Paige Krystal Wilcox

Where the beginning of 2013 finds me is in a really good place.

The trials and tribulations of the year gone by have faded, and only the truly amazing memories remain.  Who I was in 2011, I don’t remember.  What I liked, loved, hurt, learned in 2012, who knows.  Not that it matters; it all contributed to the general sense of peace and satisfaction I’m currently feeling.  The direction of my vision is purely in the present and future.  That tenderness in the sunburnt areas of skin, it’s less a memory trigger than a cause for exciting thoughts about the hiking and camping trips that will dominate many upcoming weekends.

The small amount of sand I just found in my belly button, same effect.

And the pile of clothes that need to be washed.

Those aching muscles have me thinking about new fitness goals.

There are many things, and in fact it’s probably most things, that will be beyond my control in the coming year.   I feel reasonably confident however, that I can choose to some degree the impact the environment will have on me.  As I’ve made many more human connections this year, perception has been increasingly on my mind.  The same situation explained through different people with different brain patterns, has presented me with the exact same situations as negative, positive AND neutral.  So if my friends can see a situation positively that others see as THE WORST, surely I can too.

Last year, with its ups and downs, was a journey.

This year, and my eyes are gleaming as I type this, it’s going to be a flipping adventure!

How will you choose to perceive 2013?

Xx

Paige.

May 11^th 2012 marked the release of a series of videos aimed at bringing a taboo & widely misunderstood subject into the mainstream, reducing stigma associated with it, and helping society move toward a place where we don’t feel we have to hide in the shadows.

Today, on the 21^st December 2012, the series returns starting with a Christmas Special focussing on dating.

Paige Uncensored Christmas Special

How the subject affects dating (scripted)

You can check out the earlier videos below:

Paige Uncensored Video 1 – Truth

My introduction to the topic (scripted)

Paige Uncensored Video 2 - Thanks

For the supporters (unscripted) <3

Paige Uncensored Video 3 – Opinion

For the haters (unscripted) ;)

Paige Uncensored Video 4 – Shadows

On hiding the past (scripted)

Have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  Be good to each other and keep your eyes open for more videos in 2013

Xo

Paige.

I think we all, on some level, fear the unknown.

Fear, it is often said, leads to hate.  I firmly believe that this is true.  I know in my own life I have hated things without really knowing anything about them.  Generally this was because of false information I’d received from people and the media.  Once I was personally confronted with these things and had to sit down and actually get to know about them, I found that I no longer hated them.  The words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow come to mind:  “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm any hostility.”

That is why, back on May 11^th 2012, I launched Paige Uncensored.

After taking a good few months to focus on other things, I am using the Christmas Special to get back on the horse (you can see me getting off a horse here), get back out there with my mission of familiarising people with the unknown, so that it is no longer unknown and the fear (and subsequent hate) starts to fade.  The Christmas Special is the least serious and hard-hitting, and quite lengthy (more than 10 minutes, so you might need to break out the popcorn!), but certainly the message within is no less important than in any of the other videos.

Available from tomorrow, please check it out.  :)

Assuming the world doesn’t end, you can expect Paige Uncensored to return in 2013 with better written, performed, captured and edited material to both challenge and entertain!

Xxoo

Paige.

I’ve been quite distracted by life things, and for that I apologise.

After launching the first of four Paige Uncensored videos on May 11th 2012, life for a short while became a wild ride.  The videos are currently unavailable for viewing (a decision made equally due to job searching and dating), but fear not, I have not vanished, and the journey has not ended!  This morning I was looking through Facebook’s “2012 in Review” and I came to the realisation that there are a whole bunch of new people in my life who have potentially no knowledge of Paige Uncensored.  And there are still billions of people who haven’t been touched by this very important story.  This, I have decided, is not acceptable, so I am making a come-back with a Christmas Special before I throw the first four videos back into the pool for public consumption.

Coming on 21st December 2012 is the Paige Uncensored Christmas Special.

