A look into the mind of... Hazel

Thought of You - by Ryan Woodward

2012-01-06T14:09:00.001Z

Ok, it's a bit ridiculous that I'm doing this now, as it's the first time I've managed to get into uni this week (we don't start back til next week but I need to get some editing in). And I've got to leave for work in an hour. So this is a short post. Just thought I'd show this video as a friend of mine put it on Facebook and I was completely mesmerised by it. Beautiful :).

Amusing Merlin Moments

2011-11-29T23:13:00.001Z

Haven't really had time to blog, still don't really at the moment, but came across this video on YouTube and thought I'd share it. Good times :).

One of my favourites:
"Who is it?"
"It is destiny my love... Destiny and chicken!"

'Last Night' - a film by Massy Tadjedin

2011-11-20T21:47:00.001Z

I've just watched this film - 'Last Night' starring Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, Eva Mendes and Guillaume Canet.
If you have a chance, watch it, it's so good.
I'd seen the trailer a while back and it had intrigued me, but I hadn't been able to get hold of it on DVD to watch, so had pretty much forgotten it until I spotted it at the library earlier today.

---WARNING! THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW!---

Storyline

Note - this is a pretty bad summary, ignore it and just go watch the film

The film is basically about temptation. It's focuses on a married couple, Michael and Joanna Reed (Worthington and Knightley). There's a section at the beginning in which there is not a whole lot said, but you get to know the two main characters a little. They go to a work party, where Jo spots Michael with an attractive new colleague, Laura (Mendes), who he's been working with for a while, has gone on a business trip with, and is going on another business trip with the next day. She sees them and believes them to be attracted to each other - when they go home later in the evening, she confronts him about it and he tries to tell her nothing has happened and smooth over this argument. There is a lovely scene where he wakes her up (she was sleeping on the couch as she still wasn't happy with him) and makes her some breakfast, and they talk a little. They later both go to sleep in their bed and seem on good terms when he leaves in the morning. Generally they seem to have a very good committed, married relationship.

Michael goes on his business trip and as the film progresses it cuts back and forth between him and Jo during this day/night that they are apart. Jo goes out for coffee and bumps into Alex (Canet), who she hasn't seen in 2 years, he's on his way to a meeting but they decide to meet later in the evening. It's clear that they both feel strongly about each other just from the expressions and short conversation. The film follows through the day as Michael's meetings wrap up and Jo gets ready to go out. Michael stays around to go for drinks with Laura and they chat about relationships and other things. Jo meets Alex, you can feel how comfortable they are together, how they really enjoy being with each other. Jo ends up going with Alex to a sort of work dinner/dinner with friend and his wife. There is some very interesting conversation between Jo and Patrick (Alex's friend) who is older, and is curious about Jo and the relationship with Alex, and they have a short but honest conversation about Jo, Alex and Michael. Michael spends his evening alone with Laura, first at a bar, then moving on to another place, and they end up going back to her room to grab some drinks from the minibar and head down to the pool where they start swimming in their underwear. They talk about cheating, and how Laura was cheated on and how she felt about it. Meanwhile Jo has gone off with Alex to feed/walk their friend Andy's dog (Andy is on the trip with Laura and Michael). They end up locked out of the apartment and take the dog with them to Patrick's party. After spending some time together they end up snogging in a lift and then heading back to his place. They sit and talk, seeming very much like a normal couple, then start getting close again but Jo says 'I can't ... I can't do any more and look him in the eye'. Alex comments that her husband is away with a woman that she got upset about, but she replies 'Michael isn't doing anything'. Instead, they lie down on the bed and just stay there through the night. Michael ends up sleeping with Laura and after getting up says 'I didn't think that would happen', she glibly replies 'not even the second time?'.

Michael finds the note Jo hid in his shirt for the next day, that says 'It's possible I overreacted. I know that. I know you. And I love you. xxx Jo'. Michael decides to go home to his wife rather than finish the business trip. Arriving back early he sees Jo's been crying. He lies to Jo and says 'we finished up early' when she enquires about the business trip. He apologises for the fight they had (at the beginning of the film), suggest they go out for lunch and a walk. They embrace when she gets up to go get ready and he tells her he loves her. Over her shoulder he spots her discarded high heels from the night before. They move apart and look at each other's faces, she takes a breath as if to say something and-

the film ends.

The effect on the viewer

Obviously by 'the viewer' I mean me, so it won't necessarily be the same for everyone. However, I found this a very captivating film. I felt like I really needed to know more, I needed to understand. There was a certain intriguing quality throughout the film because it wasn't all laid out for you at the beginning - you had to understand it as you went through.

I love the uncertainty of some things in the film. They are frustrating, but that's what makes them work so well!
The lack of closure leaves you feeling sort of unsatisfied but in a good way. I think it definitely had a 'real' sort of feel to it - there is no certain happy ending, life just goes on. I like that you don't get all this backstory in a block, you get to know the characters and understand their relationships with each other through their conversations or reminiscence in some cases; but I never felt like the story behind the relationships was forced in or made to fit because it was necessary for the audience to know it.

I love the fact that it is very much up to the viewer to decide what they're rooting for. I think different people would maybe want the characters to do different things. I found that I was rooting for them to stay faithful to each other, and not get involved with extra-marital relationships/affairs, but I also found myself torn with Knightley's character. She really shone in this role and you really feel the emotion and the connection between her and Canet's character. You find yourself wanting them to be together, but also feeling like it's wrong.

I thought that one of the most amazing things, which I suppose I find unusual in today's sort of culture, is that that the idea of the relationship/temptation was a lot more than just a physical thing. This was especially clear in the case of Jo and Alex. They clearly had this relationship that they just fell back into despite not seeing each other for 2 years. For them it was so much more than something physical, and when they parted, him going back to Paris, you really felt the emotion in their separation. It was so abundantly clear than their feelings for each other were deeply rooted, not something that would go away easily but instead something likely to hang around for the rest of their lives in one way or another.

In Michael's case it was more of a physical thing. I thought that the relationship between him and Laura was such a contrast to Jo and Alexs'. They confronted it clearly, aware that he was married, that he didn't want to have an affair but admitted feelings for Laura. He said clearly to her that he thought that he'd regret having an affair more than he would regret not having one. He clearly didn't make boundaries for himself in a way that would have helped him to stay faithful. Instead he mentally tried not to have an affair, while allowing himself to get closer and closer to it until it happened. I thought that some of the conversation between the two of them was very interesting - Laura's confession of being cheated on, and her feeling about it all etc. I liked that there was minimal screen time of them actually sleeping together - this film was a great contrast to the many others where it seems to be a bit of plot chucked in for the sake of a bunch of 'getting physical' or sex scenes.
I thought that how the 'morning after' sort of situation was shown was so brilliant. It felt very real and there was no closure. You could sort of see how Michael was feeling, but you could also see that he was a bit mixed up, but knew he had to leave it behind and go back to his wife. I think one of the best things was when Andy (the other guy on the business trip with them) told Laura that Michael had gone back to New York and she tried to sound normal about it but you could see the expression on her face. I described Michael as 'mixed up' but I think perhaps a better way of describing their expressions is 'empty'. I've never been in a situation like that so I can't imagine exactly what it would feel like, but I think that them feeling empty is perhaps one way to describe it. I don't think that 'guilty' would really describe Michael at that point, perhaps he was feeling it but it wasn't quite what was portrayed. It just seemed really genuine, I'm failing a bit at describing it - just watch the scenes, you'll get what I mean!

One of the things I found most interesting as a viewer of the film as a whole is that throughout the film I wasn't sure if either of them would cheat, and if one of them did who it would be. It also made me think about boundaries - what would 'count' as cheating? Is it kissing? Is it sex? Is it something else? Is emotional cheating less, more or the same as physical cheating?
I think the idea of secrets is very important. If it's something you wouldn't want to tell your husband/wife then you probably need to consider the idea that it's cheating.

My comments on how it has been made

Something I would definitely say of this film is that it is a film of few words. So much is said through the moments where no one is speaking. I find that so amazing. The film is simply beautiful.

One thing I found very interesting about how it has been edited is that it's not always 100% chronological. At the beginning it switches between the evening events (them getting ready, being at the party) and shots of them each in their taxi on the way home. It's been cut so well that it doesn't feel disjointed at all - it just adds the emotion and understanding of the characters and the film. Also the same technique was used throughout the film in shorter time span moments - e.g. when Michael and Laura are in the pool and talking, towards the end it swaps between a shot of her getting out of the pool, back to them talking in the pool, and then back to them after getting out.

Also, sometimes a tiny clip is used repeated, or there is a purposeful lack of continuity - for example a couple with their heads close together, move apart, then switch to a clip where they're together again and move apart. Somehow it really fits.

The decision to cut the end like they did, at a moment where you really wanted to know what she would say, and you didn't quite expect it to be cut like that - was perfect.

I don't really remember the background music, when I actually try to think about it I can't come up with anything. Perhaps that proves that the background music was good! It didn't distract, it just worked. I'm sure I would have noticed if there actually wasn't any, so it must have just been very well suited and blended into the film.
*goes to flick through and listen again*
Yeah, it's very minimal. There are large chunks that seem to be just dialogue or silence, no background music - that definitely adds to the 'real' feel of the film. The music that is there is mainly quite simple, but beautiful piano music, and in some sections there's a bit more of a beat and some other instruments thrown in. It definitely works amazingly with the film - perfect.

There's only one moment I particularly remember there being dialogue where it wasn't the characters on screen that were talking - it's Jo talking about Michael, and there are some shots of Michael (I think this might happen a couple of times - when she's talking to Patrick, and later to Alex - about being faithful). I think that it works really well, it's odd how you notice little changes like that so much more when the film is quite minimal in it's approach.

The acting is, of course, vital to the whole thing. Acted amazingly by a fantastic cast. Keira Knightley shone out above the rest but all of them were really good, so wonderful at subtle acting that portrayed things without complication. Sam Worthington is one that I can't necessarily recall a lot of different expressions on his face, but he definitely managed to portray the subtle changes in mood/feelings very well. I think that Eva Mendes plays Laura so well, with sort of mixed feelings, unsure how things are going to go but pursuing what she wants.

Conclusion
I didn't really go into watching the film with particularly high expectations, I just thought it looked interesting, but it certainly majorly exceeded my expectations. It's very thought-provoking, beautifully shot and put together, so much more minimal and natural than most films I watch. I'm so glad I watched it, I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes films :).

Recording Music

2011-10-18T23:24:00.000+01:00

Today was the first time I really tried recording a cover of my own. I'd done some stuff with video and very poorly recorded audio before but nothing with decent audio. I woke up this morning and decided that I felt like trying to record a song and then put it together at uni on Soundtrack Pro. I went on to record 'Eyes on Fire' by Blue Foundation, which I've been listening to for the last couple of days and I printed off the chords yesterday to play with - the ones I actually used are a semitone lower than what I got off the tabs online, but is the same key Blue Foundation did it in.

Anywho, I recorded the piano part on my piano and copied it onto my USB stick, I then listened to it in my headphones and recorded my vocals via a USB connected microphone onto Audacity. I then chucked it all on the USB stick (and converted the piano midi to a wav file online) and took it to uni.

When I got to uni I put the 2 elements together (plus one little bit of another layer in the second chorus). I edited the audio a little to get rid of clicks and pops and stuff.

It's being evil and not letting me embed the track so click here to hear it.

There are a few things I definitely would want to improve next time. I managed to get rid of most of the dodgy sounds but there's still a bit of clicking and stuff at the beginning and more in the high bit at the end that I want to get rid of. Some of the singing wasn't quite how I wanted it to be, but I pretty much did it in one take so it's not totally perfect. Also, I like the layering and perhaps would want to use more harmonies/layering after the chorus where I did a little bit.

Any constructive criticism?
Much appreciated :)

'Entangled' by Cat Clarke

2011-09-30T23:59:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure why so many things I've been watching and reading recently are depressing. This is another one which made me cry a little towards the end.

*SPOILER ALERT*

This book is about a girl named Grace who wakes up in a locked white room with pens and paper. She doesn't remember how she got there but believes she was kidnapped by a guy she just met. We learn that she was planning to kill herself in a playground when she saw him on the swings and she went to talk to him in an attempt to make him leave so she could carry on, but instead found herself getting more drunk and eventually throwing up and letting him put her in his van. In the white room she is in, she has her own en-suite and he brings her good food and she lives comfortably while imprisoned. The book is basically her writing down her memories, trying to work through what happened, and how things ended up as they did.

She tells the story of how she fell in love with a boy named Nat who treated her well and made her feel worth something. She tells of how she fell out with her best friend Sal after she became pregnant (but wouldn't tell Grace who by) and consequently had an abortion. Grace self-harms and Sal was her best friend, the only one who really paid attention, saw what she was doing and tried to help her to stop doing it. Grace continued to cut herself despite her promises to Sal to stop. Her father killed himself several years before (I think when she was 14 - she's now 17) and her mother is rarely around, so Grace looks after (or doesn't look after) herself.
When she and Sal finally make up, she introduces her to Nat. She can't understand why they seem so awkward with each other and tries to make them like each other, also hoping to find a nice guy for Sal so she won't feel like a third wheel. The details in the writing are really interesting, all of the different things that hint at what really happened, things that Grace doesn't seem to notice or perhaps subconsciously ignores. She sometimes feels like she's not quite understanding what's going on, but assumes it's not really important. Nat's younger brother knows Grace and tries to tell her the truth about Nat, and because of her stubborness, this eventually ends in him texting her from Nat's phone to come over and she sees Nat and Sal together (though it's not all as bad as it looks - they are emotionally involved, but Nat wasn't the one who got Sal pregnant, however being emotionally involved can in some ways be worse than physically involved).

Throughout the story it is switching back and forth between her writing her memories and her writing about this place she's trapped in, the white room, with Ethan occasionally coming in, but even when the opportunity presents itself, she somehow can't find the courage to escape from the room. Throughout the book you kind of know that the white room and Ethan aren't really real, but it's interesting to see how it plays out, and you're not 100% sure what the reality is going to be. Right at the end of the book it is the things that Grace can hear, people talking to her, and it's clear that she never met Ethan, she was never kidnapped, she tried to kill herself and has been unconscious, in a coma throughout this whole time, trying to work through all of this. At the end of the book she hasn't woken up yet, but she has hope, and she's going to try.

The end is really depressing and you kind of want to know what would have happened if she woke up, but this is definitely a better ending - the promise of a different life (one of the people talking to her is her mother, apologising for not being there for her, explaining how she herself was struggling to cope without her husband and promising that it would change) and an unsure hope for the future.

It kind of reminds me of the end of the film 'Sliding Doors' (which I love) - where Helen is in a coma after being hit by a car, and James is holding her in his arms in the hospital, promising that they are going to have a wonderful life together, and then the monitor goes flat as she finally dies. Though sometimes I do actually get angry at that ending, I like happy endings, but it is all a little more interesting that way round. There's always hope in their other life in the film - where she does wake up from her coma. Anywho, that's a discussion for another day.

I don't think I've really done the book justice with my description but hopefully it'll do! Would definitely recommend the book, though if you've read this, I'm sorry for ruining the story, still worth a read :).

A dash of nostalgia

2011-09-30T11:25:00.000+01:00

Today as I was checking my e-mails I got a little pop up message asking me if I wanted to keep my password reset e-mail address the same. The e-mail address was one I haven't used in an extremely long time, though I can still access it (but hadn't for a very long time, I sort of check it about once every 2 years).
This ended up prompting me to go check that address (and check it still actually worked). Having logged in, I began to look at a few of my old e-mails and had a little nostalgia moment. That account is the first one I used after arriving in the UK, and I used it for about a year before getting a hotmail account so that I could use msn (another thing I haven't used in a long time!). So on my account I've got all these saved e-mails between me and my friends back in NZ at the beginning of it all, I was in contact with so many more people than I am now (though of course I have most of them as Facebook friends, but it's a little different from actually communicating).

I actually felt quite sad looking at those e-mails, some of them really reminded me how much I was missing NZ at the beginning and how lonely I felt. Among them were some e-mails between me and a guy who I was really good friends with and I don't quite know why we stopped e-mailing, I'm pretty sure it was quite a sudden thing. Though of course looking at all our e-mails they were never really anything that interesting or significant, though to an 11 year old I suppose they seemed more important at the time. I also came across a nasty e-mail I had pretty much forgotten about which really crapped on me while I was down, it was from a boy I used to go to school with (who is actually a Facebook friend, lol, good old Facebook).

Of course the worst thing that I found looking through those e-mails was something to do with myself. It seems I was actually one of those people who didn't type properly and used a kind of abbreviated text speak. I feel so ashamed. Luckily I was better than most, I think I did type normally quite a bit of the time but just used things like '4' and 'u' instead of 'for' and 'you'. In retrospect I think I was probably just trying to fit in a little at the time because 'everyone' typed like that, though as I got a little older I realised that it really annoyed me, so I started typing like a proper human being, lol. Ok, yes, I still use lol and a few others, but that's still a lot better!

So that was the most unfortunate realisation anyway. There was some quite nice stuff on there too, but looking at them feels quite odd, I don't quite remember being that person, I really wasn't very grown up at all but I did grow up quickly once I moved here. I was probably only like that for that year, I think when I was 12 I was starting to think a lot more like an adult and thinking everything through rationally, and by 13 I was pretty much a little grown up when it came to dealing with difficult situations. Not with my parents of course, with them I was still quite a brat throughout my teens, but with other people I think I dealt quite well.

Anywho, I just felt like a little nostalgic blog, not really interesting enough for anyone to particularly want to read it, but interesting for me to remember my 11th year.

Oh yes, I also went on myspace for the first time in a very long time (I had to reset my password as I couldn't remember what I'd used). It felt a little odd, It's changed since I last used it (as would be expected). I feel so old, lol - back in my day (oh dear), you could make your own layout and put the coding in the 'about me' box, so that's what I did, and at the time it looked really good. Now they've removed that, so now in the about me box it has all of these random things shoved together there. I couldn't be bothered to change it though as it's not really worth the effort when I never go use it. Did have a flick through some of my old pictures which felt weird, but also kind of nice.

Right, I'd better go, I need some breakfast and then got to get ready for work!

Depressing but Powerful

2011-09-27T13:08:00.000+01:00

I was just going to write about a few films I've seen recently but realised there were a few things that had a bit of a 'depressing but powerful' theme running through them so thought I'd go with that instead. I haven't particularly said what the films are about, just my opinions, so I'm assuming you either know the basic plot, or can quickly look it up if you're curious - at some point I may update this post so you get a basic idea but don't have time at the moment.I've been watching a whole lot of films recently, and one that is definitely a new favourite for me is 'Never Let Me Go'. I had read the book previously and finally reserved and borrowed the film from the library. I thought the film would be able to capture the emotion of the film but I wasn't sure if it would be able to have a fully formed plot that didn't miss out anything vital. I needn't have worried, this was one occasion when I really felt like the book and film were both excellent. The bits missed out of the film that were in the book felt only like a little bit background information, filling out the world of the book, but with the visual information of the film it didn't matter that these little pieces were omitted.

I would definitely recommend both book and film, though they are very sad and emotional. I love the final scene of the film where Kathy says:

'We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.'

Also related, Carey Mulligan who plays Kathy is such a wonderful actress, I've loved her work ever since I saw her as Sally Sparrow in Doctor Who - 'Blink' is still one of my favourite Doctor Who episodes. I think that the main trio of Never Let Me Go was perfectly cast, both as adults and children. I hadn't seen Andrew Garfield in much before, I think I'd only seen him in 'The Social Network', and that was as a very different character so I was interested to see whether he would do this well and he definitely did.

Again, on the vein of depressing films, I watched 'Changeling' the other day. I hadn't previously realised it was a true story, so when it showed that at the beginning of the film, it made it all the more powerful. You could really feel the frustration of the main character and how she was being blocked at every turn and she did come across as a very strong character though had her very emotional moments too. It's probably not one I would watch again, but I did find it most interesting the first time round. It would have been interesting to see a bit more of the police conspiracy etc. come to light but I think they tried to stick as much as possible to the true story and just hint a little with artistic license - e.g. the part where the boy who is being taken away says that it was the police that told him to say he was Walter. It wasn't really a role I would have previously thought of Angeline Jolie in but she played it very well, I think she is very good at portraying emotion through her eyes and that comes through very well in this film.

Lastly, one of my friends has become addicted to Ed Sheeran. She played this song, 'Little Lady', the other day for me and another friend to listen to and I wanted to post it on here. Note: This song includes swearing.

Camelot

2011-09-10T02:16:00.003+01:00

I've recently watched the series 'Camelot' starring Jamie Campbell Bower and Eva Green (among the many wonderful cast members).
I very much like dramas from that sort of era so was quite interested to see how they had approached it. I didn't really know much about the series before watching it, so it was quite interesting to see.
I felt like it would be something quite good to blog about right now so I'm seizing the moment (even if the moment is at 2:18 in the morning when I should be going to bed - I'm sitting in bed, that counts, right?).

