Yo-Yo Ma

If I were to listen to one piece of music for the rest of my life it would be Yo-Yo Ma playing Elgar's Cello Concerto. Since first hearing it a few weeks ago, I have listened to it perhaps 20 or 30 times and the musicality he plays with still leaves me completely in awe. The emotion in these long and lyrical lines is beyond my comprehension and the pizz moving into the second movement sends shivers down my spine. I honestly cannot imagine how any single person would not be on the verge of tears in response to this performance - whether you appreciate classical music or not, his playing is a universal language that communicates passion beyond belief.

Inspiration

I love writing. I love being trapped in the emotions of another persona. I love describing a scene and watching the blank canvas come to life with vibrant colours. I love using what I love and who I love to shape entire worlds of fantasy.

I have always wanted to be an author. By looking through my old notebooks, you would find pages of hurried, unappetising lines of scrawled handwriting which appear unloved and perfunctory. But really they are precious. Inside these notebooks are a collection of passing thoughts I have, floating across my consciousness, soon to disappear into the dark crevices where the lost and forgotten are left to decay and perish. So I grasp them, capture them into single lines of scrawl, order them, reorder them, forget about them, find them again, blow off the dust, admire their creativity, despise their disorderly nature, let the dust settle again. And their they are abandoned until I find inspiration once more. Then the feathered quill is dipped in ink and I feel shudders, a consequence of not only the screeching nature of nib on fresh paper, but also because of the tingling sense of excitement a new idea brings me.

So how do I acquire such inspiration?

• Music. Music can conjure up such a variety of emotions, and these emotions can differ between different people and when in different situations. The inspiration for the fairly lights accompanying this blog post? The introduction to The Blind Leaving the Blind Mvt 3 by Punch Brothers. The intricate plucking reminds me of the serene flickering of fairy lights. Spiro's We Will Be Absorbed makes me think of journeys to an unknown place. Or perhaps a nostalgic visit to the house you grew up in, and suddenly all the memories come flooding back. Or maybe a desperately sad goodbye full of tears and smiles. Instrumental music is often best as it means your brain is not confined to the restrictions of lyrics.
• Pictures. Photos. Paintings. Sketches. A scenery which I can describe has the possibility of inspiring an entire story. The setting sky, the rising sun, the glittering stars all create new worlds where events can unfold.
• Poems. The poetic language used to describe emotions, seasons and worlds in poetry is so compelling and poignant. My favourite piece of creative writing I have ever produced was inspired by the poem 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree', a beautiful poem describing a utopian land where Yeats wanted to escape to. This is also the moment where listening to music with lyrics is perhaps a good idea, as there are so many songs with beautiful and enchanting words. Bob Dylan's 'Simple Twist of Fate' is the inspiration for the novel I have been writing on-and-off for a couple of years.
• Unusual words. Sometimes finding out new words stimulates new ideas. The other day I discovered the word 'crenellations' - which are the battlements of a castle - which inspired hundreds of ideas of a very gothic nature. Another word I love is compunction - a piercing sense of remorse. The definition is not from a dictionary, but instead from my English teacher and I prefer it endlessly. It describes the word with so much more intensity than 'a feeling of guilt or moral scruple that prevents or follows the doing of something bad' and it inspires a much more powerful emotional response.
• Theology. I find theology really fascinating. My stories are usually quite philosophical-esque, with themes of death, the afterlife, and the meaning of life often being threaded within the storyline. I especially love learning about classical theology - the Ancient Greek and Roman Gods - and reading the myths. I find them so interesting and the significance of the morality surrounding each one often inspires the philosophical ideas which features in my stories.
• News articles. I love reading thrillers, and one day I would love to write one so whenever I find an interesting headline or unsolved mystery I write it down to use a stimulus. This way, I have an intriguing story which is also plausible.

Once you begin looking at the world from new perspectives, you have an infinite number of ways to become inspired.

Light and Gold

Eric Whitacre's music is beautifully chilling. Whether singing or listening to his pieces, you cannot help but be carried into a state of transcendence by his spine-tingling cluster chords and eerie soprano lines. His music shimmers with ethereal majesty and beauty.
I have had the privilege of singing four of his pieces: 'Sleep', 'With a Lily in Your Hand', 'Lux Arumque' and 'Seal Lullaby' and although challenging, they are some of the most rewarding pieces to learn as you are faced with total perfection once they are mastered. 