It may just be the last thing you ever watch! :-O

Until then, you can check out my less intense videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/paigesofkrystals

I’ll be seeing you soon!

How you need to read this blog is with a thick accent of sarcasm.

I’m sorry I haven’t written for a while.

No I’m not, I don’t owe you anything.

You should also be prepared for jumping here and there as things come to mind.

Your face, that comes to mind.

Anyway, what we don’t need is another recap of the year gone by.  People get so caught up in reflecting on the past that I’m sure they aren’t able to adequately appreciate the present and look forward to the future.  I was actually going to do a recap of the year’s events, achievements, highs, lows…  But seriously, if you’re that interested in what has already happened in my life, go read through my old blog posts you lazy sod.  Watch a dodgy video blog or two on my YouTube channel.  Listen to some old music and let that jog your memory.  Anything that’s not there is probably stuff I wasn’t going to tell you about anyway so ner.

New Year’s Resolutions rarely end up getting followed through.

I’ve been as guilty as anybody else with this, and if I DID happen to do a blog looking back on my life, there’d be a whole heap of things that I started and never finished because something else caught my interest before I got to the end.  So I have decided on a slightly different take this year.  Where my idea comes from is the Bucket List.  I’m not dying any more quickly than any of you (as far as I’m aware), but I do have a Bucket List and it’s proved much more effective than any of my New Year’s Resolutions.  I’m slowly working my way through it, so that when the time comes, I’ll be a lot more okay with the idea of carking it.

Instead, I am creating a To Do List.

Yes, I know, it’s EXACTLY the same as New Year’s Resolutions, just with a different name, but shhh, I think I can fool myself into thinking that it’s something new and exciting and that might be just what I need to actually achieve the stuff on the list!  You know what really helps with lists of goals?  Telling people about them.  You’re far more likely to do something if you’ve promised someone that you’re going to do it.  And you’re even more likely to follow through if you set dates for completion.  I think that’s where a lot of people fail.  “I’m going to do this at some point in the future.”  Yeah, right, like you’re ever actually going to do that.  Pick a month at the very least, dude!

My 2013 To Do List is slowly coming together, rough ideas below if you’re interested (if not, consider this the last line of the blog and go do something else).

Multiple day hike, that’s happening in January.  If my current plans fall through (the plans aren’t confirmed and it’s getting pretty close!) I’ll find a way to make new plans so that I can cross it off my list.  It’s going to be a great test of physical endurance and my social skills.  There’ll be little opportunity to withdraw from people and recharge like I normally make sure I do.  Unless I make new plans and go off for a few days on my own.  Hey, that sounds like something I should add to my list!

Burlesque classes, I’m looking to start those in February.  What better month than the month that hosts Valentine’s Day, the day when most of the world, after ignoring their partner’s desires most of the year, all celebrate love and romance at once at an inflated price.  I roll my eyes at all of these people who spend all this extra money on roses and chocolates on that day, but hey, live your life however you want to, I shall be cost effective!

Singing in public, I’m thinking Christmas next year.  In order to achieve this I need to fine-tune my singing voice, which hasn’t properly been used in half a decade.  This will include a lot of singing alone to music on my bed and doing Karaoke with various friends and family.  I’ve already spent a few hours belting out All Saints, Amy Winehouse and Spice Girls tunes.  That sounds a lot like reminiscing so I am going to quickly end this para…

Acting classes, they’ll be happening somewhere around March.  I got an email about some on the weekend that are in January but I don’t think I could Skype an acting class from the top of a mountain and you have to pay for a whole 4 week block so it wouldn’t be worth it.  Doing an acting class via Skype would be very interesting though.  I wonder if I could somehow arrange that.  I’d probably want to head up the mountain and check if I had reception before organising it.

That’s about it for now.  I’ll let you know how I go.

So what are YOU doing?

Xx

Paige.

Some time in the next few weeks I shall write a short follow-up blog and post some photos of how I am looking and feeling since finishing the 10 Week Fitness Challenge.