My thoughts on the characters:

Jamie Campbell Bower makes an excellent Arthur, he is not someone I would have imagined in the role but they have reinvented it in a great way. I think he plays it very well and I like that his character seems quite transparent in a lot of ways. There's a certain naive quality to it all which really draws you to be interested in his character.

Guinevere is one that surprised me. In many ways the character is what I would expect from this type of drama, but I had only seen Tamsin Egerton in St Trinians so came into it with this completely different character stuck in my head that I couldn't quite shake to begin with. However as the series went on I found that her acting when it came to emotional scenes was spot on and you really felt for her character despite her flaws.

Eva Green is amazing as Morgan Pendragon. I'd seen her in a couple of films and this really showed another level to her acting. The depth of her character was very layered and in some moments it was hard to second guess her. She has a certain bewitching quality and the accent she has really adds to this mystique. I loved how she really had clear motive for what she did and how she showed strength and malicious power alongside a certain vulnerability in certain moments where you see a childlike quality in her.

Leontes is amazing, Phillip Winchester play the part brilliantly. I don't know why Guinevere would ever cheat on him, he's fantastic. 'nuff said. Though I would like to mention that I enjoy how his character does have a little more depth than just being there to create a love triangle. He's great.

Igraine is played by the wonderful Claire Forlani, who I had only seen previously in Meet Joe Black (a film that I very much like). She is another actress who I felt performed amazingly in this series. I love how the character is strong and determined and really cares for others. I think she was particularly good in the episode where she played Igraine locked up in Castle Pendragon and Morgan posing as Igraine at Camelot.

I loved this new reimagining of Merlin, I was only sad to see that you didn't really get to know his character that much, you just saw him as this mysterious guy with a mysterious past. Joseph Fiennes is bewitching in this part, which gives him a sort of link with Morgan - the characters both have this quality which is a little otherworldy - which I suppose stems from the magical forces that both have a connection with. I was interested in the idea that he had been around for thousands of years and was sad that this wasn't really explored.

The character of Kay is also fantastic, I love that Arthur has a brother, someone he can really connect with from their joint past - someone who really knows him. I like how this grounded the Arthur character to some extent.

Can't really be bothered to name any of the other characters, but I like the women in this as they very strong and in many ways quite modern (ooh, and Vivien looks awesome). And I like how the other warriors who fight with Arthur have a bit of their own stories as well (even if I just did refer to them as 'other warriors').

A few notable positives about the series:

As previously mentioned, the strong female characters are a great addition, I love the modernity that strengthens this.

Arthur's fickleness is great, I love how flawed the character is - I think that the writers really managed to capture a humanity in all of the characters, allowing for flaws and attempted retribution for some of these.

The fact that magic took it's toll in a very clear physical way was a great take on the idea. The scenes where Morgan is kind of dying are very powerful, and the scene in the last episode with Merlin wanting and trying to save Igraine is really emotional.

The sets and costumes are completely outstanding! 10/10 for that!

A few less great things:

There seemed to be quite a lot of unnecessary nudity which slightly annoyed me. Why put it in where it's not needed? The plot was quite happy without it! Some of it I suppose was needed (or at least needed to be implied), but some of it really did seem to have no purpose.

Why start to explore the idea of magic with Merlin and Morgan and then just cut it off without any real depth put in? I felt like they considered going down the dark road to weird evil magic stuff and then after starting decided that it wasn't the way to go and moved on.

Looking back over the whole thing I think the first half of the series was really promising, the second half was ok but started to go a little downhill towards the end and was completely ruined by the dodgy incest scene at the end. Fair enough, they were trying to have something to feed into the next series (which was then cancelled) but it was a little disturbing and I would have much more happily accepted a few more deaths and the promise of something better to come.

So I guess overall I quite enjoyed the series, I like that this allowed for a certain amount of darkness in the script, but I would probably prefer the family friendly programme 'Merlin'. I only cringe at the really weird looking little gremlin type evil things they throw in occasionally. Apart from that I'm a big fan.

Soul Survivor 2011 - Music (Part 2)

2011-08-14T17:33:00.021+01:00

There were a lot of great new songs at Soul Survivor this year, so this is my second post about the music - this one is about the new Soul Survivor Watford songs. I've been searching my memory and the internet to put together as many lyrics as I can of these songs, hope it's helpful. Please let me know if I've got some lyrics wrong or you can fill some gaps for me! Though hopefully I'll be able to do that myself when I go back for Momentum on Friday :).

My favourite song from this week is one which I think might be by Beth Croft. Don't think they said who wrote it but I had in my head that it was her. I'm not sure what it's called, but other people seem to have been referring to it as 'Arms of Grace' so I will also do so.
Arms of Grace

Verse 1
How many times have
You found me wandering
In the rubble of yesterdays hope

Weighed down with burdens
Barely standing but
I am desperate to see you again, see you again

Chorus
Running into your arms of grace
With no reason to hide away
It’s not the first time I’ve been in this place
I’m coming home again
I’m welcomed home again

Verse 2
How great the cost that
Paid my journey back
You gave your only son and carried me home

Now I am chosen
How else could I respond
I’ve been captured by your unfailing love, your unfailing love

Bridge
Your arms are open wide
Grace takes me back again
You always take me back
There’s mercy in your eyes
Thank you Lord for loving me
There’s nothing like your love
Roughly the format is: Verse 1, Chorus, Verse 2, Chorus, Bridge x2, Chorus x2

This next one was sung quite a lot at Week B. Again I'm not sure of the name, so have gone for one that seems to fit.

You Never Give Up On Us

Verse 1
You’re the God of salvation
We call on your name
You came to redeem us
You carry our shame
We stumble and fall down
We turn from your ways
In you we find mercy
We’re held in your grace
Held in your grace

Chorus
You never give up on us
Never let go or turn away
We’re holding onto you
Our God is strong
Our God is good

Verse 2
You’re the God of compassion
The friend of the least
Not coming to be served
You serve those in need
We surrender our burdens
Our lives at your cross
We trust in the saviour
The God who is love
Our God is love
Moving on to ones I have fewer lyrics for... this one I think is by Sam Parker, I only had the chorus and bridge, but found verse 2 on a video. I don't have the lyrics for the first verse so if anyone does, please let me know! :)

Your Love is Amazing

Verse 2
Though I have tasted
What this world offers
It never satisfies
But now I will be
What your love makes me
I’m seeing with new eyes

Pre-Chorus
For your love reaches the deepest part of me
Defines who I am and what I’ll be

Chorus
Your love is amazing God,
So high, so vast
It reaches even me
Now that you’ve found me Lord
My heart is yours
This is where I want to be

Bridge
And how beautiful
How merciful
How wonderful is your love
x2

I really love the pre-chorus of that song, it's short but has brilliant lyrics...

The next song is 'Our God is for us', I had to get the lyrics from a video so I'm not sure of quite a few - have coloured them purple. If you can correct or confirm any for me, that'd be great!

Our God is for us

Verse 1
In you we find mercy and grace
We are overwhelmed
Cannot comprehend
Or fathom your great love
A love so undeserved
That is for us

Verse 2
In you we find peace for our lives
We are satisfied
Walking in this truth
The kindness of your heart
Will lead us as we are
‘Cause you are for us

Bridge
Your love it burns so fierce for us
Your love conquered death on a cross

Chorus 1
Our God is for us
Our God is with us
Your promises are sure
In you we are secure
Our God is for us

Verse 3
In you we find hope for the world
We are riding out
To see your kingdom come
To follow in your ways
And all you have now praise
You are for us

Bridge

Chorus 2
Our God is for us
Our God is with us
Your promises are sure
In you we are secure
Our God is for us
Our God is with us
Forever we’re assured
Your love it will endure
Our God is for us

Bridge x3

Chorus 3
Our God is for us
Our God is with us
Your promises are sure
In you we are secure
Our God is for us
Our God is with us
Forever we’re assured
Your love it will endure
Our God is for us
Our God is with us
Your promises are sure
In you we are secure
Our God is for us

Lastly, there was a song which I think might be by Tom Field, I didn't get many of the lyrics, but hopefully can rectify that at Momentum. See what I've got of it below.

Bridge:
Nothing else Jesus could ever take your place,
You are higher, greater
My heart and soul
Lift up Your name,
Forever I'll proclaim

Chorus:
Hallelujah
Chains are broken, broken
Hallelujah
Love has spoken, spoken
You are all I need,
Jesus all I need is you

I think they've really got some beautiful songs in there, I may have to buy this years album when it comes out! Hope this is helpful for anyone looking for the lyrics! Enjoy :)

NB: I've also got a few amusing quotes from Soul Survivor here.

Soul Survivor 2011 - Music (Part 1)

2011-08-14T17:32:00.001+01:00

I absolutely love the new songs that they played at Soul Survivor this year - I just got back from week B where I was doing seminar recording, and I'm doing it again at Momentum in a few days.

There were quite a lot of songs that were new to me this year, I was a bit sad that some of the new ones from last year weren't very present - particularly 'My Praise Overflows' which I really loved. I also noticed that they played 'Our God' by Chris Tomlin rather a lot (this was Week B).

Anyway, in this post I will put some of the amazing songs that were played that were new to me, not including the ones from this year written by Soul Survivor Watford which I'll make another post for so I can include as many lyrics as possible.

The one below was a new one to me, it's 'One Thing Remains' by Jesus Culture, the chorus is my favourite bit :).

I was chatting to my sister about this one below, and we both really liked how it said 'we are here for you' rather than talking about stuff God can do for us. But instead we are here to worship God for his glory.

This next one, 'We are the Free' by Matt Redman, was the sort of 'Oh oh oh' anthem from this year, they tend to have a different one each year, works really well in a festival setting...

The next video is actually a 'how to' by one of the guys who wrote it. It's 'Once in Darkness' by Luke Hellebronth, Beth Croft and David Gate. You can find the chords or hear it at Worship Central. It was played quite a lot at SSB, particularly the last couple of days, it's a really good song.

This last one is actually last year but I hadn't heard it before - I was at Momentum last year but was on Catering so missed or was late to a lot of the main meetings. It's 'Light the Sky' by Jamie Rodwell.

So those are all the ones I particularly wanted to put on my blog, I hope you enjoy them like I did :). I'm in the process of doing another post to follow this with lyrics of some of the new Soul Survivor Watford songs, so that should be up shortly...

Mmm... Flourless Chocolate Cake

2011-05-27T23:53:00.006+01:00

It's been a while since I last blogged. I shall hopefully be blogging a little more over the summer, as I'll have less uni work to occupy my mind. Hopefully I will have a job, but so far there's no promising news on that...

Anywho, today I wanted to post a lovely recipe for a flourless chocolate cake that I made yesterday for the birthday of my wheat allergic housemate :). It's very tasty.

Mmm, Tasty Flourless Chocolate Cake

I really should have a better picture, but wasn't thinking about blogging it til just now...

For cake:

400g plain chocolate, broken up

6 tablespoons water

12 large eggs, separated, at room temperature

1 1/3 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

For filling/topping:

2 cups heavy cream

6 tablespoons confectioners sugar, sifted

4 tablespoons Grand Marnier*

*I substituted 4 tablespoons cocoa and 1 teaspoon orange extract (the recipe I found suggested vanilla extract, but I'd run out) - it was really tasty - might use slightly less cocoa powder next time, but it was still good.

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 170°C. Line cake tin (I think mine was something like a 20cm round springform tin).

Melt chocolate with water in a small heavy saucepan over very low heat, stirring. Cool to lukewarm.

Beat yolks, 2/3 cup sugar, and salt until thick and pale for about 5 minutes. Stir in melted chocolate until combined. In a separate HUGE bowl, beat 12 egg whites until they hold stiff peaks.

Add remaining sugar and beat until whites just hold stiff peaks. Fold one third of whites into melted-chocolate mixture, then fold in remaining whites carefully.

Pour batter into cake tin. Bake until a knife or skewer inserted comes out clean (Took about 45 minutes - I was checking ever 15 mins) - May need to cover top with baking paper part way through so top is not burned (I did this after the first 15 minutes). Leave to cool for a while, remove from tin and once cool enough, put into fridge. Note - Cake will still be kind of wobbly/squishy when removed from tin due to it's flourless nature, but will firm up in the fridge.

To make the filling:

In a clean large bowl, beat cream with icing sugar and Grand Marnier (or substitute) until it just holds stiff peaks.

To assemble the cake:

Remove cake from fridge and slice in half horizontally. Carefully move top layer to another plate. Spread about half mixture on bottom layer, replace top layer and spread remainder of cream on top. Decorate as you wish :).

Keep cake in the refrigerator until serving time.

Notes:

I've put it here the way I did it, for the original recipe I found, click here. Most of the alterations I made were just because I didn't have the stuff needed, so the other recipe is probably better... but this way still works well :).

You really do need one or two big bowls for this, I had to juggle the mixture between two bowls when I was folding the two parts together as there was so much of it! But I've only got 1 medium sized mixing bowl, so this probably isn't as much of a problem for other people...

Just a little update...

2011-03-24T16:43:00.004Z

Well, I've been quite busy so haven't really been putting anything on here. Work is slowly getting done for uni, I really need to speed up the process, but at least I'm chugging along atm rather than just being stuck.
Been attempting to create some sound for a whiteboard video I'm making atm, hopefully it'll work. Going to pop into uni in a little bit to try and get it together for my tutorial tomorrow...

Anyway, on a non-work related note (which is quite refreshing, after the few hours...), I thought I'd put up a couple of rather cool things I like :).

I saw on facebook that someone I know made Ninjabread men! Which is rather exciting. Later in the day I was browsing Firebox and came across the cutters (I hadn't been sure if she'd used cutters or not), which you can buy here.

I have looked through the images on the page, and I don't think any of them look as awesome as Helen's ones :) - see picture below (aren't they so much cooler!).

As I continued to browse Firebox I also came across this rather cool clock, which is kind of graphic arty. I want one! It's so quirky and pretty :).

Well, that's all for now... enjoy :)

Glee

2011-02-17T00:57:00.007Z

I totally admit I'm a big Glee fan, the story lines are quite interesting and so on, the characters fluctuate between being more and less loveable as time progresses, but the thing I really love is the music. The mash-ups are brilliant, and I really loved the way they were updating old classics in the first series. There have been fewer songs in the second series that I've loved straight away, but then again I've not seen the whole series yet.

My favourite song from the second series so far is 'Teenage Dream' (is it bad that my favourite song isn't sung by New Directions?), anywho, had to share it with you :).

One of my other favourites from this series is 'Lucky' (and aren't they cute!)

I really like Dianna Agron - she has quite a distinct voice which I really like - also, can't wait to see 'I am Number Four' which stars her and Alex Pettyfer (who I think is great too), out next week!

Avalon High Film SPOILERS

2011-02-12T21:13:00.005Z

Today I discovered that there was a TV movie version of 'Avalon High' by Meg Cabot, which happens to be pretty much my favourite Meg Cabot book, so I was quite interested at the prospect of a filmed version. I managed to find it on YouTube and proceeded to watch it. Starting off under the impression that they stayed true to the book, I was quite enjoying it, though noticing some changes which made little sense to me, so I decided to look up what differences there were between book and film (while still watching). I came across the Wikipedia page for it, and expecting to see that there were a few minor changes written there, I was extremely surprised to note that they'd basically completely changed the book. From that point, I was already disappointed but trying to think of it as something completely separate from the book and still enjoy it as a separate piece...

Here's where the major spoilers come in - as copied from Wikipedia:

In the movie, Ellie (Allie in the film) rather than Will is King Arthur. Rather than Marco, Mr. Morton (Mr. Moore in the film) is Mordred, whereas Miles is Merlin as opposed to Mr. Morton. Marco is a member of the Order of the Bear determined to protect Will. The climax battle scene occurs in the ravine in the book, but occurs in the school theater (which magically becomes a beach) in the movie. Presumably, this is to make the film more unpredictable. Also the students are the reincarnations of the actual characters as oppose to merely corresponding to them. "Allie" is an only child, her brother is no longer a character. Will's father is not trying to make him join the navy. Will does not sail and does not have a dog, therefore there are no connections to the names of Arthur's dog and boat. (Will is not Arthur, hence the elimination.) Avalon High's team name is the Knights, not Excalibur. Many scenes were cut out and scene settings were changed to make the movie more appropriate for younger children because the book has violent and some threatening scenes.

So basically, they switched around all of the main characters. I was quite disappointed by this, but I think it could have been pulled off if they had added more threads into the story. The most annoying thing was that since Will wasn't Arthur, all of the little things which made you think he was Arthur seemed pointless, and no extra interesting things were put in to point towards Allie being Arthur so it made everything seem very random instead of destined as was intended.

Thoughts on the characters:

I liked the portrayal of Allie by Britt Robertson, I thought she held the movie really well. She's actually the reason I came across the movie as I had searched her on imbd after watching some episodes of 'Life Unexpected' (really enjoying it :D). She didn't really have the right look for the character if you're thinking about the book, but with the decision that she was to be King Arthur, I think that her appearance was quite appropriate.
I loved the character of Miles, despite the fact he wasn't in the book, I really enjoyed the performance and he's quite a loveable character, perhaps the only character aside from Allie that the writers had decided to try and give any depth.
What can I say about Will... I thought he was ok. The look was fine, I think, but the way the character was played really lacked depth. This was probably mainly down to the writers, and with the decision that he wasn't Arthur - they must have decided not to really focus on his character... To me, he came across as perhaps a little slow and naively happy - kind of reminiscent of James Marsden's portrayal of Prince Edward in 'Enchanted' (which I love btw). He's supposed to be some deep thinker, but I really wasn't seeing it.
Lance and Jen barely got any screen-time apart from their secret looks and meetings which meant their characters didn't really get a chance to have any depth, and they were clearly there just to provide the love triangle (which didn't really have any significance since Will wasn't Arthur).
I liked the casting for both Marco and Mr Moore - they would have still fitted the characters if the script stuck to the book. Marco had an unfortunate, very cheesy line towards the end - something like "I was only doing it to keep you safe. Treating you guys like that was the hardest thing I've ever had to do."
I quite liked Allie's parents - they fitted the roles quite well, and fitted well enough with my ideas from the book.

Thoughts on other things:

The 'flashbacks' were quite interesting, they were a useful way of showing the connections between people, and they fit well with the idea of Allie as Arthur.
Really disappointed with the destruction of any meaning or depth in the circumstances in comparison to the story of Arthur. E.g. Lance and Jen losing their significance with 'Arthur', all the little things there were about Will in the book that pointed towards him being Arthur (names of boat, dog, etc.), the relationship of 'Arthur' to 'Mordred', well, you get the picture.
There were some very cheesy lines in there - but hey, it was a Disney film.
The special effects were interesting, very Disney-ish, e.g. the theatre transforming into a beach with fully armoured knights, the sword becoming Excalibur, Mr Moore becoming Mordred - Arthurian style.
The removal of the whole 'Lady of the lake' thing was disappointing - I suppose they had a different surprise instead, but I don't think it was half as good...

Anywho, on the whole, I think that as a Disney film, it's quite a fun one to watch, a little cheesy, some entertaining special effects and a completely unrealistic appearance, all pretty good. However, in comparison to the book I thought it was quite a disappointment. As long as you don't start watching it with the impression that it's actually going to be the fantastic story you've read with interesting detail and back-story links, then I think it's still quite an enjoyable movie.

A little music for you

2011-02-09T22:56:00.005Z

I recently started listening to some Ellie Goulding music and I quite like it. I also became obsessed with the song 'Heart Attack' by Jack McManus for quite a while. So I thought I'd share a little with you :).

I like the video for 'Your Song', it's really sweet and lovely :).

I also really like this music video - I think it's rather inventive and shows off the song's metaphor :).

Sara Bareilles - Kaleidoscope Heart

2011-02-09T22:00:00.007Z

I've been listening to Sara Bareilles' new album 'Kaleidoscope Heart' on Spotify for the past week and I'm completely in love with it! I just happened to see an ad about it on the sidebar of Facebook so decided to look it up and it's brilliant.

I'm rather disappointed that I can't embed the official music video for 'King of Anything' as it's pretty amazing, but you can see it by clicking here.
However I am able to embed a Live version of it that I also came across, so I shall put that here:

It really made me want to try and do a completely vocal cover of it - but then I came across one by the wonderful Sam Tsui and Kurt Schneider who I am a big fan of - see their version below:

I'm quite in love with the whole album, but some of my particular favourites are 'Uncharted' and 'The Light'. 'The Light', 'Hold My Heart' and 'Breathe Again' are really beautiful songs, while 'Gonna Get Over You' and 'Say You're Sorry' are more upbeat songs that I really enjoy :).

