Trying To Get Back On Track

I currently feel like these next few months are going to be a lot different from all of the rest for many reasons. I recently received my welcome pack from NCN (07/07/16) inviting me to welcome event at the Broadway Theatre. Now I have the chance to get all excited again about actually going to university... well, college again but it is the same thing. As an addition, I've been trying to eat a little better and have been going to the gym more frequently in the past week. I'm doing fairly well so far as I've lost a little bit of weight, I don't need to loose much really but I really want to be back at a weight where I feel comfortable in time for going to Uni, so that when I meet my fellow students I might have a little more confidence.

I know I'm a lot more confident than I ever was before but, I've still got a lot of work to do. It has been a while since I last performed on stage and I'm going to have to get used to it again. This weekend I will be playing an open mic with my friend Lara, who I met at NCN from my intro course. We have been back in touch and have been practicing a couple of songs. It is nice to feel like "I'm back in the game". This doesn't seem to be anything serious at the moment, just a few cover songs but, I know whichever way things go that this shall be fun!

I really want to start composing again but, I feel like I already have this endless list of tasks. With other projects on the line, its difficult to pick and chose when some are of higher priority and I just hope I've made the best decisions. I'm still meaning to buy a severn string but, I have had other expense to pay out relating to my car. At least I don't have to worry about the service or MOT now though, during my stay at Uni. It's all paid for for three years. My car had it's first MOT today, it's three years old at the end of this month and I've been driving for over two years now. I'm aware that my front tyres are starting to wear. That was the only problem that was outlined to me from the MOT today but, it's not urgent yet and I think they will fine for one more year.

2 Years Without Zebra Crossing

Today marks two years since my pervious band went a little pear-shaped and then totally caved in altogether. I mostly know this because it came up in my Facebook memories or, "On This Day" in the form of a huge uproar on a status of mine when I posted that I had been kicked out of my own band, technically. The post received nearly two hundred comments, mostly of a lot of my Facebook friends trying to cheer me up and even stick up for me. I still appreciate it to this day because I never expected such a maniac reaction from everyone.

It didn't help that Lucy's mother, Deborah tried to defend her daughter when for one, she should have been doing it her self and two, she just looked stupid doing it. I can only remember this now after reading through all of the comments again, early this morning.

It is interesting how things have changed since then. Not long after these events, I went on to get a job at was then Esso down the road from me and I know for a fact that if I was still in the band that I would not have gotten the job. This was my second interview for that job, and I was sure that that was what let me down the last time. I'm still not really in a band of my own and now I work for ASDA after being tupeed over but, I hope I get the chance to try to form another when I go back to Clarendon which is a chance that is almost guaranteed.

In other news thats not of my own, Lucy has her new EP called 'Surroundings' coming out tomorrow. I'm still interested to see what she's doing with music and we do still stand on talking grounds (I'd say anyway) as every now and then I will message her on Facebook. Not long after the uproar I remember sorting things so we're at the least acquaintances again and that there were no hard feelings between us.

My Nerd Corner

Anyone that knows me well enough knows that I have a considerable amount of "Toys" for a nearly-twentytwo-year-old. My collection has been forever growing since I got my first job, probably even before that if I'm honest. This is first time I've ever revealed the entirety of it (or of what I display in my room) on my blog and I thought it would make a nice post after the last one. It reflects all of my interest in Nintendo, retro video games and of course Doctor Who.

RIP Gizmo

28/08/09 - 24/05/16

One of our two much loved family cats. Mum found him at about 8:30 Tuesday morning. He's not had great health for the last couple of months but, we believe he may have been poisoned. Whether it be from weed killer, antifreeze or something similar, he went out Saturday morning and didn't come back the same. He wouldn't move very far, hardly ate anything and kept himself hidden away under the beds and sofas. I can't believe he's actually gone. Not even 7 years old!!

Thankfully, we still have his brother Charlie to keep us company. Its going to be odd only having one cat in the house though after having them both for about six and a half years since since they were kits.

RIP Gizmo <3

Everything That's Happened In May & More!!

It's been almost a month since I last posted anything and I feel like I have a lot to catch up on. On the 1st of May, I had a rather long trip out to Trafford Centre in Manchester with my mum and a close friend. The place is absolutely huge! It took about two hours to get there and all day to look around all of the shops. I ended up coming home with two new puppets which are still yet to be officially named, although myself and my friend Jo who also drove us there came up with the names Manny and Maple between us. This day also marks the first day I had ever been in a Selfridges store.

There's been a few things I have gotten back into. I've started watching Doctor Who and going to the gym more frequently again. There has also been a fair few stressful instances at work again recently. Our cash machine broke and everyone expected that we do cash back. We don't. I've had a fair amount of Costa's with my friend that I met from my first college course, Peter.

The wether has been considerably better this month so I have been making the most of it, with the exception of filming. Myself and my mum went to Wollaton Park a couple of weeks ago for a pick nick and a kick about after a long day shopping around Nottingham city centre. I managed to get quite a few good action shots of my mum that day, which I'm not sure she's greatly pleased about. It had been ages since myself and my mum had done anything like this. We used to play about all of the time on the garden when I was still in school but, hardly ever now.

