An End, A Beginning, And One Big Cliche?

Hello guys,

Well, I'm back from England...Yeah, it was cool. The plane ride was better than most, though it was a fair bit longer than most...Not that those two are at all connected. Completely disconnected, if anything. I ended up watching two episodes of The Simpsons. two episodes of Family Guy, Coraline, Star Trek(Half of it, anyway), That Mitchell And Webb Look, a documentary about Sir Allen Sugar, and listened to some Lady GaGa too. So it was cool other than the missing of the wonderful Mock The Week and Nevermind The Buzzcocks on the list. Sad. DX

But, I'm here now; Remarkably un-jet-lagged, thirsty, and sliding around on our new hard wood flooring. But, that is pointless like a lot of things. This post actually has a purpose!

I've been thinking...How long have I been writing this for? 15 months or so? Not this specific post, clearly, but this whole blog. I may not be that good at it or that interesting or anything, but I love doing it. But, from now on I'm going to stop writing here...

BUT WAIT! I've made a new blog; www.soulbutnotsoldier.wordpress.com . Yes, yes, Wordpress! I've been reading a few Wordpress blogs lately. I seem to be prefer the look of their pages. More organised and professional and stuff. So, I thought I'd give it a go...You know, new day, nearly a new school year, new style. I'll continue my regular blogging habits there and see how it goes...

Sol this blog is now no longer in use. Rest in peace, Can You Read My Mind, as I send you away to the vast Blogger graveyard. Hopefully, hint hint, some of these blogs readers will hop on over to my new blog, so there's not much difference in there.

Last post here...DONE!

- Naomi

V Festival Day Two

Oh my god, these post-anything-anything blogs take so darn long...Ugh...

Anyway, hello! To keep this as quick as possible, I'll just say if miraculously you simply stumbled across this blog without reading previous inserts, that this is the 2nd part of the tale of the music festival I went to this past weekend. Enjoy?

The traffic getting in was as uneventful as always, and we got their at eleven, instead of, ridiculously, ten in the morning the previous day. They let us in early, and it wasn't too crowded. Most of the campers were too hung-over to get out of their tents that morning, lucky for everyone else. We still had half an hour to use up, so we went off again to look at some of the stalls. We'd promised my sister a present, which was quite difficult when she doesn't like music at all...But, we did somehow find a small blue elephant model, and a dog finger puppet, after a long time spent looking.

We got to the main stage for twelve. Bjorn Again was the first act on the main stage. They're an awful ABBA tribute act, in case you don't know. My mom thought we should go see them "for a giggle", despite me making quite clear they'd almost certainly be something better and/or more reputable playing somewhere around the festival. They started twenty minutes late, though it gave me time to send texts into the festival's screen system and allow one ofn them o actually get through! They finally opened with Waterloo. That's the only song by them I knew, other than the keyboard line of the 2nd song.

Fortunately we only watched three songs by them before heading over to the 2nd stage. Our schedules had been miss-printed for that stage and we were trying to see if there would be anywhere that said so. There wasn't, unsurprisingly, though I thought paying another 20 pounds just to see what time five or six people were playing. Though, at that tine, The King Blues were on! I only know one song, which I have a sort of love-hate relationship with. The fact that I can't simply place them in one genre--My musical filing cabinet, of sorts--Annoys me no end.

We went to watch the act in the "Up and coming bands" tent after that. They were a strange hard rock act, but they seemed alright. We stayed for one song then went around the shops, yet again. We went to the official merchandise tent, in particular, and I came out with a blue and red t-shirt with "Virgin festival" on the front and a list of all the bands playing on the back, and a black Snow Patrol shirt, identical to the cover of A Hundred Thousand Suns cover. And my mom got a red mug with "V Fest" written across sideways. Not exactly an example of fine artistry or fashion in either cases, but good nonetheless.

At that point we got back to the main stage for Ocean Colour Scene. We were sat on the right of the stage for the first time, sitting down. I was told we couldn't go into the mosh pit until it cooled down, though considering most people around us were smoking/drinking/making out/all of the above, it wasn't a very pleasant place to be. I bought a an ice cream with a flake in(far superior to all American ice creams) while the band closed with The Day We Caught The Train, which is the one song by them I really like.

Presumably a large majority of people are simply skimming this, and if so, you must read this paragraph. We were walking to the 2nd stage when we heard booing and shouting start to come from the crowd, and I turned around to look at the screens by the stage. I saw them mention something about Snow Patrol, and I moved forward to get a closer look. The screens were flashing slowly between two messages

"We regret to inform you that Oasis have pulled out from headlining due to sickness"

"Snow Patrol will now be headlining The V Stage"

Understandably, this would annoy a lot of people. This show was to be the last show of their tour of Dig Out Your Soul, and by the the looks of things, the last show for quite a long time indeed. But "due to sickness"? Yeah, right. If, say, any other band there had pulled out due to sickness, people would be disappointed but at least they'd believe it. When Oasis pulls out, people just assume it's "Oasis being Oasis". People thought it was one of two things; Noel and Liam having another argument(They're brothers. They hate each other. They fight. Using Twitter. For crying out loud.), or simply just them being over-payed, lazy...ugh, you get my point. They'd played near their home town the night before, and went to a soccer game that afternoon too. They sound like they're practically at their death-beds. You may not like playing here Oasis, but for the record; Chelmsford>>>>>>>>>Manchester.

After this we did randomly stumble across one of my mom's old friends who didn't live too far away. We talked for a while--Nothing too interesting. We wondered over to the 2nd stage. The Proclaimerswere ending at this point. We sat down a way away from the stage and texted a few people about the big, unfortunate news. We only really stayed there for 500 Miles. They probably ended with that.

We walked through one of the smaller tents. A strange sort of shoe-shine band in white masks were playing. Personally better than the previous band, but still not that amazing. With no one of particular interest on, we went to watch an extended-set of James Morisson on the main stage, from a huge distance away. I only recognised Wonderful World out of the songs I heard. When I was, like, ten years old that was my favorite song. I thought the lyrics were sort of pretty. In the time passed, I hadn't found out that he'd become a lot of peoples' guilty pleasure, though that seemed fairly obvious now.

