Recently one of my best friends turned 18, and she asked for a ukulele for her birthday. Whilst researching for her present I realised that not only is it one of the coolest instruments to grace the earth (second perhaps only to the Mouth Harp) it would also be perfect for me to take to uni with me, small, lightweight, basically just a lot less bulky than any of the other instruments I play which will take up precious space in my student accomodation. So, my friend and I are both now proud owners of shiny new ukuleles!
…anyway, what I’m leading up to is, also during my research, I discovered many musicians who use ukuleles in their music, it’s way cooler an instrument than it’s given credit for!! My favourite of all the artists I found has to be Danielle ate the Sandwhich. Not only does she write some beautiful tunes, but her lyrics are meaningful, and Danielle herself comes across as having a really quirky style and a fun personality. I really think you should give her a listen!

I also now have turquiose hair.

Yesterday was A-level results day (aka ‘the day of reckoning’) for second year college and sixth form students across the country. I surpassed the entry grades I needed for Oxford Brookes uni, getting grades ABC, which may I say, was NOT as easy as 1,2,3.

So, I’m leaving Birmingham, the city I’ve lived in my entire life, for Oxford, the student city, which has wi-fi everywhere (except toasters).
Scary? Yes.
Exciting? Even more so!!

The first couple of days were just the plane journey, flopping down at the hotel restaurant to eat, and exploring the surrounding area for supermarkets so that we could make use of the little kitchen in our 5 STAR! hotel room. We also started rehearsals for the first weeks concert which was Mahler 3 (aka ‘BIMM BAMM’). I also picked up a newspaper, and as I flicked through it was incredibly excited to see an article about US (CBSC) titled ‘Voices of angels’. For the Mahler concert we worked with the Kuala Lumpur Children’s Choir, who were (and I think I can speak on behalf of the whole female section of the choir when I say this) SOO CUUUTE! …and also very good at singing.

Day 3
A group of us ventured out to the central markets where we had our feet nibbled by fish. The fish were called Garra Rufa, they are toothless and feed off dead skin cells. They are also attracted to moisturiser as one of my friends found out when half the pool flocked to her. She did have extra smooth feet afterwards though.
For lunch we headed to the food courts where I tried out some sting ray, which took a while to eat due to the sheer amount of tiny fiddly pieces of cartilage.

Day 4
We did a bit more exploring and took a look around the Suria KLCC, the ENORMOUS shopping mall beneath the Patronas towers. Here we found another, much bigger supermarket, where bought a small mountain of Malaysian junk food, including seawood flavoured Pringles, to take back for lunch.

Day 5
After the evening concert we decided to explore the city’s night life. We headed off to Sky Bar, which is located at the top of the 5 star Traders Hotel and is one of Kuala Lumpur’s most famous bars. Having never seen anything quite like this, the group of us were in awe of the atmosphere, the panoramic views of Kuala Lumpur by night, the 3 swimming pools and the prices of the cocktails. Despite prices we did all decide to treat ourselves to at least one cocktail, and they were I must admit, VERY nice cocktails!

Day 6
A day of shopping for presents, and our second (and final) Mahler 3 concert.

Day 7
For the Mahler concerts only the female choir members were needed, however the second weeks concert was Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust for which we needed ‘The Men’. While we waited for the male choir members to arrive in Kuala Lumpur, we got a day off which we decided to spend at Sunway Lagoon, a theme park/water park/zoo. Within the first few hours I fell sideways of a rubber ring, hitting my head on the side of a water slide shocking two life guards, a photographer and my friends. But that didn’t stop us! After fifteen minutes in first aid, and half an hour in the wave pool, we were back to the water slides. We finished off our day taking group photos with giant Fibreglass elephants and feeding rabbits in the Petting Zoo.

Day 8
Today we finally got back to some culture! We walked through the Chinatown markets (RM15 for a ‘genuine replica’ Rolex) to get to a Buddhist Temple. Both the interior and exterior were incredibly beautiful. The whole building seemed to be made up of just insanely detailed carvings, and despite being surrounded by main roads it was incredibly peaceful inside too. After this we wandered around a bit more soaking in the atmosphere (we totally weren’t lost). We found lake garden and sat by a waterfall to cool off for a bit, and then walked on to have a look around at the National Mosque.

