Don't Stop Moving

I know it's not Monday, but I was out late on the Monday night/ Tuesday morning, so wasn't able to write about a song. So here is a belated music post (sorry). On the Monday night a group of us went to a club, which was so much fun. It was great to dance and dance, and as the night progressed, the music got better and which made dancing even more fun (miraculously, I didn't lose my voice from singing and shouting so loud), despite my shoes beginning to fall apart because they were cheap and the dance floor was stickier than the glue holding my shoes together.

So we were dancing, and then at 2am, three members of S Club performed... complete blast from the past. They were the sound of 1999 and 2000 and "S Club Party" is definitely the classic song for having a good time. That was their opening song, and everyone who was still at the club, were grouped right by the stage and joining in. It was amazing. When I was little, I was a massive Spice Girl fan, but I did know a couple of S Club 7 songs (who doesn't?), my favourite being 'Don't Stop Moving'. It's the kind of song that, when it plays, you have to do what the music says and "just go with the magic... [because] right here on the dance floor is where you got to let it go," which is what we. Actually, it was during this song that I got told off by a bouncer because my friend had lifted me up onto his shoulders, which apparently isn't allowed. But, while it lasted, I had a great view of the stage.

S Club (my picture isn't that great) 

They finished at 3am, so my friends and I ended up walking home, so even when the music ended, we were still kept moving. It was such a clear evening, which was really lovely and refreshing after the crowded club. We also stopped at a kebab van along the way, and I didn't get to go to bed until 5:30am, and having to wake up at 7am that same morning... I'm still recovering. But tomorrow morning is the first morning since then that I can sleep in!

Moving

I have a really good excuse as to why I haven't written in ages and that is because I have moved to the other side of the world. I'm going to be on exchange for a semester, so as you probably can imagine, that has involved a LOT of organisation and time. So, this beautiful Sunday morning, while eating breakfast, it is the first day that I haven't had something on. The first day that I haven't needed to rush off, so I can take my time and relax for the first time in weeks. And it is lovely because the kitchen/dining area has a window ledge which gets the sun all day since it faces southwards, and I'm taking as much advantage of the sun as possible because I am now living in... England!

I've been wanting to study in England since I was a kid and I've always had the dream to live there. I can't even remember when this dream started, I think it's just been for my entire life and I have been saving up my money since forever to do it. No joke, even when I was seven and was given birthday money, I'd put it in the bank with the intention to save up for England. And now I'm finally here! See, dreams can come true if you work hard and never give up (that's really sappy sounding, sorry about that).

On Wednesday, I moved into my place and even though it's off campus, I'm still living on student accommodation and absolutely loving it! It's the first time I've lived away from home and without my parents, so I'll probably feel homesick now and then, but so far, I am loving the freedom. My parents did accompany me to Europe on the first week, having one final family holiday in Paris (another place I've never been to and have always dreamt about visiting- it was such a beautiful city), but now it's time for complete independence. I'm completely in love with the town I am living in and I just found out that the university I'm now going to was ranked in the top 10 in the world! It is so different from back home in Australia, and I know that I don't want to leave after these five months. Once the weather changes and it becomes freezing and rainy, I will probably complain about it a bit, but it's actually quite embarrassing how much I love living here. Like, I will be talking to someone, see something like a cute cottage and basically jump with joy. Plus, my flat mates are all lovely, which makes the whole experience even the more enjoyable. Everyone I've met is just so friendly and I love being an international student because I get the opportunity to meet so many people from different countries and hear and learn about their culture. Many conversations feature linguistics and language, which is really interesting to hear what different places say for one particular thing. For example:

this

In Australia we call this a "doona." Meanwhile in England they call it a "duvet" and in the US they call it a "comforter." Just those little things, it is really interesting. But that's enough talk about doonas for now because I think other than that, they aren't the most interesting thing to read about.

On Wednesday, I was the first person in my flat, but by the end of the day there was one other girl, who is from France, who moved to my floor, and downstairs, a guy from the US. Now we have two girls and one guy from England on my floor too and still waiting for a few more people to arrive in the next couple of days, which is so exciting.
Thursday and Friday was the exchange students orientation activities and registration, which was an overload of information that I can't remember very well, but it was wonderful meeting all these new people and start making friends. As I said, every person is friendly, so it's such a nice atmosphere. On the Friday night, we had a Welcome dinner of the British cuisine of Fish and Chips and later, we all went to a club for the rest of the evening.