After him they played a gap in order to accommodate new Gallagher-related issues and we continued to text people, wander around the smaller tents, and eat. We got back to the main stage for about four. We made it a little way into the crowd for the next band; Biffy Clyro. My mom didn't seem too impressed, in typical parental style. Three pale, bearded, shirtless, tattooed Scottish blokes; What's not to enjoy? Though, you could hardly hear the singing over the trash of guitar, but I think that's the point when it comes to music such as that. We watched three or four songs--Including 57, my favorite--Before moving on.

For the thousandth time, we headed back to the second stage for Athlete. I only heard two songs; One I didn't know, and their best by a mile; Wires. I didn't know they were that popular, but hey, for music like that, they were remarkably good live.

Unfortunately, they were just ending then. We moved a way back, got some smoothies, and waited for the next act. Wait for it...Katy Perry. One or two of you may recall me in a moment rambling chaos describing Waking Up In Vegas as "too generic, even for music like that", or something along those lines. Over the past couple of months that--And Hot N Cold--did grow on me a fair bit. I've recently discovered that she is among a long list of my guilty pleasures. So, yes, we did end up watching her a bit. She's quite good live, jumping between giant flamingos and strawberries.Though we did go after Waking Up.



We headed back to the main stage yet again for James. James who, you might well be thinking yes? I very strange, rock-y pop-y I don't know what-y band I don't like too much, simply called James. I don't quite see the appeal. It's your normal set up, other than a flowery backdrop, an Andy Parsons-lookalike singer who seems to imitate Ian Curtis' dancing style, and a guy in a dress playing tambourines and trumpets. At first I thought that was a gimmick(Amy Winehouse came to play with The Specials the day before, so I was expecting something similar), but no, female clothing or otherwise, he is apparently doing that at every show. What a job, eh? We only sat through a three or four songs. If everything previous wasn't enough, they ended with the singer sucking in some helium from a floral balloon, singing the chorus of Wonderwall, and then walking off with a mysteriously-appearing six or seven year old blonde boy in his arms. Odd.


We'd got to the third or forth row, somehow, for Elbow. The sun was setting now, and thinking about it, that was the perfect them for them. Sooo pretty(<3).Snow Patrol. This slot was essentially schedule chaos. Snow patrol here, Keane on the second stage, and MGMT on the third! We were planning to move between them a bit, but considering we were close to the front and weren't stuck behind Hagrid this night, we decided to stay. Oh my god, was it worth it! They are incredible live. In fact, competing with the Killers from that standpoint. They opened with If There's A Rocket Tie Me To It, I believe that's their most recent single, to a strobe-lighted show, with Gary running, jumping, rocking out, all that good stuff...They also played Crack the Shutters, Run(Watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU_DAbCrpzg), Chasing Cars, Open Your Eyes, Shut Your Eyes, Make This Go On forever, Set The Fire To The Third Bar, Take Back The Cities, among others I've forgotten.


Few people were expecting an encore here. But, sure enough, they came back on, for the first part just Gary with an accoustic guitar, saying "This one's for Oasis" to a background of displeased Oasis fans(The few that remained!). But they changed their minds once they heard the opening guitar of WONDERWALL! That was amazing, too, and they followed it up with Champagne Supernova(Considering they'd never played it before, it was really good!), which of course got everyone singing, before ending with my favorite, You're All I Have <3<3<3<3 In simple terms, I LOVE SNOW PATROL!!

We went through the usual bedlam trying to get out, of course, and that was that. For a year, at least.

Sorry it took me so long to get this out to you guys, but Ill be faster next time. Comment, CBOx, you know it all...Hope you enjoyed it.

V Festival; Day One!

Hello!



As mentioned yesterday in my blog, the past weekend I went to something called V Festival, which is a fairly big music festival over in the UK...And, considering this is actually an important event in my life as apposed to my usual topics of school work and bying CDs, I thought at least some of you might want to hear about it, right? Well, if you do or you don't, I must record this for "later reference", so, enjoy...?



We'd expected the traffic to be a problem on Saturday, so we had to leave a little earlier than I would have hoped. But unfortunately the roads turned out to have no problems at all, considering the campers had already set up Friday night. We were lead into the wrong car park for our tickets, and then walked to the first gate, two hours before we'd actually be let inside the arena.



With plenty of time to burn, we thought we'd walk all the way over to red campsite(We had to get camping tickets, though my mom didn't want to camp), mainly so she could complain how unkempt everyone else looked. It was huge, the campsite, and no matter how far back you looked you couldn't really see an end to it, which must've been a problem for the people in the very middle. In typical festival style there was a line of ten or fifteen tents selling, most commonly, boots, stripy socks, gloves, hates, and sunglasses. I got a pair of big green glasses, the ones with the bars across, before we walked to our closest gate, gate Six, and waited in line. As mentioned yesterday, we were there with a few friends--Under the names of C, G, and B, who came with their mom, step-son, and a couple of friends--J, and A--and their mom. (Disregard the names, as I'm guessing they ll be of no use whatsoever.) Deciding to meet up at this point was a huge mistake, and it turns out they were at Gate Three, the exact other end of the park.



For about an hour we stood, squished up around two or three hundred other people. We'd bought a timetable of who was playing where--Several cards on a string, designed to hang around a person's neck, which wasn't a terribly good style. We were eventually let inside at about 11:50, and we walked with the flow of the people, which turned out to be partly towards the bar, and partly towards the main stage.



McFly was the first band playing at the main stage. Surprising, considering the average McFly fan is too young for their parents to let them go to the festival. But our currently un-found friends wanted to see them, and we'd got to the 5th row, which was pretty cool. After setting up all the cameras and things(Some of the festival is aired on TV), they finally came on at 12:15. After the first song, the singer(Tom, I think his name is), thought the best way to open was "Hi. How are you?", and then the guitarist deemed that too boring and said "I think the real question is how many people are going to contract a sexually transmitted disease this weekend".Um.They played a half-hour run of mostly awful pop songs, including Star Girl, Lie, It's All About you, and a Beastie Boys cover(Yes, I can dislike a band and still know nearly all the song titles), before randomly bringing out two giant inflatable balloons, throwing them into the audience, announcing that we're "all touching McFly's balls", and ending with Five Colours In her Hair.



