An eventful few days

On Monday, after singing, I went down to Exeter to collect my exam certificates from college. It was really strange to be back in the old building, walking the same old routes, yet without one familiar face along the way. I can't say I miss college but I do miss some of the people who I met there very much.

There's something slightly anticlimactic about
holding the certificates but all the same!

I also spent most of the day yesterday in Exeter itself with my mother doing some Christmas shopping and generally lurking. First stop was John Lewis to look at a DSLR camera that I'm hoping to receive for Christmas. After a fair old while of photography with compact cameras only I've given in and decided to invest in a 'proper' camera. I'll be honest and say that I'm still not 100% happy with it but my aims are getting increasingly ambitious and I'm getting more and more frustrated with the limitations of the compact camera. Anyway, this wasn't supposed to be a camera rant!

I was especially happy to see that the Christmas Market was up and running on the Cathedral Green, especially as I had read it opened on the 1st of December! It was a lovely surprise. I was also remembered by a couple of the stall holders... I must have spent way too long there last year! It was so lovely to see people having fun together. One college aged girl walked past saying to her friends "I can't help it, I just love Christmas!" while a young boy ran up to a statue of Santa and tried to take a gift from his bag. There was an all round excitement and that is what makes Christmas so special.

I forgot to take photos at the market so have a shoddy
photo of a half eaten cake I bought there instead ;-)

When darkness fell mother and I sat down in a hastily constructed bar tent (which was blasting Michael Jackson songs) and had a glass of Glühwein each. You can blame 'Tascha for that because she was the one who started us drinking it! It was here that I logged into facebook, meaning to message 'Tascha although I never did, and found the following in my update feed:

Post by RASTABAN.

Well, that was unexpected. I write reviews here for my friends or for my own reference and never expect them to be read by anyone else, least of all the person/band I was writing about. I was so touched by what was written though and say, yet again, that this just goes to show that Rastaban are not only a band full of wonderful musicians but lovely people too. If you still haven't listened to them go and listen now!

The other thing that happened that day was on the way back to the car I stopped and chatted to a homeless gentleman. This was something I used to end up doing quite a lot in Exeter and I forgot how worthwhile it was. In the end my mother gave him some money and he gave her an origami crane that he had made. As we walked away he shouted after us: "God bless!". We'll probably never meet again but for those few minutes our lives crossed and it was beautiful.

Oh hello winter!

Over the last couple of days the winter chill has really crept in. Father claims that he saw snow this morning albeit not heavy enough to settle and, living in a house with no carpets and holes in the windows it's pretty darn chilly!

Actually, today was the first day of the season that caused me to struggle when playing. It always reaches a point where my hands get so cold that they cramp almost instantly. A pair of fingerless gloves make playing a bit more possible for a while but I've not managed to get a pair that are comfortable to play 'cello to any real standard. Of course, I'm one of those people who finds wearing rings while playing annoying so gloves and I were never going to get on well!

This year is posing a bit more of a challenge. Monster Whistle is about as cold as an icicle and getting him warm to play is a nightmare. In fact, I'm not sure if he's going to be happy until we have balmy Spring days blowing in once again. I did do a quick search of google to see if there was any advice for working with whistles in the cold and, other than sticking them in hot water or wrapping them with hand-warmers, didn't really come across anything that seemed like it would work. I did however come across an article on how to get your child's tongue unstuck from cold items which begs the question: "Who spends time googling that if their child has got their tongue stuck to the local lamppost?"

A return to essays

Over the past couple of days I have been working towards something, something I'm not going to talk about online until I have something solid to say (although I've mentioned it to a couple of friends). Anyway, this basically means that I have been working on essay writing all the time. Yuk.

Okay, I quite like essay writing, and it's certainly nice to have my brain stretched again, but my goodness my brain is being stretched! The essay question refers to the "abilities" of the arts and then asks you to illustrate them using a piece of literature (or several other art-forms that I'm less comfortable writing about). Can I just say that the question sounds so simple when I put it like that!

lit·er·a·ture 

n.

