The 'at home' and everything else blog.

300 - Tyler Bates.

Gladiator - Hans Zimmer

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea - Joe Hisaishi

Avatar - James Horner

The Da Vinci Code - Hans Zimmer

Spirited Away - Joe Hisaishi

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest (and all the others) - Hans Zimmer

Inception - Hans Zimmer

Moulin Rouge - Friday Night at the Movies (mixed artists)

Oblivion - M83

Man of Steel - Hans Zimmer

Tron Legacy - Daft Punk

Gravity - Steven Price

Kung Fu Panda (and 2) - Hans Zimmer

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (notable mention to 4,5,6 and 7 past 2!) - Alexandre Desplat (alternative composers for each OST). 

ALL of the Lord of the Rings soundtracks - Howard Shore

Game of Thrones (Seasons 1-5) - Ramin Djawadi. 

That first paragraph.... I thought it was just me who had that opinion.

Kate Nash

The Nicest Thing

Luckily for me, he does. 

My dearest friend,  If you don't mind I'd like to join you by your side Where we could gaze into the stars

And sit together now and forever

For it is plain as anyone could see

After seeing the film last Wednesday, I am absolutely addicted to it's soundtrack: Oblivion.

For me, it has echoes of Steve Jablonsky's The Island OST and Daft Punk's Tron OST (Oblivion is Tron director Joseph Kosinski's second film, hence the similarities I believe), mixing sad and powerful instrumentals, synth, bass and vocals to make an amazing soundtrack.

Favourites include:

'Jack's Dream'

'Waking Up'

'Raven Rock'

'I'm Sending You Away'

'Fearful Odds'

'Undimmed by Time, Unbound by Death'

and not forgetting

"The more I give thee, the more I have, For both are infinite" 

William Shakespeare.

"What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you"

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them"

Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in a film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.

Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale or the evenings too long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.

Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.

Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.

Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent of a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, goddamnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick. Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.

Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.

Gorgeously sexy extract from the book I'm currently reading for university...

The first time we went to bed together we did with gentle greed all we could think of to do, which between us, once I got past my own astonishment, was much of what could be done. I hadn't known desire could dissolve selves into and out of each other. I hadn't known love's indifference, love's condesencion to God. She was a year older than me, ten deeper. She loved in casual imperious exercise of a birthright. I loved in terror of losing her.  We were in bed, her lying with her wrists crossed above her head, me up on one elbow, caressing her nakedness. (The flesh had infinity in it. I must know every inch by touch yet every inch renewed its mystery the instant my hand moved on. Delightful endless futility).

Back in January 2012, before leaving for China, I wrote some New Years Resolutions. I thought it would be interesting to see how well I've done... and what I should make a point of carrying over from last year! Can't believe it's 2013 already! So here we go!

2012 New Years Resolutions

1. To be open-minded about new cultures, people, and their opinions.

I would say this was a good resolution to have, and something I done well with. Being in China was a complete culture shock, and many of things things I saw amazed, shocked and disgusted me. But I learned something from it. When you don't have a kettle, you can still make tea. Squat toilet or not... when you gotta go you gotta go. It's just a different way of life, but it is life nevertheless. I learned a lot about Chinese culture: their family values, their commitment to working hard, to being welcoming and friendly. By being open-minded, I hope I have managed to incorporate even 1% if these values into my own life.  - SUCCESS!

2. To learn as much as I can, be it culturally, through books, through friends, about myself.

This one, is a definite success! I practically studied my Lonely Planet China book from cover to cover, learned about Chinese culture, history and geography from travelling and talking to people but also read A LOT of books while I was out there. I even dabbled in the classics which inspired me to do a Masters this year, which has been one of the most amazing, interesting courses of my life. Also, importantly, in regards to myself I learned how I can cope after a difficult breakup and learned how to be alone again, how to be independent and an individual. - SUCCESS!

