starry eyed

So that's it, I might just have done the worst I have ever done in an exam. Actually no, you can't beat my Year 10 mocks performance where I flopped in half of my subjects. However, I can't see how I could get above 50% in any of the papers I've done so far, esPECially Maths 2 today, and History 2.

I want to bury myself in a hole somewhere...

Let's talk music.


Everybody (i.e. Huw Stephens, Nick Grimshaw.. and the rest of Radio 1?) has been bangin on about Ellie Goulding. The single's 'Starry Eyed', and it is pretty sik. The first time I heard it was a few months ago, from Pretty Much Amazing? Or ohhcrapp.net? Some music blog. I go on so many different ones that I don't keep track. Oh, it was from disco dust.

...Back to the point: at first I really wasn't into it, but maybe that's only cause I was downloading something else and that track was an 'also recommended' track, so I just downloaded it for kicks, and only listened to the first ten seconds. But now that I've properly listened to it, I liiiiike.


‘Starry-eyed’ – Ellie Goulding


Jakwob remix of that tune

xxxx

tupac showed me the way...

Revision for the mocks is officially failing. I am more interested in preparing for my ToK presentation (which is AFTER the mocks) than revising. You can't blame me – I'm meant to be studying 'God of Small Things' by Arundhati Roy, and I lie not: its appalling-ness is bringing me to tears. It's not a bad plot at all, but she writes. Like this. Like A Child, Who Doesn't Understand – Punctuation.

Like this.

Yeah. I. Have. Two. Words. In. My. Mind. When. I'm. Reading. It.

“Help”. “Me”.

You know, short sentences, new paragraphs every five seconds, a gazillion words from the thesaurus.. It’s killing me softly.

Let’s get away from the topic of that book.

I don’t know about you guys, but today, instead of revising Maths and shit, I learnt about Tupac. Or 2pac. Gah I’ll just go with Tupac, it looks nicer. Anyway, I’m sure most of you know his story; if not, check out his Wikipedia, it’s quite comprehensive. I'm aware that Wikipedia isn't always trustworthy, so I am gonna research it some more, but the basics are there. Probably. What brought tears to my eyes was reading that his ashes were mixed with marijuana and smoked by Gallowz. It may have been total bullshit, but it moved me all the same.

Why Tupac?

Last summer, my friend and I did the obligatory presentation for the Theory of Knowledge course, but unfortunately it wasn’t focused enough on a real-life situation. So we now have to redo it. In search of a new topic, I’ve been looking through newspapers and noting down anything that’s caught my eye. The recurring theme has been ‘control’, i.e. the lengths to which governments would go, with the justification that they’re trying to run their countries. I also noted down ‘celebrity culture’, in response to the Celebrity Big Brother items.

However, what really focused my choice of topic was… hearing ‘Uprising’ by Muse on the radio. (I told you music inspires me.) This kick-started a long chain of reaction of research. I found myself reading comments on song lyric websites, on the Industry Exposed website, listening back to various songs... let's jus say that some conspiracy theories on various comments I read led me to research Tupac. and this is has shown me the light, for my tok presentation. I won't say any more.

Anyway, there is more to my discovery of Tupac than just ‘it helped me find a ToK presentation topic’. With the arrival of the Cambridge offers, the idea of Oxbridge and university and my future in general has just come back to haunt me and make me panic slightly. This is why reading about Tupac had a profound, even overwhelming, impact on me. The tragedy of his death (and life), and the fact that people aren’t waking up to the messed-up state of our music industry (which his death is blatant proof of) – when I saw both of these, needless to say Oxbridge seemed trivial and worthless. The music industry is so lost in its own shit it kills me.

I hate calling it an ‘industry’, makes it seem so meaningless, manufactured. That’s what it is now though, isn’t it? What’s music about now? The number of records you sell, the number of no.1s you have, the amount of praise you get from Simon Cowell, the number of sold-out gigs you have, how many of your fans want to sleep with you, being able to get your own private jets, the flashingflashingflashing lights you get everywhere you go, how many magazine covers you do, how many TV/billboard adverts you manage to score… Gah I wanna cry.