1. The body of written works of a language, period, or culture.

2. Imaginative or creative writing, especially of recognized artistic value: "Literature must be an analysis of experience and a synthesis of the findings into a unity" (Rebecca West).

3. The art or occupation of a literary writer.

4. The body of written work produced by scholars or researchers in a given field: medical literature.

5. Printed material: collected all the available literature on the subject.

6. Music All the compositions of a certain kind or for a specific instrument or ensemble: the symphonic literature.

-From The Free Dictionary

A problem that this has brought to the forefront is what classifies as literature. I can find a perfect novel to illustrate the points but it was written in 2004... some people would say that 2004 is too recent to be literature. What about a play? Oh, that could be a bit funny too. The problem is, without knowing what the 'examiner' considers literature it's very difficult to choose something to write about and when the essay is for something important I'm not going to push boundries and challenge the status quo... I just wish I knew what their view was!

So yeah, you know when I said I was essay writing? I kinda lied. I haven't even chosen the book yet.

But I will!!

I can no longer restrain myself therefore it is Christmas

Now, most of you who know me well, i.e. the majority of people who actually bother to read this, know that I love Christmas. You also know that I usually get into the Christmas mood around June time - certainly by August - so I think I've done pretty well not mentioning it (much) until the fourteenth of November. If you're one of those people who moans about Christmas talk before December then you can leave now. Go on, off you go.

Right, now that we're left with the 'jolly folk' only I'll get onto the fun bits ;-)

It does really feel like Christmas is just around the corner. I'm sat here surrounded by blank cards, some of which have sketches on them, ready to get painting. I have my Christmas music collection playing without feeling any guilt because I'll be honest... it's been on for a few months now. I'll probably start making mulled wine and gingerbread next week if not a bit sooner. 

Mother just took me down the road in the car to see a nearby house which is covered in lights. I'm not the only one who feels it's time to celebrate! The lights are on the lampposts nearby and some areas have had their 'switch on' already. There's something really special about seeing the night lit up by twiddly little glows of artificial light, especially when you're living in an area where the natural twiddly little glows of light (i.e. stars) are pretty much invisible.

Even my singing lessons are getting festive as I've been ordered to go off and find a Christmas song in the folk genre to work on. Seriously, if anyone knows any Christmas folk songs, preferably with sheet music available somewhere, then please do let me know. I'm happy to sing in any language too so that's not a limiting factor. In fact, I think my teacher will be sad if I come up with something in English!

Anyway, I think I'm going to sign off now as this is really just an excited rant and, of course, a warning to those non-festive folk to beware ;-)

I can't imagine this blog is going to get any less Christmassy any time soon!

Gifts from afar

Okay, okay, Austria's not all that far but all the same when I received a parcel from 'Tascha, who happens to be a brilliant friend of mine, it was still pretty exciting.

'Tascha and I were last together about a year ago when I visited Austria for my eighteenth birthday. She did absolutely everything she could to make it special for me, and succeeded. I was pretty overwhelmed to learn she was sending my something for my birthday this year too and really excited to hear from her in a more personal way than online.

Today, I got my parcel with a beautiful handmade card (which is now sat on my newly tidied desk) and some gifts relating to my favourite things. This made me feel so special that someone thought not only to send me something for my birthday but that they thought through what I would like and, more importantly perhaps, took time and creative energy to make part of the gift for me. I am walking on air because I'm so happy right now.

Thank you Natascha!!

This was about the tenth attempt to photograph me in the hat she sent.
Mother wasn't happy with the others because they showed building work!

Art, music, life

The title pretty much sums up what's going on pretty now. By day I'm being a noisy pest playing various instruments and by night I'm attacking things with paint.

Art

Art wise, I'm mainly working on scrapbooks in various forms right now. I've actually not finished my Castlefest book yet. In my defence it does take a while to design/paint 100 pages of stuff. I have, however, started a new book for general life and that is actually pretty much up to date. I know. A miracle! I'm thinking about posting photos of my scrapbook pages onto tumblr as well as on facebook from now on. We'll see what happens. I know a few people want to see certain pages and it's hard to work out where to share them.