All the fifteen year old McFly fans in way too much mascara backed out and I moved forward to 2nd row. Starsailor were playing next, and I found out I was at least 20 years younger than their rest of their fans that day. Because they were early on in the day it was only a fifteen minute wait to set-up. They were actually fairly good live, and I liked the singer's jacket. They played Tell Me it's Not Over, , Four To The Floor, Alcoholic(Afterwards the singer--Who's name I've forgotten--Looks into the audience, Laughs and says "I never thought I'd see anyone crowd-surfing to Alcoholic. Well done to that girl."), You Never Get What You Deserve, Hurts Too Much, a couple older songs I didn't know, before ending with Good Souls.

During a far too short half hour of them, we'd got a text from our friends' mother explaining where she was located, as she didn't want to go into the crowd, something along the lines of "We're between the main stage and the Union tent". Since 11:50, four or five thousand people were now just sitting down around the main stage, and under her basic instructions there were a few problems. But several panicky texts later, and their mom dragged one of her children--"C"--out of the crowd, and we finally met, and were taken back to their picnic set up few hundred meters way from where we were standing for Starsailor, for cupcakes and orange juice, while watching Taylor Swift play a few songs on the stage(You Belong With Me, Our Song, Love Story, etc.). A man next to us started talking about The Killers, and after their mom offered him a snack we'd presumed it was the step-son we've never actually met. Turns out it was just a random stranger and his girlfriend, who were quite keen on the same music as me.

After Love Song was played and an unhealthy amount of candy was consumed, me, my mom, and my friend walked around some of the stalls before going to check out the 2nd stage. Other than "the God Shop", these were all more or less the same places with different names, selling the same strange rubbish, including a few places selling tutus. We got to the stage to hear the Noisettes play a couple of songs. Other than their singer having an amazing voice, she does have a lot of stage presence, even if we were too far away to experience the full effect of it. They ended with Don't Upset The Rhythm--The only song by them that most people know--and after that we walked back to our picnic set-up, and got to see G for the first time that day.

The Script were about to start when we got in line to about the 15th row. This was a very similar audience to Taylor Swift for the most part. the three band members came on slowly, one at a time, and opened with Talk You Down. They later played Break Even, Rusty Halo, We Cry, The End Where I Begin, and the Man Who Can't Be Moved. Singer Danny O''Something Irish' had by the time of that song regained his confidence from a previous incident of nearly falling over on camera("Sorry", he says "I was just having a drink with our drummer". Good on ya, Danny, that's how we demolish stereotypes!), and gave an absolutely amazing performance. He seemed genuinely awe-struck when he didn't even have to sing, but simply listen to several thousand people sing every single word back to him.


We'd moved up to forth row for Lily Allen, somehow. At this point everyone was pushing against each other a lot and several people backed out. By this time backdrops were getting somewhat more elaborate, and she had giant models of the letters in her name behind her. A huge fuss seems to be made nowadays about what female musicians wear on stage, as if Lady GaGa doesn't keep people occupied enough from that standpoint, so if you're interested; Black tank top, gray short-shorts, black sunglasses, huge black heels. Nothing too fancy. She did take her glasses off, revealing a random blue stripe across her forehead. Between announcing the latest cricket scores and taking out a cigarette(And lighting it. How typically fake and annoying and same as always), she played Littlest Things, The Fear, Not Fair, 22, Every one's At It, He Wasn't There, Fuck You, Smile, and LDN. That's the best thing about pop songs such as hers; You can fit in a lot into a fairly short time-space relative to what these artists normally get.

After this mass chaos ins sued. I thought it was time to finally face those notoriously disgusting festival toilets, so while my friend went to get a snack, I spent 20 minutes in a line. They did of course live up to expectations, but this wasn't the problem. This happened when trying to get back into the crowd. I couldn't see my mom's head from where I was, so blindly maneuvered myself back in.This would not have been a problem any other time in the day, but The Specials were up next, and their fans are late-20s drunk party animals who I simply couldn't work my way into. I tried a couple of times and failed, still looking for my mom. I walked back to our picnic area, thinking she might've just walked out. I got my friend back into the crowd to help look as he's considerably taller than I am. He thought it was a good idea for him to brave the toilet ques, and by this time The Specials were just starting. I was starting to panic, as at this point I had no one to rely on. I kept looking back into the crowd three or four times, before actually seeing her, looking for me. She'd deemed the crowd too unmanageable--It wouldn't be once inside, and we'd just lost our place, so understandably I was rather annoyed at this point.

We somehow made it back to what seemed to be the 20th row to watch the end of their act. I was trying to get a better place in line by waiting through, but let me tell you, they were terrible. Every single song sounded exactly the same, and people were very drunk indeed. Part way through my friend's brother and sister--Previously mentioned as B and G--worked their way through to find us, as they'd just got back from watching N-Dubz on the 2nd stage.

We'd moved forward to the 5th row for the next act; Razorlight. At this time I hadn't properly sat down for about five hours. Maybe it means I'm unfit or something, but my legs and back were really hurting at this point, and that was the longest set-up wait of the night. I wasted time by listening to my friend's stories of mosh pit mayhem during The Wombats, who I'd have loved to had seen, and sending texts into the festival's number(They have two screens on the sides of the stage and sometimes the texts get through. Most of which consist of inside jokes, drunken marriage proposals, and "Scream if you love V"!!). The man next to me said to B he'd seen The Killers five times that year, which made me jealous even though it's not like I've done/own few things when it comes to them. The band themselves were actually quite good live, and I do like them, but I was just eager for them to get off most of the time...But they did play Somewhere Else, In The Morning, America, Wire To Wire, and North London trash, among others I didn't know. Tabloid Lover is so unbelievably underrated. That would have been great live!