And if you say, it'll be alright
I'm gonna trust you, babe
I'm gonna look in your eyes
And if you say it'll be alright
I'll follow you into the light

Exhibition stuff

2011-02-09T22:00:00.000Z

In general things have been going fairly well, as mentioned in my brief post earlier I've been quite stressed as we had an exhibition opening yesterday and I've been frantically trying to figure out what to do and then get it done - there were various problems with our exhibition space (including that some members couldn't drill into surfaces due to asbestos!) but in the end we got everything sorted in time. I initially planned to show a video (possibly one that I had spent weeks creating for my second module in semester 1) but due to power restrictions in our exhibition space I decided not to do that but to create separate work for the exhibition.

I was trying to respond to the space - I ended up having two enclosed box areas created by desks a row of desks next to each other with a board over the top. There were also a number of lockers lying around that I decided to make use of.

As it is right at the beginning of semester, I hadn't begun to work on anything in particular for my general art practice. So I was a bit at a loss for what to actually create in these spaces. In the end I decided to work with doodle drawings - I've been doodling in A5 books throughout the last semester - not hugely as part of my practice but as a way of coming up with new ideas or just for a bit of fun. I decided that I wanted to paper the whole inside of one of the spaces with these doodles - I measured it out and figured out how many pieces of A4 paper it would take (I considered using rolls of paper but decided to with A4 pieces instead). The pieces ended up taking longer than I first anticipated - the photo below on the left shows my quick test with some of the drawings to see how it would look.

It took me rather a long time but I managed to make 58 A4 drawings, which covered the 4 sides (around and base), unfortunately I didn't have the time to make the other 16 I needed to cover the top. I was fairly happy with how everything turned out in the end.

For the other space I decided to work with origami. I had already created some origami butterflies and so on for an installation last semester, so decided to use some of what I already had. I didn't actually end up using that much of what I had as I limited my colours to just pink, blue and green. In the first photo below it shows the origami I brought up from my studio space with the lockers and a light that I was trying out inside one of the lockers.

Below are photos of my finished origami installation - I am quite happy with how it looked finished - I played around with the whole 'making process' - showing different stages of making. I also really liked how the lighting turned out, with the shadows of the glass - though it's not best shown in these photos as I only managed to get photos while it was still quite light out.

So that's my finished pieces. I really don't feel like it's my best work, but I made it all for the exhibition at quite short notice so I'm not too bothered about that. It feels quite amateurish, and I certainly felt like my pieces were not as impressive or interesting as many of the others that I saw that evening. I'm hoping that the next exhibition I take part in will show better work!

Lots of blogging today...

2011-02-09T19:33:00.000Z

Well, that's the plan anyway. There are loads of things where I've kept thinking 'Oh, I should blog about that' but never got around to doing. I've not been taking care of myself properly as I've been really stressed so today I'm ill and in bed, only thing I've done is had a driving lesson this morning and then got straight back into PJs and back into bed when I got home!

So I'm planning to catch up on some blogging I've been wanting to do, write lots of lists about what I need to get done that I've been putting off until after yesterday, do some proper planning for uni stuff and try to rest and recover a bit.

Breathe a sign of relief...

2011-01-14T13:34:00.006Z

Two reasons for a sigh of relief, one reason to stress...

First reason to sigh in relief - this morning I handed in my essay and 1 minute video which is the result of my second module. So that is now all sorted, yay! I also had to hand it in via the website 'turnitin' which was a bit more confusing but I have also done that now. Breathe.

Second reason to sigh in relief - I just finished my driving lesson. I was rather tense for parts of my lesson today, I have a few too many things on my mind. Some parts of the lesson were lovely, and I drove smoothly, I learnt how to do reverse bay parking and when I tried reversing between two parked cars I didn't hit them (always good). However some parts of my lesson were quite worrying, I made two major mistakes, one was starting to turn right when I was supposed to be going left and had indicated and everything, but my mind was distracted... the other one was doing a U-turn instead of a right turn on a dual carriageway. Whoops. At least with that one I wouldn't have confused other drivers as I signalled in all the correct ways... I had a few other slips but they weren't major. Lots of stop-start traffic jams today...

Well, my driving instructor was quite encouraging and did say I drove well except for a few uncharacteristic slip-ups, so I hope that everything will be alright next week!

One reason to stress - DEADLINE ON MONDAY. For EVERYTHING I've done this semester. Aaah! Got lots of stuff to do before then, and I have to make sure that everything is legible, makes sense and is easy to navigate for the assessors. I also need to write a self evaluation. I'm relatively confident in my ability, I just know I've got loads to do!

Lol, you know when I'm having a stressful week - just looked at my finances, and it seems I've bought something chocolate every day since Monday... (45p reduced chocolate muffins from Sainsbury's yesterday! :D)

Also, we've already got our new brief for an event coming up that we are to be working on during the assessment period, but I want to be doing other stuff! I think it'll be really good fun though, will hopefully be able to post some things about that in a couple of weeks.

On another note, I am still very behind on BIOY, but am significantly less behind then I was when I left for Christmas (I caught up by about a month but still have another week or 2 as I haven't done any of it this week). Finding it difficult to find the time which is frustrating because it's really interesting!

I will post about more exciting things at some point soon... I still need to put up some pictures of my very awesome new docs, they're black and white and spotty :).

I am also considering posting some of my video work - need to put it up on YouTube first...

Anywho, got to go, I'm still at uni and so better get on with some work!

Secrets - OneRepublic

2010-12-30T15:41:00.002Z

This is the most amazing song, I absolutely love it. So thought I'd share it on here :). I have also posted my favourite scene from the excellent film 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' where I first heard it (lots of other good music on the soundtrack too).
It's fantastic :).

Other Song Obsessions...

2010-10-23T14:19:00.005+01:00

The other song I've particularly been obsessed with recently is 'Airplanes' by B.O.B. and Hayley Williams.

It's a great song, and is particularly popular at the moment...
The best version on YouTube is here, but it couldn't be embedded - so I've put the best other version I could find here, but the audio and visuals are out of sync.

They did a version of it on X Factor that I saw, but I thought it totally ruined the song... just personal opinion. I don't mind versions where they sing the rap bit, I just didn't think it was done very well...

When I tried playing this on the piano, I realised that this song and 'Love the way you lie' use the same chord progression, just a semi-tone out, so it's quite easy to mix the two...

Moving on, this is a song I've just heard today, which I quite like - but I particularly like the story in it, and the video - it's 'Mine' by Taylor Swift.
I think that the scenes with the photos hanging down are really effective.

Love The Way You Lie

2010-10-23T13:53:00.004+01:00

I've been obsessed with a few songs recently, I'm going to put some more up after this post, but I've just found a bunch of really good covers of this that I wanted to put up, so thought I'd just put them as a single post. This is a song I was constantly singing last week (just the Rihanna bit really, I didn't properly learn the rapping...).

This is the official music video, which I really like, I think it's quite powerful.

This is the first version of the song I actually ever heard, which I really like - I love seeing collaborative pieces like this... and the beatboxing is great :P.

I've just found a couple of other covers I really like, so thought I'd put them here... This one is a Tyler Ward cover, I've heard some of his other stuff which I really like, but came across this by accident. I like how they have the female vocal rapping some of it as well.

Lastly, this is actually as mash-up of 'Love the way you lie', 'Teenage Dreams' and 'Dynamite' which is good fun. I really like how they've done the visual side of the video too.

Bloggity blog

2010-10-23T13:43:00.003+01:00

Well, I haven't blogged in a while so thought I'd do some blogging now..

General life update - I'm quite happy with how everything's going at the moment, I'm getting on well with my housemates, despite a few interesting incidents which I won't go into...
I can't believe it's only been 3 weeks! It feels like it's been a lot longer than that! - but in a good, way - it does feel like home, and it's nice to be back at uni.

Christian Union is going really well, it's been quite stressful recently due to us taking on a bit too much - I've still got stuff I really need to sort out, but it's less stressful than last week.
Our CU has massively grown this year, we had about 10 regulars last year, and now that's basically doubled, which is great. Most of the new people are international students, which is brilliant, it's been great to interact with them. Everything's going really well, though prayer for us as leaders would be greatly appreciated - there's just 3 of us leading, and it's more work than you realise! Thankfully we're really good friends so it makes things easier!

In regards to art, I'm more worried, I'm not totally sure what I'm doing, but I'm starting to get more of an idea, I really need to have some work to show now because I've got a tutorial on Monday, and we've got an exhibition on Wednesday!
I keep forgetting how early on in the semester it is, and feeling like I have to have things sorted now and know what I'm doing, but I know it's all a process of development, and I need to just get on and do things... which I am certainly doing more than I was last year at any rate.
I'm enjoying my course a lot more than last year, and for me that's really important, because this way, if I end up not getting good grades - like last year - I can still be happy with what I've accomplished...

Anywho, that's me, I'll probably put up some pics of arty stuff I've been doing at some point soon...

Inception

2010-09-30T15:05:00.004+01:00

I went to see this at the cinema last night with my housemate Matt, and it was utterly amazing!
Definitely worth seeing at the cinema, I'll definitely get it on DVD but I really don't think it'll be the same!

The ideas behind it were fantastic and I love the slight ambiguity at the end. It's one of the first films in a long time to actually make me jump, lol, only once, but it did... It's true I don't watch a lot of thrillers, but I thought this was really excellent. The phrase 'on the edge of your seat' was certainly relevant for a large section of this movie.
I love how you get into it so much that you forget which dream is which and how many levels there are...
Also, you do come to care for the characters pretty quickly, and they have depth (this is particularly explored in the case of Cobb).

I've wanted to see this ever since I saw the trailer, I knew it'd be excellent (plus, I love almost anything with Ellen Page...)

I just thought I'd put this up here and encourage people to go see it at the cinema before it stops showing! So worth it :).

Sunday Girl

2010-09-30T14:57:00.003+01:00

I came across Sunday Girl this morning, when I read 'Meet Sunday Girl' on
MSN Life and Style. I then looked up a couple of things of hers, and I quite like her voice. The song that I've become really addicted to is 'Four Floors' (see video below). I really like how her videos are quite arty and the shots are rather interesting. I've listened to this song a lot of times this morning!

Free by Hillsong

2010-09-24T11:42:00.010+01:00

Wow, 4 posts in before noon, clearly I need to go do something productive, lol. I just wanted to quickly post the lyrics to a song.

I've been talking to Matt about how I find it hard to really enjoy hymns even when they have fantastic lyrics, I need them to be jazzed up a bit and then I love them!
I loved how Soul Survivor did a version of 'How Great Thou Art' with a 'Whoa-oh-oh-oah' bit and a some great backing music. I mean, I like that song anyway, but done in that way, I actually loved it!

Anywho, this just got me thinking about songs I hadn't listened to in a while, and yesterday I listened to some Hillsong on my mp3 player, and came across a song with lyrics I love that I hadn't ever really listened to that much.
Basically, I'm posting it here. Enjoy!

Would you believe me if I said
That we are the ones who can make the change in the world today
Would you believe me if I said
That all of your dreams in your heart can come true, today, yeah
Would you believe me if I said
That life can be all that you want it to be today, yeah, yeah

And if I had wings I would fly
'Cause all that I need, You are
And if the world caved in around me
To You I'd still hold on
'Cause You're all that I believe
You're the one that created me
Jesus, because of You, I'm free

Would you believe me if I said
That God can make miracles happen today, yeah, yeah
Would you believe me if I said
That you don't need to wait for the answers before you step out in faith
Would you believe me if I said
That nothing is ever impossible, for God, yeah, yeah

And if I had wings I would fly
'Cause all that I need, You are
And if the world caved in around me
To You I'd still hold on
'Cause You're all that I believe
You're the one that created me
Jesus, because of You, I'm free

Just live your life, with God inside
You won't regret one moment of it
Just give all that you can for God, for God

And if I had wings I would fly
'Cause all that I need, You are
And if the world caved in around me
To You I'd still hold on
'Cause You're all that I believe
You're the one that created me
Jesus, because of You

And if I had wings I would fly
'Cause all that I need, You are
And if the world caved in around me
To You I'd still hold on
'Cause You're all that I believe
You're the one that created me
Jesus, because of You, I'm free
I'm free, I'm free, I'm free

Why you shouldn't leave two Art students to decorate the lounge...

2010-09-24T10:53:00.010+01:00

Well, I told Carol about our interesting decorations, and she said 'If it's not on the blog, it didn't happen', and I felt it would be sad if it didn't happen, so I am putting it on the blog :).

My housemate Matt and I decided to make a few improvements to our living room...

Firstly, we strung up our peg reindeer (they've been with us since last Christmas when Matt made them, now they're settling into their new home :D )

Don't they cast a pretty shadow?

Then we experimented with the furniture... I must say, Matt looks very amusing sitting on top of the bunk seats, he's rather tall and it makes him look like a giant!

We then ended up covering some of the wall in paper so we could draw on it because we felt that we needed a mantelpiece.

Notice anything odd about the clock?

We decided that we wanted to build a cardboard fort, so headed off to Tesco at about 10pm to collect some boxes to use. The finished product was more like a small shack or house, but we loved it very much :). The second image is the outside of the window on the door - Matt set up a little pulley system to open the window (which is why there's string on it...).

This one is something we are extremely proud of, lol, I drew around Matt on the door (after papering it), and we used black acrylics to create this lovely silhouette :P.

This was a later addition - a finishing touch one might say...

We rearranged the furniture in this room many times, and in the end transferred the cardboard house upstairs (where, sadly, it later collapsed - I discovered this yesterday). After much deliberation, we were finally happy with where everything was.

We went to Ikea and got the clock, rug and Mr Plant. Matt got rid of the upper papered bit (above the mantelpiece) as it wasn't really needed. The drawn clock has been transferred to the kitchen to continue confusing people :).

Below is our finished living room (which might change again when our other housemates get here!).

Beautiful!

The World is my Oyster...

2010-09-24T09:49:00.008+01:00

Though hopefully not the kind of oyster they give you in restaurants and say that you can have a pearl if you find one, but they're not pearl-producing oysters...

Anywho, my point was that it's 9:50 in the morning, I've been up since about 8:30, but I no longer have to go with my friend Sophie to do stuff for CU, as there's not a lot to do and she said she can manage on her own. So I'm up, dressed, had breakfast, fully awake, and I now have the day to use as I wish...

I've got lots of things I need to do but I'm trying to ignore that for a little while, lol. I'm going to just enjoy myself doing things like piano playing and possibly some Sims 3 for the next hour or so, and then get down to doing the important things...

One of the things I thought I'd do in this hour is update my blog with various things from this week...
It's been quite a productive week I think, Matt moved in last Wednesday, so it's been great having him around - though he's not around this morning as he's staying over at our friend Jess' house (I was supposed to go too, but forgot my wallet and couldn't pay for the bus, lol, but it turned out to be a good thing as Soph needed me to finish a couple of things for today for CU).

The important productive things I've done this week are job hunting with Matt (still got a few things to do, but I've put my CV in at quite a few places which is great) and a few quite time-consuming things for CU, but it was all worth it - the freshers are moving in tomorrow so we've got more things to do in the morning. It's all quite exciting :).

The less productive, but very enjoyable things I've done include picking blackberries, watching quite a few episodes of Flight of the Conchords, playing a little bit of piano, looking round the little art exhibition here (here in this town, not here in my house), building a cardboard house (after going to Tesco to get loads of cardboard boxes at about 10pm - sadly the cardboard house has now collapsed...), decorating our living room with interesting things... (I really should put pictures up...), and so on.

It certainly has felt like more than a week has gone by, but that's always a good thing I think, I spend far too much time, when I'm back with my parents, not doing that much, and all the days blur together. It's not a good feeling. When I think back to the events of a day, I like to realise that I've actually done a lot. It makes me feel like it was a day well spent :).

Right, I might go now, I think I might put up some of those pictures of our interesting decorations...

Eeeeee!

2010-09-24T09:43:00.002+01:00

So excited!

Just finished listening to Half Blood Prince audio book (how can you not love the voice of Stephen Fry?), and got Deathly Hallows out from the library so I can re-read it before the film comes out.

This trailer looks really exciting, I'm going to be a bit sad when I've seen part 1 and have to wait for part 2, but it's better that they get all the important things in rather than making it into one film.
It's going to be excellent :).

A Little Bit of Change

2010-09-18T15:14:00.003+01:00

Well, as you can see, I've changed the template of my blog to something much nicer :P.
I'm thinking I'd quite like to change the title, at the moment I don't really have one, it's more like a mini-description...

I might also change the title of 'Radioactive Quotations'. I'm debating...
I haven't really got any ideas yet though so am leaving it as is for the moment.

Any suggestions?

BIOY blog posts moved!

2010-09-16T23:54:00.002+01:00

Hey, just to let everyone know, I've now moved my BIOY blogging to a new blog, so as to free up this blog for the random stuff I feel like posting - in the hope that it won't be swamped out by that stuff.

The blog it is now on is here. I like the whole new blogspot templates thingy, so might mess around with the template for this one tomorrow...
Also need to do my BIOY blog for today, but will leave it until tomorrow as I'm pretty shattered.

Enjoy!

'Before I Fall' by Lauren Oliver

2010-09-16T16:18:00.004+01:00

This is a book that I just read the other day and thought was excellent.
I spotted it in the library on a display shelf and had a quick look and it looked interesting so I thought I'd borrow it.
I read it all in one go, though it's a pretty big book.
I think the cover is beautiful.

It's about a teenage girl who sort of gets stuck in a groundhog day situation, she dies in a car accident and then wakes up the morning of the day she died. I thought it was a really interesting idea written well, though is a rather emotional book!

I found it really interesting at the beginning because it's about a teenage girl quite like other teenagers I've known, though she wouldn't really be my sort of person, if I knew her I might not be that interested in become a close friend. However, as it goes on you see a bit more depth in the character and as her final day continues to loop, you see her begin to develop and change as a result of what's happening.

It's definitely worth a read :).

How He Loves

2010-09-14T11:00:00.005+01:00

This is a fantastic piano cover of 'How He Loves' as played by David Crowder Band.

I would love to learn to play this! I may spend some time trying to decipher what he's actually playing at some point. I've found lots of easier versions, but this is just so beautiful!
Also, it looks like he's got the same piano as me :P.

Bye!

2010-09-06T09:29:00.002+01:00

Off to Forum in about an hour, so will not be posting BIOY stuff for this week, might try and catch up when I get back if I have time...
Hopefully will enjoy Forum, it looks like it'll be fun :).

'Something in the Water'

2010-09-04T20:49:00.004+01:00

This is a rather boppy song by Brooke Fraser that I came across a while back, but thought I'd put it up here now :) - I hadn't seen the official video until just now.

In other news, I've just got back to my student house this afternoon, I'm just here til Monday then off to Forum! No one else has moved in yet, so it's a bit empty, but I don't mind too much, my room is crammed full of stuff I need to sort out and put away!
Have to try and wake up early tomorrow to do my BIOY readings before walking down to church, should time how long it takes me to get there for future reference...

I'm rather happy to have access to my piano again, though haven't played that much since I got back earlier. I was relieved that it didn't take me too long to remember how to play 'Time', as I didn't write it down anywhere, and only just figured out how to play it before I was separated from my piano!
Should really try out a few of the Soul Survivor songs that I like...

Anywho, I'll be off now, lots to do! (And then lots of sleep to be had!)

Tagging/Labelling

2010-09-03T16:40:00.000+01:00

I'm thinking it would be rather good to start doing tags on my blog, mainly for my own use I suppose, helps to keep things in order! Not thoroughly sure what tags I'm going to go with.
For the mo, I've just put 'music' for a couple of them, but with me that'll end up covering a lot, need to ponder. Will be tagging all the BIOY stuff 'thebibleinoneyear' in case anyone's actually reading it and doesn't want to have to sift through my other posts!

Eden - Phil Wickham

2010-09-03T16:11:00.006+01:00

I'm a big fan of Phil Wickham, though until recently I hadn't listened to his newest album 'Heaven and Earth', despite knowing about it for some time. I still haven't listened to all of the songs, but I really liked this song 'Eden', which someone posted on the BIOY blog (Day 2). I may have to learn this one on piano, once I'm back from Forum... :)

When the first light brightened the dark
Before the breaking of the human heart
There was You and there was me
Innocence was all I knew
'Cause all I had to know was You
We were running underneath the trees

I wanna see you face to face
Where being in your arms is the permanent state
I want it like it was back then
I wanna be in Eden

I remember how You'd call my name
And I would meet You at the garden gate
How the glory of Your love would shine
And I remember when the stars were young
You breathed life into my lungs
Oh I never felt so alive

I wanna see you face to face
Where being in your arms is the permanent state
I want it like it was back then
I wanna be in Eden

To be naked and unashamed
In a sweet down pour of innocent rain
I want it like it was back then
I wanna be in Eden

Where my eyes can see the colors of glory
My hands can reach the heaven before me
Oh, my God I wanna be there with You
Where our hearts will beat with joy together
And love will reign forever and ever
Oh my God I wanna be there with You

I wanna see you face to face
Where being in your arms is the permanent state
I want it like it was back then
I wanna be in Eden

To be naked and unashamed
In a sweet down pour of innocent rain
I want it like it was back then
I wanna be in Eden

Lyrics to certain Momentum songs...