The two pieces below are the most beautifully scintillating compositions of his, and so soothing to listen to.

                 

                 

Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously

So, we've made our way to linguistics. It was only a matter of time, really. Anyone who knows me well will know that it would have taken a lot of self-restraint to wait this long to write this blog post, since I rave about languages and linguistics on virtually a daily basis. It is my absolute greatest passion. 

Linguistics is the study of language - how we speak, how we acquire language, how languages evolve, what languages are comprised of, how languages are related, how language and thought are linked... and it is truly fascinating.
It seems to combine everything I love: languages, history, maths and logic, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, being analytical, essay-writing... and it is where my interests lie above anything else.
Here is a list of some of the interesting things that linguistics is concerned with:

• There is a theory called 'Linguistic relativity' or 'Sapir-Whorfianism' which states that language is related to thought, and can actually affect the way we think. For example, Daniel Everett did a study on the Pirahã language (an Amazonian language) and discovered that they have no words for certain colours and certain numbers, the latter resulting in them finding it difficult to understand subtraction as they have no way of expressing it - their language limits them. Almost like 'Newspeak' in George Orwell's '1984', this theory suggests that the range of vocabulary (lexicon) in a language limits our thought and makes people who speak different languages think in different ways
• Virtually every language across Europe and Asia evolved from a language called Proto-Indo-European. The earliest language that evolved from here that is still alive is Albanian, with Sanskrit and Greek following closely. You can also gauge from the diagram that there have been 5 distinct periods of language in England - England before English, Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English and Present Day English - and that the English language has roots from Latin (after the Roman invasion), Germanic languages (from the Saxon, Jute and Angle invasions) and French (after the Norman invasion)
• There are a few languages that do not share the common ancestor of 'Proto-Indo-European', most notably Basque. These languages are called 'Pre-Indo-European' languages. The survival of Basque is very curious, as it is spoken by so few people and has no known ancestor, and consequently it has quite a high risk of linguicide within the next few years
• When villages with different languages trade with one another, they often create a new language called a 'Pidgin' so they can communicate. When the next generation starts acquiring this language, it becomes a stable natural language called a 'Creole' with a system of grammar. These children have not been taught the grammar of the pidgin - in fact the grammar for a pidgin is simplified anyway - instead they effectively create their own language. Pidgins and Creoles are used as evidence for the Chomskian theory that all humans have an innate ability to learn grammar, called Universal Grammar. He believes that the creoles are created because linguistic ability manifests itself without being taught.
• Due to the influence of the internet, many languages are picking up a large number of English words and in effect becoming hybrid languages. Examples include Denglisch (the combination of German and English), Franglais (French and English) and Hinglish (Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and English)

Ode to Autumn

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.

John Keats beautifully encapsulates the mood of Autumn in his words. He continues with mention of the 'cyder-press', 'twined flowers', and 'gathering swallows' who twitter in the sky. Without mentioning colour, he seems to paint my mind with the burgundys, mustards and olive greens I associate with Autumn in such a masterful way and even more remarkably he is able to evoke an intense sensuous explosion of the delicate smell of cinnamon and pumpkin and spiced apple and the sound of shrill birds and crunching leaves underfoot and the feeling of a harsh wind against ruddied cheeks and the scudding of clouds against a sky of blues and pinks and the warmth of watching it rain out of the window with just a few mere observations of his natural surroundings.

I love Autumn, and with today marking the season's dawning, I feel I am now allowed to wear huge baggy sweaters and drink cocoa and wrap my room in owl fairy lights. Autumn means harvest and Halloween and cornucopias and fireworks and sanguine hues of red and white and green amongst the golds and browns and russets. And before it becomes bitter and bleak, Autumn means savouring these last glimpses of sunlight while we can.

Are You Proud of What You've Become?

I think we all evolve as people. We all create new versions of ourselves constantly - maybe to fit in with a new group of friends, maybe when beginning a new path in life like university or a new job, or maybe just to become more comfortable and confident within ourselves. And the strangest thing about it is that - unless you want to dramatically reinvent yourself - we do it all completely subconsciously. One day you may begin to listen to a new style of music, another day you may pick out a dress that doesn't adhere to your normal style, and then all of a sudden you look back at an old version of yourself and realise you identify so little with
this person that you may as well be two different people.