I moved up one row for the one and only, The Killers, but I did get the six and a half foot gentlemen in front of me to move out of the way, at least partly. Everyone was really pushed up tightly against each other at this time, all of course desperate to get to the very front, which caused quite a lot of madness during the concert. Said tall person and the girl next to him started arguing, while a couple beside me with strange west country accents basically broke up(Go 'ome then, I warna see tha killerrrrrs" she says repeatedly, almost unbearably), and two people behind me were apparently looking for their friend. One of them looks to the left, the other looks to the right, and then is followed by screams of "Oh my god, I thought I'd lost you". Wow. Strange.

It was such a relief for them to finally come on. It was totally dark by now, so I was looking forward to a good ol' Killers light show. This isn't, of course, my first Killers show, look back to January 27th and May 10th if you want to see the excruciating details of this. It was pretty similar, except for some reason they'd brought on a giant plastic cactus. Boys, it might have worked during Sam's Town, but it looks really cheap and tacky now. Brandon came on in the usual attire, plus the traditional feather-shouldered jacket, looking as marvelous as ever. I guess he'd have worn some 'liner for the camera too, always a bonus. Mark looked exactly the same. He's strange in that, since the beginning of the band, he's neither changed in weight, aged, changed his hair, or shaved or grown the beard very much at all. Ronnie looked the same as always--Terrible. Don't gel your hair back! Get rid of the mustache, it's worse than the My Name Is Earl one from several years back! And Dave, who I'd had the best view of, seemed to be no longer bothering with wearing a shirt under his waistcoat--A bad idea, considering the weight he's quite clearly gained. They played Human, Spaceman, A Dustland Fairytale, The World We Live In, Joy Ride, This is Your Life, Mr Brightside(Unbelievable live!), Jenny Was a Friend Of Mine, All These Things That I've Done, Somebody Told Me, a piano-based Smile Like You Mean it, For reasons Unknown, Read My Mind, Bones, Shadowplay, and closed with When You Were Young("Are you ready to receive this as hard as possible?" screams Brandon beforehand).

So, they ended amazing as always, and we tried to work our way through what had become an ocean of empty beer bottles. Me and my friend got separated from my mom and other friend, and spent a very long time trying to find his mom. In the dark. It took a long time, but we eventually found them, and it was amazing to sit down. Also, one of my favorite conversations in my life took place

Friend; Hey
His Mom; Hey. Where's your brother and Naomi's mom?
Friend; He took his shirt off.
Mom; Why is he naked?!
Friend; He took his shirt off.
Mom; Just wondering, Naomi, but did you mother take off her shirt too?

Well, anything can make you laugh at that point. They did eventually find us, my mother with all her clothes still on her. We parted with them once we finally got through to the cars, waited for half an hour to get out, and were home by one in the morning. It was amazing.

Stay "tuned" tomorrow for part two!

I Return; Tired, Sunburned, and Eager To Blog!

Hello blogging universe!

How are you all? Enjoying summer, I guess? I'm at my grandparent's house at the moment, and thus finally blessed with Internet access. We only got here a few hours ago, after a stop-and-start six and a half hour drive from Essex, and was then forced to sit through a two-hour discussion on the American education system, like they expect me to know anything about it, from my grandmother. But at least I'm here.

"The Festival"--That is, V Festival-- was yesterday and Saturday. Sorry to brag, but it sort of was really cool....I came away with a sunburned head, beer in my hair, and aching legs but it was so worth it. But I'll be sure to tell you all about that in the next few days. It is way too much to talk about in one post, for a start, and also I'm really tired right now! But, if you're interested, I can talk about the few other things I've done while I've been here...

As far as people go, it's been pretty interesting catching up. I got to see my an aunt and one of my cousins a few days ago, which was really nice. They live way up in the north of England(Lucky them, no sarcasm intended!). When you live with an accent as stereotypical as mine, a Leeds accent can be nearly unreal! My best friend didn't want to see me because she seems to think avoiding people is fun, though I did bump in to her at a local maze and didn't really say much. I saw my three other better friends, though, and they hadn't really changed too much at all, surprisingly, other than a friend's obsession with Lady GaGa, and another friend now sporting a bit of eyeliner. We also spent a few days with a few really good friends who used to go to the same school I did. We randomly met them in Pizza hut on the 2nd day, and their mother has been insisting we come round everyday since! We also went to the first day of V with them, which was cool.

We went to this really cool local pool at one point. For someone who can't swim for their life, I think public pools are surprisingly fun. This one had rapids and slides and everything. And we went to a zoo fairly close by there another day for my sister's birthday, and I simultaneously discovered my extreme distaste for zoos in general. Come on, they're just animals, and we all now that it's all about the young ones!

We got to eat out one of the evenings too, at a faux 50s New York pizza place. Being utterly surrounded by Yankees merchandise is now such a bizarre circumstance for me! It was nice there, though.

On Tuesday we went to Lego Land which sort of is but still sort of isn't as babyish as it sounds, but who cares anyway? The lines there were really huge, plus the first ride we went on was only partly working, and the last one had a fifteen minute delay! But that payed off. Sorry to sound as teenage as possible, but there was a really cute guy in line! A girl in my homeroom once came in after April vacation and told as a story of meeting a "hottie", while in, I think it was, Spain. At the time I was thinking "Um, okay...", and then I discovered the wonders of random holiday boys. <3 Anyway... On Thursday we went into London. It's a nice place to go if you're just visiting, I wouldn't want to live there though. On my request we got to see Abbey Road which was cool until I was nearly killed by a taxi while doing the swinging-arm cross walk thing. And the studio looked nice, despite all the graffiti, very little of which was at all Beatles-related. And the British museum was nice. I got to see the Magna Carta(Signed by King John in 1215, the first written document to say that the even the monarchy must abide to the law, later becoming one of the most famous documents in British history), some of Galileo's early writings, the first book made in England, and a bible made around 900 years ago. And the Beatles had their own section. The first draft of Yesterday lyrics, oh my god! And we walked through Regent's park, my mother suddenly transformed herself into a cricket know-it-all as we walked past a stadium of some importance I couldn't care less about(By the way, England won the ashes, hoorah! I'm such a hypocrite!), we walked past Downing Street, went to Trafalgar square, St. Pauls' cathedral, and walked along the Thames.

