What have I been doing the past three Thursday nights?
Food Safari is back for its fourth season, and now I’m wasting my time writing this instead of watching it!
Why didn’t I know you were back Maeve O’Meara?!?
Coming up on my next blog: I told you I’d get distracted.
This is something I wrote today for my work blog.
And it is something I think that I want to share on my personal blog too.
And I reckon it especially relevant to yesterday’s idea of Everything is Alright.
And so I am posting it here too.
And I promise that I will go back to the things I learnt from Soundwave tomorrow.
Don’t pop a pill, Read a book (Sandy Smith from the SMH)
So yesterday I came across a very interesting article on the Sydney Morning Herald website about how reading can actually be used to support a person’s emotional development and stability.
For example, the article suggest that
Experts believe reading can transform lives, helping people deal with a variety of psychological and emotional problems, from stress and anxiety to grief and depression.
What I really liked about it was that reading is calming, that losing yourself in an imaginary world can help you figure out what to do in this one.
cognitive neuropsychologist Dr David Lewis…found that reading silently for just six minutes, slowed the heart rate and eased muscle tension in research volunteers.
Just imagine what 20 minutes during START is doing for you!
And it really struck a chord with me because I have been reading so much Young Adult fiction lately and really, truly feel that it influences my emotions as I read. I am never so emotional as when I read YA fiction.
And I wonder why that is?
The article says
These characters often seem to speak directly to us; keeping us company, reminding us we are not the only one feeling this way and at times offering us hope
Often I think it is because YA fiction is exceptionally honest. It doesn’t try to be High Literature, it just tries to give teens an idea of how life is for them, to reflect back what they are feeling and show them that there is a way through it (though perhaps with less vampires).
YA fiction is raw and raging. It doesn’t keep it’s emotionality in check like adult fiction does because its readers are experiencing this same tumultuous feeling.
So I say go read some YA fiction and FEEL.
Coming up on my next blog: Will it be what I have promised or some other ramblings that distract me.
This is what it looks like sitting above a festival.
On the weekend I went to the Soundwave festival. I haven’t been to a music festival in ages, probably four to five years, and this weekend reminded me of why I used to go and why I stopped going.
I went because there were a few bands there that I have liked for ages and that barely ever tour in Australia. I also went because my friends wanted to go and it is fun to hang out together listening to music.
I had a pretty awesome day.
This is what I could see of Blink 182
And The Offspring who had the best set I have almost seen anyone ever play (except maybe Robbie Williams).
And Motion City Soundtrack who I didn’t think I was going to get to see but I did and it was just a awesome end to the night (I sat only twenty meters from them just listening and enjoying myself and they played my favourite song (that has titled this post) very last).
And so my posts over the next few days will all be dedicated to things that I learnt at Soundwave.
Coming up on my next blog: Lesson One – I’m old, but I’m not really old.
I am now in full wedding mode.
This is my favourite part of the wedding process.
The beginning.
The magazines.
The planning.
I don’t know how much I have revealed about myself in this blog (ha) but I feel I should tell you that I am quite specific in the way that I like things and thus I like planning very much. I like all things organisational. It goes well with my paper loving gene.
So now I have very grand and far reaching plans for the preparations for this wedding (even if it is going tone a few years away).
And most of them involve bridal magazines, spotlight and list making.
And just in case you wanted to see, this is the ring!
Coming up on my next blog: Who knows if there will be any more blog now that I have a wedding to keep me occupied.
I did not have a good morning this morning.
First of all I do not like humidity.
But it’s more than that. Sometimes I just can’t stop.
Stop being mean.
Stop being sad.
Stop being annoyed.
It’s like the whole anxiety thing. Sometimes I just can’t be rational.
Luckily I have people who like me (even after I’ve been mean) and they say nice things and make me feel better.
And good things have been happening all around me.
My Sister just got engaged!
And it’s Soundwave today.
And I am watching The Other Guys which is the funniest movie I have seen this year.
And this morning I also finished reading The Uncommon Reader and besides being an awesome book, I learnt something from the Queen.
What’s the point of writing if you’re not being honest.
Coming up on my next blog: Monday after a big concert…
Today I bought and watched The Artist.
One thing that is unconducive to my blogging as not having a topic to blog about is other people reading my blog over my shoulder as I write it (you know who you are).
Anyway,
I had not watched it because I didn’t think I would like it.
I don’t enjoy black and white movies. I’ve watched Casablanca, but that’s about it.
I just can’t focus on black and white. I don’t know why they bothered.
