Listen To The Beauty

Lately I've been revisiting songs that evoke strong memories for me...

Every time I hear the opening notes of Gary Jules cover of Mad World I get chills down my spine and I am instantly transported back not to the moment I first heard it, but to the moment I first listened to it. In my car, coming home from college, on a particularly bright day and a very twisty section of the road. I actually put up the window, turned up the radio and paid attention.

Listen to it here for a little bit of nostalgia.  

Fairy Dust

When I was a little girl I called Christmas lights 'Fairy Dust'. 

When I was a moody teenager I sat in the darkness with just the glow of 'Fairy Dust' to keep me company.

When I became an adult I tried to rationalise my fondness for white twinkling lights, and I began to lose the joy of 'Fairy Dust' through the analysis.

Today I remember my 'Fairy Dust' and how it made me feel safe and protected. I think it might be time to put some lights back up in my life.

What was your 'Fairy Dust' as a child? What made you feel safe?

I See You Baby

I spotted this one over at 1000 Awesome Things this morning. It sums me up perfectly right now. 

I spent a fantastic night last Saturday with some friends, sitting in an apartment remembering the dance tunes that shaped our late teens. With YouTube hooked up to a surround sound system and all sorts of bad 90's and 00's music pumping out it was amazing to just close my eyes and forget for a little while. 

Sash, Darude, Kernkraft, Moby, Groove Armada, Fatboy Slim, Puretones... all those memories.

Today I ask you to take ten minutes, put on your headphones and crank out some tunes of your teens. You can thank me later.

Have You Ever...?

Learned a hard lesson...Part 1.

Some things just stick with you. Comments, thoughts or memories that just never leave your head. I have several of these rolling around my mind constantly but I'm going to tell you about one of them today.

I graduated as a product designer but in order for me to get a place in the course I needed to have a portfolio so I started off doing a PLC in portfolio design. Well really I started off doing applied chemistry in Cork after my Leaving Cert but after the cert stage I decided that science wasn't for me. That is a much longer story to tell and isn't for today. Which led me back to design.

At this stage my secondary school art teacher was running the local portfolio course so I contacted her and got a place on the course. I enjoyed the course, I loved that I already knew my lecturer and I didn't really love the fact that the rest of the class had an average age of 18 and I was already 21. I was worldly, I had lived away from home, I had been to college, I had a car, I had stories that could rival, and beat, anyone on the course. I was cocky. And arrogant And more than a little obnoxious. I thought I was great.

 

About half way through the course we were told that we had a project which was to be based on the local museum display, we were to put on a fashion show which was to be inspired by a section of the permanent exhibition. My section was Stone and Ironage Tools. Not a bad section. And I set to work, sketching the exhibition, detailing the tools, putting together inspiration boards for my 'Collar and Cuffs' theme. I was so proud of my work, so sure of it, so I took it to our lecturer to receive my praise. 

She glanced quickly at my work as she was already working with another student and she screamed when she saw it. Actually recoiled in horror from my pages and yelled at me to 'take that Brain Vomit as far away from me as you can'. I was crushed, devastated, and in shock. The entire class had heard and watched my rebuff. My fall from self given grace. I think I even ran to the bathroom and cried at the time. But she was right. Completely and utterly correct. It was sloppy work. I had taken all my thoughts and threw them down onto a page with no consideration of form or presentation. Her description was 100% accurate, I had spewed my thoughts out and expected everyone to be thankful for my work.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. Humility. I learned that no one was going to reward me for just being there and producing any old thing. I learned that design wasn't just about regurgitation of ideas. I learned a swift and powerful lesson on presentation and effective communication of ideas. 

And to this day I still thank that lecturer for what she taught me. Her method may have been cruel but it was one of the most effective methods I have ever encountered.

What thoughts have stuck with you? How have they affected your life?

Part 2 to follow... 

Classical Beauty

One of my favourite pieces of music is Gabriel's Oboe. I first heard this piece while watching The Mission and quickly became besotted with it. My preference is for it to be played on the flute though. 

It reminds me of a great night with some friends, sitting around a fire pit, cajoling and threatening in order to get one of the girls to bring out her flute and play something. Finally she relented and agreed to play just one song... I requested Gabriel's Oboe, and it was beautiful. Staring into the firelight, hearing nothing but those beautiful notes, not another sound around us, my arms covered with goosebumps that had nothing to do with the cool night air. Perfect.

Is there a piece of music that gives you chills? Something that you instantly fell in love with?

My Very First...

CD that I bought

Mine was Bon Jovi's These Days - at the time I didn't even have a CD player, I just borrowed my brothers getto blaster and thought I was the coolest, toughest 12 year old ever.

Come on - show your age and shame yourself by admitting your teenage pop idols! 

What was the very first CD that you bought?

Like I'm Eight

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Do you know whats lots and lots of fun to do?

Sneak into the local playground at dusk and have a go on the swings, and slides, and monkey bars, and climbing wall, and roundabout, and pretty much everything. It was pretty cool to feel like an 8 year old again, even if it was just for half an hour.

