There's changing times...

"There's changing times,
and changing lives,
trains of thought,
and trains of desire.."

My life is changing. In ways that I never imagned possible, my life has taken a course which twists and turns through the darkest depth of my psyche right through to the happiest moments. These twists and turns cause questions to arise; Am I on the right path? Do I really enjoy what I'm doing? Do I just enjoy the idea that won't end up doing a "proper" job?

If I'm being honest (and what other way is there to be), my summer wasn't great. In fact it was pretty crappy. There have been some awesome moments but I believe that I always knew in the back of my mind that these moments were tainted by something not so sweet. Now over the years I have developed a sort of self-perpetuating happiness and a positivity that usually kicks in when things are going wrong and manages to keep me positively afloat. Sometimes though the feeling that I just want to crawl beneath the sheets and hold someone until the world rights its wrongs is so very strong. That's not to say that I would be able to - A.D.D. pretty much prevents me from staying still for anything longer than 5 minutes (even when I'm asleep) - or that because I want to hide I have given up on life at all. But it does make me begin to wonder whether any of this is worth it all. Is it worth struggling through a university course where ultimately my happiness isn't guaranteed just to fulfill some part of my life that I feel is "necessary"? Is it worth struggling into a difficult career when I know that I would be quite happy making music as a hobby in my bedroom? Of course I know that I could never be happy in any other career and maybe I'm being stupid and naive in thinking that I could ever find the kind of happiness I strive for in my life but it definitely feels like there's a choice I have to make between the short, sweet pleasure and a longer pleasure that is more difficult to achieve.

Change can be a wonderful and intoxicating thing and it is in these uncertain times that I have to grab life with both my hands and shake it until I have coveted every last second it has to offer.

This moment is all I have and goddamnit it's fucking awesome!

Quote of the day: 
"aren't we married?!
I ainʼt living in the dark no more
it's not a promise, Iʼm just gonna call it" - Bon Iver, Beth/Rest

Song of the day: Nitin Sawhney - Days of Fire

Three little words...

I haven't blogged in ages and to be honest I don't know why. Maybe it's because I tend to blog when I'm not feeling great and I've been feeling awesome for a while now? I hope that's the reason. :)


So, what have I been up to?

Well, I finished my album Apathy Just Died which was for my university course and was graded at a B. I have it for sale now which is awesome. :D I have finished the year and having just done my exams I have found out that I have four re-sits to take. This isn't great. In fact this is pretty crappy. But lo and behold my magical and fantastic optimism managed to kick in before I got too dejected about it and I am feeling positive that I will make it through to second year! Time now to knuckle down and make sure I can go into my re-sits feeling confident and pass them with flying colours!

Besides uni work I've been doing loads of musical work, specifically on my Cosmic Fallacies project. It's full of disco, house, techno awesomeness and has rejuvinated my love of music (not that it ever really waned...)

I am currently failing to find work but have sent out some c.v.'s and have signed up to an agency. I will be handing out more c.v.'s and looking in different places over the coming weeks and hopefully I will find something that will help me pay of my "debt".

I place debt in inverted commas because it wasn't voluntary debt more just the goverment expecting my parents to pay and my parents expecting me to pay half of it back...

So yeah, not much more to report really except that life is awesome and stuff... oh wait!

I have no idea how I could have forgotten!

I now have a boyfriend. :D He is awesome and gorgeous and has a really cute grin he does when our noses touch and I tease him for a kiss. We have now been together just over two months and I am incredibly happy. He makes me smile so much. :D :D :D :D

I have been missing him like crazy recently due to him being in Birmingham and me being in Blackpool but I got to spend an awesome long weekend with him for his birthday and I get to see him in August when we go see Much Ado About Nothing with........ DAVID TENNANT and KATHERINE TATE! Fuck yeah! It's going to be fantastic... boyfriend, Shakespeare, famous people what more could I want!? :P


So yeah, life has been full of awesome and crap in equal doses recently but once again I have managed to keep my spirits high and I am just as happy and energetic as ever. If not more so!

Peace.

Quote of the day: "They say home is where the heart is, and my heart is in your hands..." - David Broadhurst
Song of the day: Tensnake - Something about you (As egotistical as it it I'd like to be able to link to the remix of this song that I'm working on for the competition but it's not online yet)

There was a time, when I fell in love with a city...

You will have to excuse the rambling of this post as I am really knackered and so some editing might have to occur.


"There was a time, when I fell in love with a city;
through the back-door alleys,
through the cold night air;
where I fell in love with the moment,
and reached for the highest stars..."



Gods I miss Lancaster. It has this, this feeling, it's indescribable but it's the feeling of the cool night air against your face, the setting of the sun and the watching of films squished into someone's front room. It's a feeling that I know will never leave me and it continues to inspire me even after all these years.

