Appreciating The Things That Make Me Happy

It sometimes feels like everywhere you turn – and especially every time you complain about something – you see messages and get told to appreciate the things you’re happy about. This can be seriously annoying at times, but whilst I’m sat on the sofa feeling depressed about doing an 11 hour waitressing shift tomorrow, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to put together a bit of a list of the stuff thats making me happy right now – because if so many people say to count your blessings, there must be some logic in it, right??

Enjoying my work

Despite the aforementioned feeling of dread at this week’s three 11 hour shifts – and the 7 hour shifts last week and next week – I’m almost, dare I say it, enjoying work at the moment. I’ve got a casual summer job with my local uni’s catering company and as I’ve already done quite a few shifts this summer, largely the same type, I’ve got to know quite a lot of the people I’m working with (more impressive than it may seem at first, given I have around 400 potential coworkers!), which has made the daunting task of walking into a super long shift where you’re working with 30+ other people significantly easier. I’m not sure I know anyone working tomorrow, but I’m gonna try and keep myself feeling okay about it, seeing as there’s bound to be at least one person I recognise!

Friends

I’ve been finding myself feeling a little down about some of my friendships lately, largely because one of my closest friends left a month ago to spend a year in Denmark, and I’m not seeing her till Christmas. I’ve been a bit surprised about how much I’ve missed her, but I’m trying to stick in the mindset of ‘at least how much I miss her has shown how much I value her as a friend’. Plus, I’m visiting Copenhagen in December to see her, which is bound to be amazing! I’ve also got another best friend spending a month in America, which is a little tough, but I’m getting to spend more time with some people I used to be friends with at school, which I doubt will be as fulfilling and close as my main friendships, but it can never hurt to have more friends, right?! Also, another of my best friends got back from a year abroad in Provence last week so I can’t wait to see her!!

Independence

I recently passed my driving test (so recently I’m having to use my passport as ID until my licence arrives…) and the ability to just up sticks and go out for the day without relying on buses or train times is so refreshing. It’s let me go and do fun stuff with my friends in more places than I normally can, and it’s great just not to have to rely on anyone.

The weather

Because I am British through and through, the amazing weather we’ve got at the moment had to feature in here. It’s a seriously weird feeling being able to go out without a jumper or a jacket, wearing my bikini three times already this summer (!!) and being able to wear my ‘foreign holiday’ clothes about ten times more than normal!

University

Finally, ever since I got my IB results  I’m so excited to get to uni. I knew where I was going anyway (Birmingham, in case anyone’s interested) because of the nature of my offer, but something about getting my results made a switch flick in my head and I’ve gone from being predominantly nervous to insanely excited. It helps that I’ve recently been able to officially register for uni and I’m finding out about my accommodation in the next two weeks, so I guess it’s all becoming a bit more real. I’m also proud of myself that I’m feeling this way, because I’ve previously been so anxious about going to uni – it feels like a real breakthrough for me, and even if I turn into a wobbly mound of butterflies nearer the time, I’m proud of how I’m feeling now.

What things are making you happy at the moment?

Surviving the IB

I mentioned in my first post in nearly two years that I’d been studying the IB, and at some point wanted to write a post about it. Though I’m not really sure I have any special wisdom to offer, I have now totally completely utterly finished the IB, having got my results today, and it feels wrong to have barely written about something that my life has basically revolved around for the last two years.

I started the IB in September 2016, after leaving it to the last minute to decide whether to do A-Levels at my old school sixth form or swap to the local college for IB. For those (read: 80% of the global population) who don’t have a clue what the IB is – here’s the basic rundown:

• IB stands for International Baccalaureate
• It’s equivalent to UK A-levels
• You take 6 subjects (3 standard, which is kinda like an AS level, and 3 higher which are closer to full A levels)
• You also study Theory of Knowledge and that’s examined by a presentation and essay, the grades of which are combined with the grade for a 4000-word essay on a topic of your choice to produce a score out of 3
• Each subject is out of 7 points (7=A*, 6=A etc) and adds up to 45 points
• You also have to do 50 hours each of sport, service and creative activities and a project based on these three strands which don’t have any points attached but are required to gain the diploma

So yeah, that’s what I’ve spent the last couple of years doing. IB generally has a reputation for being quite challenging (aka bloody difficult), but I remember thinking in the first term that it really wasn’t very hard?? I think I actually asked my tutor if I had missed some massive chunk of work or something? Turns out, they just make the first term easy and then start piling on the work after Christmas, and don’t really stop – the summer holidays were basically an extra term, because exams are really early on in May.

