I'll Be There For You!!

Here is a list of some of what has been going around in my mind the past couple of days:

1. Television Shows
2. Alter Egos (haha, I'm thinking about the ones I used to look at on the Daria website!)
3. Whether one can successfully liken TV characters to dishes at Yum Cha.

Of these three, I should like to talk about Number One. And in particular, the degree of catchiness and effectiveness of the theme-song. (Are they even called theme-songs? You know, the song that plays with the title! Title-song?)

Here are some that came to my mind quickly:

1. Postman Pat: 360 degrees for having left such a strong impression. If I were to temporarily lose my memory, it would be one of the first things to come back;
2. Dance Academy: Sadly I can only say 270 degrees. This is because the song fails to capture the historic vibe of Sydney, which one does, in fact, feel when watching the street scenes;
3. Summer in Transylvania: Guys, there isn't a second season. This is a cause for sadness. This show has one of my all-time favourite theme-songs! But should I give it 360 degrees when the title page looks kind of homemade? This show cracks me up - every episode Summer was looking for some romance and a chance to get popular;
4. Dead Gorgeous: This is what I call a good, wholesome television show for big-kids. The theme-song is catchy but, look, take this from a fan, the song is too uncool - it's actually more uncool than the show itself.
5. Daria: I haven't watched this show in years. If I had a recording of Mystik Spiral's song, I'd play it everyday. 360 degrees.
6. Friends: 360 degrees. It's truly got a special place in today's culture. Question - what would happen if one went to a busy public place and blasted out a recording of "I'll Be There For You"?
7. Community: is to be awarded zero degrees/F grade for it's theme-song. Nice attempt at one, either you actually don't have one or it is just so unmemorable that I can't remember it. (I remember the paper-folding, though)

On an aside - Dubstep music. It kind of reflects how modern culture is so influenced by TV shows and video games that they have become inseparable with modern identity. 

And then now something that has come to the population from the media is  being sent back into the media.

Is this ironic?

Another aside - ALERT - the TV show on ABC 3 called The Assistants. It is possibly the most appalling show that channel airs. You know all those things people call inappropriate for children's shows and in very poor taste? The Assistants takes it to the next level and portrays these bad values in a good light. I have only seen one episode and I was shocked. If you are interested in this cause, you should only have to read a synopsis. 

Update - What the Hell is with Me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON4ECUkK_xI&feature=related

Autumn has come early.  On the colder days, I've been seeing people wearing vinyl trousers to school.  My earliest memory of the look is from 2008, when I saw people wearing these sort of leggings on Portobello Road, where you could buy them at the market.

Laura Brannigan is cool.

I'm now doing double-spacing after full-stops.  I don't know if you noticed.  I can't believe I didn't know this formality until I found it was specified on my guidelines to writing History essays sheet a couple of weeks ago.

Sigh.  I'm almost in a state of shock because the word I didn't know existed which I have been probably trying to explain/use has now been told to me.  Apparently Internet memes are something that's just a, I wouldn't even say  "second", nature to "this generation". Wikipedia is good.  I didn't know that people of "this generation" are meant to be meme conscious and some sort of intellectual when it comes to the "concept" of a meme.  So I've been told I don't get out enough - on the internet.

Yeah.  Well, the thing is, the Internet is vast.  So there's heaps of cultures, like, people who are feminist and Jewish and who love Christmas.  (Yeah, that's rookiemag.)  But it's true I have been Internet inactive.  I haven't been watching the videos on Khan Academy in ages.  I'm confused about subsets and proper subsets of cultures on the Internet.

Eight New Year's Resolutions of and IndieChild

1. Take More Photos: Everything around you makes for a great photo. It's just a matter of taking the photo. I need to take time to see the world I live in through a lens. This means not only the interesting shapes of the world but also relationships between people I know, and people I don't know. Every time I see my friends, we make memories. I don't want to grow old and forget. I dream to be an old person with heaps of photos who can bore kids with them (jokes, they wouldn't be bored, they'll be in awe of what my friends and I did in 2012).
2. Clear Out my Wardrobe: I just have so many things that aren't worth keeping, so many things that just don't work with me. And the less clutter I have in my life, the more 'zen' I feel and just so much more creative.
3. Blog More Often: I mustn't let great stuff pass by that I can share with my fans. Also, like my photography (which often appears on my blog), my Blog is a huge creative outlet for me. I feel really ill when I can't release the creativity that builds up/brews within me. Once I've put myself out there (ie being published to the world), I start feeling really inspired and the juices of creativity start to flood back in. I'm really looking forward to your comments!
4. Stand Up For Myself More: This is a really important resolution for me. I'm too nice to everyone, even people I don't like. And what happens is I get walked all over. I need to always get my point across and stop being walked all over by everyone. 
5. Go On a Road Trip: I've always really wanted to go on one and I think I need to because they're such an important part of growing up and finding who you are. Normally, when you're driving around town, you have no thoughts. But not on a Road Trip. it's a perfectly designed time for figuring out things about myself - I select the music (maybe I'll also jam in the back) and I may or may not know which roads I'll be taking across this vast country.
6. Devote More Time to my Music: This resolution is really important to me. Music is not just a huge creative outlet for me, but working on it makes you better at it. Music makes us truly human, it connects us. And part of standing up for myself means not being afraid of people judging my own compositions. Music is great because it's in both time with others and time spent by myself.
7. Laugh More and Have Great Times: Spending every moment I can with my friends ensures this. Who doesn't want to have a good life? There are so many funny things out there, such as funny websites. I've really got to incorporate fun stuff into everything I do. It shouldn't be too hard if you've got a) a funny bone and b) can see potential.
8. Redecorate my Room: Their bedroom is where teens can really let it all out - their feelings, their personal style and their creativity. I really want to make my bedroom totally me, I mean, I'm not going to be a teenager forever! I'm really inspired by being a teen. The room really needs to be an explosion of "me". All sorts of childhood and thriftshop trinkets have stories and I feel a connection with them. And I find that crap chucked/strewn across my room really inspires me. I'll just wake up and see all this stuff which really gets me in the frame of mind for my day (before even doing my glam-rock makeup!)