Saturday, we didn't have commitments to the university, so a group of us from my student estate went down to the town and saw the local market that was set up along one of the main streets. There was such a variety of breads and cheeses and fruits and vegetables, seeing stuff that I haven't heard before. We then bought Cornish pasties and went to the river to eat.

The river

The town I'm at is called Guildford, which if you haven't heard of it before, is stunning. It's so quaint, with the High Street having cobbled roads and old buildings (there is also a small castle dating back to just after William the Conquerer). I also didn't know that Lewis Carroll has strong connections here, owning a house in the town, where his sisters lived and where he would come down to in the Summer. "Alice in Wonderland" was my favourite story as a child (he's the author), so you would probably can imagine how excited I was to discover this and that he finished writing "Alice through the Looking Glass" when he was in Guildford. He also died and was buried here.
But yesterday afternoon, because the weather has been beautiful, a few of us walked up a really lovely hill and had a stunning view of the place and then walked through a miniature forest.

Because I don't live on the university campus, there are good things and bad things about it (eg. the bad thing is having to take the bus which is the most unreliable system and that means that we are a lot further out from town and the uni). But the good thing is that we have a really good community feel where I live; last night everyone hanging out at one of the flats until 4am (got the opportunity to play 'Cards against Humanity' again, which I won- it's the only card game I'm actually good at).

I love this move so much and it is the best decision, also the biggest decision I've made in my life and I'm really looking forward to the never ending experiences and opportunities over the next five months. 

(Sorry for the long post)

Life Drawing Class #8 and #9

This Wednesday was my last life drawing class. It was a really fun short course and I'm really going to miss working with charcoal. Also, I'm going tok miss the fact that you can completely forget about everything and can zone out and just draw and not think about anything-how you can get lost in the artwork. That sounds really spacey of me, but it's so true. The studio space was in a converted attic, which had large windows that let in a lot of light; it was really lovely (I've always loved attics) and then there would be classical music playing in the background. It was just a really relaxing activity.

This is going to be a short post, just to show my favourite pictures from the last two weeks. These are the five minutes of  week 8 and 9:

And the twenty minute sketches in comparison:

Bean Boozled

Need I say more?

Basically it's a game that people should avoid playing at all costs, because you would think that it would be 50% bad flavours and 50% good flavours, but no. My friend and I had a packet that was 70% of bad flavours. We have been wanting to do this for four years, but due to geography getting in the way, it was only a week ago that we got to fulfil this dream... which turned into a nightmare. Mind you, I am glad I got to experience this game of torture with her, because I wouldn't put myself through that with anyone else.

Actual stinky socks probably taste better than whatever they put into those jelly beans. Same goes with booger and moldy cheese. Rotten egg was a horror to swallow too (and I also didn't like the buttered popcorn flavour- so that risk combination was always a lose lose situation for me anyway). Barf tasted like what you'd expect it too: the most acidic vomit ever. And skunk spray: why did we put ourselves through this? Baby wipes and lawn clippings tasted delicious in comparison (and even those were a bit odd). But the canned dog food! OH MY EFFING GOD!!!!! My dad was watching us in amusement from the other side of the room. Around three metres away and he could smell our breath from that jelly bean from that distance! That is how strong it was! I was begging for the toothpaste flavour after that, but no! I had to have every single bad flavour.

My friend spat out a couple of the flavours, which was very smart. But being the idiot I am, I was like "I'm not going to let a packet of jelly beans get the better of me"- there were moments I was *this* close to retching. At times it took all my concentration and me gripping my hair in utter torment while trying to swallow these evil beans. And we got through the packet, and at the end wished we recorded it because of our reactions, but WE ARE NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN!