Second year was especially hard – it seemed like there was coursework after coursework, then mocks, then oral exams, and it just never ended – if anything, reaching the final exams was a relief because all we had to be doing was revising! It was especially tough at some points too when there were issues with my coursework due to various teachers, and it felt like I was working myself to the bone only for everything to go wrong. That was one of the reasons I actually burst into tears when I opened my results – I was so scared all the work I put in would be for nothing, like with some of my coursework, that it was such a shock for it to actually be reflected in my results. Even thinking about my score now I’m starting to happy cry!!

IB was an amazing experience though. Yes, it was hard and felt like it was never going to end, but the feeling of achievement at finishing it – and with a score above my predicted grades and way above what I even dreamt of achieving – is the best feeling I’ve ever had, and possibly the proudest I’ve ever been of myself. I’ve formed some amazing friendships – what can I say, there’s nothing to bond a group of 40 teenagers like two years of academic hell – and would do it again (only slightly ironic given I spent two years mocking a poster which quoted someone saying they would absolutely choose to do IB again). It was a crazy couple of years, and I’m honestly not sure I know how to relax anymore, but it taught me how much stronger I am than I thought, and how I can do so much more than I think I can.

I think the best way to describe IB would be in the words of an ex-student who came in to talk to us at the start of second year – prior to this we’d just had visits from students who scored 45 and made a career out of giving study advice to IB students, so this guy who scored around 32 was a breath of fresh air. He told us honestly that second year was going to be shit – that we would be so stressed we’d burst into tears at knocking a cup of tea over (though this is indeed a very sad occasion) and that it would be hideously difficult at times, but he also said that the feeling of putting your pen down after the final exam and knowing you’d survived the IB – even if you didn’t pass it – would make it all worth it. That advice really kept me going in the last few months, and is so, so true. There’s probably some deep analogy for the struggles of life in there, but I’ll leave that as a mystery, seeing as my brain has now officially signed out for summer!

I have no idea if this post was interesting or not, but it was fun for me to write down a bit of the rollercoaster that was IB – and if you’ve got any questions about it obviously just ask!

 

A Poetic Moodboard For The Non-Poet

I have a newfound interest in poetry. I’m studying the Chilean Pablo Neruda for college (the anthology we’re doing, 20 Love Poems and a Song of Despair, claims to be ‘one of the most celebrated and admired books of erotic poetry published in the last 100 years’, so it’s a little awkward) and for once I’m actually finding the poetry interesting. Some of the GCSE stuff was okay but I mostly only liked the simplistic stuff and Neruda’s isn’t the most abstract, but still is interesting to read and think about. I’m also studying one of his 100 Love Sonnets for coursework (I Do Not Love You Except That I Love You, in case you were interested) and I’ve honestly surprised myself with how much I’m almost enjoying (gasp!) studying it. When I was researching what to do for my coursework I also read a little bit of Maya Angelou, which I like, and yeah, I’m not talking earth-shatteringly profound or intellectual but I guess I’m starting to see the appeal of poetry, just a little bit.

So, seeing as Pinterest has been Pinterest and made a whole load of super pretty pictures to go with quotes and excerpts from poems, I thought I’d put a few of my favourites on here, mainly just so I don’t lose them…

This is actually available as an Etsy print and it’s my birthday soon soooo…

 

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A little depressing but I like it (source)

 

Maya Angelou

 

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Have you got a favourite quote or piece of poetry?

 

 

I’m Not Really Freaking Out Anymore (+ things are changing round here!)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLDdQuvgZP2/?taken-by=mixolydianmusings

You might remember that a few weeks ago, when I was just starting college, I wrote a couple of not-too-cheery posts about how I was feeling (original here and update here – short version, I was terrified and missing everybody and questioning my choice slightly). Now, a month on, I’m feeling very different indeed so I thought I’d give you a final little update bit, in case you were vaguely interested or felt like me when you first started college.

So, first things first – I mentioned I was thinking about it in my update post but I’ve now swapped from Environmental Systems & Societies to Biology (at standard level). I’m enjoying it so far – this sounds kinda twisted but I’ve always struggled a bit with biology, especially during GCSE and I kinda like having the familiarity of that challenge?? I don’t really understand myself but I’m finding it OK so yeah, that’s the main thing. Other than that, I’ve kept my subjects the same and am enjoying almost all of them – we all have a bit of an issue with our maths studies teacher but other than that it’s all good, especially Spanish and Film Studies! (I’m actually actively looking forward tomorrow because I only have two lessons – we’re writing and filming telenovelas in Spanish and then learning how to use the cameras and shooting our film noir we’ve been working on for the past few lessons in Film Studies so that should be fun.) I’ve got the beginnings of a group of friends within IB and a group in the extracurricular academic academy thing I do so that’s good, and the Co-op bags of 5 cookies for £1 are getting very popular.

