Monday, June 27, 2005

Shallow Desire

Guess who got fed up with her job at the Audi/Porsche garage? This is pretty bad writing but it only took ten minutes or so and it was just to make sure I didn't yell at a customer.

I lead them this way and that,
So many of them,
They all want the same thing,
The money they already have.
If some day there is boredom,
Take some wealth and bring it to me,
I can show you what you want,
Those things you think you need.
The machines they gleam,
The eyes see,
The people want.
They all get.
I only serve those with money,
None of you with sense,
The showroom smells of greed,
Yours and his.
Not mine.
It's obvious I'm not ok,
They just don't care,
Scathingly tell me not to drip my blood on their leather,
The money removes the compassion,
Greed exterminates concern.
So as they speed away,
Leaving me in a cloud of diesel,
The cloud that inhabits my mind,
Is suddenly very clear.
They have money,
They have the car,
They think they have it all,
All I see is shallow desire.

xxx

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Yeah

What shall we talk about today then? I'm all out of pointess ideas, and pointfull (?) ideas come to think of it. It's the heat, let's blame it on something else shall we? I might end up doing the whole thought train again so I apologise in advance if that happens. Firstly I'l tell you about my weekend then we can work up to today, good plan? I'll start with Saturday, it was hot. I walked to music centre and arrived almost melted, I know because Luke said I looked like I was about to melt, I think I took offense. Hehe. Then we went to attack Mr Livermore who runs our band with reference to the performance we have on the same day at the same time as the year 11 formal, well the year 11 Grammar pupils did then. We didn't succeed. We're going to boycott music centre, that is until next Saturday when we'll wake up and find we can't live without it. Tom's Dad phoned the president of the music centre in the end and got us all off, not sure how he did it. Ah well. Anyway then I walked home and almost melted again so I got in and changed into what was frankly beach wear, but I didn't care. What a bad rhyme. I got a tuna sandwich and some apple juice and waited for Dad to pick me up, which he did after almost squashing me. I wish he'd drive his own car. Then we went into town and did some Father's Day shopping, very discreet on my part I might add. At about 3pm Paul rang and invited us over to look at the stag weekend photos from the previous weekend which naturally I jumped at the chance of, until I saw one of my Dad and Paul in bed together. Though they swear there was separate beds and it was the camera angle. Hmmmm. So it was hot in the garden so we had some cold drinks and listened to some music, had some pizza, and obviously a chat. Jason and Tracey and Darren arrived then, shortly after came Darren's Mum, who I'm afraid my Dad has an unhealthy obsession with. All those people I mentioned are sort of 20-30 by the way, that's why the obsession of a 30 year olds Mum is unhealthy. I think. Some other stuff happened too but I won't talk about that now. When the sun moved round we piled into the deadly car and I was driven home the long way round to give me a chance to play with all the pointless objects and the things that pop up if you play with the remote. When I got home it was food shopping time with Mum, after I got yelled at for being late. It wasn't a big deal. I had my phone. So food shopping was a riot *sarcasm* and we came home and had some barbecue food with next door.

Sunday was Father's Day and very hot, 33C - that's degrees, nothing else Ok Keir? So Dad came round and we did the gifts thing and he left for, somewhere anyway. I intended to head over to Herm but a lot of my peeps were having lunch with their Dad's so fair play to them. I stayed home. Until about 3pm when we went to my favourite beach and did some swimming and beachy stuff, that was the best part of the weeking I'm thinking. On Monday I organised a cinema trip which was. Hold on. I can't remember which day it was. Shit. It might have been Friday. Buggar. Oh well. One day we went to the cinema but a few peeps, no names, had slight trouble with the bus timetables or their cars or whatever so in the end there was three of us. In the whole cinema. Well screen four anyhow. So we bought loads of sugar crap which we didn't eat and put our feet up on the back of the chairs in front. The cinema people looked bored, they must have been since one kept laughing at my unfunny humour, and promptly gave me his phone number. Mr and Mrs Smith was ok actually, a bit Hollywoody but good. Since I can't remember which day that was I'll skip to Monday afternoon. My last exam, French Reading. Twas ok, dare I say fun? I'm a freak. Tuesday, yesterday I did not a lot but got my haircut. Shorter and curlier now.

