changes :)

Peace out!

RQG x

When I grow up, I want to be...

From a young age we are told we can achieve anything we set our minds to. Whether it is to become the next great football sensation for Chelsea, (I have to use this team or my brother would disown me, other teams are available) or a famous actress, constantly demanding the lime light and dating the most eligible bachelors, we are lead to believe that if we want it enough, then it will happen.

The first thing I ever wanted to be career-wise was a ballet dancer. I started from the age of either 2 and a half or 3 years old (it was a while ago, so my memory isn't what it used to be) and I thought this was the most magical career choice ever, as it all seemed so glamorous. All the older dancers at the first ballet school I attended, always seemed to look so elegant in their colourful leotards and floaty wraps, with their hair slicked into a bun, ready to hit the stage and mesmerise the audience without uttering one word. Just magical! My sister, Barbie (so called as she spends ages fake tanning and playing with her hair, which does always look amazing, but don't tell her I said that as I'll deny it), her first work aspiration was to be a dancing Crocodile! From a young age we were a family with realistic expectations, as you can tell!

Due to the fickleness of youth, my dreams of becoming the next Darcey Bussell was soon surpassed by my next dream of being a vet. However, when reality struck me that it wasn't as glamorous as Rolf Harris made out on Animal Hospital and that I would potentially have to put down cute kittens, it put me right off becoming a vet for life! Then I got bitten by the actress bug! I'm sure most girls and guys have gone through this stage at some point in their lives. I got the lead in our primary school show, and again in year 8 of secondary school and then I quit! I decided it was best to quit at the peak of my acting career, than risk being demoted to the crapper parts again. This was not met well by my drama/ choir teacher and I don't think to this day she has properly spoken to me since. I had a brief fling with the idea of becoming a fashion designer around this age, but my issue here was that I can't actually draw! Even my stick men suffer from extremely long necks and stubby arms, and my stick women have triangular fat bodies and no necks. So as you could imagine my sketched designs didn't actually resemble anything workable to be called fashion, unless you can work out how to make scribbles and blobs into fashion... maybe I missed my calling here? As a result, this dream was over before it even began. Finally, at the age of 13, I settled on becoming a kick ass Barrister. Well someone had to :p However, that year in school we sat a career test to determine what jobs we were best suited to and apparently I should have pursued a career as a hat maker or a window dresser! The results were varied between my fellow classmates and it appeared that the test still had the 1950's ideals that women had menial jobs, so that they could be the perfect wives, mothers and housewives, whilst the men remained the dominant breadwinners. This only made me more determined to compete for a career in a still rather male dominated role. So Barrister it was. I am naturally argumentative, or always right (as I like to think), so I thought what better career but to be paid to always be right.

So I got my GCSE's in order to go on to A Level in school, and then applied to 5 Unis to study Law and Criminology. On results day, I got up uber early to check the UCAS online page and found that I had gotten a place at Cardiff University to study Law and Criminology LLB. I didn't actually care about my grades as I had gotten into my first choice university. But four years later, (I may have partied a little too hard first year and had to resit my first year, well contract and tort law modules again. Or as I look at it I just loved the law soooo much first year,that I studied it for an extra year. Yeah no one else fell for that bullshit excuse either.

And then what... I finished uni and find out I actually hated law. Like passionately. Plus with this media sensationalised recession that has still got its hands firmly round the throat of Britain, the call for Barristers has decreased dramatically and so I decided that weighing up the financial costs, it wasn't actually a financially sound option. So I took a year out to help my Mum open a traditional sweet shop in Chepstow Town - Sherbet and Lemon - Check it out as it is awesome! I am now coming to the end of my year of discovery and all I have discovered is I am no closer now, than I was at 12, to deciding what I want to do when I grow up. I've been knocking around with the idea of getting into journalism, with a focus on music and the arts and which probably encouraged me to start this whole blogging malarkey, (so... sorry about that), or something to do within the music industry (but not performing as people would want their money back if they had to endure me singing). But for now, I'm just coasting through life taking each day as it comes. Hopefully by the end of the one year career sabbatical, I will have some idea what direction my life is going in... So let's just watch this space I suppose, unless anyone wants to offer me a super cool job? Yeah, I thought not...

Peace Out
Random Quirky Girl x