Must go now, Mock The Week starts in ten minutes, and it's my 2nd to last time to experience some Frankie Boyle hilarity for a year, which is of grave importance. Comment, Cbox, you know it. xD

Off To Essex Today!

Hey,

Today's my last day I'll be able to blog until...Er, August 24th, I think. Today we're going up to Essex, where I used to live. It only takes about two hours to get there. Where we're staying now is basically borderline south-east and south-west of England, and Essex is still south-east. We'll probably end up getting there so amazingly late though as my mother takes forever and a day to pack. The place we're staying is so pretty. It's a little one-story house on a farm. There's a big field behind the house, too, which I can enjoy unlike anywhere in the US because of the stupid mosquito's. And the farm has a dog, which runs around outside. <3

Since it's summer, I have the liberty of being able to talk about what I'm doing and not appear quite as boring, yes? Yes?!

Okay, Friday we went to a zoo around here(Around here meaning a couple of hours away). I decided to do my really pathetic habit of taking several pictures of each and every animal, nearly all of them blurry, to "capture the moment" even though it's not like it's my last time to go to a zoo or anything. The weather was so nice that day -- Most of the weather's been pretty on-and-off around here, but it was rather busy. Considering nearly everyone there was a mother with a baby, I felt sort of out of place. I also felt pretty sick of bumping into push chairs and hearing screaming in the "Please Be quiet; Nervous Animals" sections. And, I got unnecessarily annoyed with my sister as I normally do it zoos because she takes too long. You look for the animal, you find it, you look at the animal, then if it's doing anything interesting which it probably isn't you keep looking, if it isn't you keep on walking. You don't stay for ten minutes hoping you'll see young offspring doing something adorable! But, it was still fun, and I got a cool wooden lizard painted with the African-style colored dots on.

On Saturday we were supposed to go on a picnic with a couple of my mom's school friends. I'm guessing you know how boring it can be when parents get talking about "the good old days", right(To be fair I'm already talking about my "good old days"!)? It started raining so we ended up eating at one of the friend's houses. Their family is one of those old-fashioned, traditional, somewhat up-tight families, which is basically the dictionary definition of exactly what my family isn't. I remember being four or five years old and going there for the first time, and being creeped out by the hundreds of old portraits, but of course I'm over that now. The parents talked for a few hours about high school, Bruce Springsteen, and many weird and questionably "random" things in between. I was expecting to be sent away with the friend's daughter, a year older than me, which considering I barely know her would be the most awkward thing in the world. I'm so glad that didn't happen.

Yesterday we got to go see our grandparents for a bit, and later go rowing. That was really fun. But me and my sister had one oar each and my stroke was a lot stronger so we kept drifting to the left and bumping into people, but lots of people were doing that so it wasn't too bad. And I got ice cream. Cookies and cream, yum. <3

I heard Paparazzi, Lady GaGa's most recent single, and admittedly I quite like it, even if Lady GaGa is an "Expensive hooker" as a YouTube comment put it. That's what most singers are these days, it seems. It was the only song in the fifteen or twenty songs in the Top 40 countdown I liked(Yes, I did listen to it, for once!). I think I'm gonna get The Fame when I'm back in the US. Of course I could get it sooner but I don't think my mom or dad would be too impressed by the idea of disco sticks and such. See, I'm trying not to make a huge flippin' deal out of this music!

Also, I finished A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain yesterday. I'd got my head around the language, and did enjoy it. Even though the character was really pretentious and annoying, he was witty. I'll talk more about it some time.

Gotta go pack now because I left it way too late. I'll probably be able to CBox occasionally at friend's houses. I'll let you guys in on the summer excitement when I can.

Bye! <3

Blogging Time, Yo

Hey guys,





To put a long, complicated story short, we now have a laptop here until Monday--A pretty good one, too. It was finally set up yesterday evening, and of course, I rushed straight to blogger! Well, it was second on third on my list at any rate.





So, how has everyone been as of late? That's something I don't talk about very often here, huh? I'm very self-absorbed, as you'll certainly have noticed, in particular when I'm rambling here.



As for me I'm still enjoying being in England and things.



In particular if you want to know what I've been doing , Saturday me, my mom, and my sister went to a nature reserve in town. I don't like nature reserves without the aid of my iPod, which I luckily remembered, so that was alright. It was partly forest, partly fields, and partly a small pond which made it slightly interesting. At one point I stormed into a special "Please Be Quiet" bird-viewing place, loudly saying "Do you like Blur?" to my mother. The birds heard me, too, though I never found out their opinions on the band.

On Sunday my mom went to see her two BFFs she's known since school. When I say BFFs, I do mean exactly that! They're constantly e-mailing, calling, and texting each other now. They'll be twittering within a few years. I stayed at my grandparents watching the swimming, and got very bored, before finally going home.

Monday we went to what I think is the oldest ancient Roman structure in England. It's a palace, not a villa like most, from an early date of the Roman occupation. We watched a short video, then went around the garden, then went around a small museum about it. I don't like ancient Roman history much, but the museum made every description of every aspect of the building really boring, other than getting to see actual jewelry and tools from the time. Then we went through a large building built over the remains, and looked at a few mosaics. A few were so amazingly well kept, and one only had one small patch missing. My sister spent some time in the children's area that every museum seems to have. But my highlight from the visit was there--There was a small pole where the kids are supposed to stick sticky-notes onto describing why they liked the museum. This consisted of scribbles, many "it was fun because it was fun", a few "I hated It it's so boring an old", a few notes from those 'children' describing how they've loved the place since their first visit in the 70s, and one which simply said "The Romans didn't discover America. Ha."!

Tuesday we went on another nature walk this time around a different pond. It doesn't take long to walk around there, but my sister took an up hill, longer route to find pheasant feathers. While they would surely help out my nonexistent collection in the hopes of creating my own Brandon jacket, it was tiring, and I fell when running down the hill, in front of a family with two young boys, who probably wouldn't have done so. Thank you very much, grip less old Converse.