Ok the tedious diary is over, time for tedious crap now. I have taken my vitamins and iron 18 out of 22 days which I think may be a record for me. Yay. I started to mark it off on my calendar in the hope that I remember them better. It's working. Sort of. I went to work today and worked very hard, honest. Ask Davey or Chloe or Keir or Ben, I wasn't on e-messenger or anything. Not at all. Worked all day me. I also wore board shorts and got disapproving looks, I think I better wear a skirt or similar office wear tomorrow. Not tights though. There are cruise ships docked off the coast everyday just now, huge ones and St Peter Port gets filled up with French and German and Japanese and Americans. Gah, the town isn't that quaint. Can't they shop in their own huge hypermarkets or malls or whatever? Really, it's pretty and all but so small! Bad rhymes again.

My current favourite album has changed again, to Jack Johnson, In Between Dreams. Very summery and laid back and well it's froovy. Amazing how quickly those charity wristband thingies ran out isn't it? People don't talk about them anymore, I only ever had two. I guess the people still wearing them are the people who meant it in the first place.

I'm not in the thinking mood anymore, not readable thinking. I'm gonna go and, do some, erm. I know I keep on but I'm having a lonely day. It's not like I haven't been with anyone. You ever get that? Really lonely no matter how many people there are around you? No? Oh well. See you soon.
xxx

Friday, June 17, 2005

Questions

Have you ever woken up, looked around you and almost immediately wished that you hadn't opened your eyes or looked around that morning? Have you ever watched the news on television and wondered what the hell happened to all the good people? And your siblings, how many times have you looked into the defiant eyes of your younger sister/brother (delete as appropriate) and wanted to scream and shout until they did the washing up or picked up their shoes? Are there times that you just wish you were never here? Ok so I know that's a bit of a question overload, silly questions maybe but questions nonetheless. There are questions everywhere, anywhere, about everything and they spring up or are asked all the time. Our lives are built on questions, journeys to find the answers to questions and lost people trying to figure out what the hell the question is asking in the first place. I have to ask myself questions even when I walk into or out of a classroom, questions asking why I got something wrong, who told me the right answer, what relevance the question actually has to my life. There are a lot of pointless questions out there too, like how many bones does a human have? and what are the products of photosynthesis? when did Bob Marley die? Now if you know the answers then it makes for interesting conversation, I guess. But think about how many minutes you just spent reading and trying to figure out the answers to those questions, do you feel fulfilled for being able to answer them? have they changed your direct lives? I doubt it somehow. So what was it that compelled you to search the gloomy recesses of your brain to answer them? I'm not aiming to provide you with any answers, to be perfectly honest I have no idea why I'm writing this, sometimes you have thoughts that you just have to scribble down, answer tiny questions in your brain just by writing down how you feel. I think all you'll learn from reading this is that it's far too muddled, that's how I feel. I know that right now life is far from peachy, and yet still I find myself on a quest for those pesky answers. I remember things I thought I had forgotten, maybe hoped that I had forgotten and I feel things and do things I never thought I would. So being a human I embark on a journey for answers, teasing apart the tangled mess in my brain, trying to find the answer to happiness. Not perfect happiness because as Jane Austen said, "Perfect happiness, even in memory is not often common". I don't know maybe it is possible. Maybe I need to ask more questions about how people feel, why they did and still do things and what exactly happened. You have to ask questions to heal the past, but too many questions leave you back where you started. Perhaps that's another question, how many questions is it acceptable to seek answers to?

xxx

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Nothing

I have nothing to say as such. I am 16 today. It feels the same as 15 yesterday. I have a digital camera now. How do I put photos on here? I'm silly. Speak to you soon. xxx

Friday, June 10, 2005

Niki's Thoughts

Hmm I'm going to be honest because I think it's the decent thing to do. As I sit here it is Friday night and I have just been speaking to Keir, now I'm at Dad's house and he currently has no Internet connection so I'm writing this offline - to post at a later date depending on what crap I type out in the next 15 minutes or so. I might not even publish this, obviously if you're reading it then I did but yeah that's a story for another day I think.