Day 9
Today was another culture day, a few more people tagged along this time, and despite having an afternoon rehearsal rather than an evening one we still managed to fit in visits to Istana Negara (the National Palace) and the Islamic Arts Museum. After the rehearsal we headed out once again to Sky Bar where we made the most of ladies night (unlimited free cocktails for ladies). I tried a Death in the Afternoon, a mixture of Champagne and Absinthe…never again.

Day 10
Recovery day, evening rehearsal, late night trip to Pizza Hut.

Day 11
Today we visited the Batu Caves, and absolutely amazing sight even as the taxi pulled into the car park. The first thing you notice (well, apart from the limestone hills) is the 42.7 meter high golden statue of Murugan (a Hindu deity). The second thing you notice is the 272 steps you need to walk up to reach the caves. Despite the exercise, the view of the city from the steps is fantastic, and there’s loads of monkeys! On the way back to the hotel, and for no extra charge, the taxi driver returned via a chocolate factory outlet store called ‘Beryl’s World of Chocolate’. Much chocolate was tasted, and many Ringgits were spent.

Day 12
As we were nearing the end of our trip we took the oppurtunity to return to the Central Markets and take in the sights, sounds and smells that we had not had time for the first time round.

Day 13
In the morning I joined other choir members in an Education project at the concert hall involving two Malaysian youth choirs, the National Youth Choir and the SMK Seafield choir, conducted VERY well by a 17 year old! In the evening we also performed our first of the two Berlioz concerts. A replacement soloist for the part of Margarita had to be flown in from Los Angeles arriving only hours before the concert, and the soloist playing Faust had a cold, despite this however the concert went seamlessly.

Day 14
The final day. The morning was spent attempting to cram presents and souvenirs into our suitcases and hand luggage on top of everything we had brought with us in the first place. I was fine with my expandable suitcase, others however weren’t so lucky.
In the afternoon we performed our final concert of the trip, chased the soloists for photos and autographs, ate, I stocked up on Tim Tams and then we returned to the hotel to finish packing and then catch the coach to the airport three hours early in the hope to get a block booking. Unfortunately for us, the airline had pre allocated everyone’s seats anyway, although at least we didn’t arrive as late as was originally planned because the scanners were broken, which meant everything had to be done by hand and so checking in took a VERY long time. Hey ho, in my experience it’s not a true aeroplane trip if something doesn’t go wrong…unless it’s the engines.

I invited a few college friends over for a revision burning bonfire on Tuesday night. The last revision bonfire I had began with my mobile phone (or should I say EX mobile phone) being accidentally tossed into the bonfire by one of my dear friends. She has never lived that down, and everyone kept their phones well hidden this time. There was much fun, food and guitar playing (and no phone tossing) and I got rid of a black bags worth of revision notes. It felt SO good.

On the Wednesday I revisited the art department of my college for the end of year exhibition where our work is displayed. It was so cool to see what everyone had spent the last year working on, and everyone’s work was AMAZING! Here’s a teensy weensy sample.

The meaty butchers piece is mine. The collage face is my friend Emily’s. It’s A2 size and entirely made from teeny pieces of coloured paper. She has A LOT of patience! The bust with the hands reaching out towards it is by a girl I don’t know very well, but it’s an AWESOME piece. I’m not too sure how she made it, although I do know the hands are made of wax and plaster, a lot of work went into it, and she’s going to get a very good mark!

So, see you in two weeks!

P.S. Hopefully I’ll have a tan.

P.P.S. If I do you probably won’t recognise me.

P.P.P.S. Ok, a tan? Really? I know that’s not going to happen, but I can dream.