I won’t though, because I’ve never felt so inspired. My dream of entering the music industry is a recent one, but one which, out of all my career aspirations, I have felt least unconfident about, because I actually feel something for it, I actually care about it. Reading Tupac’s story woke me up, to the fact that Oxbridge isn’t necessary for me to make something of my life or make a difference. The one who makes the biggest difference to my own future is… (surprise surprise) me.

xxxx

p.s. God my posts are depressing now aren't they?! No more 'I got CRUNKKKKK' or 'woohoo let's celebrate cause I'm eighteeeeeeeeen or it's CHRISTMASSSSSS or it's the TENSIES (yeah, someone texted me on NYD, saying 'Happy New Year, welcome to the Tensies!'. How ugly.) Well, they’ll probably lighten up after my mocks. Or maybe they won’t, cause I’ll have done so phenomenally terribly in them that I might get…outlawed, or something. Woop!

p.p.s If you disagree with me about anything here, especially the state of the music industry, you’re welcome to comment and SHOUT AT ME.

this is tupac robot club rock.

'This is Tupac robot club rock.'



Great beat, great synthetics (ok that is so the wrong word. what's the word for the electronicy sounds on a song?), great choon. Recommended, as always, by the mighty Zane Lowe, probably about a year or more ago. But, reminded by NME TV, I only downloaded it last night. The dancing in the vid is classic. Observe 2:39. I just can't get enough.
Be sure to check that song out.

Anyway, my main point of today's post is.. nah, read on and find out for yourself.

Most of you readers (if we assume that this blog is actually read by strangers) will not know that I am an IB student. OR maybe you have, if you've inferred it from my past 'FML' posts. So, life isn't all peachy at the moment, what with the simultaneous courseworks being piled on to us. However I have never once regretted my decision to take the IB. I mean, just imagine taking A-Levels. Euch (sorry A-Levellers).

I am actually really enjoying one coursework, and that is my Latin Research Dossier. For it, I am investigating same-sex relations in ancient Rome. Muaha. I was originally doing 'music in ancient Rome'. It was dire. I could find hardly ANY information, music in the ancient world seemed like it would sound absolutely terrible, and the whole idea of Latin coursework at the time was enough to put me to sleep. But since I've started this topic, wahey I actually love doing Latin coursework! Haha you probs all think I'm some sex-obsessed maniac (lol, er, no, I'm not, if you really must know). Don't you find it fascinating to find out about civilisation as it was 2 millenia ago AND what the differences reflect on our own society?

I was doing some reading for it this morning, and one writer (Veyne) rightly pointed out- if homosexuality in ancient Rome was so widespread, does that mean that homosexuality within us is natural, and that perhaps, in our contemporary society, the significance of it is too easily repressed and too hastily dismissed as immoral? No doubt many of you will be reminded by this topic of Nick Griffin's comment that he finds the image of two guys kissing 'creepy'. Alright, I, being pro-LGBT rights, vehemently disagree with him on this point. But can you really say you don't find it creepy? Can you really say that most of our society does not find it creepy? Even I can't really say that.

I have a lot of LGBT friends, and what hit me really hard was, watching a documentary on BBC Two, realising that homosexuality in Britain is grossly misrepresented, especially by the media. If you said the word 'gay' to a number of Britons today, some of the first things they would think of may be two gay men, a 'tranny', but, in general, something to be humoured and not taken seriously. You have to admit, Britons find homosexuality funny, and this is reflected in the fact that it is so often mocked in comedies. What's more, you can see what a society's attitude towards a concept is, just by looking at their language. And how many times have you heard people use the word 'gay' in place of 'stupid'? Hearing one of my guy friends carelessly throw the comment 'you're so gay' around angered me to the edge. CLEAN YOUR LANGUAGE UP, DAMMIT!

So. The point of today's post.
-Zane Lowe is a legend (again with the Radio 1 plugs, haha)

-I love the IB

-I'm a sex-obsessed nymphomaniac
-I am a neek who loves doing Latin coursework

-You are secretly gay. So get real.

And I shall end with this.

You gotta give it to him: he passes well for a pretty fit woman...

xxxx

PS, yes I wrote this at 7 in the morning, the only reason for that being that I got up early to do...wait for it...LATIN COURSEWORK! Love you all.
PPS. If any of you QYN-ers are reading, don't kill me!