the hermit's cosmos

luke (any pronouns) / 20 / law and urban planning student / infj / hufflepuff / sagittarius 

[gojibearstudio]

Pancakes! Paired with strawberries and decorated with daisies! 🍓✨

[stickercase]

honobono x snoopy by SNOOPY (textless version)

[ghibli-collector]

Chinese cinema poster for the remastered re-release of My Neighbour Totoro proves popular with the Japanese public. The image captures sisters Satsuki and Mei running though grass in the form of Totoro’s fur coloured moss green and pale wheat. 

[english-idylls]

Some snow scenes in Claude Monet’s paintings.

[thehermitscosmos]

diy skeleton pants !

Hello everyone !

Here are some skeleton pants I made. Inspired by an image off Pinterest (I will link the source if I can find it) I thought this idea was absolutely amazing. I have gradually fallen in love with customised pants as there is so much space for experimentation and creativity. These pants were my first attempt at at a real DIY fashion project.

On an old white t-shirt I sketched out the shapes for the bones, making sure they were wide enough to fill but not dominate the front of each pant leg. I then just cut them out with some scissors and hand-stitched them onto the pants with some white thread. This part of the process took me a little as it was my first time hand-stitching at this scale. But, I have had some previous experience with hand-embroidery so it was definitely manageable. The denim on these pants is also really soft so pushing the needle back and forth was rather smooth.

Overall, I think they turned out quite great! I am extremely happy with how they turned out and have found myself wearing them relatively often. They are a nice statement piece for my wardrobe.

Here is a picture of me wearing the pants. :)

[thehermitscosmos]

summer school-core

Today marked my first week back at university for the beginning of ‘Summer School’ (an optional intensive semester held across the Christmas holidays). I think for the first time in a long time I was actually excited to return. While having concluded the second year of my degree this year, I have still never truly been able to experience real ‘Uni-Life.’ Amidst constant lockdowns and Zoom classes, it’s been 8-12 months since I have actually attended a class in-person, and been able to correspond with anyone in my classes. I will be the first to admit, it has been difficult to make friends. And university has been a rather lonely experience.

But there is something about this year’s Summer School which has made me particularly excited to return. Although the classes, lectures, and activities and all completed online, unlike other semesters, I actually have this magnificent thing called ✨time✨. The workload doesn’t really seem like it will be terribly heavy (although I am certain this will fluctuate) and I am excited to be able to properly balance and manage my time. It has been a long time since I prioritised time management, but it is definitely something I have been working on and hope to constantly improve.

Anyways, I just thought I would note down some of my initial thoughts before the semester truly ‘kicks off.’ Here is a picture of my trip to the beach the other day. The weather was absolutely perfect until about 2 pm. Then a gigantic rain clouds covered the sky. But it was nice while it lasted.

[sandmoonyelse]

Light and diaphanous hours of November…

[rrrick]

Kurt Vonnegut tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope:

“Oh, she says, well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.

I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is - we’re here on Earth to fart around.

And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.“

Let’s all get up and move around a bit right now… or at least dance.

- from an interview by David Brancaccio, NOW (PBS)

[thehermitscosmos]

A lovely day at one of the best beaches Australia has to offer. One of my favourite things to do in the entire world is to go to the beach on a perfect and sunny day and have a swim in the waves. I took this shot on Saturday after a swim. It was my first trip to the beach after about 4 months of lockdown; it was really lovely.

[thehermitscosmos]

lockdown is ending and i’m scared to go outside.

As Sydney begins to re-open and we leave our four month lockdown, naturally, and I’m sure like many others, I have begun to reflect on these weeks spent indoors.

For a small glimpse of time, the world seemed to slow down, like the father on the couch who pauses the movie to collect another beer from the fridge, hoping the next scene will not pass without his supervision. Work was cancelled; classes moved online; and in-person commitments were either re-scheduled or tossed to the kerbside. Lockdown became this unique space where each individual could simply exist, without questions, and without answers. I was living because I was alive, for no other reason than the fact that I exist. I, like many others, was then stuck. Stuck with myself while at the same time being constantly confronted. I was confronted with myself. But I wasn’t scared by them. And, for the first in a long time, I seriously asked: who are you? And I answered, “I’m not sure yet.”

I am not fearful of the possibility that an answer may not exist. I am simply comforted by the fact that there is an answer for me to explore. This world has so much to offer, see, and learn, and I don’t want to settle for who I am now in sacrifice of who I may become. At the end of the day, we’re all just a work in progress, growing more and more beautiful with each passing moment.