2010-08-30T15:46:00.006+01:00

Well, I thought I'd put up some of the lyrics from songs I heard at Soul Survivor that I haven't found (at least not correctly) around anywhere. I think these should be right as I collected them from numerous sources including some video sources :). Hopefully they will be helpful to anyone else searching for them!

At Your Name - Tim Hughes
Note: I'm making assumptions here, I don't know the title, or that it is definitely by Tim Hughes, but I think it's a decent guess...

Verse 1:
At your name, the mountains shake and crumble,
At your name, the oceans roll and tumble
At your name, angels will bow, the earth will rejoice, your people cry out

Chorus:
Lord of all the earth we’ll shout your name, shout your name
Filling up the skies with endless praise, endless praise
Yahweh Yahweh, we love to shout your name oh Lord

Verse 2:
At your name, the morning breaks in glory,
At your name, creation sings your story,
At your name, angels will bow, the earth will rejoice, your people cry out

Bridge:
There is no one like our God,
Jesus we will praise you,
There is no one like our God,
Sing, Sing

The number of repetitions of the chorus and bridge will tend to depend on where you are singing this and how Pentecostal you are.
In the version shown on video in my 'Momentum' post it went:
Verse 1, Chorus, Verse 2, Chorus x 2, Bridge x 4, Chorus x 3

My Praise Overflows - Tom Field and Jamie Rodwell

Verse 1:
When my soul is weak, you bring strength for me
When darkness clouds, you’re the light I see
When all hope seems lost, I remember Your cross
When I'm struggling and bound, you break the walls that surround

Chorus:
My praise overflows, from my heart, from the depths of my soul
My praise overflows, from my heart, from the depths of my soul

Verse 2:
When I'm empty and dry, hurting and broken inside
I can call on your name, Jesus Christ you sustain

Bridge:
To my God who reigns, the only one who's worthy of praise
Who conquered death and rose from the grave
Oh how I love you, Jesus I love you

Verse 3:
When I've run the race, only by Your grace
You will lead me home, to where I belong
My hope secure in your name, no more hurt no more pain
I am forever yours, you are forever mine

As before, the repetition elements are up to you, in the recording I found, it went like this:
Verse 1, Chorus, Verse 2, Chorus, Bridge x 2, Last line of Bridge x 2, Chorus, Verse 3, First 2 lines of Verse 3

There was also one other song that I really liked but haven't found a title for anywhere, possibly a Tim Hughes - I've found the lyrics for it on here (#57). Might post it on here once I've figured out some chords for it, might do it on Saturday or Sunday, when I've got access to my piano...

Momentum

2010-08-29T10:39:00.023+01:00

Well, I kept meaning to do a blog about Momentum since I got back, but I hadn't got around to it, so thought I'd do it now since I've got a little time :).

For those of you who don't know, Momentum is a Christian festival for students, run by Soul Survivor (they also run 3 Soul Survivor festivals in the 3 weeks before it, which are more for teens).

This year I went to serve on team, I wasn't going to go at all until I found out that a bunch of girls from my CU were going, so I thought it would be nice to go, and I had been thinking about serving at Soul Survivor, as it would be a great experience, but hadn't really wanted to camp on my own. But being able to camp with the others was great and having now been to Momentum, I'm so glad I did, I think I would have really missed out if I hadn't gone this year!

Right, now I think I'll put down stuff in sections as it'll make it easier to read, and hopefully I'll remember everything I wanted to say...

Serving On Team

Well, this year, I served on the Catering Team at Momentum - this basically meant that I was part of the group providing all the food for all of the other people working on various teams.
I worked 7 hour days (shifts on alternate days from 7am to 2.30pm and 11.45am to 7pm) and I was so exhausted by the end of each day! The stuff you do is all general kitchen stuff really, cooking food, washing dishes, carrying around trays of things, serving food and drinks etc. My favourite job was probably making rolls in the afternoon, as it was quieter down where we did that, so it was easier to actually have conversations with people, plus you got to sit down sometimes (always a bonus :P).

I feel really blessed to have been on that team, though it was really hard work, we all stayed pretty upbeat and were able to be in a good mood almost all the time. There were a few people who just always made you smile when you saw them, and it was great to have that. Though I was a bit shy with talking to people, even I made some good friends there, everyone was really lovely and really willing to do things, and that's a fantastic work environment to be in - I think all work environments should be like that!

So, if you're thinking of being on team in the future and are not sure whether to do it - just go for it, you'll come out of it probably exhausted but also feeling really blessed and having been a blessing to other people :).

I'm definitely going to be on team at one of the events next year, though I think I'll go for a different team, as I want to see what it's like doing some of the other things - and hopefully get a little more time to go to seminars and stuff :). But Catering is still great - do it!

Worship

Well, worship is probably my favourite part of these events, if I'm honest. The fact that you can sing as loud as you want to is great! At Momentum, the worship leaders at meetings I made it to were Phil Wickham (part of the first night), Tim Hughes, Tom Field and Beth Croft (she was leading alongside Tom for the 2 that I saw her at). Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it to morning main meetings due to being on team, so didn't attend all the worship - I wasn't there when Jamie Rodwell led worship, though I assume he did.
My favourite worship leader from Momentum is probably Tom Field, just because I really love his voice, though all the other worship leaders were also fantastic. I also really loved it on the occasions that the band slowly stopped playing and just left everyone singing praises to God - it's really amazing being part of that!

They also had a few brilliant songs that I hadn't heard before, which I have now looked up and listened to lots of times :). Last year my favourite 'new' songs were 'You're Beautiful' and 'Cannons' by Phil Wickham (when I discovered who they were by, I went out and bought the CD 'Cannons' from the Christian bookshop I used to work in - note, support Christian bookshops!).

Anywho, this year, I had a lot of favourite songs, see below:

1. 'How He Loves' by David Crowder Band (not sure who originally wrote it, but I like their version)
Unfortunately couldn't embed the official music video - see it here

2. 'My Praise Overflows' by Tom Field and Jamie Rodwell
Note - the title isn't 'My Grace Overflows' as it says onscreen! This is Jamie singing it at Soul Survivor :).

I learnt to play this on guitar yesterday, I felt quite proud of myself seeing as I can't play the guitar, lol. Hoping to teach myself this year - but now I can play one song! (not that well, but not badly!) Unfortunately I've only got access to a guitar whilst at home (it belongs to my mum), but I'll do my best! I miss my piano...

3. 'Our God is Love' by Hillsong
I actually preferred Beth Croft singing it, but this song is still amazing :).

4. 'At Your Name' by Tim Hughes (I don't actually know what the title is, but this seems possible...)
This is the only recording of it that I've found anywhere -this person has called it 'Yahweh Yahweh'. Might put up the lyrics for this at some point, just because I haven't found them anywhere else...

I'm quite sad at the moment because I've got a really sore throat and bad cold, and so can't sing (or rather shouldn't - I was still singing yesterday anyway! Probably what made it worse, lol)

Main Meeting Talks

Well, I don't have a whole lot to say about these except that they were really good. I love Mike Pilavachi's talks and all of the other speakers they had were great too. One particularly memorable one is Ellie Mumford (Leader of Vineyard church along with her husband John). She came on, began to speak with her wonderful received pronunciation and entertaining talk and within 5 minutes we all adored her. I have lots of notes from all the main meetings which I plan to re-read and think about quite a lot, but I don't think I'll post them on here, simply because I have so much other stuff to post and don't want to end up with a ridiculously long post! (Though I probably will anyway). I may post them at a later date...

Seminars

I was unfortunately unable to go to many seminars due to the hours I was working. I did make it to three of them, the first wasn't that great, so I'll skip past that one (it may have also been to do with how exhausted I was at the time!).
The other two were brilliant - this was on day 4, I finished work at 2.30 and went straight to the Soul Sista/Soul Man seminar. I was quite disappointed that it wasn't the separate ones as mentioned in the programme, with the Soul Sista one being led by Mike and Andy, because I think that would have been amazing. However, this was a joint one led by Tim and Rachel Hughes (mainly by Rachel) and it was really great. I've been to other seminars by Soul Sista on relationships and so on, which I have always found to be quite frank/honest, interesting, funny and easy to relate to. This one was no different - except there were also guys there. I thought Rachel did a brilliant job with the talk and it was just as excellent as I expected. It also had the bonus of having Tim and Rachel's 'getting together' story (As Rachel mentioned 'we girls do tend to love a good getting together story') and some very amusing stories from early in their relationship. Also, one of the things I hadn't really heard about in other seminars that they did mention in this one was, how to get over things when one of them 'has a past', and not just from the point of view of that person, but the other one also. I thought that was a really good thing to have as part of the seminar.

Having been to that seminar, I was debating whether to go to another one, I knew there were some good ones on, but couldn't remember which ones I had been interested in, so I popped to the ToolShed and had a quick look in one of the programmes, and decided to go to Mike Pilavachi's seminar on 'Leadership in the Body of Christ'. It was really fantastic, and I'm so glad I decided to go to it. I may put up my seminar notes about this at a later point, as I think it was great, but at the moment I'll just give you a vague overview... Basically, he was talking about how there is actually a need for leaders to rise up in the body of Christ, and how they need to be there to serve their church, not the other way around (as sometimes happens unfortunately). He talked about how leaders need to have a vision, and actually know where they're going. He talked a bit about how leaders need to form a group with people who have different gifts to them - for example, if you have lots of visionairies around, you'll have loads of great ideas but nothing will get done!

Mike then followed a bit of the story of Nehemiah, and talked about the opposition that the devil throws at you when you try to lead, and the different stages it goes through:
1. Ridicule - this is right at the beginning when you're most vulnerable, and the devil whispers half-truths, finding your weak spots and making you think you can't do what you're trying to. The answer to this is to be aware of what's happening, and take it to God, rather than trying to do it alone.
2. Full Frontal Assault - this is in the middle of what you're doing and is a continuing challenge. This is when everything seems to go wrong, this can be spiritual or practical, and the answer is to take both spiritual and practical steps to counter the problems.
3. Compromise - when you get towards what you were aiming for, sometimes it might be easier to just think 'Oh, 90% will do'. This can be quite personal, when you are tired and vulnerable, and your own temptations create the possibility of compromise. One of the things to do about this is to make sure you are in a good Christian community, even if it's just a couple of friends - have people that you can talk to so you can help and encourage each other, and be accountable to each other in some situations.

The basic message was:
- Have a vision, that is God-focused
- Build a team, with different gifts
- Love the people, and serve them
- Cultivate your relationship with God

Ok, so I said I wouldn't put all my notes up here, and I've put them in a decent amount of detail, but it's not quite as much as my extensive notes in my journal!
Anywho, moving on...

Other

Well, there was rather a lot of other stuff going on at Momentum, I didn't go to any of the cafes or anything mainly just due to lack of time and by the evening I was so tired. I did go to Late Night Worship once, which was great. I spent some time with the people I was camping with in the evenings (as I didn't see them during the day), this included 4 girls from CU - Sophie, Natalie, Naomi and Amy and two friends of Natalie's - Sian and Charles. It was nice to just sit and chat, and on the last day I got to chat properly to a few of the girls which was lovely, as I haven't done that really with them and will definitely plan to talk more when we're all back at uni. Also, it was quite entertaining to watch some of them play Ninja - some of the poses and facial expressions were priceless (I have photos :P).

I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to, to explore the ToolShed, but I did have a bit of a look around. I bought a 'Bible In One Year' which starts on Wednesday, which I'm quite excited about, I think it'll be really good, and it's a great idea to do it as a sort of online community (as well as people doing it in their little church communities). I also bought a copy of 'Final' by Krish Kandiah - I've already read 'Fresh' and we're planning to do it for the first 5 weeks on term with the Freshers in October, but I thought it would be interesting to have a bit of a read of Final too, and having skimmed a bit of it, it looks quite relevant to me in my 2nd year too. I wanted to buy a really nice 'Stop the Traffik' Freeset bag, it was black with a white barcode design with shapes of people in it, but unfortunately someone else picked the last one up literally 3 seconds before I was going to - there were people standing in front of it and she reached round and got it just before me. Was a bit disappointed, as I'd finally made up my mind to get it, but nevermind. Am having a look on the internet for it... ooh, just spotted it on the Stop The Traffik website - here. Will probs buy it off there soon...

Lastly, I've also ordered 3 seminar recordings - One by Andy Croft and two by Tim Hughes. They should be rather good I think :). There were quite a lot of seminar recordings I would have liked but hadn't really thought about that before Momentum so didn't bring a lot of money with me.

Anywho, I think that concludes my Momentum blog. If you're still reading, I'm very impressed. If however, you just skipped to the bottom... well, fair enough.
My general ending note is - go to a Soul Survivor event, they are amazing, if you are considering serving on team, go for it!, if you're not, still go for it! You won't regret it (In the long run anyway, in the short run you may feel rather tired and ill afterwards - but I'm still upbeat about it, so there's no reason not to do it!).

Adios, amigos :)

Soundtrack To My Life - Music Shuffle Game

2010-08-10T12:06:00.005+01:00

Well, I haven't updated in a while so thought I'd do this... perhaps I should start figuring out more of a structure to my blog like so I can try and be more creative and stuff...

Oh yes, check out my sister's new blog 'Thoughtful Eclecticism', it's rather cool, and I created the banner! (Though I admit, not the words, I just did the imagery) She's got quite a good structure running...

Anywho, on with the quiz - I did it with Spotify... (And yes, I totally admit I have too much Glee on my playlist!)

Ok, imagine your life is a movie - what songs would be in it? To find out, here's how it works:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...

Opening Credits :
Honey and the Moon - Joseph Arthur

Waking Up :
Who I Am Hates Who I've Been - Relient K
I take it this is on the days I slept in and am running late?

First Day of School :
City - Sara Bareilles

Falling in Love :
Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) - MIKA

Fight Song :
No Air - Glee Cast

Prom :
Remain - Starfield

Life :
You Can't Always Get What You Want - Glee Cast

Mental Breakdown :
(You're) Having My Baby - Glee Cast
As in I'm having someone's baby? Or someone is having my baby? Or someone's having my other half's baby? (Which I suppose might be cause for mental breakdown...)

Driving :
All We Need - Starfield
Is a clear road sign...

Flashback :
Wish You Were - Kate Voegele

Getting Back Together :
Fame - Naturi Naughton
As in, I got famous so they suddenly wanted to be back together? I'm sure I wouldn't be that fickle...

Wedding :
Vogue - Glee Cast
Ooh, classy...

Losing Your Virginity :
Let Go - Frou Frou

Birth of Child :
Home - Glee Cast ft. Kristin Chenoweth

Final Battle :
Lucky - Jason Mraz & Colbie Caillat

Death Scene :
I Caught Myself (Twilight Soundtrack Version) - Paramore

Funeral Song:
Mighty Good Leader - Audio Adrenaline

Amazing Fanvids

2010-07-21T11:14:00.006+01:00

Well, I spent more time yesterday browsing through various fanvids on YouTube - particularly those of one of my favourite creators, Leila.

One fantastic one that I hadn't seen before was a Harry/Luna video - I hadn't really watched many others, but this is definitely the only good one I've seen. The song is perfect for Luna (it's 'Not Like The Other Girls' by The Rasmus) and the use of clips from Uptown girl for Luna and her mum works brilliantly. See for yourself...

Another one with a great song is this video which uses 'Come Back To Me' by Trading Yesterday. I'd not heard it before but loved it when I did - I've now learned to play it on the piano (just chords apart from the intro, but I couldn't find them anywhere so had to figure them out).

I also came across a couple of my old favourites which both use the same song by Barlowgirl, but unfortunately the soundtrack had been removed on Youtube. The creator of one of them has made it available to download so I've done that and then uploaded it on here (it's got an edited version of the song, so it doesn't quite work if you just play the song while the video is playing...) However, for the other one, I've found another video with the song on it, so it works if you play it with the other one. The song is 'Never Alone'.

I managed to find the sheet music for it (I really wanted to learn it), and it's not too difficult, however it is 11 pages - which don't all fit on my piano. About 9 is my limit, and that's covering up the speakers and a bit of keys... Decided to memorise it - I've memorised almost all of it now :). It's a bit hard to remember because though there is some repetition, there are lots of slight variations, or some bits you would expect to be the same (verse 1 and 2 or the chorus and the next chorus) are different...

Anywho, here is the video with the song:

Play the one above with this one - it's a fanvid about Hermione, after Harry and Ron have been killed, and she keeps seeing them everywhere, but are they just memories or is it something else? (This one is a tiny bit longer than the song, but it works fine)

This is the one I downloaded and uploaded...
The video is about Susan Pevensie after 'The Last Battle' when all of her siblings are gone... (Chronicles of Narnia fanvid, if you didn't know) The original (soundless) version is here.

Mash-Ups

2010-06-30T19:40:00.017+01:00

Hey hey,
I've been pondering on the idea of trying to create my own acoustic mash-ups, and also considered the idea of artist medleys (this was inspired by Imogen Heap, there are so many bits of her songs that I'd love to put together - I sometimes sing one of her songs over another I'm listening to and it often works rather well).
Anywho, I began having a bit of a look on YouTube for artist medleys and I came across this rather good Taylor Swift one - arranged by Kurt Schneider, sung by Tiffany Alvord.

I think this is excellent. It helps that I recognise all the different snippets from the different songs. The video is really fun and well put together - also it was interesting to have a look at the other stuff on Kurt and Tiffanys' channels, they're both really talented - I've come across quite a few new artists/music producers etc. on YouTube which I think is really rather awesome :).

Someone else who I'd come across previously who has done a Taylor Swift Medley (and done it well) is Julia Sheer (ft. Tyler Ward) - this is an acoustic one, much more like the sort of medley I'd want to do (but with a piano). They've both got great voices, and the video is simple but it really cute. I've listened to quite a few of Julia Sheer's covers and original songs and I really like them - there are also links to few other good young artists on her page which I will hopefully have a look at at some point. But anyway, here's the Taylor Swift songs video:

Having vaguely browsed medleys, I started thinking about mash-ups a bit more and had a bit of a browse of them. I found a whole lot of mash-ups, some good, some not so good, but here are a few that I rather liked.

This first one is a Kelly Clarkson/Coldplay ('My Life Would Suck Without You'/'In My Place') mash-up which I think is good, in some bits it borders on uncomfortable clashy, but I think it just manages to stay on the right side of that line.
There's actually another Kelly Clarkson/Coldplay mash-up that I liked, using the same Coldplay song, but 'Behind These Hazel Eyes' from Kelly Clarkson, I kind of prefer that one, though it's more of a Kelly Clarkson remix (not sure it actually uses anything but the background music of 'In My Place'). However that one has just got a still image as the video so I thought I'd put this one up instead, for something a bit more interesting.

This next one is a Queen/Outkast ('We Will Rock You'/'Hey Ya!') mash-up that is good fun - very upbeat and boppy :). Plus, it amuses me because I remember when 'Hey Ya!' was in the charts and loads of people at school were obsessed with it, lol - it's one of the three songs that reminds me ice skating discos, the other two are 'Where is the Love' by Black Eyed Peas and 'Hole in the Head' by Sugababes...

Right, this one is amazing :P - 'Sweet Home Alabama'/'Country Grammar' - I'd never heard the latter until after I heard this mash-up, and I have to say I think the mash-up is better than the original, lol.

This one is a Kylie/Moloko ('It's in Your Eyes'/'Sing it Back') mash-up which I think works really well, it's a bit of dance music fun :).

And lastly, this is a Gwen Stefani/Britney Spears ('What You Waiting For?'/'Toxic') mash-up - This is actually the first ever mash up that I heard - quite a while before mash-ups became really popular. I still think it's great :P.

So I'd better stop there, though if anyone comes across any really good mash-ups, please feel free to put them in a comment so I can have a look :).
Right, better go now, I need to go figure out how to reattach the legs of my piano to the piano itself... (having taken it away to uni minus the legs to preserve space)
I shall enlist the help of my dear father, who is probably napping...

This made me laugh.. :P

2010-06-06T01:10:00.000+01:00

Piano Endeavours

2010-06-01T17:29:00.006+01:00

I've been playing piano quite a bit recently, since I'm not really in uni anymore (thogh have been helping out my 3rd year buddy). It's kind of good that Phoebe (in the room next door) has gone home because I've been playing the piano rather loudly and singing quite loudly too, lol. Plus, I'm very repetitive if I find a song I love. Since yesterday that song has been 'You Got Me' by Colbie Caillat - I heard it the other day and fell in love with it so went in search of the the music for it - ended up just going with chords instead. I had to transpose them though as the chords I found were in D rather than G (the original key). So now I've done that I've been playing it rather a lot, lol. Here is the original version:

It occured to me the other day that it would make a decent mash-up with either 'Build Me Up Buttercup', so I might end up trying to create one at some point, lol.