Recently I've noticed a change in myself. Some people may just call this maturity - changing from a ditsy teenager to a young woman - but I think it's more like that I've found the ground that I'm comfortable on and I've settled on it. Yes, my personality will probably still change as I meet new people and travel down new paths of life, but I feel like I really know who I want to be now and I feel much more comfortable within myself. I am enjoying watching myself become this person.

When I first joined secondary school, I was desperate to fit in. I didn't necessarily wish to be popular, but I wanted to be liked and to establish long-lasting friendships. I didn't want to be the strange lonely girl I had become in my final year of primary school. But in order to fit in, I became somebody I really don't identify with now. I listened to Capital FM, became obsessed with Glee and began wearing make up to school just so I could be 'cool' and 'fit in'. I don't think I've done any of these things now for over 4 years and to be honest, I'm glad. Trying to be someone I wasn't just to be liked seems like such an immature thing to do now and I know I will never tread down that dark path again. But, on the other hand, I am also glad that I did go through this phase because it has made me aware of who I'm not and has contributed to my discovery of who I am. Never has the phrase 'You learn from your mistakes' applied so drastically to my life than now.

There have been a number of things that have made me realise that I'm transforming into something new and that have encouraged me to embrace this change.
I recently rediscovered my Tumblr account after a couple of years of absence and realised how my interests have completely changed. My account had been dedicated to Sherlock (particularly gifs of Johnlock), Dan and Phil (amongst other Youtubers) and Benedict Cumberbatch and I had been obsessed with blogging, reblogging and favouriting anything even faintly #relatable. Now, although I do still love Sherlock and watch youtubers from time to time, my interests have changed to folk music, languages and linguistics, and Doddleoddle (yes, a youtuber, but also an inspiration for who I aspire to be as a person style-wise, speech-wise, mentality-wise and life-wise).
And these interests have transformed me into a new person. Listening to this new style of music (as I am right now, writing this post) has influenced my life in such a positive way, by always keeping me uplifted and also by making me completely
reassess music and good musicianship. My interest in languages and linguistics has made me view the world in a totally different way and given me an aspiration which I am now driven to work towards. And when recently having a major sort out of my wardrobe, I ended up ridding myself of over half of my clothes as I no longer see myself as someone who wears (or suits) shorts shorts, tight tops or pretty and cutesy blouses and dresses - and now when buying new clothes for Autumn and Winter I am totally and utterly inspired by doddleoddle's fashion sense.

And although these seems like pretty menial things, together they have made me look at myself in the mirror and not only see myself as a new person, but a better person. Someone who seems happy. Someone who is slightly strange but is comfortable enough in their own skin to not care about being judged by others. Someone who is totally and utterly themselves. I am enjoying who I have become and who I am still becoming.

Life Through the Lens

I am always taking photographs. Every party or day out or holiday I go to is accompanied by the click of a shutter and the blink of a flash and I then preserve every experience by displaying the photos around my room so I can enliven my memories.  And with cameras being built into virtually all mobile phones, we are now constantly able to capture these moments and store them and share them with the world. However, I am beginning to feel that this obsession we have with sharing experiences through photos could in fact be tainting the experiences themselves.

This summer, I went to two music festivals - Cambridge Folk Festival and Reading Festival - both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. My two favourite bands, Punch Brothers and Mumford and Sons were playing at these events respectively and it was such a great experience hearing them live. However, there was a significant difference between the two concerts - I filmed parts of the Punch Brothers' set, but for Mumford and Sons, I just watched - and I have to say that I did feel considerably more engaged in the musicality in the Mumford and Sons concert and just noticed much more.
Although I mentioned that the addiction of photographing and filming has originated from our obsession with updating our statuses about our experiences, in no way was I filming Punch Brothers in order to blast it across social media immediately afterwards. However, I still felt compelled to film their set in order to watch it back and relive the experience. As I have mentioned previously, Punch Brothers are amazing live because of what they add to their performances that is not on their CD and I filmed them in order to capture these moments - it was almost as if I didn't trust my memory to retain their amazing performance. But what I was really doing was robbing myself of the thrill of watching them perform, so when I watch the film back, all I am doing is watching them play (like I could already do on youtube) - I don't feel any sort of emotional attachment to the clip, unlike the excitement I still feel when reliving the snippets I have in my memory.  The battery ran out on my phone about halfway through their set and although I was disappointed at the time, I now realise how much more engaged I was in their musicianship, expression and emotion when I wasn't filming.