My celebration of freedom began today, with a trip to Morrisons. Not just any Morrisons however, it was in fact the Morrisons by my college. Ok, it doesn’t sound so great, but I was joined on this Morrisons trip by several friends from my English Lit class, and after buying ice lollies, we had a hilarious and enjoyable (and freedom filled) afternoon chilling out in the sun and eating and decorating ginger bread men.

As for my upcoming plans, a couple of months ago the older members of the CBSYC, a choir that I’m a member of, were invited to join the CBSC on tour to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia for two weeks. As I am one of the older members of the CBSYC, I was invited, and as I thought this oppurtunity sounded fantastic (and luckily so did my parents, who are the ones paying. Did I mention how awesome my parents are?) I put my name down. The trip involves several concerts, a couple of educational trips to schools, lots of rehearsing, and most importantly EXPLORING TIME! So, you’ll be hearing about my adventures in a few weeks!

On A-level results day, as well as receiving my results, I shall also be leaving for the South of France with Jake, his parents, and some of their friends, which will again be another adventure for me to blog about. A few days after that, of course comes the summer necessity of Shambala festival! (yes, I’ll probably be telling you about that too)

Lets see now….Venice…what can I say…It was AMAZING! It was only a little weekend trip for my mum’s birthday, but by the end we were nothing short of exhausted! Naturally we paid a visit to the Rialto bridge, St Mark’s square and the islands of Murano and Burano. However we didn’t do a gondola ride as they were ever so slightly, um, really expensive. That didn’t ruin anything though, because the Smiths know how to have fun without gondolas! We took the water bus, and did a lot of walking so we had the opportunity to take in the streets of Venice. The buildings are old and dilapidated, but beautiful as it means they’ve kept they’re original charm rather than being ruined through modernisation.

For the week or so before we went, my mum was on the internet every day checking the Venetian weather forecast. This meant that we were getting ourselves prepared for three days of ‘zero visibility’, rain and floods. When we arrived however, we were by no means disappointed to find ourselves greeted by sun, and quite a bit of it! We were able to walk around without an extra jacket, which considering the weather in England at the time, was quite strange for us.

My brother and I also came home bearing GIANT Nutella tubs. Unfortunately empty, but I don’t think we could have eaten that much anyway.

On the topic of college work, there has been A LOT. Especially from psychology. However I will admit that it paid off in my exams as I went into both feeling much more confident, and came out with two very high Bs.

Last weekend Jake and I went on a trip to Stratford upon Avon. The weather was surprisingly kind to us, and we had rather a good time, we even made a video which Jake has on his site. We’ll not talk about that though because Jake edited it to make me look even weirder than I already am. Ducks ARE cute OK!

In the recent weeks of my newly gained adulthood I have finally started driving lessons, had my nose pierced and dyed my hair BRIGHT orange (or rather, I got Jake to dye my hair BRIGHT orange). I couldn’t find orange hair dye, so Jake and I had to improvise by mixing red with a yellow that according to the tub ‘glows under a blacklight’…that fact does not surprise me. I have also been revising for the upcoming exams. Luckily only two this time and they’re pretty far apart.

I’ve been LOVING the recent snow, although unfortunately it’s now all been washed away by the rain. I think England looks best in the snow…well, when you’re not by a main road squelching through the grey sludge, or stuck in traffic, or waiting for buses, or having a driving lesson…well, um, my road looked nice anyway. I also had a fantastic view from my Psychology class room of a sunrise over the huge snowy fields at the back of my college (yes, a sunrise, that’s how early my college starts and how dark British winter mornings are!). For christmas my family and I went to stay with my aunt and uncle in Yorkshire where the snow was about 6 or 7 inches deep. On boxing day we walked to Fountains Abbey which is lovely at the best of times, but in the snow it looked amazing!

I finally received my official christmas present from my parents yesterday, a soldering iron with seven different attachments for various jewellery making needs (yep, that’s what I asked for). I don’t actually have any solder yet, or anything to solder, but I’m hoping to use the hot knife attachment to cut old vinyl records into pretty shapes.

