January = Dragonkeeper, curry, + Big Hero 6

Hi guys,

I've decided to do these posts at the end of the month so that I can give you a recap on what has happened this month, as well as reviews and personal opinion.

I'll start with book of the month, this month I have re-read a Children's book called Dragonkeeper by Carole Wilkinson. I couldn't remember what happened in this book so I read it again because I knew I liked it before and I really enjoyed it :) I believe the suggested age group is grade 5-6 (10-13 years olds) which I totally I agree with but it's also a fun read for the young at heart. For example I'm 16 and I enjoyed it, but then, I don't mind reading Children's book so long as their interesting or they bring back a sense of nostalgia :) Anyway this is a great read and I would rate it 100%, 5 out of 5. Not because this is the most fantastic novel I've ever read, but because it is a wonderful children's book and although it is not my favourite book, it is an all-round, perfectly written story and I will definitely be reading the next book in the series: Garden of the Purple Dragon.

I made only one (proper) meal this month and that was an easy-peasy recipe I got off the jar of Patak's Korma Paste. It's super mild (not hot at all in fact) and so it's perfect for kids (or adults) who don't like things too spicy. Or, you can add your own spices. I used the recipe on the jar and also added in a capsicum and a carrot (they were basically the only veggies we had but you can add whatever else you want) which I blitzed up in the food processor (If you're cooking dishes for kids with ingredients they don't like, either blend it up so small so that they can't see it, cannot tell what it is, or can't taste it distinctly. Or, chop it big enough to be picked out easily).

And now for the highlight of January. This month my brother, mother, and I went to see Big Hero 6 in cinemas and it was amazing! I highly recommend getting it on DVD because it was sooo good! It was the best movie I've seen in a while. There's nothing else I can say about it you just have to see it!
 Hopefully I'm not raising your expectations too high so that you are let down (I find the movies I enjoyed most are the movies I knew very little about, or wasn't expecting to love so much). So Big Hero 6 was a huge thumbs up from me and but I won't tell you what I rate it because I don't want to get your hopes up too high only to be let down when you see it. Lets just say it was it was refreshing to see an original (I hope) Disney film that was made so perfectly after what seems like a run of movies where Disney has run out of ideas.


I also went to see Into The Woods with my cousins and my cousin and I both agreed that the movie was (in my words) strange and (in her words) odd. That's about all I can say about Into The Woods. It was strange and I don't know if I really enjoyed it. I would not recommend it (to anyone).

Also this month I went to Madame Tussauds in Sydney with my cousins for the first time and got a picture taken with a beautiful (and slightly intimidating) wax model of Johnny Depp. It's a shame they don't have a certain Loki in the museum in Sydney but I guess I'll just have to go to the U.K for that (and possibly see him in person there too).
Can I just go off topic here for a moment and say I am really excited and nervous at the same time.
Reasons to be exited: Year 11, which is exciting because I'm finally doing subjects that I (hopefully) want to do, which means less than 2 years of high school left, which means choices, which means one of those choices could mean travel (which I so want to do).
Reasons to be nervous: Year 11, which means hard work, which means HSC coming up, which means high school is almost finished, which means choices, which means one of those choices could mean university (which I really want to do) - but uni will be expensive :( so that's why I'm nervous and excited all at the same time. Anyway back on track, Madam Tassauds was very cool and the previous day I also went to the Circus Factory at the Powerhouse Museum and that was really fun. Lots of fun to be had for kids and I was particularly obsessed with a trick where you spun a plate-like-thing on top of a stick-rod-thing. Unfortunately they didn't sell any in the gift shop and you'd have to buy it from a circus shop if you wanted it which was disappointing because I did want it.

Back to books, I've started reading Firesong (which I will talk about later) but it's so boring at the moment and I can't get into but hopefully I will get through it in February. It's a small book so it shouldn't take long it's just that I can't get into it D: Our English class has also been given a book which I will talk about next month as well.

Well that's all for now, hope you all had a wonderful first month of 2015 (I hope the rest of this year is as good) and I'll see you in February :)

Jody

Finally finished Merida

Well, you may remember the Brave poster I drew back in April 2012, well I lost it at one point, then I found it, then I put off finishing it off. But today I finally decided to finish it because I didn't want to look back on it and regret not finishing it so maybe I'll get back into drawing again... If I can find anything I want to draw...

The scanner made it really really bright so some of the colours look a bit fluoro but oh well.