Now as many of you will know, my parents live close to Blackpool (about 40 minutes away from Lancaster).

What many of you will now know, however, is that every Saturday for a fair few years I attended Dallas Road School for music lessons in the recorder, singing, drumming and playing in swing band. I also went to a tiny place somewhere to learn to dance. Me and my family also atteneded many of the Promenade Theatre Shows in Williamsons Park and on occassion went to The Dukes Cinema/Theatre to watch something.

So while my main affinity with Lancaster is through being a student there we go back a lot further than that and it is a city that I keep coming back to as home.

Lancaster has this "draw" to it that is undeniable and it seems to draw loads of really cool to the university and then somehow it's 10 years later and they haven't left yet. Maybe it's this that draws my romantic side to the place, but somehow I don't think so.

What I think draws me most is that it's full of really interesting things. It has a plethora of really awesome, dark and dingy pubs where you can while away the hours having polite conversation, heated discussion or just getting rat-arsed. It has a great multitude of fantastic houses in odd locations for BBQ's, DVD nights and just hanging with friends. It has the River Lune running through it, which is fantastic to walk along.

One of my favourite things about the place has to be Williamsons Park. It is an expanse of greenery and woodland that houses the Ashton Memorial and the butterfly house.

It is great to walk in, great to play games in, great to watch "promenade theatre" in, great to have BBQ's in, great for Hanami and great just to sit at the top of and watch the sun go down.

Another thing I've found about Lancaster is that everything is interconnected. Except the university that is (although that's only a short bur-ride away). By interconnected I mean that you can walk to pretty much everything. It might take you 20 minutes to walk from one side of town to the other but it's doable and enjoyable.

In short I feel like I have fallen in love with a city. I never thought it was possible but I know deep down in my heart that I shall be returning at some point to live there for a while.


Now enough rambling. In other news, I have a hot date when I get back to Bangor. He's awesome and cute and makes me smile and I most definitely do not want to jump him the moment I get back. ;P

We all dance to a different drum...

Currently I am in the twighlight zone between hyper from jagerbombs and sleepy/pissed off. The reasons are thusly;

Tonight entailed me going out for my friend Kate's birthday. It started off well enough with me and my good friend Ollie getting out womens outfits on (mine considerably more serious and - if I do say so myself - convincing. We then proceeded to the "Yellow" pub where we chatted and drank and made merry. So far so good. Then we proceeded to a club called Base where everything started to go downhill.

Normally I enjoy clubbing and love nothing more than spending an evening dancing constantly and getting more and more drunk. The problem with tonight? A 'silent disco'.

For those who do not know a silent disco is an event where the club is for the most part "silent" and upon paying a £2 deposit you are given a pair of headphones with which to listen to the dj. Normally there will be two dj's on two different headphone channels playing different styles of music so people can choose which dj to listen to yet still be in the company of their friends. At least that's how they advertise it.

The reality is a little different. Yes you can listen to a different dj to your friends and still dance together but nothing quite ruins your night like trying to dance the night away to a particular song while the whole club is singing another. Tonight the offending song was Killing in the name of. This is a song that has only even been played in "dance music clubs" since it got to Christmas number one a year or so ago. Now obvious dislike for the overplaying and false popularity of the song aside it managed to ruin part of my night by causing the whole club to erupt into a cacophony of "fuck you I won't do what you tell me!" while I was trying to dance to the undeniably "radio 1" style dance song that had somehow engrossed me so.

 This happened a few times with a few different songs and it seemed like the whole club was after near instant gratification as they switched dj's in an almost unified manner.

Now correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the whole idea of clubbing to dance to some awesome music with your friends? Of course getting drunk/wasted/fucked on drugs can be sustituted for "having a good time" but I feel that it is relatively easy to have tremendous amounts of fun withoug getting drunk or wasted. I may have an overly "sentimental" view of clubbing but I truly believe that a club should be operating as one, dancing in time with the music, the rise and fall of each crescendo matching the rise and fall in adrenaline, the beating of hearts unified by the beating of the bass drum and the throb of the bassline, the mixing and eventual "drop" of a new song steering the night on its path.

The idea of going into a club is surely to dance to music with other people. If I wanted to stick on headphones and dance I could do it in my bedroom and have as good a time (if not better). There is something magikal about the way humans react to music and nothing beats a group of complete strangers, being on the same level, feeling the same feelings/emotions and going absolutley mental on the dancefloor to the songs being played by the dj.

I sincerely believe that clubbing has lost its way and that if allowed to continue it will end up being more and more diluted, and end up a quivering wreck, the ghost of its former self.