Keep a look out.  :)

There’s a glass of water to my left.  On the right, resting on the table, is a brand new copy of Chuck Palaniuk’s Invisible Monsters Remix, a ‘director’s cut’ of the book that got me hooked on his writing.  I remember the bookshelf where I first saw Invisible Monsters.  It was at Kenmore Village and I was around 18 at the time.  The book stood tall on the second shelf from the top and beckoned me with its curious title and difficult-to-pronounce author.  I picked it up, flicked through the pages, read the blurb and made the purchase.  This book was the only reason I gave Fight Club a chance, and I am so glad I did, not just because it has become one of my favourite books and films.

Why I’m telling you all this is because right now, though I’ve been battling a migraine today, I am sitting in my new home with a satisfied grin on my face.  This book to my right, the chair that I am sitting on, the studio apartment where I am writing this, and the beat up MacBook Pro that I am writing on mean a lot to me and are a reminder of how far I have actually come since being that shy, weedy little 18 year old looking for a book to escape into.  You could say that book played a big part in opening my eyes to a world beyond the religious rock I was raised under.  That book made me question what I thought I knew, what I wanted to achieve out of this life.  This retelling of the story, it will be a part of one of my new routines.

I believe it was back around Easter, when I was feeling lonely and sorry for myself, that I decided to celebrate my 30^th birthday this year.  Prior to that, I’d been insistent that there would be no celebration for moving into the next decade of life.  I felt scared about no longer being in my 20s, I felt sad that I would turn 30 as a single woman.  So there I was, alone and feeling down in my parent’s empty house, and I did two things.  The first was to start planning my 30^th Birthday Party, and the second was to put together some personal goals for myself to achieve by the day I turned 30.

Having the diverse range of friends and family that I do and disliking conflict of any kind, I decided that having multiple birthday events would allow more people from different walks of life attend without rubbing each other up the wrong way.  In the beginning I planned three big events (Drinks, Dinner & High Tea).  Added to that was a morning tea, courtesy of my colleagues, an amazing dinner at Ortiga with one of my female best friends, and an exceptional dinner at Aria (Matt Moran’s restaurant overlooking the Brisbane River) with my best male friend, making it 6 events over 5 days.

There have been, and will continue to be, a lot of changes in my workplace.  These have been especially difficult to manage for all of us, and so our manager organized for us to do a series of courses to help us through the changes.  I mention this because “Goal Setting” was a part of one of these courses.  We learnt about how best to set goals, and I have to say, the personal goals that I set myself for my 30^th did not line up with these guidelines.  Sure there was a specific date that I needed to achieve them by, but really, they weren’t clearly defined and there were too many external factors that could prevent the goals from being achieved.

In a short sentence, my goal was this:  “I will be the fittest, happiest and most attractive I have ever been on my 30^th birthday.”  That last is in the eye of the beholder, obviously, but since it’s my goal, I chose to go by my own perception.  Over the last 3 months or so, I have been looking very hard at my life, at things that I can change to make it better.  The first to change was my nutrition and exercise, and so I got a Personal Trainer to help me out.  The second change was my living arrangement, and so I found a place closer to work, that better suited my needs and desires.  The third was my difficulty coping with work, and so I enlisted a psychologist to help me work through things.

It has been a long, tedious journey, but a worthwhile one.  Next time I should be more careful when I set myself personal goals, but this time I got lucky and I am ecstatic to say that upon leveling up and turning 30, I truly am the fittest, happiest and most attractive I have been in my life so far.  Sure I don’t have savings and I don’t have a partner, but the savings will come in time and being single is far better than being in a bad relationship.  For the moment, I will continue to work on health and fitness, find new goals to head towards, and settle into my new routines as a woman in her 30s, like drinking tea in the evenings as I read a good book, starting with Invisible Monsters Remixed.

Fitness Achievement: Unlocked!

Beauty Achievement: Unlocked!

Happiness Achievement: Unlocked!

See you soon!

Xo

Paige.