The missing friends and school, which was a big issue for me to start with has really settled down. I keep in contact with my old friends to varying degrees and have been in to see them at school a couple of times, and I’ve actually found there are some “friends” I don’t miss at all now I’m not forced to see them. It probably also helps a lot of my close friends were from out of school anyway. I do occasionally get pangs of, weirdly, missing GCSEs – I think because the work was easier and there was familiarity and people you’ve known since forever? Idk, it’s weird. College and IB was definitely the right choice for me and obviously I still struggle occasionally but what I’m trying to say is it gets so much easier. Everyone says it and you never believe it but in the last week or so I’ve started feeling so much happier coming home from college and it’s great. I’ve also started trumpet lessons, choir and a thing called Jazz Project at college so I’m just getting to know so many people! So yeah, overall yay 🙂

Now onto the ‘things changing’ bit…I’m going to start being more organised. Or try to at least. So I’m going to try and post regularly on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, with a bonus ‘music of the month’ post at the end of the month. I don’t know if I’ll set a schedule of what I’m going to post, but I’ll see what evolves over the next few weeks and let you know!

Thanks for reading this mega rambley vaguely pointless post…

-AOT

PS this is my favourite song atm so you should definitely listen to it…

I’m Freaking Out: An Update

After all the many seriously lovely comments on one of my recent posts about my college-joining nerves, I thought I owed you all an update, now that I’ve done my two days of induction and two days of lessons too.

Looking on the bright side to start with, overall college is great. So far I’m enjoying the courses I’ve started already (except Environmental Systems & Societies…the teacher isn’t great and I’m thinking about swapping to Biology), the work generally seems doable, I’m *beginning* to make friends and get to know people (the IB cohort is only 50 people so you get to recognise people pretty quickly, even in a multi-building college of 4000 people) and my tutor’s really nice. Plus, where else can you get 80p tea and £1 sausage rolls? (probably quite a lot of places, shhh.)  Altogether I don’t think I regret my decision to go to college, which is always a good start!

But…probably naturally, it’s all slightly terrifying and I miss all my friends and my old school so, so much. I miss knowing everyone’s names and knowing the teachers and the teachers knowing me and knowing how stuff works and where to go and everything like that. I just miss the familiarity, the routineness and even the people who I was never really friends with but who were just part of the scenery until suddenly, in the space of a day, they’re not.

I am starting to get to know people, but I’m stuck in that awkward limbo where you’re trying to figure out who you’re drifting away from and who you want to stay in touch with, and you can’t call someone you’ve known for max four days a friend just yet. Add to that the stress of finalising my course choices, a residential to London with a bunch of people I’ve met exactly once next week, all the catch up work from that and the impending doom and stress of ‘when will the mountain of work we’re supposed to get hit’, coupled with all the extra elements of IB like CAS (shoutout to my new photography/writing blog for my creative section), nerves over starting college enrichment next week and general September back-to-school blues and you can probably imagine just how cheery I’m feeling at the moment.

I get that all this is normal – I’ve barely been there properly for two days, I can’t exactly expect to be settled in already – but, and I think it’s especially because I wasn’t forced to leave school, most of my friends left and I actually quite liked it, it’s still making me feel pretty shitty at the moment. I can cope OK during the day, but two days in a row now I’ve had mini meltdowns after college (at least I’m getting into a routine – get home, talk about how great day was (and it genuinely normally is), deny anythings wrong, do homework, freak out, bulk eat chocolate or other sugary substance, hide in cushion fort with duvet and blanket). I know it wouldn’t be the same if I was at school because two of my close friends also left, and the thought of doing A-Levels (my school doesn’t offer IB) makes my stomach feel vaguely sick and fluttery and anxious and panicky, but it’s still not easy.

So yeah, there’s a bit of an update. Not the cheeriest, but accurate. And I know things will get easier, probably even by the end of this week, but until then, things are feeling a little bit bleh. But I promise to update you again sometime, hopefully when I’m feeling a little more settled!

