Things I love thursday!

I love that picture.
I love the fact that I am clearly hardcore enough to stay up all night without sleep (purely accidentally)
I love the freedom today gives me to stay in bed and type
I love being forced to be productive and working under pressure, which ties in well with today!
I love the fact the Royal Wedding is tomorrow so I get a day off to catch up on sleep! Hurrahh
I love the fact there will be half price memorabilia to collect for my grandkids/sell for ££££ on Ebay! I jest…
I love my willpower when it comes to dieting
I love my energy and optimism


I love my friend Zahra for granting me a favour <3 I guess I’m now indebted to her!
I love the fact we’ll be eating salad tonight for dinner
I love that I can look forward to watching my ’Marie Antoinette’ DVD soon
I quite love this font.
I love our new kettle because it equals tea and tea equals love
I love that Amy has inspired me to get on with my bucket list-making
I love that my brother is or has proposed to his girlfriend by now!
I love that myself, mother and sister are going out for lunch tomorrow. It’s rare and it’s a big deal.
I love watching interviews with my favourite musicians thanks to the powers of YouTube
I love you for reading this.

How to date goth girls

I know it shouldn't have but this made me laugh! :

http://themanwithno.name/texts/47/how-to-date-goth-girls

An elderly man and a bus driver

It was a sad sight. Have you ever observed other people and wondered why people have to be so aggressive and inconsiderate to each other? It's fair to say that I'm not a saint and neither are you, but I do my best to treat everybody with the respect they deserve and cannot stand nastiness.
So I'm listening to iPod while staring out of the bus window and internally planning my future as I usually do, when I notice the bus has been still for quite some time. As I look to the front of the bus I see an elderly man, shopper-on-wheels in hand and oyster (bus) card in the other. He still has his senses but he's lost his articulation as the years have multiplied, and he can't exactly get to grips with how this swipe technology that we now use to board a bus works. Fair enough, the momentary noise it makes could easily be mistaken for a refusal. He stands there nervously, covering up his embarrassment with a smile while he mumbles polite apologies and bewilderment at what's happenning. I initally smile at the sweet amusement of the situation until I realise the bus isn't on his side. The bus driver (who constantly looks as if somebody has just given him an impromptu kick in the testicles) impatiently groans at him that it worked while the man endevours to figure out what is going wrong. The bus driver presses on in his unforgiving, demeaning tone as a few passengers urge him - albeit quietly - to 'come on' and 'hurry up'.
In the end mr bus driver snaps at him to "Just go and sit down!" as if he were shooeing an irksome dog back to his kennel. Who knows what this man has been through, how much longer he's been walking the planet for or what stories he has to tell? Who cares? As long as the bus gets moving RIGHT THIS INSTANT everything is fine... until you realise that you too, will someday need help getting on and off even the simplest forms of public transport. All of your everyday ability - such as showering unaided and walking to the shops without a hitch - will disappear. I could've pleaded with the bus : Show some compassion, will you? I felt like jumping off at his stop and asking him to tell me about his life. Anything he wanted to share and everything that made him proud. For one, I'm genuinely interested and two, I could see the look of humiliation on his face. And I hate it. I hate it when anyone, good or bad, feels demoralised like that but he especially didn't deserve it. Not in that situation. I'm glad I told the computer screen, I have to put the world to rights somehow.

MANIC STREET PREACHER ON OXFORD STREET

When myself and my friend Zahra had finished shopping on Oxford Street yesterday, we were met with a man and his megaphone at the station. He was ’dissecting’ what a ‘brainwashed’ person had bought in a shop and how it was probably made by a ’Chinese slave child’ that got paid peanuts and he informed us that we’re all mentally ill for buying these things.




Well. As much as I commend his point itself - that £40 for a top is over-priced and that exploitation of children is bad thing - his method of arguing was so antagonistic that nobody was going to listen to him. Yes it is wrong that children have to work in horrendous conditions just to feed their family but the fact is that without a job, those children would starve because they have no source of income. Their parents can’t provide for them and their days would be spent contracting diseases in squalid streets. This isn’t the fault of an innocent shopper on the high street, it’s the government of whichever country: from Pakistan to China, that needs to take accountability for this and make a change. By insulting strangers through a megaphone and implying people should make their own clothes, this man is solving nothing. If anything, he’s encouraging an apathetic disposition by pointing the blame at whoever is listening outside the station. Also, myself and Zahra couldn’t help but wonder where he bought his jeans from? We’re sure he didn’t make them himself and that flaws his argument already.