I'm getting a real itch to paint a portrait again. You may well know that the last ill fated attempt didn't work out so well. I guess painting a picture of a couple is always going to be risky and the pair I was painting happened to get a divorce in the short time between the sketch and first bit of paint being put down and the rest of it going on! Whoops. Although I was painting for my own enjoyment I hadn't the heart to go on and finish such a lovey-dovey painting. I'm not sure exactly who or what I want to paint though, and I'm not practised in portrait work either, so it might not happen. We'll see how I feel!

Music

As for music, did I tell you how much I am in love with my new whistle? He quickly gained a gender, which is as far as I tend to go with musical instruments, but Nené seems pretty sure he should have a name too. She suggested Felix and then Máté (the latter having a rude explanation) but I don't think either of those are quite right. Okay, the latter is just wrong! 

Lack of name aside I've been enjoying playing so much. I feel that I'm progressing in my playing very quickly, much quicker than I expected, and after just two weeks I'm a bit overwhelmed by the progress that's been made. I'm not great, not at all, and speed is something I need to work on greatly but things are going so well. 

Of course, the other major musical adventure for me is my singing. I had a lesson yesterday, the first in two weeks due to illness, and it was probably the best lesson I've ever had. I managed to sing a song through in a relaxed way and, do you know what, after doing that I managed to tell my teacher, honestly, that I thought it sounded good. I'm far from being a confident singer but that's such an improvement. In three months I have sung in front of someone for the first time in years, sung in front of an audience (albeit unintentionally), and finally I have managed to have a moment where I can admit that I enjoyed my own voice. I'm far from being a good singer, and far from getting over my phobia, but, step by step, I'm going in the right direction.

'Cello is still being played but we have some issues with tuning pegs going on. I think she may well need to have a quick trip to a luthier because we have some major slipping that I can't seem to fix. She also needs some new strings as I can actually see the A and D strings fraying. I think I've been neglecting her a bit recently, especially when one considers the abuse she suffered at the hands of my father. She got her own back on me by stabbing my foot. After this many years you think I'd remember to wear shoes when playing, wouldn't you?

Life

Things aren't really going to plan and this is not how I saw my gap-year panning out, for various reasons that I don't want to share randomly on the internet. However, I am actually really happy. I'm doing the things I love and I will be continuing to do these things next year, and more. I can't wait for next year's European adventure, even though it looks like I'm going to have to travel alone which wasn't my plan either, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Youtube news!

About four years ago I first started to subtitle Elisabeth. It was about a week before my birthday and, having discovered the magic of this musical I decided I wanted to share it with my friends who were coming round to celebrate my birthday (although, of course, it wasn't finished in time). Thus I decided to use a dictionary to translate my favourite musical. 

As you may well know, I had never intended to upload 'Elisabeth' onto youtube but in early 2010 my computer got a virus and, so that I didn't loose my work completely with the death of the computer, I uploaded them onto youtube. The response was instant and more positive than I could have believed. I decided to continue to upload the videos, as I made them.

Suddenly the project of a fourteen year old became something bigger and had more influence on my life than I could ever have imagined.

In the end, my friends never watched 'Elisabeth' with me, but people from all around the globe have shared it with me. I have had some amazing conversations with people because of Elisabeth, met some amazing people and, most importantly, I met three of my closest friends (Helena, Aleks, and Natascha) as a direct result of the show. 

Not only this, but I realised something... languages weren't that inaccessible to me. Sure, I struggled with French like mad but German, well I was learning that by accident. Because of the translating I became more confident and continued my French studies, picked up Japanese, and will be studying German and Hungarian at university next year.

But why am I writing this now?

Today, almost exactly four years after I subtitled my first video, my youtube channel hit 1000 subscribers.

So this is a thank you blog, really. If you are reading this then it's probably because you've been looking at my subtitles in some form, at some point over the years. Your messages, your views, everything, has encouraged me in so many ways. Yes, every creative member of 'Elisabeth', 'Rebecca', and 'Marie Antoinette' has had an influence too but it's been you, the people who have supported me, who have changed my life and for that I thank you.