– featured image via unsplash

I’m Freaking Out

I’m sorry that this isn’t a very fun or happy post but I’m freaking out and I need to get some stuff straight in my head, and writing feels like the easiest way to do that.

Maxime Staudenmann / unsplash                                                                                                                   

Today all my friends start sixth form at my old (?!) school, whereas I don’t start college until tomorrow (and then there’s two days of induction before teaching starts next week). And I guess it’s finally hitting me that I’m not with my friends anymore. Almost all of them have gone back to school, ones at a different college which started last Monday and then there’s just three of us waiting to start tomorrow, all doing different subjects and in different tutor groups.

I guess I’m just scared of being replaced, of my friends getting new friends and forgetting about me, which is all kinda expected and natural when moving school but still terrifying. I guess I’m almost a bit jealous of the new people at school, who get to join this friendship group whilst I’m leaving behind seven years of in-jokes and history. Even if you’re not such good friends with someone that you especially want to stay in touch, leaving behind someone you’ve known and who’s been part of your life for seven years is scary and kinda sad.

I know staying on, school would’ve changed – after all, three of my friends also left – and I know I have to at least try college, or I’ll spend the next two years wondering what I missed out on, but I’m nervous about how it’s all going to work, about being slowly separated from all the chat and gossip about school as new, unknown people infiltrate and I slowly become separated. I’m scared that as much as I want to, conflicting schedules or travel complications or just a lack of time and motivation is going to mean I drift apart from all my friends, even the ones I desperately want to stay in touch with. And even though I know I’ll make new friends at college, I can’t just drop my old ones like hot potatoes. Just thinking about all these possibilities is making me so, so tempted just to throw in the towel with college before I’ve even started, and stay on at sixth form. But I’ve said I’m leaving, and I have so many reasons for that, I just have to get through these first few days.

Add all these feelings into nerves about starting college tomorrow and restarting hockey tonight (I feel like I should be more nervous about college but nope, anxiety levels about hockey are way higher) and you can imagine what a bundle of joy I am right now, imagining my friends school routine as I stay at home, thinking about everything I’m missing out on.

I know that within probably a week, everything will feel very different. I’ll probably feel a lot more confident about college and friends and hopefully less jealous and worried about staying in touch, but I guess I’ll find out soon enough. It’s just so scary that the situation I’ve been thinking about (/avoiding thinking about) for the last six months+ is finally here, and about to start for real tomorrow. But today I’m just going to concentrate my nerves on hockey (totally healthy) and try and relax.

 

The Potential Last Time I Freak Out About My Future (ha, nope)

As I’ve mentioned before on here, I’m *strongly considering* leaving school next year to go to the local college. This isn’t a definite decision (and won’t be until after GCSE results, woop *eye roll*) but I am Very Strongly Considering leaving and to put that frankly, it’s terrifying. Unless, of course, I stay at school, in which case all my freaking out will have been for nothing. But y’know. There’s only two weeks (today!) until my first exam, and only about three weeks until study leave starts. AKA THE POTENTIAL END OF ALL MY LESSONS AT SCHOOL FLIPPIDY FLIP FLOP THAT’S SCARY. So yeah. freaking out just a teensy bit.

I keep thinking of the potential last evers.

Potential last ever Founders’ Day. (not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but I do actually quite like getting to play the fanfare)

Potential last (and first) ever Jazz Concert

Only about 12 more maths lessons.

Only about 3 more composition lessons (and I’m not doing music next year so that really is last ever)

Max three more assemblies. (I’VE HAD MY *POTENTIAL* LAST FINAL ASSEMBLY GUYS)

Potential last CCF (not that I’ll miss that much)

x many chapel services left

x many brass ensemble rehearsals left (potentially) (it’s like two and that’s seriously freaking me out because I’ve been doing that for like six years eek)

x many orchestra rehearsals left (though this all depends on how many I skive tbh)

Potential last field day.

Potential last mufti day.

Potential last lunchtime trip to buy a second lunch because well my friend forgot her lunch anyway and sorry but that ham and cheese pastry thing is too good not to buy and half.

sticking this in here because nature, calmness, relaxation, yep can always do with a bit of that

IT’S ALL SCARY AND I HATE IT OK. I mean, if I go to college then that’ll be a really good experience of its own, but it’s going to take a while to get used to going from being a big fish in a relatively small pond to a very small fish in a lake, and I’m gonna have to do the whole making friends thing pretty much from scratch, apart from out of school friends I have at the college. And I’m definitely going to try and keep in touch with my school friends but it’s different, y’know? And what about the people I don’t really class as friends but are just used to seeing? Or the people I’ve kinda started being friends with this year but aren’t really good friends with yet? I’m kinda scared to lose the friendships which, yeah, aren’t three, five, seven, years old but which I value anyway. I’m sometimes an awkward person and not always that great at making plans to keep in touch with people or whatever, especially if I’m not really good friends with them, so God knows what’s going to happen in terms of that.