It was after this concert that I found the tweet above by Chris Thile (lead singer and mandolin player of Punch Brothers) and I really began thinking about how filming at concerts could influence your experience. I have always been against filming in proper concert halls, namely because it's usually illegal, but also because of how distracting it can be to the people in the audience and on stage. However, due to the more informal nature of music festivals, where people whoop and cheer and chat during performances, I always thought it was a good idea to film the music as you can once again not only watch the musicians playing again, but you can familiarise yourself with the whole vibe of the experience. But no, all you are doing is depriving yourself of your first experience and living vicariously through a camera. After feeling such a difference in my over all experience of the two bands, I am truly against filming at concerts.

Something else I have noticed in myself since becoming increasingly involved in social media - something I am actually quite embarrassed to admit - is that there have been moments in my life where I've been offered opportunities to do something and I have wanted to do them solely because I think it will look good on social media. Times like this include: learning the Northumbrian pipes at Cambridge Folk Festival because I thought it would look cool, teaching the cup song to a village of Vietnamese children because I thought I'd look inspirational, and climbing to the top of a huge hill so I could take a great photo of myself looking out to see. At times like this, I have step back and reassess my life and decide whether I really want to do these things to enrich my life, or just to maintain a façade as social media queen (which I definitely am not). If it is the latter - of which two of those examples were - I stop myself in fear that I will become another one of the vain addicts to Instagram that I have grown to loathe.

I am scared that this obsession with preserving memories with videos and photos is depriving us of the experiences themselves. I am scared that this addiction to sharing photos and updating our statuses is leading us into a world governed by the number of likes you get on your life choices and experiences.  I am scared we are living our lives for the benefit of other people and not for ourselves.


We should run through the forest
We should swim in the streams
We should laugh, we should cry,
We should love, we should dream
We should stare at the stars and not just the screens
You should hear what I'm saying and know what it means
-Passenger

Punch Brothers

I love music. I love singing along to my favourite songs, I love dancing to my playlist and I love having it in the background when working. But what I find the most uplifting about music is seeing amazingly virtuoso musicians playing. Listening to somebody play and being totally mesmerised by their musicianship is such a special experience. You can listen to their music -with them running effortlessly through long passages, each note perfectly placed; or playing with beautifully atmospheric articulation that transforms the notes on a page into a whole display of emotion in your imagination, or with cleverly accented notes so the listener knows the direction of a phrase and can travel along with them - and be completely encapsulated in the sheer perfection of it. There are no flaws to distract you from the very core of the music being played. That is what I love about music: being completely trapped within its magic, and being totally in awe of its power.

I try not to attack styles of music too much, but it makes me so sad that the charts are dominated by singers with overdubbed, autotuned vocals strumming aimlessly at a guitar to the chords C, G, Am, and F with a lame drum loop in the background. Yes, some people on the top 100 are definitely talented and I do have the occasional number 1 hit on my playlist, but there are so many 'musicians' who do not have any idea what good musicianship is. As Elton John puts it, modern pop singers lack humanity - they are 'processed performers' who rely on autotune to make themselves sound flawless. Elton John attended the Royal Academy of Music and took inspiration from the greats - Bach, Beethoven - and this appreciation he has for good musicians can clearly be shown in his work. ‘If you love Bach, Mozart, Chopin and Beethoven, you can’t help but be influenced. They wrote the greatest melodies and the most beautiful things of all time.’

And the worst part is that people listening to the 'packaged crap' which lacks soul and humanity never truly learn how music can make you feel.

So this is where I present the Punch Brothers.