If you have any suggestions for me to draw please let me know either here, on my tumblr or on my twitter. Remember I drew this 2 years ago so my drawing skill may be slightly improved since then. Then again maybe not much. Even though I didn't execute the drawing very well I'm still proud of it since I don't often draw and I only started drawing in colour a few years ago.

I'm so sorry I didn't post any photos of the Easter Show and I haven't posted for ages but the longer I I didn't post the more nervous I got about posting as I'm sure if you are a blogger you can understand. Plus I didn't really have anything interesting to write about but hopefully when I've gotten myself sorted there will be more blog posts. And if it's any consolation, the Easter Show this year turned out to be not as fun as I was hoping for it to be. We ended up not going on many rides. It's really hard when your going with a large a group of people because everybody wants to do different things and sometimes you have to do things other people want instead of what you want. Anyway, hopefully the next time I go it will be more fun. Well anyway, on Sunday I went to a painting workshop at the Art Gallery of NSW held by painter Peter O'Doherty. He was very nice and even though painting isn't my strong point I still got through the day and had fun. Well I'm not a very good painter but here is one of the things I painted

Although I wasn't very good at it and I was in a room full of older women who were practically proffessionals in comparison, I have been inspired to do some more painting of my own and so this afternoon I bought some canvases and brushes and this weekend I'm going to get some more acrylic paints.

Well on the agenda for this month is a four week workshop at the Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay. It is on Thursdays starting this week and I'm slightly nervous but king of excited at the same time. I don't know what we will be doing but apparently "Teens will experiment with unconventional approaches to expressing their creativity whilst applying contemporary techniques and concepts using a range of unusual materials" so I am slightly curious and nervous about that.

Then I've got Work Experience which everyone in Year 10 must do. Don't get me wrong I want to do it but I've been having trouble finding a place. I don't think I'll be able to find a place that is in the same kind of career path I'm thinking of for the future so I might just have to work at a local business which I don't mind it's just a shame is all.

Also, I'm excited for Maleficent which has come out now and I plan to watch it with my cousin. I don't want to get too worked up about it though otherwise I may get disappointed coming out of the movie. I will probably enjoy it more watching it with my cousin though :) What movies are you excited for? Do you have someone you enjoy watching movies and spending time with?

Fashion drawing by Hayden Williams

Anyway that's all from me, hope you've all been having an okay term. My half yearly exams ended last week so thank goodness for that. I hope if you are a student that you did okay in your exams or good luck if they are coming up! Other than that, be happy, be merry, be whatever you think you should be, remember, smile and the world smiles with you so lift your chin up and enjoy the day. Don't wish you had done things different, just do them now.


Lots of love,
Jody xoxo

About Time

Well just then, I finished watching "About Time". I originally thought I wouldn't see it because I was unsure about it and I didn't think it would be good. But the good think about being a pessimist is that you can be pleasantly surprised. And that's what it was with this movie. I don't think the main focus was really time travel, but more, the essence of living life to the fullest and I quote "I just try to live every day as if I've deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it, as if it were the full final day". Bill Nighy is of course a great actor and so if Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleeson played his part superbly. It was a really heart-touching, beautiful, inspiring, and quite hilarious in some parts, film. I thought it was odd that Rachel McAdams was doing another time traveling movie and I'm not usually into time travel as it's impossible and so many things can go wrong with time travel, but this was a much better movie than I thought it was going to be. In fact, I thought it was a great movie, and I would definitely recommend anyone to watch it, which doesn't happen all the time. Young or old, female or male, this is a great movie for anyone to see.

I do not own these images

Jody

Chocolat and Nail Polish Shade Comparisons

Last night I felt like watching Chocolat again so I decided to re-do my nails while I was watching.

I tried out my new nail polish from the Models Prefer pack I got and it's called "Obsession".
But before I painted my nails I needed to remove the remaining nail polish I had on so I used the Swisspers nail polish remover pads because we have run out of nail polish remover. They are quite handy for travelling and it comes with 36 pads so you get a lot of uses out of them and also you don't waste heaps of tissues or toilet paper while removing nail polish from your nails. Another reason why they're good is that they have hardly any smell and don't smell horrid like nail polish remover at all. They make your hands and nails quite oily though so have so tissues on hand to wipe your hands.

This morning I decided to do two shade comparisons with my turquoises and my mints

The first one is "Pistachio Parfait" which is from the Finger Frosting - Gelato Colours pack I got from Diva. The second is "Obsession" which as you know comes from Models Prefer. "Pistachio Parfait" and "Obsession" are almost exactly the same. I think "Pistachio Parfait" is a little lighter but they are pretty much the exact same colour. The picture may show the difference as more obvious than it actually is. The third is Sergeant Pepper-Mint which came from Glassons.