Along with this I've been playing 'A Drop in the Ocean' by Ron Pope - I found the sheet music which someone had arranged and put online, though I need to adjust a few of the lines as they're not quite as they should be... I'll probably redo the whole thing on some blank score whenever I get around to it, this would also mean I could put the lyrics in as they're not written on the music and I keep forgetting them while I'm playing!

One song that I really want to learn is 'Time' by Chantal Kreviazuk - I heard it on a fanvid for something the other day and I absolutely loved it. I think I'd heard it a few times before but it was before it was before I started just playing whatever I felt like I think. I wanted to put up the actual music video on here but the embedding is disabled, so decided to put this video up because it's quite interesting and arty, and gives you something to look at while listening to the song, rather than the other video I found which just had a still image... Though I did notice that one of the lyrics is wrong, lol, it says 'I'm going to make this moment known' and it should say 'I'm going to make this moment mine'. But anywho, still an interesting video, lol.

I've also discovered a couple of piano covers of it - this one is beautiful, but is not the whole piece. I'd love to learn to play it like this but haven't found it anywhere and so far haven't bothered trying to learn it by ear as it sounds quite complicated (not necessarily the actual music, but sorting out the sounds in my head seems like it will be complicated...). Here is another piano cover, I love how she's put in drum beats with the piano - she's got the same piano as me! :) but I haven't really ever used any of the interesting features, lol. This version is in a different key but I think I might use this to figure out the piano patterns a bit more and then try and transpose it and make some alterations here and there... :)

FlashForward

2010-06-01T00:25:00.006+01:00

Well, I just watched the last episode of FlashForward. I've really loved the series, I think it was a very clever and interesting idea that was well executed and had lots of intrigue and excitement, and you really became attached to the characters.
I was so disappointed when I read that FlashForward has been discontinued, and now that I've watched the last episode I'm devastated that there couldn't be another series. I thought that the last episode was really interesting and I loved the little twists in it where things weren't necessarily quite as they seemed in the people's flashforwards.
It was a real cliffhanger - with the second flashforward occuring as the ending scene. This made it both really interesting and really frustrating. I personally like having more closure at the end of a series, though I'm assuming this episode was made with the intention of a second series. If it was made with the intention of a second series then I think it was perfect - there was a bit of closure (certain events happening as they did in the people's flashforwards) but there was also a few mysterious things thrown in (such as the flashforward featuring Charlie and when Janice was wheeled off by Lita wearing a QED ring) which make you want to watch the next series.
However, I'm still a bit disappointed in the end, because it doesn't feel like it's over - I find that quite exasperating and there is no way to way to curb the feeling and that makes it even more frustrating.
However, perhaps that is a wonderful thing about the series - that it has been left very open-ended and will be likely to provoke the imaginations of the viewers into creating their own continuing storylines in their heads and maybe creating closure in that way. Either way, you can't say it doesn't make you think - which has been a fantastic thing about the show all the way through, so despite the frustration, perhaps it was a suitable ending for it all.

I'm also more pleased about this because I've recently heard from people that the ending to 'Lost' was a complete disappointment and has made the series' feel like they were a bit pointless, and I certainly don't feel like that effect has occured with FlashForward. I've never actually watched Lost but it sounded really interesting and I did mean to watch it - the main thing I was intrigued with was the intricate detail and mystery which was raved about, which is the same thing that I love about FlashForward, however I'm glad I ended up watching this instead of Lost as I've found it a lot more satisfying! I may still watch some episodes of Lost at some point, I think that I'd still find it really interesting, it just might not feel as purposeful...

Anyway, better go now, just wanted to share that, lol.
But yes - FlashForward, definitely worth watching :).

Oh yes, just read this article about the last episode which I found quite amusing - the writer seems quite cynical/skeptical and at the bottom there is a list of unresolved issues from the program which were kind of funny. The skeptical comment towards the end about Keiko and Bryce's relationship really reminded me of something Carol would say... (it's a bit like comments made by various people about how Romeo and Juliet barely knew each other really, and Cecelia and Robbie's relationship in Atonement was all based on a shag in a library one time). But I like to hold on to the romance of it all, that's just my style, and I think it's nicer that way :).

Ooh, just found another article - this one sums up my opinion a bit better I think. Basically just expressing the 'huh?' element of the last episode...

Dead Ringers

2010-05-22T14:51:00.003+01:00

Looking at the 'Weird Al' stuff earlier I came across a parody version of James Blunts' 'You're Beautiful' (his version is 'You're Pitiful') and it reminded me of a Dead Ringers version ('It's Bloody Cold') which I thought was fantastic so I decided to put it up on here. I have also put up a couple of other dead ringers videos which I was very amused by :).

"Weird Al" Yankovic

2010-05-22T12:03:00.002+01:00

Well, I was reminded the other day of the song 'White and Nerdy' which I remember being very amused about when I was younger. So I looked up the song and ended up browsing some of the other songs by the artist ('Weird Al' Yankovic). I decided that I should put a couple of my favourites up on here to share the entertainment, lol. Oh... just discovered that the ones I wanted to put up have embedding disabled...
So I'll just link them instead - here's White and Nerdy (there's a version below but the one from the link is better quality) and here is Amish Paradise.

Films :)

2010-05-11T12:59:00.006+01:00

I've been watching a whole lot of films over the last few days (whilst doing artwork). I've watched Julie and Julia, Star Trek, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, John Tucker Must Die and probably a couple of others that I can't remember.

I thought that Julie and Julia was excellent, the thing I loved the most was how real the characters seemed - particularly the main character Julie. She wasn't perfect and happy all the time, she had lots of setbacks and had some days where she just had a bit of breakdown and felt crap, sometimes a bit irrationally. I just thought it was really great.

John Tucker Must Die looked like quite an amusing film, and it was, however it wasn't amazing, it was a bit of a laugh and I quite liked watching it, though I kind of hoped for a more conclusive ending - though it wasn't a bad ending.

Star Trek and Percy Jackson were my favourites from the films I watched, they were both fantastic. I kept meaning to watch Star Trek since it came out but I finally actually got round to watching it. The characters were great, the storyline was great and there were lots of funny moments and I-love-this-person! moments (about several different characters). But anyway, this is a film that I would definitely watch again and quite possibly buy.

Percy Jackson was also a brilliant film, I loved the plot, the special effects were great and the script and characters were also fab. It was very fun, the only thing looking back at it that I would've liked to be slightly different is the character of Annabeth - I think there could have been a bit more depth there, though it was still quite good, and they may have purposely tried to make her slightly more mysterious by not giving much away, however there was just something missing I think. Though the actress was rather good and I loved all the fighting scenes with Annabeth. But yeah, definitely another one to consider buying.

I've been watching so many rom coms that I forgot how much I love action/sci fi/fantasy sort of films, I definitely should watch more of them! Fabulous :).

Valentino video

2010-05-11T12:33:00.002+01:00

I came across this video from a link on Spotify and I think it's awesome :P. The song is great and the video is rather inventive and just generally fun :).

So here is the video and below is the behind the scenes video which is just as entertaining :P. If you want to see the split-screen version click here, though I think it is more effective to see the full screen versions.

Rhys Darby

2010-05-05T01:05:00.002+01:00

He's amazing, isn't he? Gotta love Rhys Darby :P.
I've seen his live DVD ('Imagine That') and it's fantastic, so I thought 'd put a few of youtube videos from it up here :).

Nick Thune - Instant Messenger

2010-05-04T15:59:00.002+01:00

I just came across this today and found it rather amusing so thought I'd share it with you...

The Only Exception

2010-05-04T01:36:00.002+01:00

I've been a big fan of the song 'The Only Exception' by Paramore since I first heard it, but today I decided I really wanted to play it on the piano so was looking for the music. Managed to find a tutorial on YouTube which is fairly good, and I noted down the music from that, but decided that I'd actually prefer to play the chords if I'm singing it because it sounds better, so tracked down the chords and yeah... it's a really good song :).

Also, I saw the music video for it for the first time today and totally loved it, it's a really cool video and it also really made me understand the lyrics as I hadn't paid as much attention to them before...
So yes, here is the video - I love it, I hope you do too :).

Such Tweet Sorrow

2010-05-01T13:23:00.004+01:00

Well, I don't know if you will have come across this before, but I discovered it yesterday - the new RSC twitter version of Romeo and Juliet. I heard about it on a radio programme I was listening to last night and decided to look it up. It's basically a modern Romeo and Juliet in Britain played out in real time via twitter by actors of the Royal Shakespeare Company. I've now read most of what's been going on and I find it rather fascinating. I think it's a fantastic way to get younger people involved, though perhaps is not the best in terms of getting good morals across (e.g. Friar Lawrence is a bit of a drug dealer, Romeo and Juliet had sex the first night they met etc.)
It's now about 3 weeks in, and I believe it lasts for 5 weeks, so I think I shall observe for the next 2 weeks with interest. It almost makes me want to get a twitter account so I can follow them, but really I can get around it, it's just a bit awkward. I was a bit annoyed with the website Such Tweet Sorrow, because I was attempting to read the timeline, but it's rather difficult, it seems to jump around timewise during a single day. However I've pretty much caught up now, so that'll do...

Some of it I really liked, such as how clear it is that Romeo and Juliet barely know each other and how quickly the whole Romeo-Juliet thing happened. This is clear in the original play by Shakespeare but some people seem to gloss over it sometimes and make out like Romeo and Juliet had this amazing deep and meaningful 'I-know-your-soul' kind of relationship, which may or may not have been the intended effect - but really it is more likely that they were deeply infatuated rather than deeply in love...
In this real time version, Romeo and Juliet met on the 23rd of April, and slept together and she didn't know his last name until several days later, however they were professing their love from that night/the next morning.
It kind of reminds me of Carol's comments about Atonement - the relationship between Robbie and Cecelia was pretty much based on a shag in the library once.
Either way, I think that this version of Romeo and Juliet is really interesting, and I think the fact that the audience can be involved in it is quite cool - though I'm not sure to what extent there has been banter between the audience and the characters as I don't have twitter account and don't understand it as well so I get slightly confused occasionally, lol.

So yes, I think it's definitely something to check out, for anyone who thinks it sounds interesting. I know it has been criticised a bit, and I think that there are quite a few valid points within that criticism, however I also think that it is an innovative way to explore further the world of acting, and the world of Shakespeare in the 21st century.

Other info about it can be found on this Mudlark page, where there are helpful links to various articles about it and on the BBC news link there is also a short video with actors who play Romeo and Juliet.

Ah, Apple Macs...

2010-04-30T12:39:00.003+01:00

Lol, I'm currently on a Mac at uni, I had to import my video footage from the video camera I borrowed, and for some reason I decided that it was a good plan to do this on a Mac, when I have only ever used a Mac about twice. Luckily I pick things up quite quickly but I didn't really know what I was doing for quite a while... I felt rather stressed when I was trying to figure out how to access everything... However I did manage to sort it out in the end, I am currently waiting while my video imports - it seems that it has to basically re-record it onto the computer, so it will take the same amount of time as there is footage...

I quite like these Macs, I shall have to spend more time in the Mac suite next year I think. I want to learn how to use photoshop and also experiment with iMovie a bit (I've had a workshop on this but it was quite a while back).

In other news, we had our first exhibition opening the other day, it went fairly well. I also had a crit on my exhibition piece yesterday which was quite good, got some interesting feedback, though I didn't quite know what to say about my piece, lol. I'm quite happy with everything.

I had an essay in for today which I'm glad is all handed in so I don't have to think about it anymore...

I can't believe how little time I've got until this year is all finished! I'm basically finished in 2 weeks. Scary...

I will be around for quite a while after the 2 weeks, but my assessment is in 2 weeks and then I've got to hang around to help out a 3rd year to set up their degree show (don't know who I'll be assigned to yet, but should find out soon I assume... probs not til after assessment though). I think we've got a couple of weeks in between where we don't have anything to do really...

I'm planning to hang around until the end of June, Carol's graduating then so I'll be going home before then so I can get to her graduation (yay!) :)

I kind of want to spend as much time here as I can because I actually know people here, and when I go back home I don't really know anyone... I'll just be spending loads of time in my room, lol.

However it won't be too long before I move into my new house back near uni! Only about 6 weeks I think, I'm planning to move in sometime during the first week of August.

So my plans for my 'time off' both while hanging around here and during July:

- Explore where I'm living a bit more - find that shortcut to Tesco from our new house that we have been told about... (Or possibly just ask the girls that mentioned it to us...)

- Create a good CV (I've lost my old one that I made at school so need to start from scratch)

- Figure out where I want to apply for jobs (and check out their organisations so I know a bit - then actually apply once I've moved back here)

- Do some scrapbooking (I keep meaning to do this but never get around to it - this is something I should definitely do while at home I think)

- Learn some good vegetarian recipes... (Not sure if I'll get around to this,but would be good as one of my new housemates is a veggie and I don't know many good meals that'd be good, plus I would quite like to eat less meat, simply from a health point of view...)

- Do some more video work with borrowed cameras from uni and consider buying a video camera (I'm not really sure whether I want to buy one or not, this is something I need to consider...)

- Attempt to write a song maybe? (This is something I've wanted to do for quite a while but haven't properly sat down and tried to do...)

- Learn some more stuff on piano (I've been doing quite a lot of this recently when really I should be doing work...)

- Explore more arty stuff - get some ideas for next year

- Read books! I've been doing this a bit more recently, but constantly feel a bit guilty because I need to do work!

I'm sure I'll add to this list a time goes on, and I probably won't get to do all the stuff I want to do - it always seems like there's lots of time but it doesn't mean there actually is... it flies by quite quickly.

Recently I've been a bit obsessed with the song 'Little House' by Amanda Seyfried (from the film 'Dear John' which I watched recently - it's excellent, watch it.) - I figured out how to play it on the piano and have been constantly playing it since, lol. I can't say there's a whole lot of deep meaning in the lyrics, but I guess that's up to whoever is listening to it to decide... The lyrics aren't amazing straight away, but I really love the tune and the song as a whole - I think it probably does sound better on guitar, but it's not too bad on piano really.

I've also been playing 'Strange and Beautiful' by Aqualung (which is such an amazing song!) which I learned before Easter.

I've been trying to decipher some of Brooke Fraser's songs - specifically 'Scarlet' recently - very nice song. I also want to decipher 'Own Me' by Ginny Owens - I was thinking about buying the book 'Without Condition' from amazon as I also want to play some of her other songs, but it's so expensive - the cheapest one on there is almost £30. I really need to find somewhere else I can get the music from... or just not bother with that, lol.

Right, better go now, my video has downloaded, unfortunately doesn't fit on my USB stick (I've misplaced my larger one somewhere...) but at least it's saved to my account, I'll see what I can do about transferring it back... I might need to buy another USB stick at some point soon...

Right, going, really I am...

Travelling...

2010-04-17T18:57:00.002+01:00

Well, I've had a lovely holiday over here in Belfast staying with Jess and family. Favourite thing was probably going to visit Giant's Causeway - was really rather beautiful and just a really nice place to be, plus the weather was really good - in fact we've had pretty good weather for most of the time we've been here which has been a blessing. It's been really nice just staying in as well - partly enhanced by the fact that they have a nintendo wii which has been very entertaining.
Jess' parents have been fantastic while we've been here, they're so lovely! I have also fallen in love with their pets - Daphne is a rather huge dog who is completely lovable and I shall miss her when I'm back home...

But anyway, we were supposed to be flying back on Thursday however due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland all flights around the UK have been a bit screwed up. There's been lots of rebooking and confusion but finally we've made plans to get the ferry to Scotland and get back down to where we need to go in England. It'll be a long day of travelling tomorrow and then we'll be staying the night with my parents before heading back to uni on Monday. I'm rather looking forward to being back in Winchester, though am very slightly stressed about all the work I need to do and the fact that I've lost the weekend I was hoping to do quite of work in. Also slightly worried about the Chinese girls in our house as I'm sure their flights will be messed up too, I'm sure things will be sorted out but hopefully it'll all be good.

Better go now, I'm tempted to go try the juggling game on the wii...

Your Big Break NZ

2010-03-06T18:31:00.002Z

I was on facebook when I came across a link to a video of 'Frosty Man and the BMX kid' which I was curious about and so went and watched and found that it was a finalist in a competition called 'Your Big Break' in NZ. I watched the videos of the other finalists and very much liked them, so I though I'd put them here :). The Winner is at the bottom. I particularly like 'Blank Spaces' and 'Working Day' (the winner). Enjoy!

Contact Lense Teach

2010-02-17T17:18:00.002Z

Well, it seemed fairly straightforward when the optometrist told me about the contact teach last time I was in. The way she said it, it sounded like it's be a one off thing and everything would be fine, but it seems that it tends to be more of a series of appointments...

Putting the contact lenses in was no problem, I did those first time. Getting them out is rather more difficult. It didn't help that I hadn't thought to cut my nails, so had to do it there (2 of them anyway) - and I did it with a pair of scissors, so I don't know whether it was better than if I'd left them, or not, as they were a little jagged.
I was told 2 methods of getting them out of my eye (pinching them straight off, or sliding across and pinching out of the corner of your eye), and had to try quite a few times to get the left one out, then really couldn't get the right one out - the lovely lady doing my teach went to get the optometrist to check my eyes (he was supposed to do this while they were in, but had been with another customer). He told me another method, and that one worked on the second go. So I'm fairly confident that I'll be able to put them in and take them out with not much problem soon, but he said we couldn't continue then as my eyes were going a red, and he said if I'd scratched my eye (which I know I did at one point - with my jagged thumbnail...), I'll be more likely to get conjuctivitis. So that's great. He said if my eye is all icky tomorrow (nice, technical term for you there - my description, not his), I just need to get some drops from the pharmacy and it should all be fine. I've booked another teach for Monday afternoon, so if I'm lucky that will go smoothly and I won't have to have another one, though they might make me do that anyway (before I can take them home to trial).

So all is fairly well, but I'm feeling a bit impatient, as I thought it'd all be straightforward and I'd be taught and get to take them home to trial over the next week...

Ah well, it's not that long...
I'll be better prepared next time anyway, I'll know how to put them in, take them out and I'll have cut my nails and filed them... So it should just be down to practice...

Just thought I'd share that with you.

Mmm, changes...

2010-02-16T21:03:00.002Z

I think that I shall change my blog template soonish, I was going to do it now, but I should probably go and do work really. Though might take a break and do it in a bit...

There's lots of cool things that you can change :). I was going to try and create a whole html one at some point, but there's not a huge amount of point now, as there are lots of potential customisation thingymadoodas... Good stuff :)

Hmm... I shall have to think about all of this :P

Well, I'm feeling fairly positive today. For the last week or so I've been stressed out and not feeling like my work was going anywhere, but I'm starting to get a better grip on it, and am generally feeling way better. I realised my main problem was that I hadn't prayed about it - I'd just been struggling and not thinking about it, but as soon as I started praying about it and actually taking time with God, everything started to make a bit more sense...
I've still not got that far, but I'm actually doing something and am starting to get an idea of how this project is going to go...

So I'd better go do something useful :).
Happy Pancake Day everyone :)

Just felt like blogging...

2010-01-31T22:35:00.003Z

Since I had a little time, I thought I'd do a little blogging...
I've been listening to quite a bit of Paramore recently, and I do rather like their music :).
I've also been listening to the New Moon Soundtrack, which is excellent, though very depressing (reflecting the storyline). My favourite song on there is probably 'Possibility'. I shall put it on here if I can find a YouTube video... wait a minute... here we go.

The video's pretty good, though I'm not sure about the huge amount of layering going on there. It was one of the better ones I found, and I really love the song...

On a completely different topic, I've been doing some very fun and fairly successful cooking recently which has been really good. Me and Matt made sweet and sour chicken (almost from scratch - we used pre-made sauce, but added all our own veges and stuff), pasta bake and today we made cottage pie with Jess (who is now back from a really nice trip home). We haven't used any recipes or anything, it's been more of a 'this is the sort of stuff that goes in these things isn't it? Well, let's have a go' sort of thing...

I also introduced the idea of fairy bread to them, as they hadn't heard of it before (bread with margerine and hundreds and thousands on it - very tasty).

Something I just thought I'd add - I really enjoyed church this morning, it was just generally really good. It's been a while since I've felt so happy to be at church, and it was really awesome to feel that way. The message was on 1 Kings 18, and was quite challenging and powerful.
Good stuff :). The worship was really good too (which is quite normal, but is nice nonetheless).

I'd better go now, I want to get some piano playing in before I start feeling really guilty about how late it is... (I don't want to disturb Phoebe next door...)

Meep!

Casting Crowns

2010-01-30T00:43:00.002Z

I've been listening to Casting Crowns a bit more recently and have discovered a new excellent song, along with rediscovering one I liked very much from when I first heard it...

'Does Anybody Hear Her' is the one that I had heard before but still love. This is not the official video for it, as I kind of preferred this one that I came across (plus the official one had the embedding feature disabled - but you can see it here)

This is the new song I discovered and immediately loved. It's called 'I Know You're There' - this is one of the videos I found of it on YouTube, but really it's the song that I like, more than the video...

