Yesterday I completed exam 2 of 2, and all being well, they are the last exams I'll have to sit for my degree, which is a bit surreal considering that when I started the five-year course in 2021 I couldn't even imagine being near the end of it. Mixed emotions. Mostly relief.
Today is international women's day. To be honest, I almost exclusively listen to music, read books and generally engage with media created by women. It's not so much a conscious choice, as much as a natural progression as I've got older and I'm more selective about spending my time on things which I actually enjoy and which resonate with me.
In other news, I've made some quite big changes to this site - I now have the domain ellekay.net (again - I used to own it and linked it to a tumblr page at one point, then a cargocollective site after that). I've made some layout changes too, added new backgrounds and just generally been customising it. I'm happy with it. I didn't realise how much I'd missed having a personal site until I made this one. Especially now that I have no social media - it's good to have a creative digital outlet.
I have a week off now which is unheard of for me, so I'll probably be working on this site some more. I also want to make a start on a project which has been in the back of my mind for 15 years now. It started off as a screenplay, then changed into a novel, and now I'm not sure what form it will take, I just know that if something has stuck around for that long, it's probably worth writing. I'm thinking of making it more of a multimedia project - with its own site etc. When I was younger I was very fixated on the idea that I wanted to get a book published - and I think that's what stopped me from actually writing one.
Now my career path has ended up firmly based in science rather than the arts, but the urge to create still remains, and the most important thing regarding this idea that I've had for so many years is that I just want it to be out there in the world - not so I can make money from it or try to pursue a career as a writer. The act of sharing it will be more fulfilling than any grand ambitions for success. I'd be happy if even one person read something I'd written and got something from it. Or even if nobody read it at all, I'd be content knowing that I gave form to my ideas and gave them somewhere to live that isn't my subconscious mind.
Recently, I've been listening to a lot of Debbii Dawson's great music:
TUESDAY 18TH FEB 2025
RODEO CLOWN (fka YNES) - love her music, been on repeat for me for the last year or so - she deserves way more attention!
SUNDAY 16TH FEB 2025 - 22:57PM
I've been listening to a lot of Chappell Roan lately. She makes the music I needed when I was younger - certainly beats the horrendous 'I Kissed a Girl' era which skewed my perception of relationships with women into something awful and performative. Every time I hear a good song by a woman about loving a woman, I feel the world has healed a little bit.
SUNDAY 16TH FEB 2025 - 12:58PM
My first blog entry - how exciting. Simplicity is key for me, so I've made this nice straightforward page and I'm just going to add posts, photos, videos etc to it as and when I feel like it. The purpose of this blog is really to keep track of things I can't put in my IRL journals - mainly music, videos etc, but I will put the odd update on here too in more of a journal-entry style.
OK now I really need to revise for my exams which are in 2 weeks but here I am updating my site. Going to go and revise now for real.