Right, or is it left? Anyway even at this moment, right now I have no idea what I plan to write about. I have no plan for this blog, then again I have no life plan so why break the habit of a lifetime? A short lifetime yeah but a lifetime nonetheless.

I can see into the neighbour's garden from here, not that I'm looking - it's a mess! They ripped all the plants out and now it's just an expanse, a big and brown stretch of land all enclosed in a scarily suburbian fence, painted in that Ronseal paint stuff that makes lots of promises, well it does to us Channel Islanders anyway. They pulled the shed down too, I've done that before and I strongly recommend it. Then again I was knocking down a concrete one with a big sledgehammer thingy that was very hard to get off the ground, let alone swing. Building the new wooden shed wasn't half as fun as destroying the old one. Same with the wardrobe I guess, the old one was hacked apart in minutes which was awesome but it took hours to make the new one, and there was no axe involved either. And the PC desk although that's a painful story, literally. It was dropped on my foot by my Mother, I'm not sure if I have forgiven her yet hmm... I like DIY sometimes, maybe it's just power-tools like drills and stuff but they are so cool! Some may say destruction but hey destruction is a form of creation. Ha saw that film. I worry myself.

Oh dear am I still writing this? I guess so, it's pretty much just all my thoughts, well not all because I don't want to scare you but it's either this or talking out loud and I'm not sure I feel like that, plus I have music on. I made it my study-leave mission to tune and repair an old jazz guitar today, it was supposed to be todays plan but yeah it was harder than I anticipated. It has been sitting in the corner of my room for about two years after I bought it in some thrift shop somewhere because it was so beautiful and anyway the strings need seeing to and it needs sort of gluing back together and some desperate tuning which was all I managed in the end. So it's rusty and falling apart but at least it's in tune which has to be something right? Talking of music, my sister has started to write songs. Oh dear. Now it would be fine if she could play anything and didn't listen to Girls Aloud but to add insult to serious injury, she is tone-deaf. It hurts to listen. I did write some music for her though so at least she is attempting actual music now, even if it is in a depressingly rhyming, tone deaf, 10 year old stuff. We all have to start somewhere.

What on earth am I going to do with all my art stuff when it comes out of the exam exhibition? I have three modules which is in total six sketch books, three portfolios and three large installation-type things. I have no space to accomodate that kind of stuff! That's why they have art studios at school I think, to address storage issues. However if you drop art after GCSE that's it, out in the cold, no storage rights or nothing. Not so much as a paintbrush. Nada.

I think I sit wrong. I am sitting here in perfect position, or so I thought and I'm getting some sort of sharp pain in my right shoulder, only the right one. I'm not liking it much. Hmm I'll have to think about this. Done. It's the shoulder I messed up ages ago, that will be it. Anyways. Ooh it's music centre tomorrow, yay! I think I might ride down, you know on a bike, I haven't ridden for ages. I don't know why, it allows a lot more time messing about at home since it's so much quicker, I can leave home later. Good plan. Hold on, just hold your horses a sec. That means going home to get my bike, past music centre and riding back. Pointless. I could ride Dad's bike if I made the saddle lower, a lot. Ok that's an even better plan. It has bigger wheels, does that make it faster?

It's my birthday on Wednesday! June is the best month, so many birthdays. 11th-Gordon, 12th-Jon, 15th-Me, Eilidh, Jade, 16th-Emine, 28th-Erin, Ben. That's quite a few presents to buy. I have been promised a boiled carrot from Rach so I'm quite looking forward to that. Oh do I have to tell the story? It's boring. I can't stand raw carrots, so I said I preferred boiled ones. I think you can figure out where dear Rach's mind went next. I coloured in my school planner the other day, you know those homework things? Well we aren't allowed to 'personalise' them while at school since they belong to school apparantly. But after you leave that year, they become yours. Oh the logic. So I decorated it with the pens I used to get my shirt signed. Bloody hell, Gold Against the Soul is really short. I have to change music already.