Happy Bunny!

2010-01-28T01:54:00.003Z

I'm really happy with how today has gone, or really how yesterday has gone, since it's already a couple of hours into Thursday.
NB: HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESS! Love you :)

I had my semester assessment in the afternoon, and after worrying about it quite a bit, I managed to do it all in good time and it went really smoothly - the two tutors I had were really friendly and encouraging which was lovely. I did have to leave my work with them in the end (they were taking 5% of the people's work and mine was one of the 5% - so was Harly's and Matt's).

Jess left to go home just before I went for my assessment, and Harly went home a bit later in the early evening, so Matt and I were left on our own. We had no idea what to cook for dinner so went to Tesco and did a wander round and shop, and we came back and attempted to make Sweet and Sour Chicken with rice. I wasn't sure how it would turn out as I hadn't ever made it before, it could have been either extreme, but we agreed in the end that it was definitely a success :). After this we ended up watching the entire first series of Fawlty Towers (which I had never seen before - but Matt had seen loads of times), which I found very entertaining :P. He's planning to educate me in the Mighty Boosh and Monty Python in the near future - which I am very happy about, should be good fun.

Right, I should really go to bed now as we're going shopping tomorrow... I just felt like blogging.
I'm so happy my assessment is done and went well! :)

No more music player...

2010-01-26T20:54:00.005Z

I've just taken my ninja music player out of the sidebar, as I'm getting a bit annoyed with it messing up quite a bit (lots of the songs don't work anymore and it often takes quite a while to load). I may edit it and put it back at some point, but for the meantime I'm just going to leave it.
I've been a little obsessed with embedding videos since I figured out how to do it (not that it's that hard, I just never bothered before...), so if I really want a song up I'll just do it that way...

In other news, I've now signed a contract for a house that I'll be moving into with my lovely best friends next year, so it's all good - we're all really excited about it :). I'll probably move in in August and then work here for a while before uni starts again.

My arm is feeling a lots better after being hit by the wing mirror of a truck/van thing driving down the road yesterday. It really hurt when it first hit me, I can't remember what the vehicle looked like, I just assume it was a truck/van as it had those massive wing mirrors and consequently hit me from about my elbow to my shoulder. I wasn't even walking unnecessarily close to the curb, I was just walking in the middle of the footpath - but it wasn't a huge one though. When it hit me, the mirror snapped in towards the window, so the noise of that gave me a shock as well as the sting of it hitting me...
Now it's just a bit achy, I'm not sure whether a bruise will come up or not, though I can tell it's a bit bruised under the skin...

Right, I've got my assessment tomorrow, so I'd better finish planning my presentation...
Adios amigos :)

Maybe - Ingrid Michaelson

2010-01-24T14:24:00.003Z

I stumbled across this video today and I think it's rather awesome. It's very arty and well put together, the song's rather good too - I'd never heard of Ingrid Michaelson before but I rather like this little bit that I have heard from her now...

We are one tonight

2010-01-15T14:50:00.002Z

There is an awesome video for a Switchfoot song that Matt showed me the other day. I decided that it was so cool that I should share it with the world. See below :).

I also love the new Switchfoot album 'Hello Hurricane' and I really want to buy it. The sound is quite different to the other music of theirs that I have listened to but I quite like it.

I'm having a great time back at uni - missed my friends loads, so it's great to be spending so much time with them (almost 24 hours a day... everyday...) They're amazing. Though we've had pretty much no sleep this week. Jess is currently asleep on my bed and Harly is half asleep and Matt is listening to music because he doesn't feel so sleepy (we put him in my bed to go to sleep for a few hours this morning because he was becoming non-responsive, lol). I still haven't really slept since yesterday morning, so that's kind of interesting...

In other news, I shall be having an interesting hair cut sometime soon - I have given Jess free reign to do whatever she wants with my hair, and she's told me roughly what she's planning to do and it sounds quite cool. Not sure exactly when we'll do it, but sometime this weekend I think.

Planning to get a proper night's sleep tonight as I haven't really had one this week. We're all going on a much needed shopping trip tomorrow. I really need to get some more clothes (possibly some warmer ones, it's getting pretty chilly now). It's also really icy at the moment, which makes it an interesting trip down to college...

We viewed a house today, the first one we've seen, in preparation for where we're going to live next year. It was pretty horrendous. We've decided it's a definite no. We shall need to do a bit more searching soon. In fact I think that's one of the things we're supposed to be doing now (rather than falling asleep on my bed...).

Anywho, just thought I'd put a quick update. The only reason I really wanted to do it was to upload the Switchfoot video because it has such awesome transitions and stuff.
Beautifully made :). Enjoy!

Painted Pot :)

2009-12-30T20:15:00.010Z

Yesterday I finally painted the pot I bought for my mum for Christmas. I had hoped to get it done before Christmas but she said I could leave it until we got back home after Christmas because we were so busy beforehand.
In terms of what to paint on it, the only thing I had to go on was that she wanted it to be black and white. So I painted it white before we went away for Christmas and then yesterday I figured out what I wanted to paint on it and did it - see pictures below.

I tried to incorporate a few different ideas. I found the design in the first photo on the internet and really loved it - this part of the design is my favourite, and my mum's favourite part. The second and third photos show the Mackintosh-inspired sections - this was suggested by my lovely sister. It wasn't quite as bold as the other parts so I had to play around with the design a bit and also use thicker, bolder lines for it. The last photo shows a random design I came across while researching on the internet, I really love this design, and the layering of the white and black elements.

YouTube Videos

2009-12-23T23:52:00.004Z

I came across this video today which is a New Moon remix of Taylor Swift's 'You Belong With Me' - Jacob Black POV. I found it very amusing - lyrics by Matt Sullivan, performed by RANDOMaccess (as stated in this article). I found another video using the same song, but with different footage - some from behind the scenes stuff, some photos as well, that's quite interesting - see it here.

But here's the video from the article:

This also reminded me of a beautiful video that I came across a while ago (not because it's related, simply because I started browsing YouTube), it's about the film 'The Illusionist' and I just think it's really beautifully put together, and I love the song. I haven't seen the film but would like to - however this video contains spoilers, so be aware of this if you have not yet seen the film.

Anywho, I'd better get some sleep now. I just thought I'd share those with you. It is now officially Christmas Eve in England, and I have an early morning... this morning. :)

Merry Christmas for tomorrow!

Internet at uni...

2009-12-21T19:41:00.002Z

I miss how good the internet is at uni. At home I can't really watch anything on iPlayer, I can't access certain sites because they just don't load etc. One of the sites I can't get to is mixpod, and the music doesn't play when I go on my blog, I shall have to rectify the situation once I get back to uni and have good internet again... It'll be useful.
Anyway, I was going to go do work, really I was...

4 days 'til Christmas!

2009-12-21T15:49:00.006Z

... and I still haven't sorted all my presents for people out yet. I've only got 2 more people to sort out, plus I need to wrap presents, and I need to paint the pot for mum (she asked for a plant pot which we went and got from a garden centre the other day, now I have to figure out what I'm going to paint on it, and hurry up and get it done...). Plus I really need to be doing work for uni, I've been doing a little bit, but not nearly enough. Tomorrow I'm planning to go shopping for the rest of the presents, and then get back and do some more work.

On a different note, I got a new phone yesterday, so that was good - it's been needed for quite a while (my current one being held together with sellotape, and dying every time I try and do anything other than check the time...).

Today I rang up my current network to get a PAC code so I could move my number over to my new network. It was an interesting process. I talked to three different people and had to repeat my details to each of them as none of them knew what I'd talked to the last person about or anything...
I first called up and was put on hold for a while, then got through and told them I wanted a PAC code, told them my mobile number, name and date of birth. I was told that I'd have to be put through to someone else because my details weren't complete and they had to sort it out for their records before they could give me the PAC code, so I was put on hold again. Interesting music... I think that the most annoying thing was not the music, but the woman's voice that came on every few seconds saying "Thank you for your patience, please continue to hold and an agent will be with you shortly". I was quite amused at the term 'agent' because it just created the imagery of the secret agents or the Matrix... I started doodling at this point - I scanned my doodles in and have put them below...

The first one (on the left) looks a bit more like a bad attempt at some sort of Michael Jackson look... The second one is better, I quite like it.
After this second time of being put on hold, I was put through to a nice lady called Julie. I had to tell her what I was calling about and give her my details again, and then give her the extra details that they didn't have on record. This was the first time that I ever had to use the phonetic alphabet - I've had other people use it to me but not vice versa (the first time I had to get a PAC code I was very confused when the guy said 'Tango Sierra Charlie' and he had to go back and say 'T for Tango, S for Sierra, C for Charlie', lol). Anywho, I took a few minutes to come up with 'D for Doctor', I was trying to think of what the actual one for the alphabet is - I later recalled that it was 'delta' but this isn't exactly a usual part of my vocabularly, so I'm not surprised I forgot it. But yes, she said the weirdest one they'd ever had was 'T for Triceratops'.

I have now looked up the phonetic alphabet (one version of it anyway, I'm sure there are a few differences depending on what it's being used for). I think it would be a useful thing to learn, though I'm not sure if I'll bother - anywho, see below:

Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Gold Hotel India Juliet Kilo Lima Mike November Oscar Papa Quebec Romeo Sierra Tango Uniform Victor Whiskey Xray Yankee Zulu

Julie said that I had to be put through to someone else to get the actual PAC code, so she put me on hold again. This time I tried to draw a triceratops, however I had no recollection of what they were supposed to look like, so I just made it up as I went along - see below.

It's not too bad, though doesn't really look like a triceratops at all... It looks more like a mix between a dragon and a rhino, and the horns on it's head look more like ears. When I was first drawing it, it looked very friendly, I tried to adjust this a bit so it looked less like a pet... It still doesn't look very intimidating though.
Having just looked up a what a triceratops is supposed to look like, I can say that my picture definitely looks nothing like one, lol. I missed the weird collar part of it, and it doesn't have spikes along it's spine (I did know this, but it looked too boring without them, and I wasn't exactly being accurate anyway...). But nevermind.

Anywho, while I was doing this, I was still on hold, and the music got a bit vicious - it was suddenly really loud, and so was the woman's voice thanking me for my patience. I felt like maybe I was being punished for trying to leave the network. I was finally put through to someone whose name I think was Alice, and I had to again explain my situation and give her my details. The reception wasn't great, so half the time I couldn't really hear what she was saying, but I didn't mind hugely as she spent quite a while trying to convince me that I really didn't need to leave the network and that they had plenty of deals that might work for me. After saying no a few times she finally gave me my PAC code and reminded me that if I wanted to at any time I could come back to the network by just getting a PAC code from my new network (because clearly I was enjoying all this time on hold very much and wanted to repeat the experience again soon). Yes, so that's all sorted. I don't think I swap my number over until after Christmas as I've still got a little bit of credit that I want to use up (at least most of it anyway) and I want to text everyone on Christmas to say Merry Christmas, so I can use it up then...

Right, after that long story that was not particularly interesting (sorry, you didn't have to read it, in fact you probably didn't...) I'll stop blogging.
I should really be doing something constructive anyway. I might go and try and find things in the garage, that should be an adventure... Plus it's all covered in sawdust because dad's decided to make himself a work bench. Lovely.

Apparently I must blog...

2009-12-17T20:28:00.003Z

I have been informed that I am not blogging enough and must do so. So I am...

Well, my birthday has been and gone, was a bit lonely at home on my own, though mum was around for a bit... It may seem a bit sad but the main highlight of my birthday was getting lots of lovely facebook messages from friends, and also a few texts, so that was nice. Also went out to a fantastic Chinese restaurant with my lovely parents so that was rather good. For my birthday I got 2 pairs of earrings from my sister, a pair of earrings from my friend Lis and 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince' on DVD from my parents (they're also going to get me a new phone, which I very much need, but we haven't got around to it yet - my current one is still being all dodgy).

I also went to visit my sister for about a day, I came back on the coach - I had to catch 2. The first one was an hour late, so I severely froze whilst waiting for it. I'm glad I had my scarf and gloves with me, but it was still extremely cold. I need to wear warmer clothing...
My phone died after the first half an hour of waiting, so I couldn't text my parents to let them know what was happening, so that was a bit annoying.
Luckily I managed to catch the next coach (as we had left quite a big gap in between - which turned into quite a small gap with the hours delay) and arrived on time, and was found after a while by my parents, so that was good.

I had quite an interesting debate with my mum on the way back home - They told me that they'd bought the HP dvd for me (they didn't wrap it, so the only things I unwrapped on my birthday were the earrings...), and that they'd watched it already, lol. Or rather mum watched part of it and dad watched all of it. Mum insisted that Snape had died in this film, or was already dead beforehand. We debated about this for a while, some of it went something like this:

"I saw the film where Snape died"
"You couldn't have! It isn't out yet!"
"Well I've seen it"
"No, you haven't. You haven't even seen all of the ones that are already out!"
"I have"
"No you haven't..."
etc.

It took a while, but she finally realised she meant Sirius, not Snape, and I was quite amused...

Also, mum still calls Voldemort 'Baltimore', or something of the sort. She knows perfectly well that it's not right, I think she just does it to annoy me. Or amuse me. It does both on different occasions...

On another note, I've been getting a bit of uni work done. I haven't really done much so far, but I hope I'm progressing... I need to sort out some sort of timetable for me to get work done while I'm at home, I might sort it out tonight.

I still haven't sorted out my Christmas presents, I was planning to go shopping today but I woke up quite late and couldn't be bothered so am planning to go tomorrow instead. Not sure when I'm going to go and get a new phone, depends when dad can come with me - I've picked up a magaziney thing with different phones in it that I'll have a look at sometime soon... I don't want anything too complicated really, I only use my phone to ring, text and check the time - though a few other things would be nice. Main thing is that it has a good battery and doesn't die all the time...

Lol, I need to be more careful with what I leave on my bed. I found an eyeshadow brush this morning, that I must have slept on last night and I also just found a small star stud (which is quite spiky) that was also on my bed - I'm surprised I didn't notice that one before.

Anywho, I should probs be going off and doing some work... *sigh*

Hidden Blog...

2009-12-04T10:28:00.002Z

I just realised that after all the effort I go to to not include place names etc. I am a contributor to a blog which tells you where I go to uni, lol. So have now hidden that one for security purposes... not that it would be that difficult to figure it out, but why encourage it?

In other news, I stayed up for 52 hours straight with some friends yesterday (and the day before). Was good fun, though we went shopping yesterday and I kept almost falling asleep on the bus, lol, but I didn't actually sleep... I went through periods of being absolutely exhausted to being rather strangely alert. I didn't exactly feel tired last night before I went to sleep, but I was starting to...

I really need to sort out Christmas presents soon, I haven't really thought about them yet, while other people have been telling me they're almost sorted, lol. I'm sure it'll be fine...

Why did the chicken cross the road?

2009-12-01T21:52:00.004Z

This is another e-mail thing stolen off Carol's blog, I thought it was so excellent that it should have it's own blog post...

Plato:
For the greater good.

Karl Marx:
It was a historical inevitability.

Machiavelli:
So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken's dominion maintained.

Hippocrates:
Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas.

Jacques Derrida:
Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned, because structuralism is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD!

Thomas de Torquemada:
Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.

Timothy Leary:
Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

Douglas Adams:
Forty-two.

Nietzsche:
Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.

Oliver North:
National Security was at stake.

B.F. Skinner:
Because the external influences which had pervaded its sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own free will.

Carl Jung:
The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Jean-Paul Sartre:
In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Ludwig Wittgenstein:
The possibility of "crossing" was encoded into the objects "chicken" and "road", and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this potential occurrence.

Albert Einstein:
Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

Aristotle:
To actualize its potential.

Buddha:
If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.

Howard Cosell:
It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events to grace the annals of history. An historic, unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurence.

Salvador Dali:
The Fish.

Darwin:
It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.

Emily Dickinson:
Because it could not stop for death.

Epicurus:
For fun.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:
It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.

Johann Friedrich von Goethe:
The eternal hen-principle made it do it.

Ernest Hemingway:
To die. In the rain.

Werner Heisenberg:
We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast.

David Hume:
Out of custom and habit.

Saddam Hussein:
This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

Jack Nicholson:
'Cause it (censored) wanted to. That's the (censored) reason.

Pyrrho the Skeptic:
What road?

Ronald Reagan:
I forget.

John Sununu:
The Air Force was only too happy to provide the transportation, so quite understandably the chicken availed himself of the opportunity.

The Sphinx:
You tell me.

Mr. T:
If you saw me coming you'd cross the road too!

Henry David Thoreau:
To live deliberately ... and suck all the marrow out of life.

Mark Twain:
The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

Molly Yard:
It was a hen!

Zeno of Elea:
To prove it could never reach the other side.

E-mails stuff stolen from Carol...

2009-12-01T21:37:00.002Z

This is some stuff that was on Carol's blog that I have stolen because they're great. Or at least quite interesting.

I don't necessarily agree with all of these particularly, I just found them rather interesting (and amusing).

25 Truths of Life

1. If you're too open-minded, your brains will fall out.

2. Don't worry about what people think, they don't do it very often.

3. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

4. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

5. If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before.

6. My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.

7. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.

8. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.

9. For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program.

10. If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip.

11. Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.

12. A conscience is what hurts when all of your other parts feel so good.

13. Eat well, stay fit, die anyway.

14. Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Deal with it!

15. No man has ever been shot while doing the dishes.

16. A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.

17. Middle age is when broadness of the mind and narrowness of the waist change places.

18. Opportunities always look bigger going than coming.

19. Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it.

20. There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.

21. Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

22. By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.

23. Thou shall not weigh more than thy refrigerator.

24. Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.

25. It ain't the jeans that make your butt look fat!

I quite like all of these, they're rather good.

The complete compendium of truth:

Save the whales; collect the whole set.

A day without sunshine is like, night.

On the other hand, you have different fingers.

I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory.

42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.

99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

Honk if you love peace and quiet.

Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.

Support bacteria. They're the only culture some people have.

Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your week.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.

Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.

Always try to be modest, and be proud of it!

If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.

How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise my hand...

How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?

If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.

If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.

Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened.

Demi Lovato obsession...

2009-11-14T00:01:00.002Z

Yeah, this week I've been listening to a lot of Demi Lovato stuff, it's great fun.

My favourites of the moment are 'Catch Me', 'Every Time You Lie' (nice and bouncy...), 'Here We Are Again' and 'Don't forget' (much less bouncy, but very interesting). I shall probably add some on to my blog player, but I need to go do work in a minute so won't do it now...

Went over to lovely Esther's for dinner today with Sophie, Georgia and Matt. Was good fun, it was nice to hang out with them all. Just got back from being home for a week, didn't do enough work, need to do A LOT of work tonight and tomorrow (mainly tomorrow, it's already technically Saturday but you know...)
I figured out how to play 'Try' by Asher Book on the piano, so that's been what I've done for a lot of this week, plus various other piano pieces of course.
I've brought my piano back to uni with me, hopefully I'll not spend every waking minute on it and will actually do some work...
But yes, all is good, I'd better go do a bit of work now and then head to bed...

Mix of Music :)

2009-11-06T11:03:00.003Z

I have become completely addicted to the song 'Try' by Asher Book, from the film 'Fame!' which I went to see a week ago on a whim (some other people were going to see it and I thought it sounded vaguely interestig). The film was excellent, and this has become my absolute favourite song from the film - though there are lots of very good ones. So I'll need to add that on my blog player I think...

In other news, I'm going home this afternoon! Just for a week, but I'm ridiculously excited about being able to play my piano tonight. I didn't realise how much I missed it until the last couple of days when I thought about actually being able to play it. Yay! :)

Oh yes, I went on the bus to a big-ish city yesterday, certainly big compared to where I'm living atm, lol. I wanted to spend the day at the library but it's closed for the moment, which is a bit annoying, so I went shopping instead. Bought some very nice chocolate, and I bought a nice shirt. I spent the bus trip drawing people on the bus, it is actually very difficult to draw while on a bus, it was both amusing and frustrating at various times. But I like the drawings I've ended up with. I was listening to my mp3 player on shuffle and ended up with very strange combinations of things, most of it was actually my brother in laws stuff (I bought the mp3 player off him and he left his music on there, so I left it there too, lol). So I listening mainly to brass band and wind band music, with occasional snippets of 'The Goon Show' and some of my own stuff - Christian pop, some slightly more hardcore rock (early Skillet stuff), and quite a few times Stephen Fry's voice came on saying something odd (I have the audio book of Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince on there), the oddest time probably being when he said something along the lines of "he's going up there with a variety of students, how many people are in on this? said Hermione", lol.

But yes, good times, I'd better go get some breakfast and then head off to the library, just got one lecture this afternoon and then will be off home, yay! :)

Random images...

2009-10-28T16:25:00.011Z

These are from the facebook 'bumper sticker' things.