Of course, that won’t be an issue if I stay at school.

(It’s just so bloody typical that the song playing at the moment is Time To Say Goodbye by Lauren Aquilina, isn’t it? Must be a sign…)

Soz about that outburst but ngl this post felt quite cathartic and guess what, I hadn’t even realised I needed the catharsis. Blogging is great.

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If you liked this, you may like these…

 

Feeling Happy

Thinking Ahead

Some Random Things About Me

Thinking Ahead

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As I’ve mentioned in a couple of previous posts, I’m planning on leaving my school and going to the local college to do the International Baccalaureate in September (gulp). That means I’ll be leaving the school that I’ve been at for seven years, since year five, and not taking the conventional route of A Levels but instead studying something that pretty much everybody but my composition teacher and maybe my Spanish teacher has immediately said “oh, that’s meant to be really hard” about when I tell them. Double gulp. I’m planning on taking Spanish, English, Geography, Maths, Biology and Film Studies, all of which feels a bit daunting when I write it down like that. Eek. Maybe I should just stick with A Levels…

On second thoughts, nah.

I’m simultaneously terrified and excited. I’m terrified of the realisation that, provided I do go, I have thirty maths lessons left and then that’s it at school, I’ll be leaving loads of my friends, some of whom I’ve been friends with for a good six or seven years, leaving all the familiarity of a place and routine and teachers that I know and surroundings where I’m comfortable and (mostly) confident. I’ll be leaving everybody in my year, people that you just get used to being around and it’s kinda weird to think that suddenly I’ll go from seeing everyday to having barely any contact with. I’ll be going into the relative unknown that is the IB, as I have no close friends that have done it – the closest I’ve got is a German girl I play hockey with that’s doing it. I’m really scared that after thinking the IB is perfect for me, I’m going to hate it and have to reevaluate my plans and swap to A Levels, either at college or school. I don’t want to leave my two best friends, even though one is going to college too – she’s doing A Levels, and I’ll only get about two free periods each week, so it’s going to be hard to see her. I don’t want to leave the endless maths bants (using that word ironically only promise)(maybe) with my other best friends where we insult each other so incessantly that I think our teacher may think we actually hate each other. Actually, thinking about it, a similar thing’s starting to happen in English…

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But I’m excited too. When I got my offer, I was about a million times happier than I expected to be. I kinda just want to fast forward through GCSEs and results and everything and land on the first day of college and just see what it’s like. I honestly think the IB is the right choice for me, because whenever I think about leaving all my friends I still want to go to college. I’m looking forward to the freedom of a different schedule, a bigger campus, a new subject (film studies), more extracurricular music and making new friends (even though that feels terrifying), and meeting new people and kinda having the opportunity to get rid of the assumptions that people who’ve known me since primary school might have and just be the version of me that I want to be. The chance to kinda reinvent myself, I guess. I’m semi-looking forward to the possibility of seeing old, old, pre-year-five primary school friends or maybe ending up being college friends with people I already know outside of school through hockey or music or whatever.

I don’t think I’ve ever thought about September so far in advance, not even when I was choosing GCSEs. Maybe when I swapped primary schools?

I guess it’s the same for any kind of change – you’ve got to take the plunge and hope for the best. I definitely think leaving is right for me – I feel like if I stay I’ll just be constantly wondering what college would have been like, and at least two and probably more of my friends are leaving school anyway, so it’s not like everyone else will be carrying on the same without me. New people will join, too.

Ah well. What will be will be. And at least, even if I bail on the IB after the first week, I can tell myself I tried it and it just didn’t work out. Oh, and all the decision making has forced me to research the college so much that I can regurgitate a lot of information about it, the IB, the different option choices and the difference between taking subjects at standard of higher level very easily, and I’m sure that’s a skill that will be constantly coming in handy later in life.

Maybe…

This song is 100% me right now with GCSEs, big decisions, and life in general.

Are you having to make any big decisions about *further education* at the moment?

Word Explosions and 500 Followers!

Hello!