Punch Brothers

The Punch Brothers is a band formed from five incredibly virtuosic musicians. Their main style is (progressive) bluegrass, but they play a huge range of music (Debussy to Radiohead to even Beyonce), which they adapt for mandolin, banjo, guitar, fiddle, and double bass. And they are totally, totally phenomenal. Never have I been so completely astounded than when I have seen them in concert. I first saw them play in London in January, having never heard of them before (I actually went to see the supporting act, Sarah Jarosz, who is another incredible bluegrass musician) and I was completely entranced. I had never been so captivated by musicians in this way before. After that, I became obsessed. I constantly had their music on loop and I spoke about them to everyone at any opportunity possible. I just could not get over their talent. I then saw them again at the Cambridge Folk Festival - a completely different setting to the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank - and was once again blown away by their performance. I have never been on such a post-concert high than in the hours following their set. I felt electric.

Chris Thile, the mandolinist and founder of the band, is an exceptionally good musician. Listening to him is enchanting. Watching his fingers is mesmerizing. His passion is contagious and his musicianship is truly extraordinary. He began his career in the band Nickel Creek (of whom I am also a massive fan) and even at the age of 9 you can see the makings of an amazing musician.

He also has a successful solo career. His violin sonatas and partitas on mandolin are absolutely remarkable and I adore his album 'Not all who wonder are lost'.
What makes him such an exceptional musician is not only his masterly playing, but also his appreciation of the great musicians. The fact that he has a whole album of him playing Bach shows his respect for the greats (which, as previously mentioned, Elton John deems as essential for good musicianship) and he frequently incorporates Bach into his improvisation . He also makes reference to Bob Dylan's work, another man with extraordinary contribution to music.

The other band members are also incredible musicians. The banjo player, Noam Pikelny is a wonder on the instrument - he makes the most difficult passages look incredibly effortless. Gabe Witcher - the fiddle player - is wonderfully talented when improvising and shows such control over his instrument. Chris Eldridge is a brilliant guitarist - I love how the guitar cuts through in 'Flippen' - and also a great singer - as shown in 'Through the bottom of the glass'. The bassist, Paul Kowert, is a stunning performer, most notably at the beginning of (the live version of) 'Flippen'. Together, their musicianship is spellbinding.

The band members truly understand what makes a successful musician and performance, as shown in the video clip here. The two band members in this clip (Gabe and Chris) talk about technical skills and musical expression in such a masterful way.

After Cambridge Folk Fest, in the midst of my post-concert hype, I made a list of reasons why I love the band:

• I love how they are so much better live - I'm so glad that the first time I heard Punch Brothers was live because it means I will always associate the tracks on their album with their performance in London. Honestly, there are a few pieces by the band that I don't like so much (and had I heard them just on the album, I would have skipped the track every time), but with the memories I have of them playing each piece so brilliantly live, the pieces are transformed in my mind. In their concerts, there are so many more hidden gems, such as extended endings to pieces and cheeky added lines, which is why seeing them live is such magical experience, and completely necessary to truly understand the band. Naturally, their improvisation changes every time they perform too, with each variation equally virtuosic. The band is definitely worth seeing live because it is a completely different experience to listening to a CD
  
• I love their interaction with each other and the audience - with reference to the previous point, it is also incredibly important to see them live as you can really see how they thrive off each other's enthusiasm and also the audience's appreciation. This wasn't quite as noticeable at London, as the nature of a concert hall makes it a stiffer setting, but at Cambridge Folk Festival, when everyone was slightly tipsy and crazily dancing around and cheering, you could see how the band bounced off the crowd's passion and played with so much more energy themselves. You could see the pure joy in their faces as they played, which is so magical to see
• I love how well they blend - musically, their blend and balance of instruments is second to none. When one instrument is improvising, the other players sensitively drop back and accompany, and the harmonies sung along with Chris Thile are so subtle that it's almost like an angelic cloud of dust over his melody - so tantalisingly soft that you question whether anything is actually there. And when instruments do cut through to play interesting countermelodies and imitative phrases, they do so with complete awareness of what their part is meant to add to the main melody
• I love their professionalism - at Cambridge, they spent a very long time tuning their instruments and also ensuring their balance was correct and they continued to slightly change it throughout their performance. This precision and attention to detail shows their complete professionalism as musicians. They know how they want to sound, and will ensure they sound this way in every performance
  