This second shade comparison comprises of "Mermaid" by rokk96, "Gorgeous" by Sinful Colours, and "Money Money" by Models Prefer

Well I hope you liked that - could be a few colours in there you would like to add to your collection :)

Jody

Cut loose, Footloose

Hi guys, I've given up on the pre-fall runway highlights and so I didn't really have anything all that interesting to talk about today. But a few hours ago I just watched Footloose for the first time and loved it :) If you haven't watch it yet, I would definitely recommend it. Especially if you're like me and you like musicals, American teenagers, dancing or catchy songs that make you want to get up and sing and dance. It's kind of like a mix between Grease and.....hmmmm...je ne sais quoi. Like a more modern version of Grease except with a bit more emotion. *Spoilers* basically he's the kind of kid that has had his dad run out on him, his mum has died so he's moved to a small country town with his aunt and uncle and cousins. Basically he's skilled (at a lot of things e.g. dancing, fixing cars, driving cars) he's cute, he's cool he's fit, and he's kind. The exact kind of American sweetheart, main character you want to see. I would recommend it if you like a)musicals,  b)old fashioned American high school movies or c)you like dance movies. Anyway I loved it and now I have the catchy theme song stuck in my head :) It stars Kenny Wormald, Dennis Quaid and Julianne Hough. Directed by Craig Brewer. And wow it was only made in 2011. Obviously the actual movie quality seems modern but the kind of story seems older. Maybe that's why I like it :) And did you know I have never seen Dirty Dancing? Don't actually plan to as it doesn't look that good and I don't think I'd like it that much and the trailer almost put me to sleep. Same with the High School Musical movies - don't think I will ever watch them because they look awful to me. And I'll just add this in today because I only realised just now that it as actually a remake and the original movie was in 1984 which is why the story seems old-fashioned so there you go - I'm not very smart.

Also I think he's kind of cute. But only because he has great body, cheekbones and hair but cannot come close to Johnny Depp. But you know, I kind of thought he looked a bit like Johnny Depp just because of his face structure but his face isn't as nice as Johnny Depp. Has a nice voice though :) But again, not even close to Johnny Depp so don't take it the wrong way!

But yeah really reminded me of Johnny Depp when he was younger - which by the way, he was HOT.

Jody

I do not own these images

Frozen Review

Hi there guys, so I thought I would do a movie review since I've never done one of those before.
I must say the reason I've never done it was because I'm actually a bit nervous. I've never done a movie review before not even in school - how weird is that? - but I'm going to try now because I think it would be good to get some practice, and besides, how hard can it be?

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Frozen

Movie Review

Frozen is Disney's latest animation film Directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, Starring
Kristen Bell as Anna, Josh Gad as Kristoff, Idina Menzel as Elsa and Josh Gad as Olaf. 

Like all Disney films, it has comedy and adventure wrapped up in a family musical. The jokes are quirky and cute (perfect for giggly kids or adults with child's humor) and the plot is simple and fun with a little bit of a twist ending with a serendipity that reminds of The Princess and the Frog. 

However the dialogue lacks in some areas where the story is going smoothly but seems to be cut short by dialogue that seems unrelated or doesn't fit in.

When I think of Disney films, music is one of the main areas that I find important. Everyone wants a Disney movie with a songs (or at least song) they can remember. And in any movie I find, the soundtrack makes the movie. But in Disney's 'Frozen' the songs lack their usual Disney charm and timelessness. Again, the lyrics in the songs sometimes take away from the general flow and catchiness of the song and seem unrelated. *Spoilers* For example when the song "Let it Go" ends with "the cold never bothered me anyway". And Anna says the line "in the first time in forever" too many times which made it irritating every time you heard it and it seems like half the song is composed of this one line. Also the beginning song of "Vuelie (feat. Cantus)" was annoying and didn't quite seem to fit in with the theme. I can hear what effect they're trying to make but it just wasn't quite right. Same with "Frozen Heart", the effect was obvious but the song seemed kinda cheesy. The songs definitely take away hugely from the movie as it is a musical. However Olaf's song "In Summer" is funny and cute and Idina Menzel is a great singer as I already know from listening to my "Wicked" CD.

The story did go smoothly though and didn't seem too slow or too fast. I think Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee made the story flow seamlessly from scene to scene and the graphics and look of the characters as well as their outfits was enjoyable for the audience to watch. However they didn't really grasp the 3D effect to their advantage. If I'm going to pay extra to see a movie in 3D I want to remember that I watched in 3D. However during the film I forgot it was in 3D most of the time as they did not exactly use it to their advantage and so it doesn't really make much difference whether you watch it in 3D or not.