And Wednesday revolved around one of those rare family-related things that's a bit too personal to blog about. But because of it, we got to have breakfast at McDonalds, which is a first for me. Me and my sister annoyed all the business people having coffee and reading the newspaper by having our drinks declare war on each other(Yes, I know what you're thinking. And, no, I'm surprisingly not a four-year-old boy), went to the beach briefly(Not 'going to the beach' as in the summery bathing suits, ice cream, getting a tan sort of way, but in the English, cold, wet, disappointed it isn't warmer even though it never is, sort of way), and drove around several streets all with the first word being 'Hammy'. In the afternoon we went to my grandparent's town. I got A Snow Patrol album, as I simply can't go into HMV without coming out with some CD or another. There was a small fair near the coast, so I played hook-the-duck ads got a big plastic beach ball. I put the small rope not intended to put around your wrist, um, twisted and stuck around my wrist, and got some funny looks while apparently hugging a beach ball in Marks And Spencers(Somewhat expensive grocery store).

And today a guy came around in the morning to look at the boiler, I obsessed over being able to use Facebook, and in the afternoon we went to a bird place in town. My mom was chosen to have an eagle fly over to her hand in the display which went on for far to long, between birds flying away and not returning for fifteen minutes.



And that's about all there is to it. It's Thursday which of course means MOCK THE WEEK/NEVERMIND THE BUZZCOCKS NIGHT on BBC 2, the absolute highlight of my life. The TV before seven o'clock here is getting rather boring for me at the moment, but I guess it's alright. At night there's always various comedy panel shows, or Dragons Den, or Gorden Ramsay, or a decent documentary, or something, which keeps me addicted. As for music, I've been listening to Snow Patrol, Lily Allen, Noah And The Whale, Blur, and I've now admitted to sort of liking P(!?)ATD's "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies'. I wonder what my parents think when they've heard "Haven't you people ever heard of closing the goddamn door?" a thousand times when I'm online.

PS, the (!?) wasn't a mistake.



Gotta go now, the television awaits. I'm in a oddly weird writing mood, I'm almost happy with what I've said! Must be all the Mark Twain I'm forced to read(Yeah, right). Comment, CBOX, and such xD



Bye,

I Waste My Summer On My Grandparent's Computer

Hey guys...So, I actually have some time to do a post today, even if it is rather short and badly written. my mom isn't totally okay with the idea of me wasting my time online. She says I'm only allowed to go on a couple of blogs, my e-mail, and the Victims. Nothing else. But it's better than nothing, right?





The plane ride was good in comparison to some. I had pizza at the airport and watch an AirLingus flight to Ireland go out. my flight had a short delay at first due to some engine problem, but it was good 'cause when we set off it was totally dark and you got to see all the lights of Boston and it looked really cool. And, of course, when we landed we got to see the 'patchwork quilt' of England's fields. I watched The Simpsons, Top Gear, that sort of thing...The TV wasn't that great, to be honest.





We landed at about eight in the morning, local time, on Tuesday. Heathrow is such a cool place, and I don't know why...it's pretty crazy, which is almost certainly why I like it. We got a taxi to my grandparent's house after that. The taxi driver talked to my mom about swine flu, and then turned up the bad pop station for the rest of the journey once he realised we were in no mood to talk.. I slept for most of the day after that, and watched Dave(The world's greatest TV channel) in the evening.





Wednesday morning was rather slow. I finished john Green's Paper Towns, which I read in about four days. It's really good, I guess I'd recommend it. And I read my ten pages of A Connecticut Yankee. I'm having trouble with some bits of it, though I vaguely understand what's going on dome of the time. After lunch we walked to the local store down the road to get some things for my grandparents(And the cashier guy argued with his friend whether the man on the cover of my mom's magazine was Brad Pitt or not, despite his name also being printed on the cover) After that we got the key to my aunt's house. She moved to Switzerland a few months ago, but rents out her house. It's empty at the moment, so we got to stay there. There's this really pretty road we drive down where you're basically in the middle of a field, and you Can see really far up the road and the hill. I'll take a picture sometime. In general my aunt lives in a pretty area. We unpacked our stuff there, went searching for the non-existent computer, found a rowing machine, discovered the TV couldn't get Dave, and went out to Tescos, which is the main supermarket in the UK. So, we went in to the local one. But it was no ordinary Tescos, no, it was...A two-story Tescos. Oh my god, that's so awesome, right?! It was. We got a lot of food, most of which we could probably live without(the idea of me being able to live without Muller Corner yoghurts is questionable to some) and went up them shopping trolley-accessible ramp a few times.



Oh, and one thing, guess what I saw there? Someone in an Abercrombie t-shirt. What is this country coming to?!





Thursday morning we went into the center of town to find my sister a new bathing suit, which was remarkably hard. UK town centers make no sense. And, my sister was rather picky about it. We looked through about ten shops, before finding a suitable style in a suitable color, and suitable shape. Suitable being about one in thousand bathing suits. After lunch we went to the swimming pool in town. it's not exactly the best pool in the world, but going there is sort of a tradition for us. But it has a slide, and a fast-flowing bit where you get pushed around. And, for the record, I had a Slushy there, and the ice-to-juice ratio was totally, completely, utterly wrong! Hehe...I got to see a new episode of my favorite TV show, Mock The Week, that night, and a new episode of my 2nd favorite TV show, Never Mind The Buzzcocks. Both were absolutely hilarious.



As for today, we came to visit my grandparents house in the morning, and in the afternoon went to the center of their town to get some stuff. I got the new Starsailor Cd, the new Lily Allen CD, an Anthony Horowitz book, Guitar Hero On Tour; Decades, and a Killers t-shirt. It's pale blue with a rainbow palm tree on the front and "A Glorious Existence"(From joy Ride)written on the back.

Gotta go now. I hope you're all having a great summer, and if you're a friend, then sorry I can't talk more.

Plane Ride Tomorrow(Short-ish Post).