Another thing that got on my nerves was the lack of 'feeling' in the club. When music is played on top quality speakers at high volumes the music takes on a life of its own in the form of "feeling". This can best be felt when standing right next to the speaker and when you can feel the bass pounding through your whole body. This "feeling" is lost when listening through headphones and being the music nerd that I am, even if the songs are crap I can still enjoy good sound from a nice soundsystem.

Certain parts of the bodies (such as the back of the knees) are cavities. These cavities have a certain frequency and when these frequencies are played at loud volumes (around 96 db) they cause that cavity to involuntarily move. This means that when the kick drum of a song is tuned right it should make clubbers dance involuntarily. You can consciously stop it but if you're idly stood around chatting your legs will begin to twitch and eventually you should end up on the dancefloor. This effect is lost completely when wearing headphones.


And so I am left with nothing to say but "give me a good soundsystem, a room of unified people and you will have me dancing all night long!"


xx

The difference...

Over time I have come to realise that there is a distinct difference between saying you will do something, and actually doing it.

Now is may seem like an obvious point to make but if you really take a look at how many things you say you're going to do and how many things you actually do, you'd be surprised. We all do it and it's a difficult cycle to break, but it seems fairly ingrained into the way we live our lives. It's that thought process when you say you'll do something (i.e. tidy your bedroom or do important task a.) and then you immediately put it in your diary to do tomorrow, or the day after. Granted some things cannot be done straight away. If for instance I needed to go buy milk and stationary then right now it would be very difficult seeing as it's 1:02a.m. (at the time of writing). I will agree that these things can be put in a diary or stuck as a note onto the fridge to do when the shops are open but there are so many other things that we (or at least I) will perpetually put off doing until it gets unbearable.

This is part of the reason why I never really "do things" (like go to festivals or go on holiday with friends etc. etc.). I.e. I'll say I'm going to organise a festival trip but when push comes to shove it's easier said than done and I'll do it tomorrow or the day after or just forget about it altogether because the organising is "incredibly" difficult.

Recently I stumbled across this... This is the diary of Zoog Von Rock (synth-geek-extrodinaire for the band Angelspit) whilst Angelspit were in the process of writing and recording their album Blood Death Ivory. It details the ups and downs; the good, the bad and the ugly of writing an album and how financially, physically and mentally difficult the experience can be.

Reading it made me realise how freaking hard life can be, not only for those in stable jobs but for those in financially unstable careers (like musicians). It has made me realise that I'm going to need to do a hell of a lot to get to where I want to be but it hasn't disheartened me.

If anything it's made me stronger and more positive. Right now I have just finished eating a yummy cheese and onion 'slice' thingy, have been musing on how I can get to where I want to be and more specifically what I need to do to get there whilst still be able to have somewhere to sleep and food to eat.

It's going to be hard as hell but I am determined to get there, and I will but I need to start with small changes.

The first of these is going to be a change in my bedroom. Right now it's a mess. Not as bad as it has been but a mess is a mess all the same. When I have finished this blog I will be turning off the internet, cranking up Blood Death Ivory and tidying my room until it sparkles. I don't care that I don't particularly 'want' to or that I'd much rather be sitting watching Prison Break and refreshing Facebook countless times.

I am going to make this room look pretty and clean and tidy and when I am done. Then I can sleep. Then and only then.

Then in the morning the first thing I am going to do is put on my washing, get a shower and dressed and sort out my important "to-do" items. These include a) filling out fraud forms (to get my £50 back) and b) writing a letter to the Disability Living Allowance people telling them of a change in address. Then after that is done I will be working on the (unfortunately neglected) second half of my album, doing some editing/producing of songs.

I will NOT spend my time sitting watching Prison Break (or any other series or film) or refreshing Facebook every 2 minutes. I shall be using my time to get done the things that need to be done.

The afternoon will consist of some more photography (to sell as prints on my DeviantArt), some longer-term planning and looking at the possibilities of doing some kinf od live performance be that in the form of putting on a gig or putting on a club night.

It is an epic plan that will take some dedication and motivation to impliment but I believe that I can do it.

No long will I be putting off doing things! No longer will I be chained to an oppressive of "I'll do it later"!

I WILL ROCK!

And now, it is time for me to sign off.

Wish me luck.

xx

Dreaming

So, dear blog. It's been a while. Anyways.


I'm beginning to dream again. I can't quite decide whether this is good or bad.

It is good because it means I will reach for the stars and beyond, filling my life with awe and wonder. But at the same time it is bad because It often feels like I have wildly unfounded dreams of grandiose ideas that I will never achieve.

I am torn. Just like my heart is torn.


In which I rant about my (lack of) love life.

I recently split up with my girlfriend and I can't decide between "mourning" or trying to get her back. The former won't do anything and the latter is pointless but I cannot help but think that if I just showed her how much I loved her she might take me back. We broke up as friends and on a mutual "understanding" that it wasn't going to work. That said I still wish I'd grabbed both her hands, stared straight into her deep eyes and told her how much I loved her, told her that I loved her with every fibre of my being and that I would move mountains just to be with her.