Remember back to when you were 8 - the biggest of my worries were probably wonderfully mundane things that felt like HUGE issues to me. Would I be finished playing outside before Thundercats was on tv? How could I persuade my mum to cook chicken nuggets for me again tonight? Did my next door neighbour want to play Hungry Hippos with me after tea? Was August too early to start making a Santa list? What kind of cake do I want for my birthday?

Just imagine for a few minutes if the biggest worry that you face today was whether your brother would let you have the remote after dinner. Isn't it a good feeling?

Learning To Sleep In The Middle Of The Bed

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Right so... I've been single for about 4 months now and some aspects of the single life are fantastic and some are a little lackluster.

I can't say that I miss having to try and co-ordinate our schedules in order to spend some time together, shaving my legs regularly, and cooking for Mr T. I do miss having someone to talk to, having someone who 'gets' me and I really miss hearing a familiar voice on the other end of the phone. BUT... the most difficult part of being single for me is as follows...

... learning to sleep in the middle of the bed.

When I came to Limerick, before I met Mr T, I decided to stick with student accommodation for my first year in UL - hello single bed - and out of laziness I spent my second year in the same student village. I started seeing Mr T in November of that first year and he also had a very single bed in his accommodation. So we learned to snuggle - and I learned to sleep on my side, with my tummy held in, in fear of falling out of the bed if I dared to turn over in my sleep. In my third year I finally found the holy grail - a room with a double bed! I reveled in the new found space, I had a whole side of a bed to myself - and four months later I was back in a single bed - crap! In fact my next encounter with a double bed wasn't until I graduated and moved in with Mr T in Galway and I've never looked back since (I choose to just ignore the 3 months I spent in a box room in 'cardboard city' on starting the postgrad, it didn't really exist).

Even thought Mr T and I dated over distance for most of our relationship I still always slept on one side of the bed, I never had a fondness for one side over the other but I would always make sure to keep within my allocated space, two piles of pillows letting me know of the imaginary dividing line in the bed. Even when we broke up I still slept on my side of the bed for a few weeks.

One of the most definitive moments of being a single woman was when I realised that the whole bed was now mine. I got some new, very feminine, bed clothes, remade my bed and put all of the pillows into one pile at the head of the bed. I spent the entire day looking forward to going to sleep, having a ocean of bed all to me, being able to stretch out my legs without feeling like I was taking someones space.

I didn't sleep that night - I just felt strange. I felt a little lost in my bed, like I almost didn't recognise the space around me. Over the past few weeks I have slowly gotten used to having an entire bed to myself, and I now love the feeling of stretching out and not touching the edge of the mattress. I feel like a princess, with my own special, selfish place to hide away! My bed is now mine and for me alone, I don't want to share it at all.

What was the one moment that you realised that you were single, and how did you deal with it? Let me know readers.

Comfort Food

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What's your go-to food for when you're feeling under the weather?

Is it tea and toast? Toasted ham and cheese? Beef stew? Macaroni and cheese? Chicken soup?

I always look to rice pudding. Sweet, creamy, rich but still light. I've a cold that I just can't seem to get rid of no matter what I try and have started craving rice pudding. Rice pudding reminds me of winter evenings at home with my mum, waiting for the pudding to be done, spooning great big servings into bowl and adding a dollop of strawberry jam to the centre.

Do you have memories of a particular comfort food?

Electric Picnic 2009

The photos are finally up. My SD card has been finally cleared, although there are still some photos on my phone to be brutally honest.

The highlights of my 1st Picnic:

• Arriving into the festival just as MGMT were taking to the main stage
• Spending many an hour lolling in a double hammock in the Body & Soul area with Mr T
• Imelda May on the Crawdadddy Stage - absolutely amazing
• Mick Flannery on the Crawdaddy - fantastic even at 2pm on a Sunday afternoon
  
• The impromptu fire show in the B&S complete with stilt walkers on Saturday night
• Watching charlston dancers on the Village Bandstand
• The Pieminister chicken pie, mash and gravy , and the wok'n'roll pad thai noodles
  
• Dirty Dancing at the 24 hour cinema - everyone joined in the dancing and singing
  
• Hot chocolate at Granny's Gaff
• The view at night from the top of the ferris wheel
  
• Watching the sunrise over the campsite on my last morning

Check out Kitty Cats post over at Red Lemonade to see more fun and photos of the weekend.

We had the same rain jacket but I forgot to take any photos of myself all weekend. Oh and my wellies matched too.

A Blast From The Past

I was driving back to Limerick last night after visiting my parents for the weekend. The radio was blaring and I was singing along with whatever songs were on 2fm.

And I heard Kerbdog! I hadn't heard Kerbdog in years. Their songs were some of the first that I ever learned to play on the guitar, back in the day.

Well the guitar is long gone, as is the grungy muso boy who inspired me to pick it up but my love of 90's Irish rock will live forever.

Cormac Battle, I heart you.