Hehe Shania Twain is here. Coming to a CD player near you soon. Did you miss me? Thought not. I'm not sure whether I like memories attatched to my music, bad memories. Is it supposed to help you forget? Or help you wallow in the past? I think I'm with the latter. Maybe this CD wasn't the best idea. I have quite a few bad ideas. Like the recorder. Oh I already said that. The London tube map is actually quite pretty in it's own right, have you ever noticed? Course you haven't, you don't have a copy on your wall. Oh dear I have run out of fruit juice. I have recently re-tried orange juice and you know, it's not so bad. Better if you make it yourself of course. So long as you remove the pips first. Seeds? No, pips.

Woo only maths, science2 and french writing exams left! That's actually five tests but hey, three are on the same day. That means that to date I have completed 19 exams, 19! I have Monday and Tuesday with no exams though. And next Friday me and my buddies intend to sail over to Herm for the day, actually it might be on the public ferry since the boat only takes eight and I have a suspicion that Adam has a strange aversion to sailing the boat himself, proper sailing, with a sail. Does he not trust my capabilities? Ha.

I have a really itchy hand. Does that mean anything? Itchy hand. It's starting to get on my nerves actually, scratch scratch. Hehe some friends came to my place after french yesterday and we did the music thing, twas so funny watching my string-playing buddies try woodwind. They have no lung power at all, none. It's really not that hard to make a sound, they were so jealous when I played up an octave too since they couldn't even get up to middle C on the treble clef. It was also cool because I can sort of play strings with the guitar and all, and percussion with the drums. Multi-talented don't ya know? Kidding. Not talented. Oh for gods sake who sings about black eyes and blue tears? Huh? Apart from Shania obviously. Oh I just remebered the other day when I was looking through my RS notes, the biggest red marks I had were not fail grades scribbled on my papers, no they were when I refused to spell 'god' with a capital G, it just didn't happen. Each and every time I forgot, since my teacher is a dedicated Catholic she thought I was directly offending my creator and ruler. Ha. She begrudgingly gave me a good review then since I don't suck at the subject, just the politically-correct-ness. We had this huge debate last weekend in the back of my friend's car about whether we could burn the little red bibles they gave us in year 7, is that really wrong? Not to offend any Christians, just because we don't or do in Rach's case, believe in god. Why is it that Christians, like Evangelical ones can go around yelling about their beliefs but athiests can't shout about why they think god is a load of bollocks? If they do they get frowned at and called disrespectful, yet people only quietly deplore door-to-door Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses. Athiests are out of line but believers are merely expressing themselves. Hmm that sounds benevolent and omniscient and omnipotent or whatever 'He' is supposed to be. Rant finished.

Oh dear I'm all lonely. I need a hug. There is no one here. I know, I'll give the voices in my head a little cuddle. Nope, it doesn't work. I need a person. I felt lonely all day and this post was helping, typing crap no one is ever going to actually read, but it's gone and caught up with me now - the big, red lonely monster. I'm scared. And the monster won't hug me, although I did ask, since he was here etc. But no, it's not in his job description. Have you ever noticed how much some people worry about what other people think? Like the yesterday we went into town and a member of our group refused to go into Pound World, incase anyone saw her and thought she was cheap. Give me a break? She is very image-conscious too though. I'm not. Hehe I look despicable all the time and there isn't a lot I can do about it, so yeah you'll all just have to accept it. Obviously my husband is free to adore me, although he better not be shallow because boy, I'll be a disappointment. Then again he'l have to see me to talk to me, so basically my husband will have to be the type of guy to whom looks don't matter. Not that I have a husband lined up. By any means.

"If elephants could fly I'd be a little more optimistic" classic lyrics.