Music music music

2009-10-12T22:35:00.003+01:00

I'm loving Matt Redman's new CD atm, however I am a bit disappointed that I can't find the lyrics to 'We Shall Not Be Shaken' (one of my fave songs on the CD) on the internet - I don't have the CD case with me (which I think has the lyrics...). But it is good anyway. Also loving Ben Cantelon's 'Running After You' (the whole CD), excellent stuff.

I bought 'Have You Heard?' by Shell Perris recently, and I'm a bit addicted to 'Barbie Girl' - great lyrics, plus it's all fun and dancy. :)

Fun fun.

And so it goes...

2009-10-12T20:35:00.002+01:00

I've been e-mailing and writing to various people, so I haven't really felt the need to blog much recently, but again, lots has happened. General uni stuff - various projects going on. I did some drawings which I'm rather proud of for a collaborative piece which is full of different styles but has turned out really well :).

I'm missing talking about non-arty sorts of things a bit - I was disappointed at the Fresher's Fayre that they didn't have any societies - apparently that was on a different day which had already gone by. It's a bit of a journey to get to the main uni campus because I'm based somewhere a bit different, but I did go down there with Lis last week to go to the main CU - that was rather good. If I'm organised enough, I might look up some of the societies and go down and visit them on various days. I'll have to figure it out...

I'm quite content where I am at the moment, I hang out with a lovely group of girls most of the time, so generally I can always find someone to chat to if I'm bored. I've visited a couple more churches - all the churches in this area actually seem rather good, which is nice, but also makes it more difficult to choose between them. We've got another three we're all planning to go to together (the CU girls) and I probs won't visit any new ones after that as the ones I've already seen have been so good! It would be nice to just pick one and spend some time settling a bit.

So yes, generally life is good, I've got used to living independently quite quickly - I was generally self-reliant most of the time anyway, so I suppose it wasn't a whole lot of change. Plus I still contact my parents quite a lot, so I've got a good support foundation thingymadoo. Good stuff.

Better go now, need food...

Wow, info rush

2009-10-01T23:52:00.003+01:00

I feel like such a long time has passed since I last blogged, simply because so much has been happening!
I've met some really lovely people, on my course, from the CU and in my house. I'm liking getting to know all of these different people, it's quite funny how a lot of them remind me of other people. My friend Sophie really reminds me of my friend Rai from college, her voice and mannerisms and stuff, she even looks a bit like her. Also, Lis reminds me of my best friend from primary school - Rebekah, she looks like her a bit and seems to sound like her, though I know it must be like an English version of her voice or something... I don't really remember Rebekah's accent that much...

But yes, I've made lots of good friends - my house is all girls, and they all seem really nice, about half of them are international students (I think someone said they're from Hong Kong), I haven't really talked to them much yet as I've been out so much, but hopefully will get to know them a bit better soon too.

I've been to a couple of parties, an entertaining Pub Quiz (where the SU president traded a few quiz points for cigarettes...) and have been out exploring the town most days first by myself and then with Sophie and Georgia. Today I went on the CU grub crawl which was great fun - one house for dinner, then another for dessert, then on to a pub for drinks - the houses were actually really nice, I'm hoping I'll get to live in a house as nice as those ones next year. Apparently we have to start house-hunting for next year soon if we want anywhere decent... that's a bit worrying, it means we have to figure out who we want to live with next year pretty quickly!

Tomorrow is the Fresher's Fayre, so that should be quite good, I'm looking forward to seeing all the societies and stuff. I'd better go to bed soon since I have a fairly early morning.

But yes, so far, uni life is pretty good :).

University!

2009-09-26T19:48:00.002+01:00

Well, I'm at uni! It's a bit weird but I don't think the weirdness has quite hit me yet. I only introduced myself to one person, who I met in the kitchen, but I didn't see her at the Halls talk thing that I just came back from so I haven't really made any friends. I've said hi to some people in my house but don't know their names yet. There's some transport to various things that are going on tonight at the student union but I'd rather not go on my own, I'll probably spend this evening unpacking. Tomorrow I think I'll feel slightly more comfortable and I'll be meeting some people at church and stuff. I think I'll pick a few places that I want to find in town tomorrow so I can start getting used to the area.

I am currently watching Strictly Come Dancing, having the noise in the background makes me more comfortable and settled :). Lol, I'm so amused by Alesha's cackle. And Craig's 'Darling's, they're great.

I've already done some quick removal of insects and spider webs and so on from my window, the light above my bed appears to not work, but I do have a desk lamp with me so I'll use that for the time being. I'm going to go do some unpacking and rerranging of things now. I like organising things :).

Hello again, my dear friend

2009-09-25T11:15:00.002+01:00

Well, I'm going to uni tomorrow, rather nervous etc. I'm sure it'll be fine after the first couple of weeks... Haven't booked any of the freshers events because most of them are clubbing which I'm not particularly into unless I'm in a big group of friends I know well. Other things I haven't booked because I don't really want to go on my own, but I probs will go to some anyway. There's a couple of films I want to see at the union cinema and I want to go to some pub quizzes... Good stuff. But yes, this is my last day to do everything I need to do before I go. I'm practically bringing my whole house to university, I have no idea how I'm actually going to fit this stuff in my room, lol.

I'm trying to finish reading 'The Castle' by Franz Kafka which was on the art reading list thing. I'm up to chapter 15 and it feels like slow death. There are 25 chapters. It's not that it's not interesting, it kind of is, it's just written in a style that is a bit difficult to read. I don't really know the main character at all, he's simply known as 'K.' and at the beginning he tells the people of this town he enters (near the Castle) that he is the land surveyor, though it seems to be implied that he is lying, but then everything else is based on this kind of being the truth and nothing seems to have a backstory at all. He meets a woman called Frieda who, within the first few hours of meeting her, he has sex with on the floor of the bar she works in, and who then leaves her job and position as mistress of a man called Mr Klamm for him. It's all quite confusing, and the characters either don't seem to have any depth, or they seem to have a lot of depth that is not explained in any way and is consequently very frustrating. I'm not expecting any sort of conclusion at the end of this book, and certainly not a happy ending (Kafka never actually finished this book before he died - it was edited and published by a friend, and he was very depressed and wanted the world to embrace the darkness and suffering in their lives, or something of the sort) which provides me with little motivation to finish it apart from the fact that I'm halfway through and I'm not a quitter. Ah well, hopefully it'll become a little more enlightening further on...

But anyway, there are a couple of other books I've got from the library (art history) but probs won't get through much of them before I return them later today.

Oh yes, I went shopping with mum in town yesterday which was fun, we hadn't explored that much so it was nice to go around a bit. I now have a new dress and top and belt, a novelty ladybug laundry bag thing, and a Shell CD. I have to say, I now love Evans, it's a great shop and actually does really nice clothing, though it can be a bit expensive. Ooh yes, and we went to a music shop, it was heaven, but really depressing when we had to leave and I hadn't bought anything because I'm going to uni and have no money, lol. But I now want both the piano score book and soundtrack book from Twilight, the Chronicles of Narnia piano books, the Phantom of the Opera book (with the newer film pictures) and some classical stuff (though I get more enthusiastic about the films etc. stuff really). Having actually seen the music in the score book from Twilight, I think I'm more likley to get the soundtrack book first as the score seems very nice but also very simple. I've been playing some other stuff from the Phantom of the Opera piano book I got from the library and I really love a lot of the pieces - hence why I want to buy my own copy. I've become addicted to 'The Phantom of the Opera' and 'Music of the Night', though I also played 'Prima Donna' which is rather fun.

Right, better go now, am starving and have much to sort before tonight... Adios amigos :)

Happyish :)

2009-09-10T18:20:00.002+01:00

Feeling much better now, have been e-mailed back and told the qualification stuff I've just sent is fine, don't worry too much about finding the other stuff. So nice and calm now. Still need to find them eventually as knowing where your certificates are is usually useful, lol. Also I've found the piece of paper saying where/when my Life in the UK test is, so that's useful. Have finally unpacked the last few things left over from Soul Survivor, lol. Added a couple of songs to my blog player - I've particularly been addicted to 'Gone' by tobyMac (now the first song on the player - and yes, it is supposed to sound like that at the beginning). 'Beautiful' still reminds me of Soul Survivor every time I hear it... :)

Really need to sort out the rest of my stuff for uni now. Haven't had my student loan letter thing come through yet, so still waiting on that, should be soon. Trying not to worry.
Anyway, must go, many productive things to do...

Aaah!

2009-09-09T23:45:00.002+01:00

Stressing out at the moment. I can't find my proof of qualification for my GCSEs, and I really don't know where to look! They weren't in the folder that I expected them to be in, and I've had an e-mail from uni asking me to e-mail them. Ech! I've sent the stuff from my A-levels but I'm still missing all of the rest... I think I may have put them all in a folder together when I went for my interview, eons ago, but I don't know where that folder ended up being put, especially considering we've moved house since I last saw them! I've spent quite a while searching for them tonight but I've been up since 6.30am and am getting rather knackered now it's almost midnight. Plus, I'm being really grumpy with my parents. I think that for the sake of my relationships with them, and my sanity, it would be good to postpone the searching until tomorrow. As if I wasn't stressing about uni enough! Oh dear. Breathe.
Now I've got to go do a spot of revision for my Life in the UK test, because I'm a bit behind. Plus I need to find out where it is and what time my appointment was for. I wrote it all down somewhere and then lost said somewhere. I hate feeling disorganised.

Also, just finished reading 'My Sister's Keeper' by Jodi Picoult. Well, this was before I found out about the qualifications thing and got stressed out. But it was rather good, very depressing. Bought it in a library book sale (I can never resist) for 45p earlier today, started reading it around noon I think...

I saw my friend Michelle today which was cool, catching up a bit, and she gave me a really cute purse and some earrings :) (They were a going away present for when I moved - but she didn't manage to see me in time). I also bought the latest Matt Redman CD. Have yet to listen to it. Ooh! And I got a letter back from my friend Heather :). I shall probs write back to her tomorrow. I love getting letters :). But yes. Revision. Sleep. Then wake up and get stressed again. Oh the anticipation.

Oh lovely libraries

2009-08-29T23:40:00.002+01:00

Lol, it seems quite sad that I'd rather go on a library crawl than a pub crawl. But then again, it's much better for your health...

Went to the city centre library today and was ridiculously happy, it's so much bigger than the ones I'm used to! Nothing compared to Wellington Library, but you can't have everything, lol. There were shelves upon shelves of music scores, I limited myself to getting three of those out - one that I'm very happy about is 'The Phantom of the Opera', I've been playing a bit of that today. I didn't realise how lovely 'Think of Me' is, it's my favourite piece to play from them (probably because it's easiest - I could play it fairly smoothly the first and second time, the others are a bit more difficult). The other 2 score books were Debussy and Bach. Next time I go to that library, whenever that is, I think I'd like to try some Prokofiev as I haven't done much modern classically stuff, and I'd also like to try some of the well known ones that I haven't played before (that I remember) - e.g. Brahms, Handel, Chopin. I'd also like to do some more Beethoven and Schubert, I like them...
I find it hard to pick the actual books to borrow as they have several books for each composer. I don't really know enough about music theory to pick them from names, so I just flick through and take the one that looks easier, or if they're similar I do 'Eeny Meeny Miney Mo'. Very technical process, lol. I can always go back and borrow others...

Also at the library I found another 2 books from my recommended reading list from uni, so I've got those out as well, though I have yet to read the ones I've already got out.
Along with that, I got out 4 fiction books (2 chick lit, 2 sci fi), 1 arty-ish book ('The Faeryland Companion'), a book on card-making, and 2 books I thought would be rather interesting reads - 'Jane Austen's Guide to Romance' by Lauren Henderson and 'Learn to Interpret Handwriting' by Patrick Marne. I'm not sure I'll get through all of this stuff anytime soon, lol. I've already got a few books I need to read - 2 art books (reading list), 2 fiction (that I own - less important) and I'm supposed to be studying for my Life in the UK test...
I have already finished one of the books I got out today though - 'The Chrysalids' by John Wyndham. I have a vague feeling that I might have read it before, I think I may have borrowed it from Carol. I definitely remember her talking about it but I didn't think I had read it. Either way, it was still a good read. Has a very twisted sense of religion. Oh, I think I remember why I may have read it - we were going somewhere on a train and I hadn't brought a book, and she had it in her bag. That seems vaguely familiar... Not sure where we were going. Anyway...

I've decided that I want to write a list of things that I would like to accomplish at some point in my life. I like list-making, it helps to not let you forget things, and also to get you to actually do things... I might post the list of here actually, once I get around to writing it.

In other news, I have now accepted my accommodation offer. I wish I'd thought about all of the student bank account stuff earlier, as it would have been really useful. I think I want to open a student bank account but I've already given all my current account details as the one for accommodation and student finance. And I'm not sure how to change those details, so it'll be rather difficult. Ah well, I'm sure I'll sort it out somehow. I'd better get some sleep now, or do some revision. *shrug*

Oh yes, and I've ordered some DVDs off amazon, so I'll be wasting some time watching those too once they arrive... And I'll be expecting my new pairs of glasses in a week or so. Will be useful as I keep worrying that I'll lose my one pair and not be able to see properly for a while.
Ah, everything happens at once.
Well, that's life.

Uni stuff...

2009-08-28T23:54:00.000+01:00

Well, after I woke up today (I was going to say 'this morning', but that would be incorrect..., hey, I was awake late watching Mansfield Park! - not much of an excuse, I know... But anyway -), I spent a while sorting out stuff for uni. I rang up the student finance people (had to answer a whole lot of security questions - one of which I got wrong, lol - 3rd and 6th letters of the answer to my security question, I can't count, I kept saying the 7th one. It's hard when it's not written down! Or I'm just a bit thick, lol) but anyway, I had to complain because it said that an offer thingy hadn't come through yet because they were waiting on evidence, but I'd sent off and received back my passport already. Found out that it was actually my parents' supporting forms that they were waiting on, and in fact they probably aren't waiting on them (they were sent off at the same time as my passport) - they're just processed by different people than those that process the passport, so it'll just be that they haven't all been processed and stuff. So, I have to wait a couple of weeks and if nothing has happened I have to ring them back.

But, in better news, I've finally been offered accommodation - I just need to sort out my change of address at the bank tomorrow and then I'll accept the accommodation offer (I don't know if branch sort codes change if you change local branch, and I can't find out anywhere so I'll ask tomorrow when I go in). So, it's all coming together now, that's quite scary. I've just spent this evening going through all of these student forum posts and so on and creating a list of things I need to bring to Uni. I'll have to buy some of this stuff as time goes along, haven't got that long really. I've also received a letter with a form I need to fill in and send back for my uni ID card. I'll have to do that tomorrow I guess, need to go get a passport picture taken as well.

In other news, I stewed plums this afternoon, first time I've done that. I remember my grandma used to always do stewed fruit for dessert when we went to visit her, and she made jam and stuff from the fruit she grew in her back garden. My first attempt at stewed plums didn't go brilliantly, I think I put too much sugar and water in, it ended up being more like a kind of plum syrup. Very tasty as an ice cream topping, but on it's own a little too intense. Ah well, I know for next time. I think that I'm going to get mum to teach me some cooking skills over the next couple of weeks - I often ask what she puts in certain dishes, but it's different to hear it and to actually do it, so I think it'll be a good idea. Should also be kind of fun, I do like cooking, when it's something interesting.

Anywho, better go get some sleep, got to be up early tomorrow to go to the bank...

A* in Spanish :)

2009-08-27T08:53:00.003+01:00

Well, GCSE results were supposed to be up at 7 on the intranet, so I got up at about quarter to 9 and checked my result for Spanish. It seems that I got an A* for every module (the overall grade wasn't shown separately). I'm still wondering whether there was some kind of mistake, it looks so fake, lol. Also, it doesn't show exactly what mark I got, but I assume that may be because it only shows the A-level ones. It's just a bit unreal. But, you know, I'm still rather ecstatic. I knew that the exams went quite well but I certainly didn't expect A*s! I'm glad I changed my mind about doing the lower level listening paper. Yay!
Happy bunny :)

Actual Results

2009-08-20T09:20:00.003+01:00

Well, I finally got through to see my results. Rather annoyed at my art results, I got a B when I was expecting an A. My teacher told me that my first module was 'about an A' and that she expected I should get an A, so to get a mid-B is very annoying. Particularly as I spent all of this year working like crazy on this one subject! *sigh*. Well, it doesn't really matter anymore as I got where I wanted to get. It's just annoying.
I'm wondering how everyone else in my art class did, I was supposed to one of the top few in my class and if I got a B and C in my modules I wonder if the others did much worse. Hopefully most people did alright...

But aside from that, I got an A in AS English Language (yay!) which cheered me up a bit. I don't get my GCSE Spanish results until next week I think. It looks like I failed one of my Sign Language modules which is a bit unexpected, I passed the other one though. So overall I have 2 passes and 1 fail, not sure what that means for overall but don't mind that much... Though I'll be quite amused if anyone else passed that as I'm one of the few people who actually paid any attention in Sign Language, lol. Though actually, that module may have been the one that some people got to redo because our teacher didn't work the video recorder very well. If I failed because it was in comparison to some people doing it a second time, I'll be really pissed off. Not that I'll ever actually know that, but yes...

Oh yes, and I did even worse in my maths retake than the first time round, which I wasn't sure was possible, lol. Seven marks less, still an E. But hey, I still have a B in Maths overall.

Looking at these results makes me really worry about my lack of work in the past year. I thought I worked quite hard this year but I know I could have worked harder. Ah well, all done now. Only a month and a bit until Uni! How scary.

Results day...

2009-08-20T08:19:00.002+01:00

Well, today is results day. Technically I should have been able to get my results online from 7.00am but the college intranet isn't really working, this is probably because of a huge amount of people all trying to access it at once I suppose. It's an hour after I first tried to access it and it's still not really working. I'm not hugely bothered as I checked UCAS and it says I've got into the uni I wanted to get into so the rest doesn't matter that much, but it would be nice to know what I got... I might have to actually wait until I go into college a bit later to find out how everything went. But yes, good times. :)

London Galleries :)

2009-08-19T23:43:00.009+01:00

Well, I spent yesterday travelling around London and going to art galleries. Was good fun but my legs felt so terribly achy and sore yesterday evening. I forgot about the whole after ache that you get from that much exercise... Now feeling much better, though I haven't tried to walk around much.

I started off by taking the train to London Waterloo where I bought a roll (as I realised on the way I had forgotten to eat or drink anything beforehand... daft chickie). Then I went on the underground to Charing Cross where I visited the National Portrait Gallery. This is my favourite gallery of all the ones I have been to. I love how diverse the styles of art are and the fact that there is also photography and stuff. My main aim in going was to see the BP Portrait Award exhibition which I did do and it is amazing! If you get a chance, go and see it. There are some truly beautiful paintings in the exhibition that are photo-realistic and others that are not but are equally beautiful (though of course there were also some that I didn't like particularly, but they were in the minority).

My favourite was probably 'Imagine' by José Luis Corella - see an image here (hopefully the links still work - I just googled them). Oh, I've just realised that the same artist painted my favourite piece from last year, and I think it was another painting of the same girl (his daughter, I think). This is the piece from last year (or at least some of it).

Anyway, other pieces I loved were 'Ruth' by Isobel Peachey, 'Tom' by Michael Gaskell (I think this came second), 'Broken Heart' by Donald McDonald, 'Angela From Sri Lanka' by Hynek Martinec, 'Maggie' by Sue Rubira - closer picture here - I think the closer one better captures the feeling of the painting when you're standing in front of it (this one was hugely detailed and seemed very confrontational, the woman reminded me of the older version of Rose from the film Titanic), 'Agnes' by Natalie Holland (this is high up on my favourites) and 'Hats and Scarves' by Tim Okamura (though you don't really get the idea from this little picture, the painting is huge). There were others that I liked very much but you get the idea.

I wandered around the portrait gallery a little, the prominently displayed photos were very interesting and I really liked them. My favourites were 'Lily Allen' by Nadav Kander, 'Rebecca Hall' by Jason Bell (I don't think the original is as dull as the picture here but it was the best I could find...) and 'Harry Potter Actors' by Matt Holyoak (just looking it up I found another image that I like from that shoot as well... - though I really hate what Daniel Radcliffe is wearing, it looks like he forgot to put a t-shirt on under his jumper, though that's probably the photographer's fault).

So after my quick wander at the Portrait Gallery I went around to the National Gallery for a very short while but I didn't find it hugely interesting (particularly as I've seen them not that long ago...), I like more diversity and for me the National Gallery is a bit samey - even the more contemporary art doesn't seem that exciting.