• I love their appearance on stage - you can clearly see their enjoyment when performing by watching how they dance around on stage and smile ecstatically as they play. Never are they rigidly standing playing their instruments - all of them (excluding, perhaps, the bassist) are constantly wandering around the stage. This could give an air of amateurishness about them, but - combined with their exceptional performance -  this relaxed stature actually just emphasises how effortlessly they can glide through the most technically difficult pieces. They often stand close to each other in pairs, especially when improvising and playing heterophonically, which once again shows how well they play together, with perfect blend and ensemble. Also, on the subject of appearance, their fashion sense is amazing
• I love how their music makes me feel - there are certain devices in music that will always be uplifting - a modulation to the dominant or to the relative major to make it bright and joyful, a tempo change to half-speed to make it more emphatic - and suddenly shivers course through your body and you want everything to do with the music - compose it, conduct it, perform it, listen to it. My first notable experience of this was singing 'Can you feel the love tonight?' in choir - that modulation to the dominant, although cheesy and very Disney, was completely awe-inspiring to 11-year-old me. I have very rarely had this feeling since, and only ever when singing or playing with other people. Yet seeing Punch Brothers live sent shivers down my spine almost constantly. Through their performance, they manage to make you feel like you are involved in every part of their music. And the most impressive part of this is that they don't need to use clichéd tricks like modulation to the dominant (or even worse, the supertonic *shudders*), it is purely through their exceptional musicianship that you feel this way. I can be having the worst day and be filled with anxiety and stress, but within seconds of 'Flippen', all my worries seem to dissolve away as I focus on their astounding skill 

Flute Music

I play the flute.
I play the flute to relax.
I play the flute to calm myself down.
I play the flute to escape.
I play the flute to lose myself in the music.
I play the flute to feel a sense of achievement.
I play the flute to play with other people.
I play the flute to understand music.
I play the flute to challenge myself.
I play the flute to perform and feel proud.

I play the flute because I enjoy it. I love the pleasure playing an instrument gives me and I love conveying this pleasure to an audience through performing. I love listening to a lyrical melody and being able to play along so I become totally absorbed within its emotion and meaning. I love practising something difficult until suddenly I can play it with such ease that it sounds like running water. I love how different interpretations can make one piece of music suddenly dissipate into a thousand different pieces, each carrying a new emotion. I love how a musical instrument gives you the opportunity to no longer be confined to just listening to music - you can play the music, you can craft it yourself with your own emotion and make it a part of you. You can be the music.

I play different pieces of music depending on how I feel.

If I want to really challenge myself, I play the Bach flute sonatas. Bach was a pure genius and the mathematical style of his music is so satisfying to play, but also incredibly difficult in places with its fast runs and intricate ornamentation.

I often play slow French impressionist music when I feel stressed and want to relax. I particularly like Fauré and Debussy as there is no limit to the amount of emotion you can convey with intelligent use of vibrato and rubato. I also love the extensive use of the lower octave in Fauré's Pavane as it makes it such a thick melody, yet also beautifully elegant and haunting.

I'm currently working my way through the James Galway showpieces, which I got for my birthday. I mostly play these for fun, as the majority are well away from performance standard. They are a real challenge, but listening to James Galway's album 'Man With The Golden Flute' (on which all of these pieces feature) really encourages me to to work at them as they sound so impressive. My current favourites are Waltz by Godard and Adagio and Variation by Saint-Saens. Two other pieces that I am currently playing which I definitely deem as showpieces, despite them not featuring in Galway's collection, are Andante et Scherzo by Ganne and the final movement of the Poulenc flute sonata (Presto Giocoso). These are both incredibly difficult pieces but also ridiculously fun to play.

And finally, Mozart. I could play Mozart all day every day and not get bored. He is the absolute mastermind of music. The D major and G major flute concertos are just brilliant to play and the D major flute quartet will always hold a special place in my heart.

Being involved in music is such a special thing.

What Has Changed Me

One Day - David Nicholls

*takes a deep breath*
There is no way that I can describe the effect this book has had on me. I love it, indeed, more than words can say.
This book follows the lives of two friends, Emma and Dexter, from when they graduate from University right up until their forties, with each chapter describing their life on the 15th of July year after year.
Now I have to admit, this book takes quite a bit of time to get into. Every time a re-read it, I wonder once again why it's my favourite book, and I struggle to persevere through the first few chapters. But once you get about halfway through, you're trapped. You become so grossly obsessed with these two characters' lives that you cannot stop reading.
I still don't really know why this book is so important to me. I know that the first time I read it I loved it because Emma was so similar to me, and her life panned out very similar to how I wanted mine to pan out - with her becoming a teacher, an author and then moving to Paris - but I don't think that's the only reason. I think that it is also because I read it when I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was older (other than teaching or writing) and so the story showed me how much life I had ahead of me and how many opportunities I had open to me. Watching the characters develop and grow just showed me how much you can change as a person and the twists and turns in their lives showed me how you never know what's coming round the corner.
I feel like I'm massively understating the impact this book had on me, but honestly it is one of the best books you can read - especially when you're still young - as it really makes you wonder about your own life.