NME festival guide. Depressing reading. I am going to none, no festivals. Apparently I should go to the Nokia Isle of Wight festival, and Glastonbury - that is my festival style. Ha I have tickets for neither. It was so frustrating last summer because when we were trampling round the New Forest on our D of E practice, all these happy, stoned festival-goers were on the trains and wandering around, some driving. And we were carrying about three stone each to visit graveyards, supermarkets and other 'Human Land Uses'. All the sustenance we had was some dodgy-tatsing lager that the assessor/our teacher gave us and some gelatine-filled sweeties from the overstocked and underpriced sweet shop in Lyndhurst. Oh and we cooked Spaghetti Bolognese, which would of been awesome had it not rained and got all diluted and soggy. Oh and we drove back to the ferry in a good old Ford, a Hampshire, 54 reg. Classic. So we didn't stick out at all. It was so fun trying to explain all the new UK registration to the other island-dwellers in my group, I was the only one with family links and regular exscursions to the mainland and my uncle works in a garage over there. It's really not hard to understand. And they're pretty old now. I've always preferred Guernsey reg numbers since they're only numbers, eg ours is 29952 and Dad's is 7435, no one knows how old your car is that way.
I've been writing for about an hour now, with only brief thinking stops. Sorry if I did post this and you're still reading. Anyway I think it's time the nonsense ended. And so it will.
xxx

OK so I'm at the neighbours and they have Internet, inevitably I did post this.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Protection

Back to the poetry I think, I intend to compile a list of my favourite songs in the near future however study leave yields many poetic opportunities.
Hmm this one may appear a bit pretentious though, I'm not sure. You know what, let me know.

Protection

Raise your hand to my face,
Lean in deeper,
So I can smell it on your breath,
Remind me this isn't you,
You're out of control.
He is sitting in that corner,
Over there,
Where you threw him,
My protector, my strength,
Now he lies cowering away.
You do it again,
Still shouting at me,
Cutting me with your accuracy,
Hurting me with your hands.
I can still see the look in your eyes,
I remember the alcohol stench,
I hear the things you said,
Everyday.
Worse though, worse than destruction,
Is abandonment,
He left me,
Watched as you tore me apart.
Only fear I saw in his eyes,
Desperation and weakness,
The collapse of my barrier.
I ran away from you and your words,
I still see you all the time,
But our eyes never meet,
Because you exploited mine,
I can never look into yours again.
I'll always be running,
Unprotected.

xxx

Friday, June 03, 2005

My Music

So here I am, it's some god forsaken hour of the morning and I can't concentrate on my story and I've written two poems so I'm going to follow in Davey's very admirable footsteps and compile a music list, my music list. I have around 90 albums in my CD rack, 90 albums spanning various decades and genres, some I listen to all the time and some I keep purely for silly sentimental reasons, there are also 3 singles - just 3. I must say my music taste has evolved and changed so much in about two years, largely based on recommendations from you guys, aww love ya - you saved me from 'Now' albums and Dido, anyway I digress. My top ten albums, compilations and otherwise. Some of them are currently in my Dad's cars and house, Mum's house and possibly my shed and anywhere inbetween so hopefully it'll be sort of accurate, although I can't promise all the information and titles are correct since I only really pay attention to what it sounds like, anyway don't make promises - they're silly. Right I'll stop this now since it's not funny and all you really want to know is my favourite music, oh and maybe how many typos I can make at 3am, so here it is:

10) Snow Patrol - Final Straw

Yup, sorry guys but I can't help it, I love it. My favourite track being 'Run', the music isn't top-quality but the lyrics are often there and I guess it really depends on your mood. It is a little melancholy but pretty chilled-out and hey it's just what the doctor ordered at this time of the morning, the space between asleep and awake, you're not stoned but you wish you were and you're not overly happy - so you go for Snow Patrol with the upbeat music and downbeat lyrics, a complete contradiction. Like me.