So off I went again on the tube and made my way to Tate Britain. I can't remember that much of what I saw there but I did very much like the Turner section as he did such beautiful landscapes - I've studied Turner at college but it was rather interesting to see so much of his work all together and on it's proper scale. I also went to the 'Classified' exhibition which was quite interesting. Very modern sort of stuff, I particularly liked the Chapman Family Collection, which was a whole lot of sculpture pieces in a kind of African tribal stle, but they have McDonalds related things incorporated into them. I also liked 'Forms without life' and 'Life without you' by Damien Hirst, they are collections of shells and are beautifully chosen and arranged. Those were the most interesting things for me at Tate Britain.

By this time I was rather knackered but I was determined to visit all four of my chosen galleries so I next headed off on the tube to Southwark to go to the Tate Modern. I'd been there before but it was several years ago, probably 4 years, on a school trip. I always remember that because it's when I got the great quote "Gary you're a div, shut your face" from the teacher in charge of the trip, lol. But yes, I found the galleries relatively interesting but the only thing I can remember in particular that I admired was 'Portrait of a Young Woman' by Meredith Frampton, see it here.

So after that I got the tube and the train home (or rather, back to my sister's home) and collapsed on my bed, lol. Had quite a lovely evening, despite the seriously painful legs, but yes... 'twas good. I'm really glad that I did that day trip and I think it was quite a valuable experience. Plus, I'd forgotten how much I actually do like going around exhibitions, I love the atmosphere created in galleries. Though perhaps next time I will aim to go to fewer galleries and spend more time at each.

I've just seen an article about a Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake exhibition which I so want to go to! But unfortunately I doubt that I'll get to it. If I had known about it yesterday I would have gone there and not gone to Tate Modern... Ah well, these things happen.

I'm baaaack :)

2009-08-18T17:42:00.002+01:00

Hey there, well I'm back from Soul Survivor which was amazing. Fantastic worship, very powerful seminars and talks which were very interesting and it was nice to get to know some of the people I went with better. Also, I discovered some rather awesome worship songs which I love - I've just bought 'Cannons' by Phil Wickham which has two of the songs that we sang at Soul Survivor that I liked - 'Cannons' and 'Beautiful'. I particularly liked 'Beautiful'. I've also ordered Ben Cantelon's new CD 'Running After You' and Matt Redman's new CD 'We shall not be shaken'. I also re-fell in love with a couple of songs - 'Mighty to Save' by Hillsong and 'Jesus Saves' by Tim Hughes.

I feel quite re-energised mentally from going to Soul Survivor and I'm really glad I went. I am however rather exhausted from all of the camping and keep needing sleep, lol.
One thing that has been rather good is that I've been re-inspired to read the bible, recently reading bits I'm finding myself wondering why I ever became disinterested in the first place. It really is a very interesting read, it just gets boring in a few bits (such as Leviticus and Deuteronomy - I'm going for some later books, lol). So I've new plans for bible reading which is great, I've got new worship music which is also great and I'll soon have some more free time to actually spend time with God so that's rather cool.

I've got a few of the recommended art books out from the library here so I've got a few days to read them (not sure I'll completely finish them but some is better than none). I have also booked my Life in the UK test for the beginning of Sept so I need to study for that when I get back home.

But yes, tonight I'm seeing some of my friends which should be good fun as I haven't seen them in a while. Tomorrow I'm planning to go into London and see some art exhibitions as I haven't seen any in a while and it's been advised by my soon-to-be uni that we visit some when we can. Then Thursday is results day (Eeeee!) and Friday is Carol's birthday and we'll be off back to my house (she's staying for the weekend :D).

So all is good really, I'm rather happy with life at the moment though I have been feeling a bit challenged by various things, it's always good to have a bit of a challenge in life. Now I'm off to put up Soul Survivor photos on Facebook, yay! :)

My internet is making me sad...

2009-08-10T13:22:00.002+01:00

Or rather, my lack of internet is making me sad. I had to go to the library again to get internet access. Even my laptop won't work with the wifi here, I think there's something wrong with it. I'm sad because I didn't get to watch the end of the Doctor Who episode I started yesterday ('Christmas Invasion' - introducing David Tennant, I missed the episode first time round) so I've seen the first half but don't know how it ends! Very frustrating, and it ran out yesterday on iPlayer so I won't be able to watch it later. Will have to see if I can get it out YouTube or something... Also annoyed as I wanted to order some glasses before I go off again so won't be able to do that for another couple of weeks *sigh*. Am currently trying to figure out what exhibitions I want to go to while I'm nearer London (in a week or so) because I'm off today so I have to sort it now or tomorrow at Carol's while I have internet access. And it would be much more useful if I can do it now... Also looking up some of the recommended art books for uni, looks like one of them is actually here on the shelves so will go look for that as soon as I'm off the computer. Might look up some chick lit too, I need to start reading a bit more to stop myself from being so annoyed about the internet situation. But I suppose I've got to spend most of today packing for Soul Survivor anyway, need to go to Tesco on the way home as well to get a plastic plate and stuff... If there are any nice ones. Also got to get a few other bits and bobs. Hmm.

Anyway, went to New Wine last week which was awesome. VERY muddy I must admit, I need to clean my shoes properly before tomorrow. Should be a bit different to last week as I'm going to be with a huge youth group rather than just by myself (well, I was with my parents last week but spent most of the time without them). Took me a while to properly meet anyone but made the acquaintance of some very nice people at New Wine. I was sad to have to leave a little early on Saturday night (about quarter to ten in the evening) to go home because they were still worshipping (Very loud music and lots of jumping, great fun). At the beginning of the evening meeting I think there was a conga line... That happened a few times in the week, lol. We also did a whole mexican wave thing which was rather amusing. In one of the morning meetings they had a moshing competition going on, I declined to join in but was watching on, being rather entertained nonetheless. I thought that all of the talks were really excellent, and it was all quite powerful stuff really. I'm looking forward to next week as I think it'll be rather good. Though I'm so exhausted from last week that I'm not sure I'll be able to gather up the appropriate energy and enthusiasm, lol. That'll probably change when I see Amy and Heather and everyone on Wednesday. Lol, last week we were camped on one of the furthest sites from the main venues possible - there were only about 2 sites further than us (and not by much). It took about 15 minutes to walk to the main venues which we did, there and back, about 3 times a day. Seeing as I haven't exactly been doing much walking since moving house, it was a rather big change. I didn't feel it at the time but it is catching up with me a bit. Hopefully at Soul Survivor we'll be a bit closer...

Anyway, better go, I've got about an hour left of internet access and I really want to figure out all the exhibition stuff. Busy busy busy.

Teehee! NASA poem...

2009-07-26T19:39:00.002+01:00

I've been sorting through some of my bits and bobs boxes today. I've just come across my writing book from primary school. There was one poem that I vaguely remembered being proud of and so I flicked through to find it. It is an interesting sort of poem, lol. I thought I'd post it on here.

My poem about NASA

I am the cleaner, I hear many things

Some things are meaner, but that's what life brings

I clean out the pipes and check they're alright

I go in with brooms and sweep all the rooms

Always I've wanted to fly a spaceship

But now I cannot, I've dislocated my hip

I dream of comets and sailing past the moon

But I'm stuck cleaning here, except for in June

That's my month off, I go many places

But none of them are as exciting as space is

How I wish I could be an astronaut

But I guess I still can give that some thought

Well, it's not much of an ending, but it's not too bad considering how old I was when I wrote it, lol.

Heh, I've just flicked through a bit further and I wrote a page of information about each planet (I think I did these from videos that we watched, but I only vaguely remember). I came across my page on Pluto and it reminded me of the quote "When I was your age, Pluto was a planet!"

Anyway, I've done what I came to do, so I'll go do some more unpacking, repacking and tidying. Busy busy busy.

A good day's work :)

2009-07-25T21:00:00.002+01:00

Feeling rather pleased with myself today. I have got the white strips glued on to the bookcase (by way of persuading dad to do it for me :P). I have also constructed my second bookcase (this I did do by myself :D). Then dad and I went out and bought me a bed and a couple of extra shelves for one of my bookcases (and some other useful bits and bobs). I also got a backpack which should fit my laptop in it, haven't checked yet but either way it's a rather good backpack from IKEA, it's two backpacks in one - you can unzip the bit along the middle and have it as two separate ones. Good stuff. So, I've now also constructed the bed (with some help from dad), so for the first time since we've moved I get to sleep on a bed rather than the floor! Woot woot :).

My next jobs for today are to tidy my room (full of my junk along with a whole lot of bits of cardboard and plastic, and a vacuum cleaner which I plan to use before putting it downstairs), to attach my glass door to the smaller bookcase (which I'm putting DVDs in) and bring up my many boxes of books to put into my bookcase. I also found my febreze (limited edition - spring) today so that made me happy - pretty smell :).
I also need to attach my full length mirror to the wall and I need to firmly attach my bookcases to the wall with brackets, but those'll probably be jobs for another day.

I do need to make some to do lists as I've got loads of things to do and not that much time, I'll be off to my two camps fairly soon and then I'll be busy until the end of August so I'll then have only a month before uni! Everything is happening rather quickly really...

Oh, mum found £50 worth of theatre vouchers that she got as a gift ages ago and they run out at the beginning of Sept, so mum, dad and me are going to go and see 'Joseph' next week. Should be good fun :).

In other news, I've recently been a bit obsessed with the some 'More than Words' by Extreme (hence why I have added it to my blog music player at number 2). I borrowed a book from our new local library that is piano pieces from the '90s. It's made me feel all nostalgic :P. It also reminded me about all of those 'You know you're a '90s kid if...' things, and I finally got around to finding out the deep meaning of 'Wax on, wax off'. I still haven't watched the entire 'Karate Kid' film, but I will at some point. There were a few things that I was a little too young to experience, growing up in the 90s, like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, 'Wax on, wax off', and Goosebumps (but for this one it also had to do with not being interested, or probably allowed, to read them).

Right, I'd better go now and do those bits and bobs so I can feel that little bit more like I've worked hard today. Bye!

DIY mistake...

2009-07-24T23:15:00.004+01:00

Well, I'm very proud of myself because I have just assembled an IKEA bookcase that was bought for me today. I am less proud at my not noticing that two of the shelves were the wrong way around before putting it all together. So everything is put together and nailed and screwed in nicely but the front edge of the top and bottom shelves are the chipboard stuff that should have been at the back rather than the white shiny stuff that they should be. And because I've nailed everything in I can't just disassemble and turn around because there will be six nail holes in the front of each shelf, *sigh*. Well, at least mum's managed to find some strips of white covering that can be stuck along the front of them. Should turn out okay.
Dad just told me that it's a sort of rite of passage in DIY to learn from your mistakes, lol.

I've got one more bookcase to put together but I think I'll leave it until tomorrow to do as it's rather exhausting to do. I haven't yet put in the shelves, I'll probably buy a couple more shelves as all of my books are quite short so I'll probably make me shelves a bit shorter too.

I still haven't got a bed... that'll be something to figure out tomorrow perhaps. Oh, I need to go bug mum and dad to do the supporting forms for my student finance stuff! And I need to find the address that I need to send my passport to so that I can get that done asap. Apparently the deadline has been and gone, and I was never informed until dad mentioned it because it was at the bottom of the forms he printed out - he assumed I knew and was purposely postponing it until we moved. Why I would postpone anything beyond it's deadline I don't know but there you go. Better rush off and remind them and stuff.

Hmm, sleepy.

Busy Bee

2009-07-23T16:19:00.003+01:00

Well, having now moved house, the main event of this month is over. I've been spending quite a lot of my time reading books in bed and sleeping for very long periods of time (starting very late at night, or very early in the morning as the case may be). Trying to get out and about a bit more. I'm currently at our local library, seeing as we do not yet have the internet at home, we will do in a few days. I've had a letter from my (soon-to-be) university and it has really hit me how close it is until I start! Have been trying to find the books on the recommended reading list for my course, it looks like I might be able to get hold of about 5 of them before I go. Unless, I want to go out and buy them which I'm not sure about yet. Also, I need to sort out when I'm going to go to some exhibitions as there are quite a few recommended ones on the list as well as the books and magazines/periodicals. Lots to do.

We've visited a couple of churches so far, one was very good but it felt a little like a show rather than a church service, was very energetic and I liked it very much but some of it felt a little fake. The second one we visited was very small, C of E, and very structured with lots of liturgy. My family knows how I feel about liturgy, lol. Not such a fan. But the people there were very lovely, mainly of the older generation, but very genuine seeming people. So haven't found a church we particularly want to stay at yet, but hopefully we will do soon. It's starting to make me worry a bit about doing the same thing again, but on my own, when I go to uni. Knowing me I'd probably just stay at the first one I visit! But I think I'll try and visit a few before I make my mind up.

Anywho, away from all the important sorts of stuff. In other news, I've been playing the piano lots which has made me very happy, I'm about to get out a couple of new piano score books which should entertain me for a little while. Also have been reading quite a lot, re-read bits of all four Twilight books and of 'The Host' - can't remember if I commented on this book after reading it the first time. It is an excellent book by Stephenie Meyer, I'm glad that I read it - my cousin Rachel told me it was good and encouraged me to read it so I've now read it and also bought myself a copy of it. Alongside that I've finished 'Someone Special' by Sheila O'Flanagan a couple of days ago, Carol recommended her as a great Chick Lit author so I thought I'd read it. I tend to read things more focused on a romantic relationship but it was rather interesting to read more of a family drama sort of thing. I've read a few things like that but I always drift back to the other stuff eventually. I'm planning to read more books by her and also by Cathy Kelly once I can get hold of a few - most of them from my local library are currently on loan.
I've also been reading some Usbourne Puzzle Adventures, lol, they may be childish but I love them :P.

At the moment I've also got out a 'Rough guide to books for Teenagers' which has over 200 short book reviews divided into different genres. I think I'm going to have a flick though this at some point and make a list of the books that look particularly interesting.
I still want read 'Bloodhound' by Tamora Pierce - I bought it recently but it's been a long time since I read 'Terrier' (book preceding 'Bloodhound') so I want to re-read that first.
I want to read some more books by Adele Geras, I read her historical novels 'Troy' and 'Ithaka', which I loved, and I want to see what else she's written. Also, Gemmel told me a while back that I should read some of Tom Holt's historical novels, and they have some at this library so I might get some out today, or if not, then sometime soon...
Anyway, I'm sure I will never be short of new books to read. I'd better go now, lots of other things to do and I'm running out of internet time!

Hazel is sad

2009-07-11T11:04:00.002+01:00

Moving day has come. I won't have internet after we move for a while so that makes me particularly sad. Also, it is a bit annoying as I have stuff for my student finance and for accommodation that I really need the internet for. Plus, I've just discovered that dad wants me to go with him now to the new house and not come back, I was expecting to be here later today to do other stuff. How annoying.
Oh well, better go, won't be blogging for a while. Hopefully we'll get the internet quickly...

Oh yes, and thanks to the people at core group who are lovely. Had a great time on Thurs night playing kids games (though they got quite competitive, lol) and eating cake. They even played the little bit from the Sound of Music where they all say goodbye in song. I'm going to miss that lot. Oh well, I shall see them again in about a months time for Soul Survivor, woot woot! :)
And thanks to Dan and Kat for attempting (and failing quite entertainingly) to draw me a map to the train station near Dans house since I was there for most of Thursday. Do love you two very much, was good fun. x

Leaving Do

2009-07-08T11:38:00.002+01:00

Last night was good fun, thanks to everyone who came! Went out to Pizza Hut with a bunch of friends and had a great time. Lots of interesting conversations and stuff. I was informed that I'm not allowed to move, quite a few times. I also received several kidnapping threats but I did say that I shall stay alert in case any of them tries to come near me with rope and chloroform, lol. After dinner some of us went out for drinks. I got to try a few types of cocktail as Beki ended up buying two pitchers and Dan bought a couple too or which I tried some. None of them would particularly be my drink of choice but they were interesting to try. One drinking game did occur but to be honest, my friends don't particularly need incentive to drink, lol. Though we didn't actually drink that much, we still all walked home in a non-drunken state after. We departed at various points when people got near their homes, in the end it was just me and Dan, and when we got to the end of the road we ended up talking for ages, and I think I ended up hugging him goodbye about 5 times, lol. Have made promises to see him tomorrow, so that should be fun :).

Got home about half 12 last night so not too bad really, drank lots of water and went to bed. Had quite a hard time going to sleep as I had to have two injections yesterday afternoon (before the whole leaving thing) and I'm one of those people who sleeps on their side so it was really hard to find a way to lie kind of on my side without it hurting... But I did manage to sleep for about 10 hours or so, lots of sleep is good for you. Well, to a certain extent anyway.

While out yesterday Beki was trying to convince me to go clubbing with the girls tonight, but I think I'll probably pass as it's not hugely my sort of thing, and I really should help mum sort out the house as we've only got a few days left...

Better go now, mum has been 'encouraging' me to do some cleaning and stuff. Plus I need to go get some breakfast...

Time really does fly...

2009-07-05T12:52:00.002+01:00

Wow. Everything's happening so fast! Exams are over. Yesterday was my last day of work. Most of the stuff in our house has been moved to our new house. Have said goodbye to the people at church just now and came home (Mum and Dad were a bit optimistic about their ability to escape friendly churchgoers I think, they're still there) - spent a lot of time repeating all the details of where I'll be going to uni and how, yes, it will be strange to be going somewhere only for a few months before going somewhere else. But you kind of expect that in this sort of scenario for someone my age. There isn't really anything else they can ask me, lol. I got a lovely card from the 3-5 year olds (organised by Sally who's in charge, of course), and a book voucher, in the card they drew little pictures and the one who can write signed her name. They are lovely. I'm going to miss helping out with that group, and doing creche too. It's weird to think we've been in that church for 7 years now! It's certainly changed since we first came.
Anyway, today dad and his brother are taking another load up to our new house so I'd better go finish packing clothes and anything else that is currently packable.
Only a week left before I'm gone too!

VeggieTales

2009-06-29T21:14:00.008+01:00

You've gotta love VeggieTales. The wonderful Christian messages surrounded by bright colours, playful characters and great songs. Ok, yes, they're aimed for people significantly younger than I am but I think that once you start loving VeggieTales, it never ends.

Just thought I'd share that with you. I've been watching some of the VeggieTales songs on DVD - my favourite is 'Hope's Song' from 'An Easter Carol', it's really beautiful - it's sung by Rebecca St. James. See it on Youtube here.

The Weather

2009-06-28T22:41:00.004+01:00

I don't like the weather at the moment, it's too hot and slightly humid...
Hence why I don't like Malaysian weather... but you know, they'd come here and think this weather was cool, lol.
My favourite sort of weather is when it's warmish, breezy (I love the wind :D) and cloudyish (so that the sun isn't so direct and burning).
I'd rather have it be too cold than too hot, it's much easier to do something about being to cold than to do something about being too hot. On the downside, when it's cold you always have the central heating on and consequently get all dry throated in the morning, resulting in an inability to sing and an unpleasant taste in your mouth when you wake up. I meant singing when you're awake - it's generally a difficult to consciously sing while unconscious.
Oh yes, but until a couple of minutes ago I forgot that for me, hot weather comes with more nose bleeds, and considering the numerous nosebleeds I have during the winter, it's not pleasant to have them increased.

Anyway, done talking about the weather. I had a lovely time with Carol and co. today :). I'm planning to organise a little farewelly thing this week. Gotta do that tonight or tomorrow. Probably tomorrow.
Oh, and I'm quite happy because I've found some new websites for free piano music. I learnt a very basic version of 'You're not sorry' by Taylor Swift from a youtube video. Good stuff.
Better go now, lots to do, and then lots of sleep to be had...

Onwards

2009-06-24T23:00:00.003+01:00

Well, I've been packing, like a good little girl. No more exams! Woot woot.
Not sure how well I did on my resit paper, possibly better than last time (when I got an E) but still not brilliant. I think I got about 46/75. But I'll find out eventually. Just glad it's over. Either way, I've still got a B overall for the A2 so even if I do only get a D or something it doesn't hugely matter...
Today I've been listening to my blog music player loop round and round and round while trying to sort out more of the stuff in my room, mainly focusing on my old college notes and stuff. I really want to keep quite a bit of it but I'm trying to get rid of as much as possible at the same time... I feel particularly sad getting rid of my lovely colour coded hand written notes. I don't mind about getting rid of maths notes so much though as they're too confusing to try and read, lol.
I'm keeping most of my revision mindmaps (mainly for Psych and History last year), I do love my colourful mindmaps. Wonderful.

On a different note, I remembered today about spiders. Not the arachnid kind, but the ones where you put a scoop of ice cream in the top of a glass of coke. I think they're called various things over here, like coke floats and stuff (more sensible names I suppose) but I forgot that I used to call them spiders in NZ. Good stuff.

Anyway, must go, have to be up early tomorrow to go into college and sort out the exhibition of out work. After tomorrow there's just leavers day and then that's it! I won't be back to college again except to get my results in Aug. It makes me a bit sad as I do love the place but progress is a good thing, as much as I would like to linger at this stage for longer.

Oh yes, and I've bought some more Tamora Pierce books, so that makes me happy. But yes, I really am going...