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