Pax Ex, it's the Summer Holidays

What's up Homo? It's the Summer Holidays!! So much fun to have but also so much studying do get done. So, what will you be reading over the holidays? The last two books I read were Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park and Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. 

The previous (and first) time I read Playing Beatie Bow was in Year Six. I must have been the only person who liked the book. Every week we read a couple of chapters and over the weekend we had to write a couple of pages long reading response - oh! the tears shed getting it done! In retrospect, I think that when we were ten/eleven/twelve, we really didn't get the book, especially the main character Abigail, who was fourteen. She was super Indie, okay, she was into vintage things and was a "weirdie". Dude, you could so hate that book because no one says "weirdie", it's "weirdo". We were too young to understand Abigail throughout the whole book and also the journey she undertook. In retrospect, it's ironic because we now can see ourselves in Abigail and can see how teen-angsty she was, and also how like her, we thought we knew everything. Read it.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was so funny!!! I thought it would be really terrible because I first heard about it earlier this year in Singapore where they made a big hoo-ha about it and every review was negative. The author is this Chinese-American writing about being a Chinese mother to half Chinese children. It's Indie - the children were also Jewish. The story is crazy and her writing is honest. They must have hated the book in Singapore because she was hanging out the dirty laundry about Chinese parenting!!!! 

What I will be reading these holidays (I've actually already started You'll be Sorry When I'm Dead by Marieke Hardy and it's funny) is Tell Me if the Lovers are Losers by Cynthia Voigt. Yes, the name is weird, but it's extracted from a poem. I guess this book is Indie because I've never met anyone who's read it. (Or maybe I'm just Indie?). The story is set in Stanton College in the sixties and is about the friendship between these three roommates. The three girls are very different in character and extremely vividly created. One really feels the changes in dynamics between the friends and all characters. I fall in love every time I read it, which has been every year, starting in 2007. If you liked Home Coming, you'll like Tell Me if the Lovers are Losers and if like me, you couldn't get into it, you'll like this book even more. Oh, and the book is so preppy.

This makes me reflect on friendship. I love my friends (yes, also the TV series) so much and now I've made new ones at my old/new school (weird feeling because I was only there for six weeks) (and I plan to make new ones at my new school next year. LOL.) At my old old school (I'm technically between schools right now, right?) we had a colour group, which was a class/group of girls having four subjects together. This spanned two years. Dude...so close...the sisterhood of Colour Group Four! We were always bragging about having the best colour group. This time last year (end of Year Nine) was emotional because so many of us were leaving the school.

Message of the story? Remember the ultimate girl-gang, better than all those mentioned on RookieMag last month. Last year, the colour group came together in song to this in the pool change rooms:

Now I will go and clean my room and stop being weird.

I Heart My Hair

Chapter #6 of Stuff Indie People Like by Joanna the Friend. It has a bit of a personal backstory - our cool Year Nine Religion and Philosophy teacher telling us about how she notices girls in particular getting a new haircut when they go through a big change in their life. That was related to the lesson because we were watching a seventies movie about this guy who gets into a cult and consequently gets a new hairstyle.

The last time I changed my hairstyle was at the end of my time in Singapore for my return to Australia. I didn't manage to get a new haircut for starting at my new school. However, in the couple of weeks before school, my hair had grown out quite a lot and was looking like The Rachel. [What does that mean? That I wasn't into new beginnings/newness anymore; that instead I was going through a time of growth?]

Which reminds me about how I love watching the changing hairstyles on the TV show Friends. Starting at the beginning: Joey moves in and Chandlers gets rid of his beard (okay, that one doesn't really count because we don't know about that until a flashback occurring later). Rachel leaves Barry and her old life at the altar and goes to New York where she then undergoes radical change - so does her hairstyle after the first couple of episodes!!