I’m aware I’ve been writing a lot of listy posts lately, and while I like them and they seem to have gone down well, I felt like writing something a bit more personal, if only to get stuff straight in my own head. So yeah, prepare for word vomit. (promise it’s not literal vomit, I got that out when I was ill on Monday)

Most important things first: I GOT A NEW PHONE CASE YAY! I actually ordered it ages ago but it was free shipping from Hong Kong so could take approximately up to a month to arrive…it was actually a week earlier than the deadline so yay for (relatively) quick shipping. I had a case anyway, but it was my mum’s old one (it was her case) and it just didn’t really feel like mine, nice as it was.

*endless heart eyed emoji*

In other news…

It’s actually starting to feel like I’m doing GCSEs now (gulp). At the start of this school year, we were all a bit confused because we seemed to be getting less homework than in year 10 and the workload just wasn’t as hard as expected…but its ramped up now. I’ve got so much coursework going on at the moment – English essays, descriptive writing, music composition x2, starting Spanish controlled assessment tomorrow…eugh. Plus I have to make A Level decisions and find time at weekends for work and occasionally hockey matches. And trumpet practice because I really need to do more than I already am, especially with my GCSE ensemble performance sometime in the next couple of months *shudders* (to be fair, I don’t really mind the performance, it’s just so much work). At least I actually pretty like one of my GCSE music compositions – I’m really proud of my minimalism. My pop song is…bearable, but my minimalism is awesome (in my not at all biased opinion, obvs).

On the bright side, I’m starting to get an idea of what I want to do next year – I’m *strongly considering* the International Baccalaureate (primarily because I’m really bad at making decisions), or for A Levels I’m starting to get an idea of what subjects I want to do. My initial idea of Politics, Geography, Maths and English I unfortunately can’t do because it doesn’t work with the option columns, but I’m now thinking maybe English, Maths, Biology and Geography. Shame about the Politics though, it sounds really interesting. Plus they run a biannual trip to America. Not that I really desperately want to go there or anything (no, not at all). I’ve been talking to some of the sixth formers I do music with which has kinda helped – apparently I’ll like English A Level if I really enjoy English, if I do Spanish I should just learn truckloads of vocab and I should never do a minority (especially not Further Maths, which my school’s actually dropped now, thankfully).

I’m also really loving my trumpet lessons at the moment. I’m mainly focusing on two pieces, the Charleston (woop) (and learning to vocalise and play a written-out solo, gulp. I do feel like I’m actually improving though, which is nice) and Begin The Beguine, by Cole Porter. I’m *vaguely* obsessed with the Ella Fitzgerald version, which is actually really helping my playing (I CAN COUNT TO LIKE FIVE NOW. GO ME!). I also have a sneaky suspicion I may have FINALLY cracked a really difficult section of a piece we’re playing in jazz band where three of us play a horrible trio-y solo bit. I practised it for the school Christmas concert (where it went really badly, but I don’t think anybody other than us actually noticed to be honest) but now we’re playing that piece in a competition entry so it’s *quite important* we get it right.

Now a massive change of subject…I’ve been told recently by at least three people and possibly more that I’ve been talking more lately/I get more talkative when I know people better. Took me quite a long time to realise this, but OK. Anyway, I’ve definitely been talking to more people, which is good – there’s a pretty regular group of 3 of us (and sometimes a couple of extras) that walk home together on Wednesdays and Thursdays after our music stuff, I have a fun five-minute walk part-of-the-way-home arrangement with one of my best friends a couple of days each week which is really nice because I only have two subjects with her, and we’re only sat next to each other in one of them so we don’t always have enough time to insult each other catch up and have a chat. Outside of my year, I’ve started talking to three or four other brass players that I didn’t really talk to before, especially in brass ensemble and symphony orchestra (this is pretty significant for me, as I think I was silent throughout almost every symphony orchestra rehearsal last year). They’re actually all pretty nice and we often end up laughing uncontrollably as a section, so when we need to actually start playing (the whole ten bars or so we have in each piece) it doesn’t always go completely to plan. Especially in our Christmas concert in the Cathedral. Oh dear…

Now, last random thing: I’VE HIT 500 FOLLOWERS. YAYZE. THANK YOU. LOTS OF HUGS AND VIRTUAL PARTY AND CAKE ETC. YOU KNOW THE DRILL.

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(omg I was just looking for an appropriate gif already in my media library and I found a screenshot from 200 follows. I’VE COME SO FAR.) (and can somebody buy me the top in this gif? please and thanks in advance)

What’s been happening with you lately?