Sliding Doors

This film explores how one small, seemingly insignificant event can completely change how your life pans out.
There are so many things I love about this film - the storyline and cinematography is so clever, the romance is beautiful and although it seems like such a light-hearted film, its message is amazingly significant and profound.
It shows how anything can change what happens in your life, and whether it be for the better or for worse, you have no idea what will come of it.
Once again, it made me realise that I am only at the start of my life and so many things are waiting to happen. And maybe some will be planned in my fate, and maybe some will be up to these small seemingly inconsequential events, but I have so much ahead of me and so much to look forward to.
It's also just a very cute chick-flick.

John Lewis Never Knowingly Undersold TV Advert 2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wuv7IuFpJi8

It's beautiful, isn't it?

This is the most stunning advert I have ever watched. I love how beautifully it shows how times have changed, but 'what's important doesn't change'. The romance between the two characters is so perfect and delicate and the cinematography is so enchanting.
I think this advert has changed me because it gave me the first inspiration for the novel I'm writing. The idea of stories running parallel to each other, cross-overs of different time periods and romance between characters who cannot be together due to forces beyond their control really interests me. This advert changed me because it gave me inspiration.

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Keeping a Diary

I've just begun writing in a diary again.

For my birthday, I got the 'One Line a Day Five Year Memory Book' and I think it's such a wonderful thing. Although I have only kept it for 2 months, I already can look back at the memories I've collected with nostalgia, so what will it be like in five years time, when I'm on my final year? I'll be 21 by then - which seems so old - and yet 5 years is such a short period of time that it scares me that so much can change in that period. I'll be in my final year of university then, but I've only just finished my GCSEs! I hope to have done so many things by that time - I want a distinction in grade 8 flute and a performance diploma, I want to have finished my first novel, I want to have got GCSE and A-level results that I'm proud of (and some rather more personal things that I'm not really ready to share with the internet...). This is such a big period of change, where I'm essentially deciding what I want to do for the rest of my life.

But the thing with this diary is that you are blessed with only a few lines a day, which leaves me craving for more room to write all my thoughts and feelings for that day. Hence why I have begun another diary, filled solely with said thoughts and feelings. To begin with, I organised my thoughts and made them comprehensible, but I'm only on my second entry and already I'm just spilling out everything I've ever thought into random ramblings. Anything I've ever remembered thinking or feeling I suddenly write down, and yes it may now be a mismatch of random notes and opinions and emotions but it feels like I'm spilling out every dwindling thought that I've had and kept locked away onto a page.

It's so incredibly therapeutic.

It's so strange, though, because it's as if I feel relieved after writing everything down, because I no longer have to rely on my memory to retain these random wonderings, I now have them written down too. The feeling is almost indescribable.
You are allowed to talk about yourself endlessly and release all private feelings that you've previously kept locked away. It feels so GREAT relieving myself of these thoughts. It's almost like your final exam in a subject, where you can finally dump all your knowledge of that subject on a page and be done with it. You no longer have to keep reminding yourself of things.

I already feel lighter. The burden of worries I've had in my head now seem feeble written down, yet they had seemed to be swarming around my brain endlessly. It's also made me reconsider my dreams and aspirations. I was so set on a certain path for my life, but writing things down makes them seem like they are set in stone, considerably moreso than when it's just in your head, and it's made me considerably more doubtful about whether that's really what I want. Yes, it may still end up being the path I end up following, but hesitating over writing it down in my diary has made me realise that I can be open to so many other paths.

I think everyone should keep a diary. It has completely changed my perspective on my own life. I've revealed more worries than I thought I had, and although they haven't disappeared, I feel like I've relieved myself of them for at least a short time; I've released my darkest suppressed thoughts, and realised I'm not a bad person for thinking them; I've discovered what makes me happy, which thoughts and memories I should bring into my consciousness more often to make me more relaxed; I've discovered what I really want out of life.