Hey guys,



If you read my blog, then you'd know I'm going to England tomorrow...For, well, the whole summer, basically. Until August 31st. That's gonna be the reason for my partial blog absence until that time. I don't wanna go yet. I loved going to England last year, but doing it for this long is just ridiculous. We had to stay this long because of the music festival, but by that reasoning couldn't my parents have just set the going-out plane ride to a couple of weeks later than tomorrow? Oh well. Luckily, the plane ride isn't until the evening tomorrow. So I still have until about five to do stuff(And it takes about 45 minutes to drive into Boston, give or take). I don't know what I could possible do beforehand, though. Just, like, normal online stuff, probably. Oh, and read; No matter what, I'm determined to read ten pages of A Connecticut Yankee each day, no matter how much I'm coming to dislike it. By those outlines, I can finish the book in nineteen days and have it over and done with.

The plane ride will be by far the worst experience of the year so far, and that's not an exaggeration. No method of torture you could possible do to me(For whatever reason you might want to torture me O_O) could come close in pain to a seven-hour flight across the Atlantic. Beyond the stress of nearly being late for the flight(This happened last year), claustrophobia, airline food, my ever so slight fear of flying, my greater fear of the ocean, bumpy turbulent weather, the bathrooms you can barely move in, the staff who stop at no end to offer you things("Jesus Christ, I told you ten minutes ago, I DO NOT WANT ANYTHING TO DRINK!"), the baby behind you who kicks on your chair, and the hours upon hours of episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy I've seen before, I get really, really, badly travel sick. So, basically, it sucks. My mother says I'll probably be growing out of it by now, but who knows? Good thing is, usually the wind blows this way, so we could shorten the trip down to 6 1/2 hours on a good day. Contrary to everything I just wrote, I'm trying not to think about it too much. Trying.

My parents are really stressed at the moment, understandably, so I just tend to stay out of their way as much as possible. I'm painfully working my way through my reading book, and at the same time racing through John Green's Paper Towns. John Green is a good author, and for a young adults author, in particular. I think I might just prefer this to Looking For Alaska, which I didn't finish because it seemed to feel rather anti-climax. Plus, I feel less like I have to hide this book from my parents. Looking For Alaska had a couple of scenes that were basically smut. It's odd that I've finally found a couple of books I enjoy. I'm not at all a book worm. I've watched a lot of TV(And my conclusion is this; Die die die die die 'Alex Russo', all of the characters in Wizards of Waverly place, and anyone who even associates themselves with it a little bit), and spending some time outside, normal music listening stuff, etc. In the morning I cleaned out my sister's hamster's cage for the first time, and later in the day we dropped of the hamster, and my sister's fishes(Who I've just learned have names! Skittles, Starburst, Ruby, Shoes, and Socks. Unique, huh?) and dropped them off at my sister's best friend's house while we're away. And in the evening we got to eat out at a nice little place a short way away. It was fun...And, I had the best steak in the whole entire universe.

Bye!

Three Days Until I'm Goin'

Hey guys,



How are we today?





I haven't actual talked about my life since Sunday, if you were to ignore Harry Potter. Unfortunately not much has been going on with me. My sister's friend comes round a lot and I'm stuck in my room, at least until I get the energy to get ready(Which can take an awfully long time). I spend my time listening to new music, guiltily watching shows on Disney Channel(It's not that I find them entertaining, more that I'm bored with most other things), and using my computer...Oh, and let's not forget, promising myself I'll practice piano later, which I keep forgetting to actually do. Yesterday me, my sister, and the friend went shopping for our school stuff. Doing it early is so much better. I quite enjoy the task, for some reason. I always spend too much time over it though. Does it really matter what color my pencil case is? Well, I guess it does to me(It's GREEN!). My sister was worse, however. She spent ten minutes--And forty dollars--On decorations for her new locker. All dark blue. I can't blame her, I too was quite excited at the concept of having my own locker to decorate. After a month or so she too will come to realise that putting pictures up causes people to stare(Particularly the animal pictures she intends to use), you will be carrying a pencil case so a thing for holding pencils there is unnecessary, the locker racks you buy will fall down under the weight of your books causing more chaos then before, and most importantly you don't have much time to make it all pretty anyway. But at least she's excited for school now! O h,and in the line at Staples I saw this little light thing on one of the cheap stands. And, it was called a "MrBrightside"! How awesome is that?



After that my sister and the friend made what they called "Raspberry Lemonade". Doesn't that defeat the purpose of it being lemonade, then? Today--Well, it's only the early afternoon--We went food shopping in the morning. It was my turn to do self-service, I love doing that. Later I think we're going to the center of town, getting more brace elastics from the orthodontist, and from the doctors these patches that are supposed to stop my travel sickness from happening on the plane. Yeah right, I'm too resilient for that--Which is quite unfortunate in situations such as this.



My copy of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee arrived from Amazon yesterday. I've read about thirty pages so far, a lot for my poor reading speed. I ordered another book, Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen also as I couldn't really chose one from the reading list. I skimmed through that but wasn't too impressed. The general plot sounds alright but the writing style isn't too good. Granted, I am finding some of Mark Twain's annoyingly long sentences difficult to understand, but when I do get my head around it it's very interesting. And it has a lot of history in it which is great for me.



I'm in what I've decided to label as a musical slump. By that, I mean I can't find much I like. Well, to be honest, that was a few days ago. I've been listening to a lot of Keane. Go watch the music video for Bedshaped. It's so sad, but also so good. My other favorite songs at the moment are Mayonnaise by Smashing Pumpkins, Zero by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Feel Good Drag by Anberlin, and....um...(Okay, I'll admit it) Poker Face by Lady GaGa. The thing is, I dislike Lady GaGa simply on principle. But Poker Face is good, a couple of days ago I even got the guts to buy it on iTunes. That's hard for me with a song like that. Now don't get any ideas from this! I dislike the other of her songs I've heard. Okay, so Boys Boys Boys mentions my favorite band and that's cool...And the 'I wanna take a ride on your disco stick' thing in Love Game is amusing in a 10-year-old-boy way. Still, I feel my musical tastes dropping by the minute. Maybe I should stop it, I don't know...Anyone got any music suggestions for me? Something underground, preferably, or at least to those I know.