9) Anastacia - Anastacia

Yes Keir she is a loud american, a very loud american who also sometimes rocks if you're driving along (being driven to be exact but hey let's not split hairs here) and you have the top down and you wanna annoy people who don't feel like being yelled at by a bitter sounding american woman who has highly possibly just been dumped - or so it sounds. In all honesty she lives in my gym discman so she had to have a place really since there's nothing better to get nice and sweaty to, sorry for that image.

8) Damien Rice - O

You really need to be quite down to listen to this, some say it's bland and some say it's just plain shit but I disagree. He's been likened to Elliott Smith but I don't think he's really worthy of this accolade (we'll get to Elliott later). The best track being either 'Cannonball' or 'Cold Water' there isn't much instrumental here, it's mainly voice and accoustic. And anyway we all need to calm down sometimes.

7) Saxtet - Urban Groove

A criminally unheard of group made up of saxophones and clarinets it's right up my street as a jazz musician, the five members all have unique playing styles and they all write their own music for the rest of the group to play, they also all play different saxes and claris so it's a great variety. This is their latest album which I bought when they played in Guernsey around two years ago and I met them and did a workshop with them. Some groovy jazz to chill to and to dance to, it's got it all.

6) Natalie Imbruglia - Left Of The Middle

Personally I think she ruined it all with the dodgy movie with Rowan Atkinson and her latest album, this album couln't really have been bettered. Her style and band are sometimes similar to my now defunct band with its powerful vocals and strong drums on 'Big Mistake'. However my favourite track has to be 'Smoke' just because I sort of, aargh what's the word!, identify, I identify with it, and after you've realised personal connections in music there's no looking back.

5) Bob Marley and The Wailers - Legend

Ah Bob, what can I say? You either love him or you hate him, you're either stoned or you're not - not that it's necessary to be by any means, if you like it then you'll feel it whatever your state. This album has everything and it's all pretty beautiful, I can't really name favourite tracks on here because I don't have any! Perfect for listening to with special people early in the morning or even alone. I love it all, and true love lasts a lifetime - remember that.

4) Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue

Another jazz legend, one that I've been familiar with for years and years, donkeys years you might say if you were my Grandma. Anyway his music is timeless and continues to resonate today, some 14 years after his death in 1991. He had a unique vision and titanic power, the man who inspired my first jazzy notes and continues to reside in my top five so many years after.

3) Ok Computer - Radiohead

I did toy with the idea of putting The Bends here but I don't think it's really like their other stuff and I thought this one was the album that displayed them at their best, I didn't like a whole lot of Hail To The Thief. It was a recommendation to me of course and subsequently the first of three albums I have bought. I don't think I can really explain why I like them so much it's just that if you let go a bit you can allow yourself to be sucked in to a pretty cool place, a place I'm not too keen on leaving usually.

2) Gold Against The Soul - Manic Street Preachers

Possibly the trickiest decision I've made since I had to choose whether to study maths or physics yesterday, it wasn't easy I'm telling you. I seriously considered The Holy Bible since it's so widely acclaimed, and rightly so. However then I'd have to consider Everything Must Go and Forever Delayed and then you get pulled into so many possibilites, so I chose the first release among my collection and the album I've listened to most recently, I like 'Yourself' quite a bit.

1) From A Basement On The Hill - Elliott Smith

How bizarre! My newest album is the number one! Recommended by Keir just a short while ago I ran along to amazon and bought a copy, I haven't stopped listening since. I wasn't sure if you could fall in love with music that quickly after a recommendation but hell can you fall in love when the music's this good. 'king's crossing' has to be the best but if I had to list all my favourites I'd end up listing the entire album, so I won't. It's really depressing and deep, maybe it's the knowledge that he ended his life around the time of the album but as soon as you start to listen you're pulled into a whole other world, a dark and exciting one that works well on all levels, and at all volumes - I've tried. Yep this one is a keeper I think, so I would like to thank Keir, thank you Keir. Breathtaking

Right so there it is, sure you'll recognise most of it since you probably showed me the way to a lot of the artists I've got here. Of course several more artists should have made it in, here they are: Interpol(Keir), My Bloody Valentine(Thanks Davey), Green Day, Joy Division(Keir again), The Corrs, The Stone Roses, Shania Twain, British Sea Power(Thanks 'The Guardian'), Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Frank Sinatra, Des'ree(Romeo and Juliet song), Meredith Brooks, KT Tunstall, The Libertines(god knows why), Simple Plan, Bloc Party, The Clash, Jack Johnson and any others I'm likely to have missed off.