3. To accept my flaws and try to better them!

I would say this has improved over the year. I'm not perfect but some overly harsh friends who take nothing more than pointing out my flaws have gave/given me the inspiration to try and acknowledge the flaws I have and also try to improve on them. I know I can be opinionated, and for some thing means having a deep, meaningful, debating conversation and for some its irritating. I need to learn who does and doesn't want to have discussions, or who simply cannot hear any other opinion from their own (and ensure I am not the same). I need to try not to be so sensitive, to not think everyone hates me as its childish and unrealistic, to accept that sometimes I'll make mistakes and people won't like it. But if they are real friends they'll still be there waiting afterwards. And also that sometimes, with certain people, honesty isn't the best policy. People love to twist your words, create a drama, badmouth others simply to create something interesting in their own lives. Some people prefer the truth, and some use it as bait. I need to remember that sometimes, to put it bluntly, its better for me to keep my trap shut. And save the honesty for those I can trust. However, those in my life who acknowledge my flaws as well as myself and the ones who I should keep close. Those who take pleasure in continually pointing out my flaws and using them against me perhaps are a little more frenemy than friend... Its the flaws we have that make us imperfect, and being imperfect is a perfect part of humanity. - SUCCESS!

4. To appreciate the friends that matter, make sure they know how much they mean to me and always treat them kindly.

Being away from everyone was difficult, and thanks to the great Firewall I wasn't able to stay in touch the normal ways, i.e via Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc. However what I did start was numerous emails to all my friends and I was pleasantly surprised by most. I can safely say, the people I thought I was closest to were usually the ones who emailed me the least. Sometimes 2 months before I was remembered or replied to. Yet some people who had no need to reply or email me at all were amazing at being in touch, and made me feel missed and acknowledged. On coming home, I've made an effort to get in touch with the majority of my friends again. There are some who are distancing, and some I've got even closer with. It's just life, and as long as I'm the one who's trying to keep a friendship going thats all I can do, really, isn't it? - SUCCESS!

5. To be healthier, fitter, and take better care of myself.

This is a bit of a confusing one. While I was in China I lost around half a stone, through a combination of healthier eating (lack of takeaways and junk food, big time!) and doing more exercise (in the apartment, or through travelling, no car etc). However being in Dubai after 6 months of rice and noodles kick started a little re-obsession with food, starting with the glorious buffets of the Atlantis and ending back home becoming acquainted with all my favourite foods again. My hard work was lost. But I can happily say, that from the beginning of December I've lost almost a stone from doing very little, and I hope to continue this in 2013. The gym membership was bought and the takeaways definitely aren't as exciting anymore... if anything I'm starting to miss REAL Chinese food again.... boiled rice where are you? - (NARROW) SUCCESS!

6. To get into uni for my PDGE!

Well this one is a complete fail. Being in China meant I couldn't do a Skype interview for Strathclyde, and so I ended up skipping the applications. I was eventually offered one in July but very short notice, and it would have meant dropping Dubai and travelling in China for a potential unsuccessful interview. However, instead I've started my MLitt Masters course in the Gothic Imagination, which I am LOVING! It feels like perhaps fate intervened a little, but for the better. So I'm happy for this one to be a - FAIL!

7. To generally survive China. (If this doesn't get ticked off on Hogmanay 2012, how ironic, and morbid, this post will be). These pandas will definitely help me survive!

I'm here, I survived! - SUCCESS!

8. To read: 1x Charles Dickens, 1x Jane Austen, 1x C.S Lewis.

This perhaps could have been easily done had I not started the Masters course and had a demanding reading list to keep up with. Maybe next time. I did, however, read Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, which inspired me to look into my Gothic Masters... interesting. - FAIL!

9. To try and overcome my dangerously unhealthy, and possibly socially damaging, addiction to the Sims 3.

Well, what can I say. I'll have to be honest here. While I was in China I did suffer from an powerful addiction to the Sims again... and when I came home... and again in October. Its actually quite funny how I can look back on large chunks of the year when I was back off the wagon. I'm not addicted to the Sims 3 at the moment but I do have a confession to make. I've transferred onto World of Warcraft and now I have a new obsession to worry about, oh dear. - FAIL!

10. Continue to be a geek, and proud. Visit Japan for all the wrong reasons! (Final Fantasy, anime, Studio Ghibli, etc...)