Recently, I've gotten into bad habits of staying up late. My new regular bedtime is now more like 2-3am, which is not healthy. All I seem to do with this time is scroll through Facebook on my iPad or watch videos on YouTube. I've been playing The Sims Freeplay a lot recently too. None of it is healthy. I have however been trying my best to not stay up as late as I have been but, sometimes I just can't help it when I find an adorable, obscure video of David Tennant, a man whom's birthday it was recently. Would you believe he's now 45. It seems only yesterday he was living his childhood dream of playing the 10th doctor, of course I still watch all of the episodes today.

Last weekend I went away for a couple of days with my mum, dad and auntie. We went on the Friday morning and set off to Whitley Bay Holiday Park. We've had been there once before and decided to go again. Friday we didn't really do much, we didn't even go out to see the onsite entertainment. I didn't bother doing that any of the nights because I almost know exactly what its going to be like if its a band playing, give or take stage presence and quality. Saturday we went into the town of Whitley Bay, which was quite nice. Nothing had really changed from the last time and we went to Sambucca's again for lunch, where I also sampled their Nutella cheesecake. Sunday, we went to the Beamish living museum which was certainly very interesting. There was a lot to see and plenty to get around, with a tram and bus service connecting all of the areas. It was quite a fascinating day and probably the best part of the holiday. Monday was the morning we had to leave the site so it was more of a rush around to get off home and not forget anything in the process. I was quite happy to be going home, feeling satisfied. I do worry a lot when we go away incase we ever get burgled but, thankfully that didn't happen. It's always a relief to get home and be back to normality.

I have been trying new things lately out of inspiration from listening to Doctor Who audio books, specifically the tenth doctor collect that was just released this month. So, naturally I decided to have a go at writing my very own radio play. I only started this other night and I managed to reach page 7, including a full page of charter ideas and motives. I really have missed creating my own story. This is another thing that I used to do all of the time when I was in school. One of my old English teachers shot me down for it because one seemed a little too repetitive. It did bother me but, I'm glad I've found a new way of writing and portraying my creative ideas that suits me more. I'm really enjoying it.

In other news, my favourite group of guys; The Piano Guys turned 5 this month and also released a new music video: The Jungle Book / Sarabande (Mayan Style). I would like to take a moment for this part of my blog to congratulate them on how far they have come in such a short space of time. I still remember the first day I discovered them back in college and when I instantly fell in love with their ideas. I hope I get to see them live again soon, even if I have to wait until next year!

Rediscovering Old Original Songs...

Recently I've been searching around my room for a specific old scrap of paper from an old A4 graph book. This wasn't my best choice to write my ideas on but, it must have been the closest thing to me when the ideas came to mind all those years ago. I'm not 100% what year I wrote this but, I believe it was before my college years whilst I was studying for my GCSEs in school. If I had to guess, I'd say I was about 13/14 when I wrote this. I vaguely remember writing this song but, I can definitely remember that it was one of my first intended with the accompaniment of a piano. It's quite a sad song really and I notated any actual music for it although I can still remember the vocal melody in my mind which must be a good sign.

In the image I have shared of this work, you'll notice a little lightning strike sort of shape against the word 'inside' at the bottom right corner and a similar thing that was later scribbled out just underneath. I got into a habit of using these shorthand for what would my musical equivalent of half a turn. A turn that doesn't go back to the root and just goes the starting note, one note above the starting note, back to the starting note and then one note below the starting note. these were not necessarily performed any faster, it was just a quick pitch reference for me that probably wouldn't mean anything to anyone else without a full explanation just like this. It doesn't help when the symbol I draw does suggest to myself going back to above and beyond the starting note but, I know what I mean. I didn't use these kind of things very often, although I cannot deny that looking through old lyric books that you would not find any more.

Filming Music video No. 2, Part 2.

On Wednesday 6th April I met up with Kieran again to continue filming. As before we met as his house but, this time before leaving to go to the city recorded a short moment of him leaving the house. We were a little more stuck for ideas this time around. I had a re-read though all of my notes and we seemed to have already used most of the ideas. The weather was a bit on and off all day with showers and then sunshine so it was really difficult to predict what we were going to achieve by early afternoon.

We decided to walk towards the city centre but, then ended up walking up towards the old windmill. The area had a small park, and of course the windmill was quite an interesting landmark to feature. We walked around this area for a couple of minutes and later found a rather nice set of stairs with bold black metal railings. We decided to use these for simple shot of us juts walking down them and talking we only did one take with it, but it seemed to look good.

After we had finished with that location we headed off towards the Arboretum. When we got there, the first thing we did was head towards the bell tower with cannons on all four corners. On the way, we found a nice open area which we figured we could use for a later scene of myself playing guitar but, we tried to stay focused on what we wanted to do with this area. We ended up using two different  locations for the camera to sit on the tripod as we climbed up onto the bell tower just to record ourselves having a bit of fun. It was a bit of a mess around really. We were jumping about all over the place. We wandered down to the bridge and I really wanted to include an argument scene. Under the bridge just seemed to be the perfect lighting set for the argument to take place. We recorded several takes on this, in hope that if we mash it up it would give it a greater effect. After that, we were done with the Arboretum for the day. We knew that we would have to come back to adda additional scenes but, that was waiting for another day though, before completely finishing for the day I decided to record the passing of the sun though the clouds. I still need to get some more footage of the sun, as weird as that sounds but overtime I have a day to myself it's cloudy and when I'm at work it stays sunny! How unfair is that!?!