The post trauma was even worse than the actual experience. Thankfully we are the closest of friends, so my friend and I weren't embarrassed that we couldn't help burping, which reawakened the awful flavours. But even without that beautiful reminder, we still had all those gross tastes in our mouths which we tried to drown out with tea and chocolate... didn't exactly do the trick. My stomach was in so much pain, that I couldn't move without feeling stabbing sensations. And actually, my stomach actually bloated! Physically expanded for a couple of hours! I don't know what sh** they put into those beans, but our stomachs were growling at each other all night and it was painful to wee as well. I'm probably giving way too much information, but I feel like it needs to be said. We decided to google side affects from these not-so-sweet-confectionary, but couldn't find anything. So maybe my friend and I were the only people to ever get a bad reaction from them, or maybe no one else was as silly we were and ate and ingested the entire packet.

The next day, I just drank plain tea and didn't eat until 9pm that night. I just needed to fully detox because MAN! Those jelly beans weren't made for human consumption. Who came up with these flavours which are meant to be "naturally and artificially flavoured"- I don't know which of these sounds worse: the fact that it could be natural vomit flavour or artificial vomit flavour...

Littlest Things

The other week, I watched the movie 'Love Rosie' after having read the book (I promise that when I get my act together, I'll write a post about it) and in one of the scenes the song 'Littlest Things' by Lily Allen was playing. I love Lily Allen because she has such catchy tunes and a sweet sounding voice which is such a contrast to the actual lyrics of many of her songs (which are my favourite part of her music). Her songs are so wonderfully blunt; she's not afraid to speak her mind and doesn't care what people think of her opinions. She says things how she sees it and I think is "refreshing."

I have Lily Allen's last two complete albums, but only have a couple of songs from  her first album 'Alright, still' and didn't know the song 'Littlest Things' until I watched the movie and I immediately became obsessed with it. In fact, as soon as I finished watching the movie, I bought the song and within 24 hours (less even), I had already listened to it 37 times. Now, if you were to look on my iTunes, it says I've played the song 62 times: 

but that doesn't include the amount of times I've listened to it on my iPod- I just really love things song because the melody just is so easy to listen to over and over and over and over and over (etc.) again. This is definitely my favourite song of hers now, and it's actually one of her songs that are as sweet as her voice. I absolutely love the tune in the chorus and have been humming it all the time, even when I'm not listening to the song. 

I can't even explain and don't even know why I love this song so much, but I do. In the last week, I've probably listened to it around 150 times (and that's actually no exaggeration and wouldn't be surprised if that is a modest guess).

1000 Steps

A couple of days ago, a few of my friends and I did the 1000 Steps, which apparently is a well known thing, but I hadn't heard about it before my friend suggested doing it. So for those people who don't know what the 1000 Steps is the Kokoda Track Memorial Walk at Mount Dandenong. These steps are  meant to give the walker some idea of the physical work that the soldiers in 1942 had experienced, while also being one of the most touristic walks in the Dandenong ranges; being in the rainforest makes the walk, although tiring, extremely beautiful. I really love walking, especially nature walks like this, being surrounded by ferns and breathing fresh air.

My phone camera doesn't really do the view justice

Even though it was around 10 degrees celsius, we were wearing leggings and tee-shirts, because the walk really did keep you warm. But we were extremely lucky with the weather, not being too cold and because it wasn't raining. If it was raining, you'd probably not be able to walk it because the path and steep steps you take going up are made of mud, making it already very slippery. But it was so much fun! There is always that one friend in the group who is enthusiastic about doing an activity and rushes ahead and seems to be filled with so much energy that they are pretty much insane... that was me. I was way too enthusiastic I think and probably annoyed my friends when we reached the top and I suggested to walk further up. My mentality really was: we're here now so we may as well keep going. Plus, I was really running on adrenaline. I was just so happy spending the day with some of my closest friends and sharing this experience with them and at such a lovely place. My hands did go a bit numb at one point, but when we returned back to the base, we went on the playground there, which allowed me to shake out my hands and let the circulation run through them (while jumping on the rickety bridge, which was always my favourite part of playgrounds as a kid).

After all that exercise and conquering a mountain (quite literally), as a reward we went the chocolate cafe Max Brenner, where I had a delicious white chocolate chai, which I always get whenever I go there. It was a fantastic ending to a fantastic day.