Oh, and has anyone checked out the single of the week on iTunes? I never payed much attention to it, but I was bored this morning. It's Fireflies by Owl City. I liked it. I played it a lot in the car to Stop N Shop this morning. My mother did not like it, at all, but my sister did. She's got a thing for synthpop music. It's really catchy, but just so electronic it's beyond mainstream pop music.

Gah, I leave for England Monday...I don't wanna go yet, oddly. It's something I look forward to the whole year. I need to get a load of music before then, I've realised, as I need to become familiar with the bands at the festival, and I won't be able to buy any songs until the end of August(I need to stop talking about music). And I wanna be able to read, and write, blogs. And I wanna be able to have my own space, something lacking when I'll be there.

Okay, enough of that. I'm gonna end this now, and return to my current universe of pop music, and long Mark Twain phrases I have to re-read to make sense of.

Summer. It's As Simple as That

As I've mentioned before and you've now doubt concluded by the title alone, it's now summer for me! Today was my last day, well, half day. We wrote letters to the soon-to-be 7th graders, watched School Of Rock(Which I've never seen. It's poserish, but high-ranked in it's poserish kind) and ate popcorn, cleaned out the remains of our lockers, cleaned the room a bit, and by eleven o'clock, after a hurry of yearbook-signings and slightly emotional farewells, I left 7th grade. I didn't really get the chance to say goodbye much(I feel guilty). One boy who I basically don't know said bye to me(Any idea why? It was kinda weird), and my English teacher told me how he'd be there at my first book signing when I'm supposedly a published author.



7th grade for me has been...As a teenage-ish year would go. It had it's ups, and its downs of course. And yeah I've whined a lot about it, but there were some really great times...



I've suddenly got the urge to do this, 'case I didn't do it for new year. Hoorah!



7th Grade High-Lights



1. The day in Spanish when the guys started throwing tennis balls. At the window, the door, people's feet, the general area of our teacher, even. My teacher has always said the typical "I have eyes in the back of my head thing"...And, well, that's such a lie. And it was at this point we came to turns with that fact, and decided to exploit it a little.

2. Correcting a quiz in English a few months ago. This person in question will take the nickname "J". We'd been asked to write the first and last stanzas of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, and we corrected them later that class. J got up to give his I-forgot-to-study version of the Raven which went along the lines of "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I read, and a knocking at my chamber door, it was a raven, a sexy raven..." It was hilarious!

3. One day when having a team meeting where a few guys had been asked to get in front of everyone and perform after doing the 'talking while the teacher's talking' thing. They sang a Barber Shop version of In The Jungle. And, well, it was clearly well planned and everything.

4. A last period Social Studies class a few months ago...Well, it's difficult to explain. M continually said "Soooo mysterious" in a really feminine voice, the teacher drew K a 'pretty' girlfriend on the whiteboard, people were shouting, etc. The normal weird stuff(Oh my gosh, that's a such a band name! *writes down*)

5. Basically every homeroom ever. Even if my teacher considers us her worst homeroom ever, there's no taking away from the fact that we're all, every one of us, awesome.



7th Grade Low-Lights



1. Doing our projects on politics In I think it was, October. We'd been split into the two political parties, and split into smaller groups on specific areas of it. We got health care. Which was what I wanted, but I couldn't help but hate it. The day of the presentation was just boring beyond belief.



2. The day in April my English teacher made me read my "Ode To A Skunk Cabbage"--Weird, yeah--in front of the whole class. Badly written, sloppy, half-complete, etc. For me, I could be reading my favorite poem ever, and just the reading alone makes it rather scary. But something I've written? Something I've written really badly? Not. Fun.

3. State Testing. Isn't that on everyone's lists? For me especially the long-writing essay. There was nothing interesting, fun, or anything about that.

4. The day in math a few months ago where my teacher picked on me to answer a question that I wasn't ready for. And, then continued to insist I did know the answer. Hey, if she makes classes so relentless than can she blame me for being half-asleep at the time?

5. Playing keyboard at the very beginning of the year. I enjoyed it--Really, honestly, I loved it--but my partner was such a ...Grr, I need to find appropriate words to put here. Moron? Hmm. She'd come in every day, sit down on the left side, insist it was too loud, and turn the volume down to a point where no one could hear anything, and therefore couldn't practice, and therefore fail that. She clearly has something against me that I've yet to understand but she wouldn't let it go..





Things To Look Forward To over The Summer



- Blogging, duh!
- Late night AIM chats with friends
- The new Harry Potter movie!
- Finding out which team I'm on next year(Each grade is split into two 'teams'; "East" the big team, and "West" the small team. Homeroom, English, math, Social studies, and Science are all based on that team, so finding out that is plays big part in your general happiness in the following year)
- Finding out which team my sister's gonna be on
- Swimming
- Going to England(Which includes the following)
- Seeing friends and family again
- Corner yogurts and Tescos ready-made tuna-sweetcorn sandwiches and microwavable chicken pot pies--Oh my!
- Lego Land. Don't judge, it's awesome
- The leisure pool near my aunt's that we got to every year
- Decently-warm weather
- Good ol' English late-night television
- V Festival' August 22nd and 23rd; The Killers, Oasis, MGMT, Snow Patrol, Razorlight, etc.
- And, possibly most important, the simple absence of school makes summer worth it.
- And, maybe even slightly more importantly than that, is that I'm really dreading 8th grade, and this is just a chance to forget about it ever so slightly.


And, I go back to school September 3rd...But, let's not dwell on that right now. It's summer! Sun happiness, freedom, friends, you know the general idea of it all. As far as blogging this summer goes...Well, obviously, it's still gonna happen. In fact, I'm going to try to make it happen every day. They're gonna be stupid, and boring, and same-ish, but it's really this time of year we all want to look back on most. I'm leaving for England July 20th and returning August 30th. About half of that is spent at my grandparents, when I definitely will have computer access about every day, so I'll be sure to make extra-short posts then. But, when I'm back where I used to live, computer access will be a problem. If I'm lucky, I could use my dad's computer, or blog at a friend's house, but of course I can't be certain. So, yes, just thought you might want to know that. xD





See ya,



Summer '09, baby!