I was going to end here but then I'd have nothing to do at all and I'm quite enjoying writing this although I must say I don't actually have anything else to say, so skip this if you don't feel like a ramble. Music is pretty much what makes up my basic existence, I started with the recorder at age seven - that was a mistake, the recorder is always a mistake. Then things started to get interesting when I got to junior school, I took a music test for aptititude from which the Guernsey Music Centre selects musicians to train and teach in a chosen instrument. I passed this test but that year so did a lot of people and there wasn't enough instruments to go around, so I waited a year before taking up the clarinet, about 6 years ago now. I have progressed through 4 different woodwind bands to get to the one I am in now and have taken 5 grades, the latest of which I failed but lets not go into that. I play with the band every Saturday for two hours and attend lessons with my teacher every Wednesday for 45 mintes, I almost gave up a while back because I felt that I was a bit restricted to Mozart and the like but I had a chat with my excellent teacher and we have an informal thing now where I choose the music and I go to the band on Saturday whenever I can, so that's all good. A mere two years ago I started playing the Keyboard with a private school and I love it, I've taken two grades because I picked it up pretty quickly being in the same clef as the Clarinet and now I basically play what I like, with my teacher helping with the technical stuff and chords. Ok so that's the end of the organised music, now we move to the fun, not so organised stuff like drums, guitar and vocal. My aural teacher told me I could sing and encouraged me to join a choir to tune it up a bit, Huw taught me the drums last summer, Dad taught me guitar and these three instuments are ones that I fool around with, write music with and generally have a good time with, whenever I can.

I mentioned my defunct band earlier which I'm guess some of you might not have known existed but it has done for the past three years now. Huw is always the drum man cos he rocks and he's played them forever, his sticks are like extensions to his hands, it's pretty intense. Tom is always on bass for similar reasons to Huw and he thinks it's 'good for his image' - we love him really, even if he is a bit shallow and somewhat naive. Now Jon and me have an arrangement, don't worry - it's all above board - and we alternate between guitar and vocals, although it must be said I do spend most time on vocals since I don't technically know guitar, I make it up a bit. I wrote most of the lyrics but if anyone else ever had ideas they were of course free to submit them and we'd try them out, we all wrote the music to go with them although only Huw and I actually have theory knowledge. Anyway we were good and now we are no more since Huw and Tom have left school and Guernsey in favour of travelling all summer and then university, Jon and I hadn't the heart to replace them so now all I have is the school jazz band, a small but happy affair consisting of 10 members on sax, clari, drums, guitar, trombone, trumpet and erm triangle. So I still have quite a bit of music in my life, thankfully! I think I'd go stir-crazy without it!

*Niki falls asleep*

Ok I think I'm pretty much done now since it got to about 5am and I fell asleep in the middle of writing this, consequently the laptop power ran out and I awoke and performed a pretty hasty file recovery operation, I continued writing all this crap at about 10:30am and now it's 12pm - I got distracted. Anyway I''m gonna have to get going since I'm meeting people in about an hour for lunch and stuff, maybe the beach since it's so hot and sunny, plus I have to go choose the music! Actually I probably won't get online to post this till tonight so not much of it will make sense but hey, story of my life!

Finally a mention for the awesome local bands, the members of whom I am great friends with but they don't blog, fools.
Theraputic Hoovering, Beaver, Andy Mason, The Cheerios Incident - TCI, 8 In a bar, and anyone else who plays at the hockey club or the doghouse on Friday and Saturday nights, you rock.

This post is dedicated to the memory of Fight Reality; Tom, Huw, Jon and Me!

Love you x x x