maaaaah.co.uk

Well for pretty much all of August I worked in medical records. Not much more to say about that really! The bank holiday Monday & Tuesday I went to a recording studio in Ripley with Emma and her family and we (Emma & I) recorded two songs, and on the Tuesday we went to Drayton Manor theme park! I got soaked on the log flume, but it soon dried off. I also went for a picnic and bike ride with Iwona at Dinton Pastures on the sunny Saturday before which was really nice.
On Wednesday we went back to school and it’s been alright so far, but on Thursday I had to cycle all the way to the Holt! I was so hot and disgusting when I finally got there (it took me half an hour!)
Today I went to Southampton University’s open day and I really liked it! The music department was really nice and there was a big range of topics to study; and they didn’t seem ot be all really snobby and posh so that was really good! Before the music talk started two students gave a performance of a piece called “Histoir du Tango” by Piazzola and it was such a cool piece (for flute and classical guitar). It’s my favourite uni so far, but I’ve still got three more to look at…

I’ll do the bad news first…

On Saturday I didn’t passs my driving test because my tester was really harsh and mean. Basically I needed to be in the left lane to turn left at a set of traffic lights, however the left lane was a bus lane until about two car lengths before the turning. Because the tester was getting really eggy that I wasn’t in the correct lane, I cut through the tiniest bit of bus lane (the car in front did it too!) because it seemed like the normal and sensible thing to do, and he failed me! How annoying…
On the PLUS POINT, I started a new job today in medical records at the hospital, and I’m going to be working full-time for four weeks, earning lots of money! There’s certainly lots to do, so even if it’s boring there won’t be any time for yawning! Now that’s a rap…(and it’s cr*p!)

Well last Tuesday we broke up from school and it’s now the summer holidays with nothing to do! I guess it’s not good to be all work and no play though. In the final assembly my music class plus Kristian and Lottie had to perform our carnival composition to everone and it was quite funny, I was really surprised how everyone really enjoyed it (I thought we’d get poked fun at!)
On Thursday Emma and I went for an adventure and a terrapin hunt, starting at Dinton Pastures looking for the terrapins in the massive hidden pond, and then walking along the river Loddon and ending up in Lower Earley. We had our excercise that day anyway…
On Saturday I went looking for wedding dresses(!) with my sister and mum, and Joanna and Paul have decided that they want green and pink as their wedding colour scheme, like the text. The whole thing is really getting rather exciting!

Well this weekend I went to Breakout, a sort of festival for Christians, and it was so good! It was filled with lots of worship music and other workshops, and it was a really tiring weekend but so worth it! It was my first Breakout so I wasn’t completely sure what to expect, other than lots of yellow and green (the breakout fashion for some reason).
On the Saturday we saw Sounds of Salvation twice, and they were excellent both times of course (they are the Reading-based Chrisitan Ska band who I first saw in 2006 and mentioned here. Two other bands, Four Kornerz and Yfriday also played and they were both really good also, I especially liked the soul sounds of Four Kornerz, but I’m not completely sure how much of their music was actually “Christian” or not!

By the end of this week I will have performed in three concerts, plus twice more to some year 6s coming to school next year! How exciting! On Sunday it was the “Gala” concert at the Anvil in Basingstoke with Corelli, and we played Borodin’s Polotsvian dances and I felt quite satisfied with the performance. I have to say that the Polotsvian dances is probably the most difficult orchestral piece I’ve ever played (I was playing first violin so it was even harder), but also one of the nicest. Joanna and Paul joined my mum to come and watch, and I had fun making faces at them from the choir stalls!
Yesterday I was in a chamber concert for the leavers of the Gold Scheme at Maestros, even though I’m not yet an award holder (though I will be next year!) Basically my viola and I were “roped in” to play in a Mozart horn quintet (strangely written for horn, violin, 2 violas and cello) and it was quite a fun performance, though an incredibly long concert and rehearsal - the rehearsals started at 5 and the concert finished at 10! I also got to be a page turner for another ensemble - watch out Emma you have a rival!