But I do like The Artist. I think the combination of no colour and no sound is a good one. I think I may even have liked the silent movies.
What I like about this movie is the way that everything is exaggerated but also so simple.
But without sound you can’t help but talk through it.
What it does induce is talking about the film itself (more than talking about other things during it). And when you start talking about a movie while you are watching it, you can’t help but start analysing it English teacher style.
Because they can’t use words they have to use visual language. And as with the acting it is also exaggerated. Everything is what it is but it is also something else.
And who doesn’t like a dog that can act so well?
The title also has double meaning as tomorrow I am going to Soundwave. And no No Doubt aren’t playing, but I always get them confused with Garbage who are.
So expect an early post from me tomorrow or perhaps none at all.
Coming up on my next blog: Will there be a blog on February 24?
I have definitely left this too late tonight.
I had flashes of brilliance earlier in the evening. Especially when my friends were talking and I saw blog titles in everything they said.
But now we have progressed too far and are talking about Lego and taking sickies and while there may be blogs in those topics but I am too tired to think them out.
And so that is all tonight.
Sunday won’t be any better.
Soundwave.
Coming up on my next blog: A really long post to make up for this one and for the other one that is bound to happen this weekend.
You know how yesterday I said I didn’t want to write about work?
Well, that still stands but work did inspire me to day for this post and I also kind of used this title for my work blog post today too.
So while I’m not lifting the content right from that blog I am going to use what I can.
Today made me remember that sometimes we forget things.
Actually it goes back to yesterday even in a meeting talking about who we are and what we do.
Sometimes I think I forget to be nice.
Or I forget that the people I deal with are, you know, people too.
Or that there are consequences and ramifications from my actions.
It kind of goes back to my whole mantra this year, my 2013 worldview. I need to let things go, but I also need to be more aware of what I am doing in general.
I think it is so easy to get stuck down in the bog of life. And I do mean bog. Life gets sticky and messy and dirty and, let’s face it, boring (can anyone else say bog?). And the problem is not that it gets like that. The problem is that we let it. And we accept it.
I can’t remember if I have said here before, but sometimes I feel terrible separation anxiety and that comes out of my fear of missing out. I get so worried that I will make the wrong decision that I end up not enjoying whatever it is I have ended up deciding to do. And I get so stuck in routine that spontaneity adds to my anxiety.
What I wanted to say at the beginning of this post (and what I think I have strayed from terribly on an unrelated tangent) is that I think I need to remember what is good and do it. There are things that just make sense, that are easy to do, but that are also easy to forget or overlook when the mundane things that seem important but aren’t catch up with us. Urgency does not nessecitate importance.
You need to do the things that are important but not urgent most of the time.
Coming up on my next blog: I get to have dinner with my Thai tiger taming traveller friend (sorry to those who I have already used this phrase with today but I needed the world to know of my awesome alliteration attributes (and yes I just did that one on purpose too)).
It’s now a chore.
There are some days I don’t want to do it at all.
But now I feel I have to.
My problem is two fold.
When I work I get tired and I don’t want to write. And when I work I don’t do anything exciting and I don’t want to blog about work (that is what my work blog is for) and so I have nothing to really blog about.
Right now I am catching up on the last episode of Next Stop Hollywood and it is sad.
Because it is the last episode and I like the show and don’t want it to be over. And also because my favourite actor in it is sad because he didn’t catch his big break. And he tried so hard.
My questions is
why is America the place to go to make movies and TV shows?
Who decided that? Why is the centre of Western Culture seemingly America? Or at least why is it so for moving pictures. I know many people would argue that it’s not, especially for other aspects of the arts. But that’s what our programming is filled with, our radio plays and our magazines send paparazzi out for.
My other question is
can a film star call themselves an artist?
And if they call themselves that, rather than someone else using that term to describe them, is that worse?
Coming up on my next blog: I mix up some more mortar.
I don’t think I understand the whole interior design thing, though I feel that I may have some skills in that area as I am always rearranging the furniture at work.
But the whole beautifully designed things with no purpose or that are so nice that you don’t want to use them, I don’t really understand.
This past weekend I bought the delicious magazine because it is the annual Italian edition (and I think I am going to cook everything in it). But with it I got a free interior design magazine. But all it seems to be is one giant catalogue.
I love when some people talk about design they try and act all cool like they don’t really mean things to look the way they do or they haven’t chosen a certain thing because of the way it looks, but we all know they did.
If your style is not a style then why are you in a style magazine?
Coming up on my next blog: I am going to start cooking out of Nigelissima.
You Know How People Talk 