That said I am, for now, revelling in a quiet sort of happiness that I have found within myself, within my friends, within my music and within life. I am not running around like a madman and am not always full of energy and "fire" like I usually am but I am contended (for the most part) in my life and I cannot complain all that much.

That is all for now.

xx

Song of the day: Katy Perry - Firework

Quote of the day: Mal: "We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so...very...pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die."

There is inspiration to be found in the tinest grain of sand...

I saw this and it made me smile...


"Someone will always be prettier.
Someone will always be smarter.
Someone's house will be bigger.
Someone will drive a better car.
Someone's children will do better in school.
And Someone's husband will fix more things around the house.
So let it go, and love you and your circumstances.
Think about it.
The prettiest woman in the world can have hell in her heart.
And the most highly favored woman on your job may be unable to have children.
And the richest woman you know, who's got the car, the house, the clothes....might be lonely.
And the word says if "I have not Love, I am nothing."
So, again, love you.
Love who you are.
Look in the mirror in the morning and smile and say:
"I am too blessed to be stressed and too anointed to be disappointed!"
"Winners make things happen. Losers let things happen.""


It has inspired me into a new frame of mind. :D

xx


Quote of the day: To the world you may just be one person, but to one person you may just be the world - Heather Cortez

Song of the day: The Jezabels - A little piece

If fireworks were filled with glitter they'd be the colour of my soul...

Nothing's changed.

Except perhaps the realisation that I have to take a few paces back and hope.

Jack Kerouac said "The only one's for me are the mad ones" and this is something that has always resonated with me. I surround myself with wonderously mad and crazy people not only because they validate my madness but because they are more willing to do crazy and fantastical things with me.


With this in mind I hope we can do many crazy and fantastical things together.

With love

xx

Quote of the day: The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww! - Jack Kerouac

Song of the day: Stop and Stare - Fenech Soler

The bridge disappears and I'm standing on air...

It's been a while since I've blogged. But then again it's been a while since I've felt like "this". I have my wonderful girlfriend to thank for that. She makes me happier than I've been in a while, everytime I look deep into her eyes my heart flutters 1000 times faster and my stomach does sumersaults.

Anyways, back to "this".

"This" is an indescribable feeling, it's that empty, silent sound that hangs around pregnant pauses, it's that moment late at night when you realise you should have done something different. The only problem is that you don't know what you should have (or indeed could have done) and it is with the faintest regret in your mind that you push forward with whatever it is you are doing and end up sleep-deprived and bleary-eyed on the other side.


I think the time has come for me to use the phrase "The shit has hit the fan" for the first time in 2011 and indeed the first time this academic year.

I, like many people, have been bogged down with revision for those all important - yet stupidly timed - post-Christmas exams. The difference with me (and the other people on my Music Technology course) is that I've also had two assignments to complete at the same time (both of which are as of yet unstarted, let alone completed). This was preceeded by no "end of term slow down" in work levels but rather a workload that seemed to gather speed as Christmas grew closer.


Anyways, now I'm not going to complain I have the biggest workload ever - I know a few medical students and their workload is through-the-roof-mental - but what I am going to say is that it would seem that I have a substantially higher workload than some of my other uni friends. By the start of the next term I will have completed approximately 12 assignments, 3 exams and 4 mini-tests all in the space of approximately 14 weeks.


Suffice to say that it's been a hectic term and for the most part I've enjoyed the frantic relief as I've rushed to hand in essays before the deadline, those late night studio sessions as I feverishly finished assignements at god-knows what time in the morning.


Right now I'm beginning to panic slightly.

On Monday I have an assigment due in that I haven't even started, rather, that I don't even have the specific program to do it in!

I feel royally fucked and I know I should have done something differently but I'm beginning to wonder if there was anything I could do.

Have I really been wasting time sat at my desk revising? Did any of it go in? Will I do well in these exams? Will I complete the assignments in time?

I would like to declare that I simply don't have enough time and that it's not my fault but the moment I do that I have to admit that I've been wasting time, something which whilst probably true doesn't offer any comfort when it comes to completing this work and revising for my exams.



Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

I do seem to fail rather spectactualrly when it comes to organisation of my time and getting assignments done in time.


Now all I need is a miracle.


It seems sad that so early into 2011 my optimism should be thwarted but I shall not let it be so.

I shall raise a glass to optimism, to completing my work, to making positive changes to the way I work and to managing to enjoy myself along the way.


Here's hoping it works.

Now for sleep.


xx

Quote of the day: Having heavy conversations about the frivolous constellations of our soul - The Script - Science and Faith.

Song of the day: We apologise for nothing - Fightstar