This week I will mostly be a working gal. Ive got a job....for one week....in college.....Things have changed enormously :p Standing for five hours handing out leaflets that are simple reminders isn't so bad when you have an infectious jazz band playing for half of the time.
My feet hurt.
Despite working for the IT centre, most of my time was spent reassuring stressed parents and international students that, yes the college does know they are alive, and yes they do have a place to sleep tonight. Have a nice soft coloured leaflet to calm your nerves....
My fingers are now blue.
I wish I had the resilience I imagine I do. When job searching I was 100% satisfied that Id be doing a crap, unskilled job that would cause repetitive strain on at least one part of my body. But now that Ive done only one day of a reeeeeeallllly easy job I wish it was my last. Im gonna have to man up, get some intestinal fortitude and get used to working a normal day.
Ive got growing pains!!!
This song made me think about staying young for a long time. Which I want to do.
Something which apparently is an emerging trend. People apparently dont need/dont choose to grow up in rich countries anymore. You can stay twenty till your thirty and be a hipster for life. Thanks to Topshop. Here's a good article on it. Its pretty truthful I feel.
So time to mature just a bit. Get used to working over cramming and not falling back on the mantle of 'student'. Gah. More virgins blood please!
Though now I get to watch te Bourne movies all the way true, never seen one of them all the way trough before. And I get to read whatever I want!! Chapters aint gonna know what hit it. I wana get 'Judging Dev' by Diarmaid Ferriter, and any Flan O'Brien stuff I can. Also wana find the audio book of the originial broadcasts of War of the Worlds. Ang I get to Jam, and drink, finish Samurai Jack and the new IT Crowd and Mad Men, might even get into The Wire.
Its the last week. Enter the paranoia. Up until two days ago I was over the moon at almost being finished. Now, predicatably, the last week of the masters is driving me crazy. Talking to people in the course is no reassurance. Everyone just hypes each other up. Among the topics of discussion was wether our supervisors had already pened our grades, knowing that we were already a B or A- or whatever. Its freaken me out.
My German supervisor said that Universities have a tradition of being focal points of protests, debate and public pressure. However he said that UCD was nothing like this. That its almost the opposite, where students focussed on grades beyond anything else in preparing themselves to enter proffesional jobs that continued the present public traditions. That seems very true right now. Everyones terrified of what they are thought as by their lecturers and whether theyre following the right formula. Everyones walking on egg shells and pretty desparate for approval. It sucks. Its a horrible atmosphere.
and WPA art rules!! Check it out http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaposters/about.html
Thursday, July 15, 2010
I have offivial handed in the first chapter of my thesis! Hurrah! Its 6,000 words long in all its disgusting glory, way longer than I intended it to be, fully half of my minimum required word count. But hey, if my supervisior doesnt tear it to shreds before my tiny eyes, IM FLYING BABY!!
Man its a relief. Ive been feeling like Bill murray trapped inside that gravy separator in that Disney movie...Flubber. Ive been incapable of independent thought, and have the sneaking suspicion that things I normally would have found interesting have been slipping past me without noticing. For example, I was at the Hard Rock Cafe the other day for Katies 21st, and it it wasnt for Isaac, I would have completed missied the one-third of a stair case running to nowhere adorned with random crap. I love that kinda stuff! Makes me feel like doing stuff.
Similarly Ive lost whatever ability I may have had to be creative; I get a kinda mental constipation, pure frustration, whenever I feel like trying to create something. Like being 7 and told go to bed when the sun is still up. I have so much to give!!!!
Seriously, this course work is mental genocide. Its all casualty statistics, shady violent characters, and a disinterested audience. When its over, I will a.) hibernate, b.) flip out and extort all my friends for drink money, c.) sit in a puddle of tears until I have something else to hate. Probably all three.
If youre like me, and the world revolves around you too, then you I hope you will appreciate these sentiments of Cobblepot-centrism. So for now, like after the perfect poop, Ill enjoy the calm while it lasts.
Hurrah! Ive decide to start a music blog and there aint a fludging thig you can do to stop me! (unless you know me and apply a moderate amount of ridicule and spelling correction) Ive been listening to the same music for forvever until recently, and Ive been thinking about doing something slightly more productive then listening to music I dont own on youtube repetively for hours and hours, so I thought Id give it a shot. Should be either a powerful procratination tool, or a horrible self inflicted burden; time will tell.
I wana talk about Muse and The Resistance in my first post (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_sHYn_cSn0 ), as like starting this blog, it took me ages to like the idea of it. It takes me forever to get into to new music, I find it irritating, difficult and everything sounds shit at first. This is partly cause when I like something, I like it to death; continual artist replay is my middle name! (Oswald Continualartistreplay Cobblepot in case you were confusing me with anyone else) I wish I had the stats on the amount of times Ive listened to Battle of Los Angeles, Toxicity, Mothers Milk, Origins of Symmetry and Songs for the Deaf. Though theyre the kind of things I expect to find out when I die; along with how far in meters Ive walked and how much food in kilogrammes ive eaten during my life.
The first I heard of the album was the single Uprising on Phantom FM. I wasnt blown away, but liked it and bought the album as soon as I could afford it, mainly out of loyalty. At first I didnt like it; it seemed nothing like their others, it was heavily themed, quieter in many respects and more popy.
I couldnt find any real 'foundation' song in it, there was no Hysteria, New Born, Knights of Cydonia or Sunburn. Every song on the album seemed different, tied together only by its 1984 themed lyrics and I felt it lacked the punch of earlier albums. This was consolidated for me with the second single of the album being Undisclosed Desires; the catchiest most 'popy' song off the album.
I almost hated it at this stage. If I dont love something fairly quickly, I hate it. Or think I do. Find shades of grey in music difficult; which is why I think I hate band like Foo Fighters, Placebo, Blur and Artic Monkeys, but Im only lying.
This album seemed fairly grey to me so on the hate pile it went. Though through continualartistreplay of Muse's other music, I found it impossible to let a whole album just sit there that Id spent money on doing nothing, so I gave it another shot. I did come to like some parts of it; Uprising is fun, especially when youve seen videos of it played live, United States of Eurasia makes me laugh and think of Queen whilst rockin the socks, and I Belong to you, desptie its disgusting Twilight abduction makes a chronic anti-dancer wana shuffle around at pace.
However it was mainly through listening to the 3 part symphony at the end of the CD that got me into it. I placed all the mellower music tracks in a playlist including these and listened to them over and over. It got me used to the big over arching theme of the album, helped in no small amount by the fact that I was listening to the audio book of 1984 at the same time.....maybe thats cheating....
But either way I began to come around to it; the popy songs stayed catchy but in a good, sing along kinda way. The music was still of Muse's quality, they were just new aspects of their style. I came around to the longer tracks which mixed face pace and mellow, mainly Unnatural Selection and I Belong to You.
It is a good album, and I glad Muse made it; it seemse pretty unique to me, and very atmospheric. The main gripe I have with is that while I do listen to it often enough, I dont listen to it when I feel like a bit of Muse. All their other others albums contained a well balanced mix of continuity and change, but The Resistance seemed to loose this balance and become something different. Good but different.