Have recently discovered an Album called “A Strangely Isolated Place” by Ulrich Schnauss on Emusic and I really like it. It’s really chilled and I guess a bit trippy, but overall a lovely album, and a bit different to some of my typical tastes, if there is such a thing…

Today I looked around Birmingham University, and it was quite nice, but I still didn’t feel a huge force saying this is the uni for me. There’s just so many to choose from, I really don’t know where I’m going to end up. It was funny because we saw a distinguishable family who’d been at Royal Holloway also at Birmingham today, and then I also saw someone from Croydon who’d been on the Köln Trip, and someone from BYO, and someone from the French exchange. Quite a coincidental day really!
On Monday night/Tuesday morning I had such a weird dream I thought I’d share it. I dreamt that Simon my driving instructor went away but left me the key to his car, and so to show off to my friends that I could drive I took his car and loads of my friends out in it, even though I hadn’t passed my test, and only after first stopping by at my music teacher’s house to pick up her daughter (who plays in CBSE) and taking her with me in the car. Anyway I drove them all along, but at every single junction I’d get really stressy and be like “WHICH WAY?” and then another friend’s dad drove past with another man in a huge great big Land Rover, and I didn’t have a clue where we were and then suddenly we got to these wooden bridges that I recognised and I sped up in delight to 38 miles an hour (the speed dial was that of my parents car for some reason, which tells you your exact speed) when a speed camera went off and I was like “Sh*te! Now Simon and the police are going to know I’ve been driving illegally!” and my heart started to beat rather fast, and then suddenly I heard an alarm clock and it was morning and I was lying in bed! It me panicking anyway…

Well there’s ben some more technical dificulties, but Maaaaah is here again now! A fair bit has happened since I last wrote, but I can’t bring myself to spend ages listing it all down…
I will mention the time I went busking with my quartet a couple of weeks ago in Wokingham though. We made £120 in less than 4 hours (we took a lunch break) and Hanna’s mum was randomly there and said hello, and took this film:

This weekend it was the music centre garden party and we played again, this time “Dances from Terpsichore” and a Scott Joplin medley and that was rather fun. Anna and I found it hilarious that her mum put Anna’s oboe in her handbag (out of its case) while she was watching us.
I have also now got a new viola! I still have it on approval from Philip Brown but will most probably buy it this weekend. It will be rather scary finally spending 3 years worth of savings…

Well Maaaaah.co.uk is finally back! After many technical things which I don’t really understand Paul has fixed it so three cheers for him! The last time I wrote was in January and it’s now April and loads of things have happened since then, including my two trips away to Germany and France, parties, choices and more besides (I expect). So get comfy reader!
In January Holly had a party (for her bithday) and Grace tripped over on the floor and everyone thought she was drunk, but really she was just trying to scuttle discreetly along to the DJ table to see what was making the table cloth quiver (which happened to be his hench speakers).
On the 27th January I had my first proper concert with Corelli Orchestra (playing rehearsed music and not childrens Christmas carols) an we played music by Handel, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky as a string orchestra and then Saint-Saens’ Dance Macabre and Borodin’s Polotsvian Dances as a full orchestra. The whole day was rather intense and tiring, but it was an enjoyable concert overall.
In February half term I went to Köln (or Cologne) in Germany for a week to work in Music Store Köln and generally it was really good! Also with the same placement as me was a lovely girl called Helen, and we were both delegated to the Piano department (Klavierabteilung) where there were also some lovely people. There wasn’t an awful lot for us to do, but we cleaned every single piano and I had to answer loads of telephone calls too. This is Helen, who I worked with:

I also went to visit my Aunty Wendy and her family and I managed to get the train all on my own! On the last night I went with my Holt friends and the new friends we made on the trip to an Irish bar/club and danced the night away. I also discovered the best beer ever, which is called Krombacher Pils, so if you ever go to Germany make sure you ask for one of them!
At the beginning of March we went to Joanna’s for lunch and afterwards we went for a walk along the Basingstoke canal, and we noticed this really horrible looking house on a little island on the other side of the water, with only a very thin plank as a means of getting to the house. We were discussing whether we thought anyone lived there, but then we saw that there was a strip light turned on so we thought that there must be someone there. Anyway on the way back we walked past the house again and my parents noticed a sign on the bridge ad stopped to read it. Then suddenly, a plump woman came out along the bridge, (bearing in mind this was about half past three in the afternoon) in a luminous pink dressing gown and pyjamas, wearing a huge frown and expression as if to say, in a Kentucky accent, “Get off’a my land!” and my sister and I could both just imagine her to have a huge shot gun or rifle tucked up her sleeve. It was most strange…
On the 7th of March I travelled to France for an exchange! My exchange partner was really lovely and friendly and her name is Anaïs:

During the first week back in England, I had my finaly solo performance for music and I think it went quite well, but I’ll have to wait and see… I played Stravinsky’s “Dance of the Princesses” from the Firebird (it had been transcribed for viola) and then also my skanky composition! It was also Reading Uni Day that day, where we went round getting Prospectuses from all of the universities. After reading a few I think I might only do music at uni rather than music and French, but I’ll have to see…
When Anaïs was here we went to London to go on the London Eye and we also went on a Merry-go-round No picture available at the moment though…
In the last week of term it was the music concert and I sang (for the last time sadly) with Barbershop, and also with the choir, and I performed “Summertime” with Emma. I was really pleased with our Barbershop performance (we sang “Day Tripper” and “I’m Beginning to See the Light”) and afterwards I went really hyper and danced in the toilets for ages in the interval! Also that week Barbershop sang “Day Tripper” in all of the assemblies and it was really quite funny. Here’s Barbershop together for the very last time:

It was also Emma’s birthday that day, which brings me on to her party, which was also really fun!
I am now in a string quartet with Anna, Lucy and Katie from CBSE and we had our first rehearsal on Saturday! We’re hoping to play at the Garden Party and the Hexagon for starters, but if anyone’s interested in hiring us let me know! Literally just leave a comment here. We also need a name, if anyone has any ideas let me know!

On Saturday it was Grace’s 18th party, and I played bass guitar for her for one song. Like at Emma’s, I just danced the night away!
These are some of the new albums I have come across since the end of January:

I have to admit that I haven’t listened to all of them properly, in fact probably only the Nouvelle Vague one. I have very much enjoyed Democustico also, I just need to listen to it a little more…

Today I went into town after orchestra and tried a beetroot, apple and ginger innocent smoothie but it wasn’t very nice. Then again it was beetroot, and seeing as I don’t particularly like beetroot, it was a rather silly decision to make. At orchestra this morning it had just been the conductor’s birthday, so we thought we would play Happy Birthday to her, but then she sent us all off to our sectional rehearsals before we got the chance, and then when we joined back together she gave us a fancy arrangement of it to play to her! I thought it was quite funny really.

This week Ananda Project’s “Fire Flower” arrived for me in the post, at first I thought it was a bit of a disappointment, but now I really like it, it’s quite deep and chilling. My favourite tracks are “Into the Sunrise”, “Let Love Fly” and “Many Starred Sky”, though I also think “Stalk You” is a really funny song (it actually sings about someone being infatuated with someone and calling them and eventually stalking them!)

This week I went back to school but there’s not much to say about that.
Last weekend it was BYO and we played “Billy the Kid” by Copland and “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn” by Debussy and they both went really well this time, and I didn’t find the music ridiculously difficult which was good! ITV decided to film us and then we were on TV! The episode was on the Internet but it’s probably gone now, but look at this photo I took:

You can just about see me in the right corner!
I have now started doing the 365days photo challenge on Flickr, it’s where you have to take one picture with yourself in it everyday for a year (Paul started doing his a little while ago with his fancy Dad camera!)
If you click here and then click on the 365 days set you can see mine so far…
Yeseterday and today I downloaded some various tracks (with the emusic subscription) from the King Street Sounds/Nite Grooves labels and they’re all really awesome! King Street Sounds is one of the best house labels, in my opinion.
That’s about it really!