I didn’t have a huge 18th birthday party, but I’ve been doing lots of smaller things instead. I went out for the night before my birthday with a group of friends. Sheen and Liah made me a cake before we went out too. It was pretty much pure chocolate…it was so goooood! Bobbie (Jake’s mum) held an afternoon tea party for me, it was fantastic! We all had lots of yummy food (and I mean LOTS of YUMMY food!) and a generally awesome afternoon! On my actual birthday I was woken up with breakfast in bed by Jake, and I went out for a family meal. Most of my family (that live in England) were there, and it was great to have them all around me on my birthday. The coming Friday I’m also going down to Leicester to see Kirsten and go out for the night with her flat mates, which I’m very much looking forward to!

…I also took my house further backwards from the 21st century by asking for a record player for my birthday…I LOVE IT! My mum has an awesome yet unused vinyl collection pretty much made up of classic rock with a hint of Kate Bush, Cat Stevens and other such things that I like. (my Dad has a collection too, but it’s made up of Abba and John Denver…’fraid I’m not a big fan) To save me having to download great music when we already have it, and because vinyl is just the best, a record player seemed like a logical (and conveniently fashionably retro) idea! My parents ordered it online, and I had to sign for it a few days later because no one else was in that day…luckily I’d been part of the choosing process anyway so I knew what it was, but it was so hard not to just rip the box open and
put on a record!

Here it is…

Yippeeeee for birthdays!

Anyway, this is some of the stuff Green Day had:

Pyrotechnics (of course!)
Toilet roll guns
Hose pipes
Water pistols
Fancy dress hats
T-shirt cannons
Audience participation (and LOADS of it!)
Tres Cool in a red bra
The Benny Hill theme tune

…what more could you want!

I returned from the college art trip to Paris a few days ago, we were only there for three nights, but ohhhhhohoh boy what a time we had! We visited 4 art galleries, went to the top of the Eiffel tower, went to the Pompidou centre, had a meal at the Hard Rock Cafe, went on a sight seeing tour (passing the Arch de Triomphe and the Moulin Rouge), visited Monmartre to see the street artists, played Pool in an Irish pub, and still had time to do some rushed gift shopping for our dear friend’s and family who missed out on the best trip everrrr!

We got to Paris by coach and ferry. We made great time on the way to Dover, so we got an earlier ferry. We therefore had several extra hours to fill once we arrived in France, so the coach driver took us to stop off at a few extra sights he knew.

When we arrived at out hotel we seperated into our room groups, took our keys, put our bags in our rooms and went restaurant hunting. Pretty much all 56 people on the trip ended up in the nearby Italian restaurant (Ah, what a taste of French culture) and I tried escargots (snails). They were a little rubbery and they were completely filled with garlic butter so they just tasted like garlic. As I like garlic, I liked the taste. I did burp a few hours later though and it tasted like soil.

On the first full day we truly realised quite how expensive Paris was going to be, it’s around a pound to a euro at the moment, so we ended up paying £4.30 for a normal sized can of Ice Tea…but once we had quenched our thirst we just got on with the day and enjoyed ourselves anyway. With it being an art trip and all, naturally one of our first stops was the Louvre, and of course we all ran off to see the Mona Lisa. We went to a LOT of art galleries and saw a LOT of amazing work, which did eventually got a bit tiring, but it was fantastic to see so many wonderful artists crammed into each building. Everyone was going crazy with first hand research for their A-level projects too. Well, everyone except me, my project is on Alice in Wonderland, and Picasso, Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci just didn’t seem to have the same interests.

At the end of the second day, again crammed with art and sight seeing, we spent the evening in Monmartre looking round the work of the street artists. After a while, all 56 of us once again had the same idea about where to eat, and crammed into a nearby restaraunt. As it was the last night of the trip the atmosphere was even more bouncy than the last two nights, and after the meal we spent the coach journey back to the hotel singing along loudly to Black Eyed Peas.

I can’t put into a blog post what an amazing time I had, it’s kinda one of those things where you just had to be there, but everyone on the trip agreed that it was one of the best trips they’d ever been on EVER! We even made it it’s own facebook group, and everyone’s been sharing the thousands of photographs we all took.