Boxes upon boxes

Boxes upon boxes

To be packed and unpacked

Hello friends,

It's been a little while since I checked in. My life has been overrun by boxes. The moving kind, since we found and moved into a new rental a week and a half ago. Also, the memory kind, since I have been participating in the Three Minute Thesis competition at Flinders and progressed to the finals - yay! If you didn't catch it in my last newsletter, the competition involves condensing 3+ years of PhD research into 3 minutes of talking with one slide as visual support. My talk is about personal archives, the way we collect memories, and how these items might help us tell stories of loss. If you’d like to check out my 3 minute entry (and those of the other finalists) you can check out our profiles here,
the showcase of our videos here, and vote for your favourite in the ‘People’s Choice’ here.

Between moving, wrangling a new presentation, and teaching, I haven't had time to do much else - not even write my beloved newsletter. Although the next few weeks are packed too, I now have a sunny little spot on the balcony to write from and a few DIY projects to look forward to on the weekends. I think we all need creative outlets right now, more than ever. I'm currently recovering from my second vaccine dose (yay, but boo, those side effects hit harder than expected) so I'll be taking it slow but I'm excited to share them as they occur. Peep the section below for the first DIY project for the new place (it may or may not involve painting a fridge).

Let me know what boxes you've been packing, unpacking, ticking, or breaking free from lately.

Until next time,

Marina

(she/they)

P.S. The weight of the world is heavier than usual - and that's saying something considering the past few years. If you'd like to support Afghanistan and your local community, I found this article useful as well as friends and community groups on social media who were donating physical items which I was able to contribute to. Additionally, this article has good tips and places to donate to rally against the changes to abortion access in Texas. I donated to the Indigenous Women Rising Abortion Fund.

Tattoo treat

A few months ago I promised myself I would get a new tattoo if I managed to survive last semester in its bonkers-ness... and I did! I snagged this beaut mermaid last week. When I was little and was convinced I would magically become a mermaid one day.. I mean, my name is the most mermaid-y name ever, right? The artist for this lovely lady was Aimee Nicz who has done some of my past tattoos. You can check out her fantastic work here.

Rawr XD

Happy birthday Hayley and Nick... and Thnks fr th Mmrs - your emo party was a blast. I truly connected with my pre-teen self dressing up in this Hello Kitty centric look. Also, yes, that's John's real hair. My arms hurt after dyeing and straightening it, haha.

Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning

It was the weekend for costumes apparently as my darling niece turned 1 and required a Disney dress up. I finally got to dress as another of my childhood icon's, Wendy Moira Angela Darling. Although Hello Kitty and mermaids were my main obsessions, Peter Pan was up there. The live action movie was a sick-day-from-school special... but Jason Isaacs as Hook takes precedence in my adulthood, oooooft.

Pinterest priorities

Before doing practically anything else in our new home I jumped onto Pinterest and looked up ways to refresh a fridge. Ours is second-hand and has seen better days, but works perfectly fine so I didn't want to replace it entirely. Between options of wallpapering, covering with contact paper, and painting, I went with painting. Don't look at it too closely... but I'm pretty chuffed with this DIY. I'll make anything baby pink if I can. Plus, it certainly helped me procrastinate the unpacking process.

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13 Grove Avenue
Marleston
Adelaide
5033
Australia