The message of the story wasn't quite clear to me. I think the moral might have been something like "love conquers all" but I really don't know. But it is a childrens film so I guess 'love' was just a theme in general.

I know this film got high reviews previously and it got a high rating of 8.1 on IMDb but I definitely don't think it deserved that as the music was such a let down. I guess I would rate it.......6.7

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Well I hope that was useful to you, I will try to write more movie reviews and hopefully I will get better :)

Jody 

Minecraft, movies and lazy days (yet it feels chaotic in my brain)

Well then, so far, thanks to my friend, I have learned how to play survival on Minecraft and it's kinda addictive. I failed at it at first but I'm better now. I am such a wuss, I can't stand all the zombies and skeletons and creepers and spiders that want to eat you during the night and/or day so I just seal up the entrance to my little cave home so that they can't come in.
Anyway I watched My Cousin Vinny and Overboard which were both very good and funny.
I still haven't gotten round to watching the extended version of lord of the rings 2 & 3 (The Two Towers and Return of the King) but I will watch it eventually but I did watch Avatar which we bought in 3D :) Even though it was about my 4th time watching it, everything is better in blu-ray 3D ;) So yeah, I've also got a book to finish (The Wizard of Rondo which I am reading for the second time and which I borrowed from the library after finishing reading The Key to Rondo for the second time) and I'm afraid I'm guilty for not starting a school art assignment which is really big and I really should get a move on but I find it so hard to make myself to homework/assignments in the holidays (ever actually).

And sorry but I may have forgotten to post a quote today but I can't find one.

Here's something that keeps coming back to me now and again:

"We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented."
- 'The Truman Show'

A Fish Called Wanda

I watched A fish called Wanda, it wasn't as funny as I was hoping it to be, but it was still pretty funny.

I do not own these images

Jody

The Sapphires

Love The Sapphires, great movie, great singing. Listening to the soundtrack right now... My favourites; land of a thousand dances, i heard it through the grapevine, what a man, i can't help myself (sugar pie, honey bunch), who's loving you and gotcha. Pretty much all sung by Jessica Mauboy <3

Watch it!

I do not own these images

Jody

And I just had to watch this again :)

So cute <3

The Fox and the Hound

And I watched Fantastic Mr. Fox for the first time. The reason I never dared to watch it before was because I thought it might ruin it for me every time I read the book. But I gave it a go finally and it wasn't that great but it was okay I guess.

I do not own these images
 

Jody

What I've been doin'...

Well, I made a red, yellow and black safety pin bracelet

I also watched Rise of the Guardians yesterday which was good. It would have been even better in 3D but I dont think my brother likes 3D so that kinda sucks but oh well I still watched it in 2D and it was still good. Sad, funny, happy, you know, all that stuff.

So yeah, and its Christmas Eve so yay! Unless you're in America.......

....


Hmmm, yeh, so anyway Merry Christmas to all (for tomorrow) and I will post up more pictures of bracelets and other projects I'm doing.

Movies

Well for the past 2 weeks I've watched about 14 movies. Yeah, I've been watching a lot of movies.
These would include; The Devil Wears Prada, Easy A, Finding Neverland, Forest Gump, Groundhog day, The Illusionist, The Italian Job, Julie and Julia, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Turner and Hooch, Catch me if you Can - twice :D - The Truman Show, The Mask and The Terminal. So yeah, I've been busy. Not doing homework, but watching movies. Which I shouldn't really but I can watch like 3 movies in one afternoon starting from when I get home from school.

But I have to say, one of my most favourite was 'Catch me if you Can'. I love Leonardo DiCaprio, I mean, who doesn't? Especially when he was so young there.....Yes, so you could say he's my celebrity crush, but he's not. Johnny Depp all the way!!!!!!

Anyway, here are the pictures of the movies (DVD covers) :

Catch me if you Can staring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks

Based on the book 'Catch me if you Can' by Frank W. Abagnale Jr. The movie is based on the book which is based on the true and amazing story of Frank W. Abagnale Jr.

Jim Carrey is 'The Mask' you can't go wrong with this original masterpiece that showcased the beginning of Jim Carreys acting career. This film really showed the world Jim Carrey's acting abilities.

The Truman Show starring Jim Carrey

I also have to say that Steven Spielberg is probably the most well-known and admired directors of all time so bravo to Spielberg!

Hope all these images won't make your computer slow :D
I do not own these images

Yours truly,

Jody