And these entries may never be read.
Certainly, I hope no one else pries and destroys the confidentiality that my diary holds, but I myself may never read what I have written. I have no real need to: I'm not documenting what's happening every day in my life - that's what my five year diary is for -  whatever I'm writing I already know. Yet, even still, it feels like I'm talking to someone. And it honestly helps. Talking to someone you know won't judge, won't spill your secrets, won't expect you to ask about their lives too (despite that sounding terribly selfish, it's true, everyone wants to talk about themselves) - it's alleviating.

I've deliberately left this unedited, despite the fact that I know it's rambly, riddled with unnecessary commas, and no doubt open to misinterpretation. But I want it to feel organic and as if unscripted.

I can't finish this post without making a reference to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoVf-StW5nY. Hannah Witton is the one who gave me the idea to begin another diary, solely for my thoughts and feelings.

Start a diary.

Life Through Rose-Tinted Glasses

How much greener the grass is through these rose-tinted glasses - Passenger, The Wrong Direction

This is one of my absolute favourite song lyrics. I love how simple it is, yet so clever and so powerful.

Seeing the world through 'rose-tinted glasses' means only seeing the pleasant parts of it. By using this phrase with reference to the idiom 'The grass is always greener on the other side' (its exact opposite), Passenger seems to be suggesting that by looking only at the pleasant parts of the world, you can rid yourself of the envy within the phrase 'The grass is always on the other side' and instead appreciate what you have yourself - 'How much greener the grass is'.

I love this quote because it shows how by taking a different perspective on life for a short period of time, you can appreciate what you really have.

But is life permanently better through a narrow-minded view of only the positives? By ignoring depravity, poverty and austerity can you appreciate the fortunes in your own life?

Evil defines happiness. Without the creation of the devil, would heaven seem so attractive? If Pandora hadn't opened her box, would we ever understand elation? Or would we just be forever content?

I am what some may call a 'philosophical drunk' - I often try to tackle questions of moral responsibility and the good vs the evil and also have existential crises when intoxicated. Anyway, the other day (when a little tipsy) I came to the conclusion that the concept of Hell is perhaps favourable to the concept of Heaven. Yes, in Heaven, you will experience luxury and eternal pleasure without the worries of life on Earth, but can you really be happy without being able to compare your eternity to something terrible or evil? However in Hell, you would learn to appreciate the small pleasures, much like in life. This sounds like a very strange thing to say, as Hell is designed for eternal suffering, but when being tortured in many different ways, there would be ways of comparing one torment to another. You may not experience happiness (in its strictest form), but you would prefer one thing to another, you would experience favouritism.
Personally, even if it is not better, I think it definitely sounds more interesting than forever looking at snow-capped mountains and watching angels flutter about.

The Most Beautiful Song Lyrics

This Side - Nickel Creek

You dream of colours that have never been made,
You imagine songs that have never been played
They will try to buy you and your mind
But only the curious have something to find.

Keep Your Head Up - Ben Howard

Keep your head up, keep your heart strong.
No, no, no, no.
Keep your mind set, keep your hair long.
Oh my darlin' keep your head up, keep your heart strong.
No no no no, keep your mind set in your ways, keep your heart strong.

Awake My Soul - Mumford and Sons

Lend me your hand and we'll conquer them all
But lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall
Lend me your eyes I can change what you see
But your soul you must keep, totally free.

Life's For The Living - Passenger

Don't you cry for the lost
Smile for the living
Get what you need and give what you're given
You know life's for the living so live it
Or you're better off dead.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Welcome to Cabinet of Curiosities, a collection of thoughts, peculiarities and junk loosely sorted into the form of a blog. Here, I can make a record of my weird wonderings, my arty photos, my favourite songs, books, films, quotes... the list is endless. Unlock the cabinet and understand and appreciate the world through new eyes, where everything you may think you know is pulled from beneath you until you are left doubting even your own existence. And know that even if you bolt the doors shut again and swallow the key, swearing to never enter the realms of this Wunderkammer ever again, you will always find a way to pick the lock and be immersed within its depths again. 

Curiosity will bring you back.