One point I did agree with was his assertion that the passer-by who ‘works’ in advertising isn’t actually ‘working’ and these children are. It may be a job but what most of us do isn’t actually ‘work’. Having said that, why should it be that everybody must spend their lives working? If you think about it, it’s quite sadistic to think that we have to spend 8 hours of the day putting ourselves through stress and misery just to ‘earn’ the right to relax afterwards. I wish the world was fair just as much as everybody else does but you‘ll have to excuse my realism for thinking that the likelihood of this happening to slim to none.

Things I love Thursday!

I Love:

-> 'Positive Thinking Everyday' - a book for every day of the year by Norman Vincent Peale: the godfather of positive thinking.

Today's quote: The greatest power available to a human being is in-depth faith, the force by which you can move mountains of difficulty.

-> Non-drowsy hayfever tablets. Firstly, whoever invented the 'non-drowsy' option should be knighted and secondly, they really do work! As soon as I take one I stop sneezing... MAGICAL.

-> Comforting cuddles from my dad.

-> My reign of the laptop because my brother has decided to go shopping again.

-> Staying inside where I can see the sun but not be burnt by it's vengeful shine.

-> Still feeling like I have time to procrastinate about my history coursework and subsequently enjoying the internet.

-> Finding that my blogspot has nice comments!

-> The new charity shop which is selling cheap jewellery & dvds! Perfect.

-> Finishing work early and walking home in the sunshine with my iPod on.


THIS PICTURE:

INDIE KIDS/SMITHS TOPS/URBAN OUTFITTERS

INDIE KIDS/SMITHS TOPS/URBAN OUTFITTERS

So I’m with Zahra in Urban Outfitters and she points out a t-shirt that she says I’ll like… it reads “To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.” I’m then told that her friend, who I won’t name, doesn’t actually like The Smiths “but likes that song”, so bought it. Hold on. She wasted her money branding herself with a band she doesn’t actually like because she liked the song/top? Or the more likely event that she bought the t-shirt because she - like many other people - wants to be seen as indie and therefore cool? For one thing, indie is short for ’independent’; the independence of thought and actions, not subscribing to fashion trends and trying to be a part of something. Another thing is that there is nothing to be a part of anymore. The Smiths released that song in 1986 and as that was 25 years ago, the ‘indie’ scene is truly an old one. People don’t actually represent what they pretend to represent anymore. Even the ‘pretentious’ dressed students aren’t any way near pretentious. They don’t care about much, they just want to ‘talk’ on their blackberry, drink Starbucks and get a well-paid job for doing as little as they can. Nobody wants to change the world anymore and nobody is interested in taking a stand. That’s why we have enraged megaphone men calling people crazy at Oxford Street station.




What initially annoyed me is that The Smiths were meant to be a voice for the outsider and now people who have no idea what Morrissey was singing about will fly the flag of isolation without adhering to it. It used to be the pretension of typical Smiths fanatics that troubled me but now the pacification of their once profound meaning is proving to be worse. In fact, the entire shop is adorned with ’I’m-so-cool’ indie regalia. Trilby hats, Bob Dylan records, scrabble wrapping paper… if it passes for an ’alternative’ label it’ll be there. Funny thing is that hats are pointless unless it’s sunny/you’re a cowboy, that Bob Dylan record will only be bought because some kid saw it in Vanilla Sky and none of the shop’s customers would count playing scrabble as a great night in.
The Queen is Dead, and so is originality.
Pun intentional.

Lack of internet connection? Bliss!

This article was written on the 5th April 2011:
I LOVE NOT HAVING THE INTERNET.

Okay, so you might think that our internet provider cutting off our connection because They sent the bill late would be a bad thing (which it sort of is) but not having the internet is actually quite the therapeutic experience. First of all, my producitivty has increased tenfold; since I got home I have tidied up my room slightly (an amazing accomplishment), arranged overdue catch up plans via phone, looked for & subsequently found my handcream, helped my mother thread sewing needles and actually bothered to put a DVD in the disk drive instead of just thinking about it. All things that would not have happened had I have been browsing the worldwideweb. All small and mundane things, granted but I can't tell the number of times I've been meaning to watch a film and not bothered because something exciting is about to happen on Tumblr/Facebook/blahdeblah....funny thing? It never does.

In case you're curious, the film is St Elmo's Fire - a 'bratpack' classic. To all of you ThinkingGirl's who cite Kevin as your dream guy, I salute you.
Furthermore, I feel relaxed and content. Studies and whatnot's show depression to be higher amongst those adolescents who type on social network sites night and day and I understand why. It's a virtual world we live in that isn't genuine or interactive - which I just find sad. As hypocritical as this is, I know most of you agree with me. But hey, the internet's not so bad - you have my blog! What a gift.


Peace out ThinkingGirls.